Time

Architecture on the Comparative Method published in 1943, which was my student copy bought second hand about five years later, does not list Balthasar Neumann’s Vierzehnheiligen or the Assam Brothers’ S. Johannes Nepomuk Church in Munich, to take two exuberant examples of South German Baroque. Ever since the first edition of 1896, these buildings were clearly not considered sufficiently significant to be included. The twentieth and centenary edition of 1996 describes both churches and moreover devotes space to illustrations. The earlier editions also made a clear distinction between two curiously labelled divisions: the historical styles derived from Egypt and the classical world of the Mediterranean and the nonhistorical styles which embraced any non-European architecture. The latest edition makes no such distinction and takes a much more global view. Such a change in approach owes as much to politics and an awareness of where the market is to be found as to art history.