Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/309

Rh Bk. Vm. Ch. I. mSTOlUGAL NOTICE. 293 BOOK Yin. ITALY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. CONTENTS. Division and Classification of the Mediseval Styles of Architecture in Italy. CHRONOLOGy. DATES. Charlemagne a.d. 768 Conrad 1 911 Henry the Fowler 91« Otho the Great 93G OthoII 9T.-i Otho III 9S3 HenrvII 1002 Conrad II 1024 Henry III. 1039 DATKS. Henry IV A.d. 1056 HenrvV 1106 Lothaire II 1125 Conrad III. . 1138 Frederick Barbarossa 1152 Henry VI 1190 Frederick II. . . 1212 Conradin 1250 IF a historian were to propose to himself the task of writing a tolerably consecutive narrative of the events which occurred in Italy during the Middle Ages, he would probably find such difficulties in his way as would induce him to abandon the attempt. Venice and Genoa were as distinct states as Spain and Portugal. Florence, the most essen- tially Italian of the Republics, requires a different treatment from the half-German Milan. Even such neighboring cities as Mantua and Verona were separate and independent states during the most im- portant part of their existence. Rome was, during the whole of the Middle Ages, more European than Italian, and must have a narrative of her own ; Southern Italy was a foreign country to the states of the North ; and Sicily has an independent history. The same difficulties, though not perhaps to the same degree, beset the historian of art, and, if it were proposed to describe in detail all the varying forms of Italian art during the Middle Ages, it would be necessary to map out Italy into provinces, and to treat each almost as a separate kingdom by itself. In this, as in almost every instance,