They seem to have adopted it half-unwillingly and to have understood it only in the imperfect way in which they comprehended chivalry.
The Italians never rightly apprehended the specific nature of Gothic architecture.

They could not forget the horizontal lines, flat roofs, and blank walls of the Basilica.

Like their Roman ancestors, they aimed at covering the ground with the smallest possible expenditure of construction; to enclose large spaces within simple limits was their first object, and the effect of beauty or sublimity was gained by the proportions given to the total area.

When, therefore, they adopted the Gothic style, they failed to perceive that its true merit consists in the negation of nearly all that the Latin style holds precious.

Horizontal lines are as far as possible annihilated; walls are lost in windows; aisles and columns, apses and chapels, are multiplied with a view to complexity of architectonic effect; flat roofs become intolerable.