h century, is exclusively of the
renaissance styles; while their drawing of it furnishes little that is
of much interest to the architectural draughtsman as such, being always
governed by a reference to its subordinate position, so that all
forceful shadow and play of color are (most justly) surrendered for
quiet and uniform hues of gray and chiaroscuro of extreme simplicity.
Whatever they chose to do they did with consummate grandeur, (note
especially the chiaroscuro of the square window of Ghirlandajo's which
so much delighted Vasari in S^ta. Maria Novella; and the daring
management of a piece of the perspective in the Salutation, opposite
where he has painted a flight of stairs descending in front, though the
picture is twelve feet above the eye); and yet this grandeur, in all
these men, results rather from the general power obtained in their
drawing of the figure than from any definite knowledge respecting the
things introduced in these accessory parts; so that while in some points
it is impossible for any painter to equal these accessories, unless he
were in all respects as great as Ghirlandajo or Bellini, in others it is
possible for him, with far inferior powers, to attain a representation
both more accurate and more interesting.

In order to arrive at the knowledge of these, we must briefly take note
of a few of the modes in which architecture itself is agreeable to the
mind, especially of the influence upon the character of the building
which is to be attributed to the signs of age.

Sec. 26. Effects of age upon buildings, how far desirable.

It is evident, first, that if the design of the building be originally
bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be in signs of antiquity.
All that in this world enlarges the sphere of affection or imagination
is to be reverenced, and all those circumstances enlarge it which
strengthen our memory or quicken our conception of the dead; hence it is
no light sin to destroy anything that is old, more especially because,
even with the aid of all obtainable records of the past, we, the living,
occupy a space of too large importance and interest in our own eyes; we
look upon the world too much as our own, too much as if we had possessed
it and should possess it forever, and forget that it is a mere hostelry,
of which we occupy the apartments for a time, which others better than
we have sojourned in before, who are now where we should desire to be
with them. Fortunately fo