MUNICIPAL ARCHITECTURE, the style of the buildings used for municipal purposes, such as town-halls, guild-hails, etc. These were first used when the towns of the middle ages rose in importance, and asserted their freedom. Those of north Italy and Belgium were the first to move, and consequently we find in these countries the earliest and most important specimens of municipal architecture during the middle ages. It is only in the "free cities" of that epoch that town-halls are found. We therefore look for them in vain in France or England till the development of industry and knowledge had made the citizens of the large towns so wealthy and important as to enable them to raise the municipal power into an institution. When this became the ease, in the 15th and 16th centuries, we find in these countries abundant instances of buildings erected for the use of the and corporations and the municipal courts. Many of these still exist along with the corporate bodies they belong to, especially in London, where the halls are frequently of great magnificence. Many of these corporation halls have recently been rebuilt by the wealthy bodies they belong to, such as the fish-mongers. merchant tailors. goldsmiths, and other companies. Municipal bnildings on a large scale for the use of the town councils and magistrates have also been recently erected in many of our large I owns, which had quite out-grown their original modest buildings; and now no town of impor tance is complete without a great town-hall for the use of the inhabitants.
Municipal buildings always partake of the character of the architecture of the period when they are erected; thus we find in Italy that they are In the Italian-Gothic style in Como, Padua, Vicenza, Venice, Florence, etc., during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries.
In Belgium, during the same period, they are of the northern Gothic style, and are almost the only really fine specimens of the civil architecture of the middle ages we possess. The cloth-hall at Ypres, and the town-halls of Brussels, Louvain, Bruges, Oudenarde, etc., the exchange at Antwerp, and many other markets, lodges, halls, etc., testify to the early importance of the municipal institutions in Belgium.
It is a curious fact that in France, where the towns became of considerable impor tance middle ages, so few municipal buildings remain. This arises front the cir cumstance that the resources of the early municipalities of France were devoted to .aid the bishops in the erection of the great French cathedrals, and the townspeople used these cathedrals as their halls of assembly, and even for such purposes as masques and amuse ment.
Of the English corporation halls, those which remain are nearly all subsequent to tl:e 14th e., from which time to the present there are very many examples. The guild-hall of London is one of the earliest. The present building was begun in 1411, and was built chiefly by contributions from the trades "companies" of London. Of the town-halls recently erected, those of Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds are amOngst the most important.