Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy

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J. Murray, 1874 - Architecture, Gothic - 415 pages

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Page 1 - Wild wind ! I seek a warmer sky, And I will see before I die The palms and temples of the South.
Page 286 - In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care, Each minute and unseen part ; For the gods see everywhere.
Page 321 - ... is the interior, and delight that anything so magnificent and so perfect should ever have been reared on the southern slope of the Alps, to exhibit, to the eyes as it were of enemies, the full majesty and power of the pointed architecture of the North. And mark, upon consideration, how very natural this was. Its architect had been tied down in his exterior by the wants, or supposed wants, of a climate unlike...
Page 149 - ... sister at play ! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay ! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But O for the touch of a...
Page xv - ... beautiful, but at the same time incomparably the most convenient feature in construction which has ever been, Or which, I firmly believe, ever can be invented, we should not" be true artists if we neglected to use it. I hold firmly the doctrine that no architect has any right whatever to neglect to avail himself of every improvement in construction which the growing intelligence of this mechanical age can afford him ; but this doctrine in no way hinders the constant employment of the pointed...
Page 44 - That turbulent Chaos; and the promised land Lies at my feet in all its loveliness! To him who starts up from a terrible dream, And lo the sun is shining, and the lark Singing aloud for joy, to him is not Such sudden ravishment as now I feel At the first glimpses of fair Italy.
Page 98 - ... masses of their companions. " The monuments are all to the members of one family — the Scaligeri — who seem to have risen to power in the thirteenth century, and to have held sway in Verona until almost the end of the fourteenth. In this space of time it was, therefore, that these monuments were erected, and they are consequently of singular interest, not only for the excessive beauty of the group of marble and stone which, in the busiest highway of the city, among tall houses and crowds...
Page 14 - ADIEU the woods and waters' side, Imperial Danube's rich domain ! Adieu the grotto, wild and wide, The rocks abrupt, and grassy plain ! For pallid autumn once again Hath swelled each torrent of the hill ; Her clouds collect, her shadows sail, And watery winds that sweep the vale Grow loud and louder still. But not the storm, dethroning fast Yon monarch oak of massy pile ; Nor river roaring to the blast Around its dark and desert isle ; Nor church-bell tolling to beguile The cloud-born thunder passing...
Page 303 - ... carried on coupled shafts above. The cathedral is said to have been founded in 1099, but an inscription on the south wall gives the date of the consecration of the building by Pope Lucius III., in July 1184. I believe that the former date represents the age of the plan, and of most of the interior columns and arches still remaining, but that before the later date the whole exterior of the cathedral had been modified, and the groining added inside. The work of both periods is extremely good and...
Page 316 - Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages," says : " If it be indeed true that it was designed by a German, there is on the outside even more cause for astonishment at his work than if it had been done by an Italian. The west front is quite modern, but the rest of the exterior is as little German in its character as any building I have ever seen, and — shall I add it ? — as little really grand as a work of art. I had just caught a glimpse of its general outline and effect by the bright moonlight, and...

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