Transitional Style. 147 1565 and 1574. Longleat is considered one of the finest English palaces of this period. It consists of three stories, each with an order of its own, and it possesses the essenti- ally English feature of the principal windows being directed outwards, and the only internal quadrangle being a back- court instead of the Italian cortile (i. e. central court-yard). Caius College, Cambridge, is one of the most complete specimens of the Early Renaissance style in England. The buildings are half Gothic, and the gateways are richly adorned with Italian details. The Gate of Honour (1574) is the finest. The chief English architects of the reign of Elizabeth were Thomas Holt, Smithson, and John Thorpe. The first built the public schools of Oxford, the gateway of which (1612) is a good example of the early Renaissance ; the rest of the buildings are, however, of the debased Elizabethan Gothic. Holt was, it is said, the first English architect to introduce all the orders into a single front. Smithson, aided by Thorpe, erected Wallaton Hall in Nottinghamshire (1580-90), the general design of which resembles that of Longleat, but is pervaded by Gothic rather than Italian feeling. The following buildings also belong to the Transition period: Hatfield House, 1611 ; Holland House, 1607 ; Charlton in Wiltshire, Burleigh, 1577; Westwood, 1590; Bolsover, 1613. They are all characterised by a lack of simplicity and elegance, being wanting alike in the distinctive beauties of the Gothic and Italian styles ; yet they possess a charm of their own which is almost superior to anything of which more regular works can boast. The first and most accomplished architect of the Re- naissance in England was Inigo Jones, who studied the L 2
