Accordingly we can scarcely speak of an architecture peculiarly Italian.

Yet in the woodwork of the Italian dwelling-house--alongside of alterations produced by Greek influence--various peculiarities may have been retained or even for the first time developed, and these again may have exercised a reflex influence on the building of the Italian temples.

The architectural development of the house proceeded in Italy from the Etruscans.

The Latin and even the Sabellian still adhered to the hereditary wooden hut and to the good old custom of assigning to the god or spirit not a consecrated dwelling, but only a consecrated space, while the Etruscan had already begun artistically to transform his dwelling-house, and to erect after the model of the dwelling-house of man a temple also for the god and a sepulchral chamber for the spirit.

That the advance to such luxurious structures in Latium first took place under Etruscan influence, is proved by the designation of the oldest style of temple architecture and of the oldest style of house architecture respectively as Tuscanic.( 20) As concerns the character of this transference, the Grecian temple probably imitated the general outlines of the tent or dwelling-house; but it was essentially built of hewn stone and covered with tiles, and the nature of the stone and the baked clay suggested to the Greek the laws of necessity and beauty.