Early Renaissance Architecture in England A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625

"Early Renaissance Architecture in England" by J. Alfred Gotch tells the story of how English buildings changed between 1500 and 1625, after the arrival of new ideas from Italy. It explains how the traditional English style of building slowly mixed with the Italian Renaissance style, especially during the reigns of the Tudors, Elizabeth, and James I. The story starts by describing the existing medieval buildings in England and shows how they steadily evolved until Italian styles began to appear with people like Henry VIII. These incoming styles clashed and combined with the old Gothic ways of building, which created a unique, new English look seen especially in the large houses of the time, and the book sets up the push and pull between home grown ways and foreign ideas in the creation of building designs.