Architecture in Italy, from the sixth to the eleventh century; historical and critical researches . f. These poor artificers who, notwithstanding the imperfectionsof their chisel, often knew how to work in ornaments withsufficient grace, but in representing animals fell into an abyssof unskilfulness, must have avoided, one would think, like thepest, any occasion for representing the human figure, which, morethan that of animals, require solid artistic culture and a freehand ; yet they did not, since we see in Cividale itself, in thechurch of S. Martin, an altar of their making, covered on thre
Architecture in Italy, from the sixth to the eleventh century; historical and critical researches . f. These poor artificers who, notwithstanding the imperfectionsof their chisel, often knew how to work in ornaments withsufficient grace, but in representing animals fell into an abyssof unskilfulness, must have avoided, one would think, like thepest, any occasion for representing the human figure, which, morethan that of animals, require solid artistic culture and a freehand ; yet they did not, since we see in Cividale itself, in thechurch of S. Martin, an altar of their making, covered on threesides by figures Avitli sacred subjects. The inscription thatencircles it says that it was ordered by King Piatchis (744-749),the son of Pemone, Duke of Friuli. The reader may imaginewhat sort of thing could issue from such hands. If the coarse- 109 ness of the times did not justify the presence of these wretchedthings, one would think they were gross caricatures ; they aresuch horrors that they can only he compared to those ftrjorbithat the uneducated children of the populace often trace upon. * Fig. 37.—Altar of Eatcliis at Cividale (posterior part)— 744-749. the walls of our houses, especially if newly painted and white-washed. Truly, if all the sacred images that the eighth centuryoffered to the veneration of the faithful had heen of this stani]),one would almost find even the fury of the iconoclasts reasonable. On the front of the altar Jesus Christ is represented in the ^^^ ^act of benediction. A seraph with six wings is on each side of^icVuLHim. Observe a peculiarity of these wings. They are doweredwith a great number of human eyes, certainly in order to followscrupulously the descriptions made by Ezekiel and S. singularity, unique in Italy, must have been common inGreece, as we can still see at Constantinople in the interior of I lO the ancient church of S. Irene, a capital that seems to date fromthe eleventh century, having four seraphim under the nn
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectarchitecture, bookyea
