Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/29

 OF STYLE 13 - FOURTH PERIOD these points Fyvie and Montsabert agree, but beyond this there are no features of the two buildings which correspond in architectural details. / The nearest approach to the likeness of a Scotch building which it has been our fortune to discover in France is the small house within the Castle of Angers (Fig. 487) in which it is said that King Rene of Anjou was born. But even this, which at first sight shows an outline which might be Scottish, is entirely French in details, and when carefully examined the fancied resemblance disappears. Our belief is that the prototype of the mixed Scotch style of the Fourth Period is rather to be found in Germany and the Low Countries than in France. The houses and manors of the Low Countries are plainer in design than the French ones, and bear a considerable resemblance to those of Scotland, with their turrets and crow-stepped gables, while for the more purely Renaissance features of Scotch Architecture many pre- cedents may be found all over Germany. These German buildings have been recently illustrated by Herr Fritsch in his Denkmdler Deutscher Renaissance. Referring to it, the broken pediments and the interlacing scroll-work over the windows, so common in such buildings as Heriot's Hospital, Argyll's Lodging at Stirling, etc., may be seen at the Castles of Aschaffenburg, Heidelberg, etc. This particular form of ornament is not common in France, but, like other elaborate forms of interpenetra- tion, abounds in Germany. The portal of the Zenghaus of Wolfenbiittel (1619) is almost identical with the entrance archway to the courtyard of Heriot's Hospital. At Wurzburg University the same heavy rustication is adopted as at the gate to Argyll's Lodging. The arcade and rustic facets of the courtyard of Crichton Castle find a distinct precedent in the Rathhaus of Lubec (1570), a town with which Scotland had a good deal of commerce in those days. In Germany a very usual and picturesque mode of finishing buildings is to place a bow window in the form of a turret at each angle, starting from corbels on 1 the first floor, and rising through several stories to the roof. Examples of these angle oriels abound everywhere, as at Dresden, Schaffhausen, and the Rathhaus, Altenberg. One cannot but be struck with the general resemblance of these features to the late angle turrets of Scotland, such as those of Earl Patrick's Palace, Kirkwall, and the Place of Kilbirnie. There is however this difference, that the Scottish examples, in accordance with the custom of the country already men- tioned, are always executed in stone, while the German examples are usually of wood. As a specimen of the very strong views on the French origin of Scottish Architecture set forth in Mr. Billings' work, we may quote the following passage in connection with the description of Tolquhan Castle : " If the rich baron or high officer of State could afford to employ a