BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE By J. Arnott Hamilton '
The latest volume published in the Historical Architecture Library is Dr. J. ArnOtt Hamilton's Byzantine Architecture and Decoration (Batsford, 18s-.). Like most of the other volumes of this series, it is-essentially a book of reference and not one to be read straight through, for the author has apparently concentrated more on giving a list of the most important Byzantine buildidgs with descriptive and historical details than on presenting a living picture of the development of the style itself. He does,- of course, draw general -conclusions about the style, but they are given less prominence than the detailed analyses of buildings,- and concern particularly the different forms which the Byzantine style took on in different Countries. On all the controversial matters connected with By- zantine architecture Dr. Hamilton is in the highest degree guarded and objective, in general simply expounding the argu- ments of each side very briefly and leaving the reader to.decide whether he will favour the Rivoira or the Strzygowski view. The book is well published. It has seventy-one plates, illustrating some hundred churches, a coloured frontispiece of the interior of Santa Sophia and forty-seven diagrams in the text, mostly plans. There is also an impressive-bibliography, well arrange,a and containing references not only to books but to articks periodicals.
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