not
destroyed, notably St Gregory, who is said to have put under the ban
all that remained of the statues and of the spoils of the buildings,
finally perished through the instrumentality of this traitorous
Greek. Not a trace or a vestige of any good thing remained, so that
the generations which followed being rough and material, particularly
in painting and sculpture, yet feeling themselves impelled by nature
and inspired by the atmosphere of the place, set themselves to
produce things, not indeed according to the rules of art, for they
had none, but as they were instructed by their own intelligence.

The arts of design having arrived at this pitch, both before and
during the time that the Lombards ruled Italy, they subsequently grew
worse and worse, until at length they reached the lowest depths of
baseness. An instance of their utter tastelessness and crudeness may
be seen in some figures over the door in the portico of S. Peter's at
Rome, in memory of some holy fathers who had disputed for Holy Church
in certain councils. Further evidence is supplied by a number of
examples in the same style in the city and in the whole of the
Exarchate of Ravenna, notably some in S. Maria Rotonda outside that
city, which were made shortly after the Lombards were driven from
Italy. But I will not deny that there is one very notable and
marvellous thing in this church, and that is the vault or cupola
which covers it, which is ten braccia across and serves as the roof
of the building, and yet is of a single piece and so large that it
appears impossible that a stone of this description, weighing more
than 200,000 pounds, could be placed so high up. But to return to our
point, the masters of that day produced nothing but shapeless and
clumsy things which may still be seen to-day. It was the same with
architecture, for it was necessary to build, and as form and good
methods were lost by the death of good artists and the destruction of
good buildings, those who devoted themselves to this profession built
erections devoid of order or measure, and totally deficient in grace,
proportion or principle. Then new architects arose who created that
style of building, for their barbarous nations, which we call German,
and produced some works which are ridiculous to our modern eyes, but
appeared admirable to theirs. This lasted until a better form
somewhat similar to the good antique manner was discovered by better
artists, as is shown by the oldes