first figure was, as is said, the image of Ceres made of metal from the
treasure of Spurius Cassius, who, for conspiring to make himself King,
was put to death by his own father without any scruple; and that
although the arts of sculpture and of painting continued up to the end
of the twelve Caesars, they did not, however, continue in that perfection
and excellence which they had enjoyed before, for it may be seen from
the edifices that the Emperors built in succession one after the other
that these arts, decaying from one day to another, were coming little by
little to lose their whole perfection of design. And to this clear
testimony is borne by the works of sculpture and of architecture that
were wrought in the time of Constantine in Rome, and in particular the
triumphal arch raised for him by the Roman people near the Colosseum,
wherein it is seen that in default of good masters they not only made
use of marble groups made at the time of Trajan, but also of the spoils
brought from various places to Rome. And whosoever knows that the votive
offerings in the medallions, that is, the sculptures in half-relief, and
likewise the prisoners, and the large groups, and the columns, and the
mouldings, and the other ornaments, whether made before or from spoils,
are excellently wrought, knows also that the works which were made to
fill up by the sculptors of that time are of the rudest, as also are
certain small groups with little figures in marble below the medallions,
and the lowest base wherein there are certain victories, and certain
rivers between the arches at the sides, which are very rude and so made
that it can be believed most surely that by that time the art of
sculpture had begun to lose something of the good. And there had not yet
come the Goths and the other barbarous and outlandish peoples who
destroyed, together with Italy, all the finer arts. It is true, indeed,
that in the said times architecture had suffered less harm than the
other arts of design had suffered, for in the bath that Constantine
erected on the Lateran, in the entrance of the principal porch it may be
seen, to say nothing of the porphyry columns, the capitals wrought in
marble, and the double bases taken from some other place and very well
carved, that the whole composition of the building is very well
conceived; whereas, on the contrary, the stucco, the mosaics, and
certain incrustations on the walls made by masters of that time are not
equal to those that he caused to be placed in the same bath, which were
taken for the most part from the temples of the heathen gods.
Constantine, so it is said, did the same in the garden of AEquitius, in
making the temple which he afterwards endowed and gave to the Christian
priests. In like manner, the magnificent Church of S. Giovanni Laterano,
erected by the same Emperor, can bear witness to the same--namely, that
in his day sculpture had already greatly declined; for the image of the
Saviour and the twelve Apostles in silver that he caused to be made were
very debased sculptures, wrought without art and with very little
design. Besides this, whosoever examines with diligence the medals of
Constantine and his image and other statues made by the sculptors of
that time, which are at the present day in the Campidoglio, may see
clearly that they are very far removed from the perfection of the medals
and statues of the other Emperors; and all this shows that long before
the coming of the Goths into Italy sculpture had greatly declined.
Architecture, as has been said, continued to maintain itself, if not so
perfect, in a better state; nor is there reason to marvel at this,
seeing that, as the great edifices were made almost wholly of spoils, it
was easy for the architects, in making the new, to imitate in great
measure the old, which they had ever before their eyes, and that much
more easily than the sculptors could imitate the good figures of the
ancients, their art having wholly vanished. And that this is true is
manifest, because the Church of the Prince of the Apostles on the
Vatican was not rich save in columns, bases, capitals, architraves,
mouldings, doors, and other incrustations and ornaments, which were all
taken from various places and from the edifices built most magnificently
in earlier times. The same could be said of S. Croce in Gierusalemme,
which Constantine erected at the entreaty of his mother Helena, of S.
Lorenzo without the walls of Rome, and of S. Agnesa, built by him at the
request of Constantia, his daughter. And who does not know that the font
which served for the baptism of both her and her sister was all adorned
with works wrought long before, and in particular with the porphyry
basin carved with most beautiful figures, with certain marble
candlesticks excellently carved with foliage, and with some boys in
low-relief that are truly most beautiful? In short, for these and many
other reasons it is clear how much, in the time of Constantine,
sculpture had already declined, and together with it the other finer
arts. And if anything was wanting to complete this ruin, it was supplied
to them amply by the departure of Constantine from Rome, on his going to
establish the seat of the Empire at Byzantium; for the reason that he
took with him not only all the best sculptors and other craftsmen of
that age, whatsoever manner of men they were, but also an infinite
number of statues and other works of sculpture, all most beautiful.
After the departure of Constantine, the Caesars whom he left in Italy,
building continually both in Rome and elsewhere, exerted themselves to
make their works as fine as they could; but, as may be seen, sculpture,
as well as painting and architecture, went ever from bad to worse, and
this perchance came to pass because, when human affairs begin to
decline, they never cease to go ever lower and lower until such time as
they can grow no worse. So, too, it may be seen that although at the
time of Pope Liberius the architects of that day strove to do something
great in constructing the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, they were yet not
happy in the success of the whole, for the reason that although that
building, which is likewise composed for the greater part of spoils, was
made with good enough proportions, it cannot be denied any the less, not
to speak of certain other parts, that the frieze made right round above
the columns with ornaments in stucco and in painting is wholly wanting
in design, and that many other things which are seen in that great
church demonstrate the imperfection of the arts.
Many years after, when the Christians were persecuted under Julian the
Apostate, there was erected on the C[oe]lian Mount a church to S. John
and S. Paul, the martyrs, in a manner so much worse than those named
above, that it is seen clearly that the art was at that time little less
than wholly lost. The buildings, too, that were erected at the same time
in Tuscany, bear most ample testimony to this; and not to speak of many
others, the church that was built outside the walls of Arezzo to S.
Donatus, Bishop of that city (who, together with the monk Hilarian,
suffered martyrdom under the said Julian the Apostate), was in no way
better in architecture than those named above. Nor can it be believed
that this came from anything else but the absence of better architects
in that age, seeing that the said church (as it has been possible to see
in our own day), which is octagonal and constructed from the spoils of
the Theatre, the Colosseum and other edifices that had been standing in
Arezzo before it was converted to the faith of Christ, was built without
thought of economy and at the greatest cost, and adorned with columns of
granite, of porphyry, and of many-coloured marbles, which had belonged
to the said buildings. And for myself I do not doubt, from the expense
which was clearly bestowed on that church, that if the Aretines had had
better architects they would have built something marvellous; for it may
be seen from what they did that they spared nothing if only they might
make that work as rich and as well designed as they possibly could, and
since, as has been already said so many times, architecture had lost
less of its perfection than the other arts, there was to be seen therein
some little of the good. At this time, likewise, was enlarged the Church
of S. Maria in Grado, in honour of the said Hilarian, for the reason
that he had been for a long time living in it when he went, with
Donatus, to the crown of martyrdom.
But because Fortune, when she has brought men to the height of her
wheel, is wont, either in jest or in repentance, to throw them down
again, it came about after these things that there rose up in various
parts of the world all the barbarous peoples against Rome; whence there
ensued after no long time not only the humiliation of so great an Empire
but the ruin of the whole, and above all of Rome herself, and with her
were likewise utterly ruined the most excellent craftsmen, sculptors,
painters, and architects, leaving the arts and their own selves buried
and submerged among the miserable massacres and ruins of that most
famous city. And the first to fall into decay were painting and
sculpture, as being arts that served more for pleasure than for use,
while the other--namely, architecture--as being necessary and useful for
bodily weal, continued to exist, but no longer in its perfection and
excellence. And if it had not been that the sculptures and pictures
presented, to the eyes of those who were born from day to day, those who
had been thereby honoured to the end that they might have eternal life,
there would soon have been lost the memory of both; whereas some of
them survived in the images and in the inscriptions placed in private
houses, as well as in public buildings, namely, in the amphitheatres,
the theatres, the baths, the aqueducts, the temples, the obelisks, the
colossi, the pyramids, the arches, the reservoirs, the public
treasuries, and finally, in the very tombs, whereof a great part was
destroyed by a barbarous and savage race who had nothing in them of man
but the shape and the name. These, among others, were the Visigoths,
who, having created Alaric their King, assailed Italy and Rome and
sacked the city twice without respect for anything whatsoever. The same,
too, did the Vandals, having come from Africa with Genseric, their King,
who, not content with his booty and prey and all the cruelties that he
wrought there, carried away her people into slavery, to their exceeding
great misery, and among them Eudoxia, once the wife of the Emperor
Valentinian, who had been slaughtered no long time before by his own
soldiers. For these, having fallen away in very great measure from the
ancient Roman valour, for the reason that all the best had gone a long
time before to Byzantium with the Emperor Constantine, had no longer any
good customs or ways of life. Nay more, there had been lost at one and
the same time all true men and every sort of virtue, and laws, habits,
names, and tongues had been changed; and all these things together and
each by itself had caused every lovely mind and lofty intellect to
become most brutish and most base.
But what brought infinite harm and damage on the said professions, even
more than all the aforesaid causes, was the burning zeal of the new
Christian religion, which, after a long and bloody combat, with its
wealth of miracles and with the sincerity of its works, had finally cast
down and swept away the old faith of the heathens, and, devoting itself
most ardently with all diligence to driving out and extirpating root and
branch every least occasion whence error could arise, not only defaced
or threw to the ground all the marvellous statues, sculptures, pictures,
mosaics, and ornaments of the false gods of the heathens, but even the
memorials and the honours of numberless men of mark, to whom, for their
excellent merits, the noble spirit of the ancients had set up statues
and other memorials in public places. Nay more, it not only destroyed,
in order to build the churches for the Christian use, the most honoured
temples of the idols, but in order to ennoble and adorn S. Pietro (to
say nothing of the ornaments which had been there from the beginning) it
also robbed of its stone columns the Mausoleum of Hadrian, now called
the Castello di S. Angelo, and many other buildings that to-day we see
in ruins. And although the Christian religion did not do this by reason
of hatred that it bore to the arts, but only in order to humiliate and
cast down the gods of the heathens, it was none the less true that from
this most ardent zeal there came so great ruin on these honoured
professions that their very form was wholly lost. And as if aught were
wanting to this grievous misfortune, there arose against Rome the wrath
of Totila, who, besides razing her walls and destroying with fire and
sword all her most wonderful and noble buildings, burnt the whole city
from end to end, and, having robbed her of every living body, left her a
prey to flames and fire, so that there was not found in her in eighteen
successive days a single living soul; and he cast down and destroyed so
completely the marvellous statues, pictures, mosaics, and works in
stucco, that there was lost, I do not say only their majesty, but their
very form and essence. Wherefore, it being the lower rooms chiefly of
the palaces and other buildings that were wrought with stucco, with
painting, and with statuary, there was buried by the ruins from above
all that good work that has been discovered in our own day, and those
who came after, judging the whole to be in ruins, planted vines thereon,
in a manner that, since the said lower rooms remained under the ground,
the moderns have called them grottoes, and "grotesque" the pictures that
are therein seen at the present day.
After the end of the Ostrogoths, who were destroyed by Narses, men were
living among the ruins of Rome in some fashion, poorly indeed, when
there came, after 100 years, Constantine II, Emperor of Constantinople,
who, although received lovingly by the Romans, laid waste, robbed, and
carried away all that had remained, more by chance than by the good will
of those who had destroyed her, in the miserable city of Rome. It is
true, indeed, that he was not able to enjoy this booty, because, being
carried by a sea-tempest to Sicily and being justly slain by his own
men, he left his spoils, his kingdom, and his life a prey to Fortune.
But she, not yet content with the woes of Rome, to the end that the
things stolen might never return, brought thither for the ruin of the
island a host of Saracens, who carried off both the wealth of the
Sicilians and the spoils of Rome to Alexandria, to the very great shame
and loss of Italy and of Christendom. And so all that the Pontiffs had
not destroyed (and above all S. Gregory, who is said to have decreed
banishment against all the remainder of the statues and of the spoils of
the buildings) came finally, at the hands of that most rascally Greek,
to an evil end; in a manner that, there being no trace or sign to be
found of anything that was in any way good, the men who came after,
although rude and boorish, and in particular in their pictures and
sculptures, yet, incited by nature and refined by the air, set
themselves to work, not according to the rules of the aforesaid arts,
which they did not know, but according to the quality of their own
intelligence.
The arts of design, then, having been brought to these limits both
before and during the lordship of the Lombards over Italy and also
afterwards, continued gradually to grow worse, although some little work
was done, insomuch that nothing could have been more rudely wrought or
with less design than what was done, as bear witness, besides many other
works, certain figures that are in the portico of S. Pietro in Rome,
above the doors, wrought in the Greek manner in memory of certain holy
fathers who had made disputation for Holy Church in certain councils. To
this, likewise, bear witness many works in the same manner that are to
be seen in the city and in the whole Exarchate of Ravenna, and in
particular some that are in S. Maria Rotonda without that city, made a
little time after the Lombards had been driven out of Italy. In this
church, as I will not forbear to say, there may be seen a thing most
notable and marvellous, namely, the vault, or rather cupola, that covers
it, which, although it is ten braccia wide and serves for roof and
covering to that building, is nevertheless of one single piece, so great
and ponderous that it seems almost impossible that such a stone,
weighing more than 200,000 libbre,[4] could have been set into place so
high. But to return to our subject; there issued from the hands of the
masters of these times those puppet-like and uncouth figures that are
still to be seen in the works of old. The same thing happened to
architecture, seeing that, since it was necessary to build, and since
form and the good method were completely lost by reason of the death of
the craftsmen and the destruction and ruin of their works, those who
applied themselves to this exercise built nothing that either in
ordering or in proportion showed any grace, or design, or reason
whatsoever. Wherefore there came to arise new architects, who brought
from their barbarous races the method of that manner of buildings that
are called by us to-day German; and they made some that are rather a
source of laughter for us moderns than creditable to them, until better
craftsmen afterwards found a better style, in some measure similar to
the good style of the ancients, even as that manner may be seen
throughout all Italy in the old churches (but not the ancient), which
were built by them, such as a palace of Theodoric, King of Italy, in
Ravenna, and one in Pavia, and another in Modena; all in a barbarous
manner, and rather rich and vast than well-conceived or of good
architecture. The same may be affirmed of S. Stefano in Rimini, of S.
Martino in Ravenna, and of the Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista,
erected in the same city by Galla Placidia about the year of our
salvation 438; of S. Vitale, which was erected in the year 547, of the
Abbey of Classi di Fuori, and in short of many other monasteries and
churches erected after the Lombard rule. All these buildings, as has
been said, are both large and magnificent, but of the rudest
architecture, and among them are many abbeys in France erected to S.
Benedict, the Church and Monastery of Monte Casino, and the Church of S.
Giovanni Battista at Monza, built by that Theodelinda, Queen of the
Goths, to whom S. Gregory the Pope wrote his Dialogues; in which place
that Queen caused to be painted the story of the Lombards, wherein it
was seen that they shaved the back of their heads, and in front they had
long locks, and they dyed themselves as far as the chin. Their garments
were of ample linen, as was the use of the Angles and Saxons, and below
a mantle of diverse colours; their shoes open as far as the toes and
tied above with certain straps of leather. Similar to the aforesaid
churches were the Church of S. Giovanni in Pavia, erected by Gondiberta,
daughter of the aforesaid Theodelinda, and in the same city the Church
of S. Salvadore, built by the brother of the said Queen, Aribert, who
succeeded to the throne of Rodoald, husband of Gondiberta; and the
Church of S. Ambrogio in Pavia, erected by Grimoald, King of the
Lombards, who drove Bertrid, son of Aribert, from his throne. This
Bertrid, being restored to his throne after the death of Grimoald,
erected, also in Pavia, a monastery for nuns called the Monasterio
Nuovo, in honour of Our Lady and of S. Agatha; and the Queen erected one
without the walls, dedicated to the "Virgin Mary in Pertica." Cunibert,
likewise, son of that Bertrid, erected a monastery and church after the
same manner to S. Giorgio, called di Coronate, on the spot where he had
gained a great victory over Alahi. Not unlike to these, too, was the
church that the King of the Lombards, Luitprand (who lived in the time
of King Pepin, father of Charlemagne), built in Pavia, which is called
S. Pietro in Cieldauro; nor that one, likewise, that Desiderius built,
who reigned after Astolf--namely, S. Pietro Clivate, in the diocese of
Milan; nor the Monastery of S. Vincenzo in Milan, nor that of S. Giulia
in Brescia, seeing that they were all built at the greatest cost, but in
the most ugly and haphazard manner.
Later, in Florence, architecture made some little progress, and the
Church of S. Apostolo, that was erected by Charlemagne, although small,
was most beautiful in manner; for not to mention that the shafts of the
columns, although they are of separate pieces, show much grace and are
made with beautiful proportion, the capitals, also, and the arches
turned to make the little vaulted roofs of the two small aisles, show
that in Tuscany there had survived or in truth arisen some good
craftsman. In short, the architecture of this church is such that
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco did not disdain to avail himself of it as a
model in building the Church of S. Spirito and that of S. Lorenzo in the
same city. The same may be seen in the Church of S. Marco in Venice,
which (to say nothing of S. Giorgio Maggiore, erected by Giovanni
Morosini in the year 978) was begun under the Doge Giustiniano and
Giovanni Particiaco, close by S. Teodosio, when the body of that
Evangelist was sent from Alexandria to Venice; and after many fires,
which greatly damaged the Doge's palace and the church, it was finally
rebuilt on the same foundations in the Greek manner and in that style
wherein it is seen to-day, at very great cost and under the direction of
many architects, in the year of Christ 973, at the time of Doge Domenico
Selvo, who had the columns brought from wheresoever he could find them.
And so it continued to go on up to the year 1140, when the Doge was
Messer Piero Polani, and, as has been said, with the design of many
masters, all Greeks. In the same Greek manner and about the same time
were the seven abbeys that Count Ugo, Marquis of Brandenburg, caused to
be built in Tuscany, as can be seen in the Badia of Florence, in that of
Settimo, and in the others; which buildings, with the remains of those
that are no longer standing, bear testimony that architecture was still
in a measure holding its ground, although greatly corrupted and far
removed from the good manner of the ancients. To this can also bear
witness many old palaces built in Florence after the ruin of Fiesole, in
Tuscan workmanship, but with barbaric ordering in the proportions of
those doors and windows of immense length, in the curves of the pointed
quarter-segments, and in the turning of the arches, after the wont of
the foreign architects of those times.
The year afterwards, 1013, it is clear that the art had regained some of
its vigour from the rebuilding of that most beautiful church, S. Miniato
in Sul Monte, in the time of Messer Alibrando, citizen and Bishop of
Florence; for the reason that, besides the marble ornaments that are
seen therein both within and without, it may be seen from the facade
that the Tuscan architects strove as much as they could in the doors,
the windows, the columns, the arches, and the mouldings, to imitate the
good order of the ancients, having in part recovered it from the most
ancient temple of S. Giovanni in their city. At the same time painting,
which was little less than wholly spent, may be seen to have begun to
win back something, as the mosaic shows that was made in the principal
chapel[5] of the said Church of S. Miniato.
From such beginnings, then, these arts commenced to grow better in
design throughout Tuscany, as is seen in the year 1016, from the
commencement made by the people of Pisa for the building of their Duomo,
seeing that in those times it was a great thing for men to put their
hands to the construction of a church made, as this was, with five
naves, and almost wholly of marble both within and without. This church,
which was built under the direction and design of Buschetto, a Greek of
Dulichium, an architect of rarest worth for those times, was erected and
adorned by the people of Pisa with innumerable spoils brought by sea
(for they were at the height of their greatness) from diverse most
distant places, as is well shown by the columns, bases, capitals,
cornices, and all the other kinds of stonework that are therein seen.
And seeing that these things were some of them small, some large, and
some of a middle size, great was the judgment and the talent of
Buschetto in accommodating them and in making the distribution of all
this building, which is very well arranged both within and without; and
besides other work, he contrived the frontal slope of the facade very
ingeniously with a great number of columns, adorning it besides with
columns carved in diverse and varied ways, and with ancient statues,
even as he also made the principal doors in the same facade, between
which--that is, beside that of the Carroccio--there was afterwards given
an honourable burial-place to Buschetto himself, with three epitaphs,
whereof this is one, in Latin verses in no way dissimilar to others of
those times:
QUOD VIX MILLE BOUM POSSENT JUGA JUNCTA MOVERE,
ET QUOD VIX POTUIT PER MARE FERRE RATIS, BUSCHETTI NISU,
QUOD ERAT MIRABILE VISU,
DENA PUELLARUM TURBA LEVAVIT ONUS.
And seeing that there has been made mention above of the Church of S.
Apostolo in Florence, I will not forbear to say that on a marble slab
therein, on one side of the high-altar, there may be seen these words:
VIII. V. DIE VI. APRILIS IN RESURRECTIONE DOMINI, KAROLUS
FRANCORUM REX A ROMA REVERTENS, INGRESSUS FLORENTIAM, CUM MAGNO
GAUDIO ET TRIPUDIO SUSCEPTUS, CIVIUM COPIAM TORQUEIS AUREIS
DECORAVIT ... ECCLESIA SANCTORUM APOSTOLORUM ... IN ALTARI INCLUSA
EST LAMINA PLUMBEA, IN QUA DESCRIPTA APPARET PRAEFATA FUNDATIO ET
CONSECRATIO FACTA PER ARCHIEPISCOPUM TURPINUM, TESTIBUS ROLANDO ET
ULIVERIO.