A History of Architecture in All Countries, Volume 2, 3rd ed. From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

About this book

This three‑volume set, edited by R. Phené Spiers and published in London in 1893, is a comprehensive survey of architectural history written by the late James Fergusson, a noted scholar and Fellow of the Royal Society. The second volume, third edition, opens with a formal frontispiece and a series of illustrative plates, among them the portal of the Convent at Belém and the façade of a church at Tourmanin, before launching into a detailed itinerary of Christian architecture. The contents list reveals a methodical, region‑by‑region approach: from Italian circular churches and Venetian civic buildings through the Gothic cathedrals of France, the brick churches of northern Germany, and the domestic structures of Belgium and Holland, extending to the Byzantine‑influenced monuments of the Levant and the early monuments of the Americas.

Fergusson’s voice is that of a Victorian scholar, dense with technical terminology and exhaustive cataloguing of plans, elevations, and decorative details. The prose is formal, often parenthetical, and assumes a reader comfortable with architectural jargon and historical chronology. It will appeal to students of architectural history, preservationists, and enthusiasts who relish richly illustrated, reference‑style works that map the evolution of styles across continents rather than narrative-driven travelogues.