ngular horse-shoe arch, by the Moors of Spain.

The Gothic, or pointed arch, though very uncommon in the genuine
Saracenic of Spain and the Levant, may be found in some prints from
Eastern buildings; and is particularly striking in the facade of the
great mosque at Lucknow, in Salt's designs for Lord Valentia's Travels.
The pointed arch buildings in the Holy Land have all been traced to the
age of the Crusades. Some arches, if they deserve the name, that have
been referred to this class, are not pointed by their construction, but
rendered such by cutting off and hollowing the projections of horizontal
stones.

[688] Gibbon has asserted, what might justify this appellation, that
"the image of Theodoric's palace at Verona, still extant on a coin,
represents the oldest and most authentic model of Gothic architecture."
vol. vii. p. 33. For this he refers to Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. 31,
where we find an engraving, not indeed of a coin, but of a seal; the
building represented on which is in a totally dissimilar style. The
following passages in Cassiodorus, for which I am indebted to M.
Ginguene, Hist. Litter. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 55, would be more to the
purpose: Quid dicamus columnarum junceam proceritatem? moles illas
sublimissimas fabricarum quasi quibusdam erectis hastilibus contineri.
These columns of reedy slenderness, so well described by juncea
proceritas, are said to be found in the cathedral of Montreal in Sicily,
built in the eighth century. Knight's Principles of Taste, p. 162. They
are not however sufficient to justify the denomination of Gothic, which
is usually confined to the pointed arch style.

[689] The famous abbot Suger, minister of Louis VI., rebuilt St. Denis
about 1140. The cathedral of Laon is said to have been dedicated in
1114. Hist. Litteraire de la France, t. ix. p. 220. I do not know in
what style the latter of these churches is built, but the former is, or
rather was, Gothic. Notre Dame at Paris was begun soon after the middle
of the twelfth century, and completed under St. Louis. Melanges tires
d'une grande bibliotheque, t. xxxi. p. 108. In England, the earliest
specimen I have seen of pointed arches is in a print of St. Botolphe's
Priory at Colchester, said by Strutt to have been built in 1110. View of
Manners, vol. i. plate 30. These are apertures formed by excavating the
space contained by the intersection of semicircular, or Saxon arches;
which are perpetually disposed, by way of or