<P> A series of Gothic revivals began in mid-18th century England, spread through 19th century Europe and continued, largely for ecclesiastical and university structures, into the 20th century . </P> <P> Unlike with past and future styles of art, like the Carolingian style as noted by French art historian Louis Grodecki in his work Gothic Architecture, Gothic's lack of a definite historical or geographic nexus results in a weak concept of what truly is Gothic . This is further compounded by the fact that the technical, ornamentation, and formal features of Gothic are not entirely unique to it . Though modern historians have invariably accepted the conventional use of "Gothic" as a label, even in formal analysis processes due to a longstanding tradition of doing so, the definition of "Gothic" has historically varied wildly . </P> <P> The term "Gothic architecture" originated as a pejorative description . Giorgio Vasari used the term "barbarous German style" in his 1550 Lives of the Artists to describe what is now considered the Gothic style, and in the introduction to the Lives he attributes various architectural features to "the Goths" whom he held responsible for destroying the ancient buildings after they conquered Rome, and erecting new ones in this style . Vasari was not alone among 15th and 16th Italian writers, as Filarete and Giannozzo Manetti had also written scathing criticisms of the Gothic style, calling it a "barbaric prelude to the Renaissance ." Vasari and company were writing at a time when many aspects and vocabulary pertaining to Classical architecture had been reasserted with the Renaissance in the late 15th and 16th centuries, and they had the perspective that the "maniera tedesca" or "maniera dei Goti" was the antithesis of this resurgent style leading to the continuation of this negative connotation in the 17th century . François Rabelais, also of the 16th century, imagines an inscription over the door of his utopian Abbey of Thélème, "Here enter no hypocrites, bigots ..." slipping in a slighting reference to "Gotz" and "Ostrogotz ." Molière also made this note of the Gothic style in the 1669 poem La Gloire: </P> <P> (in French): "...fade goût des ornements gothiques, Ces monstres odieux de siècles ignorants, Que de la barbarie ont produit les torrents ..." (in English): "...the insipid taste of Gothic ornamentation, these odious monstrosities of an ignorant age, produced by the torrents of barbarism ..." </P>

Who developed the first example of gothic architecture