Architecture in Italy, from the sixth to the eleventh century; historical and critical researches . her ambo existing in the Palace Rasponi, similarto that of the cathedral, and, indeed, in its decorations andsquares approaching it more nearly than that of SS. Johnand Paul, though its sculptures clearly point to the seventhcentury. The animals are about as meritorious as those of tliepreceding ambo, but the figure of the saint is notably inferior,though of less squat proportions. It is a plain surface broughtinto relief by means of lowering the rest a few millimetres, andfurrowed in its length
Architecture in Italy, from the sixth to the eleventh century; historical and critical researches . her ambo existing in the Palace Rasponi, similarto that of the cathedral, and, indeed, in its decorations andsquares approaching it more nearly than that of SS. Johnand Paul, though its sculptures clearly point to the seventhcentury. The animals are about as meritorious as those of tliepreceding ambo, but the figure of the saint is notably inferior,though of less squat proportions. It is a plain surface broughtinto relief by means of lowering the rest a few millimetres, andfurrowed in its length and breadth by hard, awkward linesmeant for drapery ; in fact, we here have a figure inferior tothose of the eighth century. Yet, as Ave once before observed, while in Rome the passionfor figurative sculpture w^as vivid even in the fifth century, sothat the greater part of the sarcophagi theie are covered withsplendid and numerous reliefs, representing the scenes of theOld and New Testament, in Ravenna, on the contrary, it seemsthat such a passion was not felt, and the few sarcophagi there, 30. M dating from the fifth and following century, have only a fewfigures, always isolated, often in niches, and very seldomequalling those of Eome. This shyness about human rei^resentation in sculpture wasnot derived from the limited skill of the arti-ficers, but only to the immediate Greek infiuenceto which Eavenna Avas subject in those Greek Christians were as little favourable tosculjDture of figures as were the first Fathers ofthe Church; on the contrary, they neglected it,substituting for it decorations drawn from thevegetable kingdom, with capricious ornamentsand Christian symbols, all representations that S^i^s |gave them greater opportunity to cover the fT^lPf Jmarbles with splendour of intaglio and abandon ^l. j|t^ithemselves to the caprice of Oriental fantasy. )p^i^x?Oj To this sort of sculpture they soon felt I^^ffispecially attracted, and it Avas very early intro-duced
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectarchitecture, bookyea
