ABSTRACT
Germany was the last country to emerge from that feudal period where an architecture which was purely military provided for defence and afforded protection against a hostile neighbour. However, thanks to the influence of great architects such as Fischer von Erlach and Hildebrandt, the southern countries soon shook off the foreign yoke. The reputation of Italian architects was so well established that some of them were summoned to build palaces in the Rhine Valley. The studies of Winckelmann on the art of antiquity aroused the enthusiasm of German architects who, with their customary exaggeration, adopted the new formulae. Germany at the end of the seventeenth century abounded in architects of great talent. In the second half of the eighteenth century the school of J.F.R. Blondel dominated German architecture and its leader was often summoned to give his advice on the building of palaces and castles.
