The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors Architects, Volume 1 | Page 6

being of granite and porphyry and
variegated marble which, had formerly adorned the ancient buildings.
For my own part, I have no doubt, seeing the expense incurred, that if
the Aretines had been able to employ better architects they would have
produced something marvellous, since what they actually accomplished
proves that they spared themselves nothing in order to make this
building as magnificent and complete as possible. But as architecture
had lost less of its excellence than the other arts, as I have often said
before, some good things may be seen there. At the same period the
church of S. Maria in Grado was enlarged in honour of St Hilarion,
who had lived in the city a long time before he accompanied Donato to
receive the palm of martyrdom. But as Fortune, when she has brought
men to the top of the wheel, either for amusement or because she
repents, usually turns them to the bottom, it came to pass after these
things that almost all the barbarian nations rose in divers parts of the
world against the Romans, the result being the abasement of that great
empire in a short time, and the destruction of everything, notably of
Rome herself. That fall involved the complete destruction of the most
excellent artists, sculptors, painters and architects who abandoned their
profession and were themselves buried and submerged under the debris
and ruins of that most celebrated city. The first to go were painting and
sculpture, as being arts which served rather for pleasure than for utility,
the other art, namely architecture, being necessary and useful for the
welfare of the body, continued in use, but not in its perfection and
purity. The very memory of painting and sculpture would have speedily
disappeared had they not represented before the eyes of the rising
generation, the distinguished men of another age. Some of them were
commemorated by effigies and by inscriptions placed on public and
private buildings, such as amphitheatres, theatres, baths, aqueducts,
temples, obelisks, colosseums, pyramids, arches, reservoirs and
treasuries, yes, and even on the very tombs. The majority of these were
destroyed and obliterated by the barbarians, who had nothing human
about them but their shape and name. Among others there were the

Visigoths, who having made Alaric their king, invaded Italy and twice
sacked Rome without respect for anything. The Vandals who came
from Africa with Genseric, their king, did the like. But he, not content
with his plunder and booty and the cruelties he inflicted, led into
servitude the people there, to their infinite woe, and with them Eudoxia
the wife of the Emperor Valentinian, who had only recently been
assassinated by his own soldiers. These men had greatly degenerated
from the ancient Roman valour, because a great while before, the best
of them had all gone to Constantinople with the Emperor Constantine,
and those left behind were dissolute and abandoned. Thus true men and
every sort of virtue perished at the same time; laws, habits, names and
tongues suffered change, and these varied misfortunes, collectively and
singly, debased and degraded every fine spirit and every lofty soul. But
the most harmful and destructive force which operated against these
fine arts was the fervent zeal of the new Christian religion, which, after
long and sanguinary strife, had at length vanquished and abolished the
old faith of the heathen, by means of a number of miracles and by the
sincerity of its acts. Every effort was put forth to remove and utterly
extirpate the smaller things from which errors might arise, and thus not
only were the marvellous statues, sculptures, paintings, mosaics and
ornaments of the false pagan gods destroyed and thrown down, but also
the memorials and honours of countless excellent persons, to whose
distinguished merits statues and other memorials had been set up by a
most virtuous antiquity. Besides all this, in order to build churches for
the use of the Christians, not only were the most honoured temples of
the idols destroyed, but in order to ennoble and decorate S. Peter's with
more ornaments than it then possessed, the mole of Hadrian, now the
castle of S. Angelo, was despoiled of its stone columns, as well as of
many other things which are now seen in ruins.
Now, although the Christian religion did not act thus from any hatred
for talent, but only because of its contempt for the heathen gods, yet the
utter ruin of these honourable professions, which entirely lost their
form, was none the less entirely due to this burning zeal. That nothing
might be wanting to these grave disasters there followed the rage of
Totila against Rome, who destroyed the walls, ruined all the most
magnificent and noble buildings with fire and sword, burned it from

one end to another, and having stripped it