. Brick and marble in the middle ages: notes of tours in the north of Italy . of black by thebeating of rain and the staining of age, whilst here andthere the white would stand out more brilliantly thanever,—would it have been well, I say, that this should havebeen still further streaked with deej) lines of manymouldings ? Most assuredly not: the architect had to dealwith a material which best takes its polish and exhibits itsbeauty and purity when used in flat surfaces and in shallowcarving, and he did right therefore in not moulding it as hewould have moulded stone. There is a sharpness and
. Brick and marble in the middle ages: notes of tours in the north of Italy . of black by thebeating of rain and the staining of age, whilst here andthere the white would stand out more brilliantly thanever,—would it have been well, I say, that this should havebeen still further streaked with deej) lines of manymouldings ? Most assuredly not: the architect had to dealwith a material which best takes its polish and exhibits itsbeauty and purity when used in flat surfaces and in shallowcarving, and he did right therefore in not moulding it as hewould have moulded stone. There is a sharpness and hardness about the lines of thearches, however, which perhaps almost verges upon rudeness,and, though I can see that it may be fairly defended, I couldyet wish that it might have been softened. But the points in which such work is a grand exampleto us are, first, the value which it shows that we ought toplace upon the simple detached circular shaft, and, next,the beauty and strength of effect which the cusping of alarge arch in a proper manner gives. In these two points. JtKST OF MlTAf, RAILING—VKKONA. this monument and most of its class teach us lessons whichwe ouglit not to be unwilling to learn, and which, if we at all Chap. VI.] STA. ^lAHIA LANTICA. 103 wish to (levelope beyond the point at which our own an-cestors ever arrived, we must not fail to attend to in ourown work. And now I must bid farewell to this lovely spot, themost attractive certainly, to me, in Verona. The situationof the monuments, rather huddled together, with the oldchurch liehind them, the archway into the Piazza dei Signorion the other side, and the beautiful iron grille^ whichsurrounds them, the number of saintly and warlike figures
Size: 2024px × 1235px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidbrickmarblei, bookyear1874
