File:A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance (1901) (14597806189).jpg

Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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n a square, and joined by their bases and abaci into a singularly beautiful pier ; and above thearcade the clerestory was pierced by three-light pointed windows divided by columnarmullions. The ceiling was of wood, deco-rated with gold and color, and the wholeinterior was magnificently enriched withprecious marbles and mosaics. All thissplendor remained practically untoucheduntil the end of the eighteenth century,when the cruel hand of the Restorerwas laid upon the church and its beautyvanished as a man wipeth a dish, wipingit and turning it upside down. ^ The exterior has also suffered greatlyfrom successive changes, mostly earlierthan the transformation of the interiorunder Fuga, though the Renaissance domeadded by him is the most incongruous ofall the additions which have been made. The west front is, in its present condi-tion, a singular but interesting compositionof which some features may belong tothe church of the twelfth century, but thegreater portion of which appears to have
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Fig. 305. Palermo. Cathedral. been governed by two majestic pointed arches which are thrown ^ Even the dry and prosaic Mothes grows indignant over this atrocious spoliation. Hisaccount is so complete an exposition of the treatment to which countless beautifulchurches of the Middle Ages have been subjected under the name of restoration, duringthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and even nearer to our own day, that I ventureto translate it. In 1781-1801 the interior was completely transformed, or rather deformed by Ferdi-nando Fuga, (the royal architect) in spite of the strenuous remonstrance of the Palermitanarchitects under the lead of G. V. Marvuglia, well known for his advocacy of the classicstyle. Fuga walled up the groups of nave columns with massive piers, substituted roundfor pointed arches in the arcades, opened the aisles into fourteen lateral chapels, set arow of domes over each aisle, thus hiding on the exterior the clerestory windows, coveredthe crossing with a clumsy

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