It must, however, be confest that the fortunes of Antwerp as a city,
prospering in its connection with the Hanseatic League, were anything
but advantageous to the student of architectural history. Alterations
and buildings were the order of the day, and so lavish were the means
devoted to the work that scarcely a vestige of architecture in the
remains is of earlier date than the fourteenth century.
The grandly dimensioned churches raised in every parish afford ample
evidence of the zeal and skill with which the work of reconstruction
was prosecuted, and as specimens of the style of their day can not
fail to elicit our admiration by the nobility of their proportions, so
that in the monuments the wealthy burghers of Antwerp have left us we
have perhaps no reason to regret their zeal. At the same time, one
is tempted to wish that they had spared the works of earlier date by
raising their new ones on fresh ground, instead of such wholesale
demolition of the labors of preceding generations.
Notre Dame at Antwerp, the most spacious church in the Netherlands,
originated in a chapel built for a miraculous image of the Blessed
Virgin.
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