Cinquecentist

As a matter of good sense alone, it must sooner or later become clear to the mind of anyone that the Cinque-centists, on their own Italian ground teeming with relics of the past, and in the exhilarating intellectual air of their great philosophical revolution, enjoyed a truly grand architectural opportunity.

The style at large, called the Cinquecentist (that is, of the fifth—for fifteenth—century), or the Italian (because of its birthplace), or the modern or revived Classic (being the academical antique), is primarily based upon the columnar system of the Greeks, received by them historically from the East, and transmitted historically Westward (on the tide of empire) to Rome.