File:Architecture in Italy, from the sixth to the eleventh century; historical and critical researches (1896) (14778373764).jpg

Identifier: architectureinit00catt (find matches)
Title: Architecture in Italy, from the sixth to the eleventh century; historical and critical researches
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Cattaneo, Raffaele, 1861-1889
Subjects: Architecture Architecture
Publisher: London : Unwin
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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ted and in fragments, that one sees enchased underthe staircase of the present ambo. It is framed by holloAvedmouldings, listels, and batons, enriched by cordons and braids,Avhich acknoAvledge the Neo-Byzantine style ; neverthless, theinternal composition appeared to Filiasi and Selvatico to alludeto the Avorship of Mercury, and to be a Avork of the sixth * One sees them in several museums beyond the Alps, and in Italy, in those ofArezzo, Florence, Bologna, and Cividale. One of the most beautiful, preserved in thelast-named city, was learnedly studied by Count Alvise Piero Zorzi, the illustriousdirector of that museum. 335 century. To Battaglini it seemed the figure of Fortune, a relicof paganism and of the edifices of Altino. But these figuresbreathe out the genius of the Greek artists who restored S.Mark and this cathedral. Wliat, then, does it represent? Oneof the five figures is wanting, but I had the good fortune tofind it two years ago among tlie fragments belonging to a marble-
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L^ r ...J .J J 1 V ,1 l.v J.U / Fig. 165.—Parapet of the Cathedral of Torcello—a.d. 1008. Avorker in Venice, after its disappearance of so many centuries.The scene being thus comi^leted, it was easy to understand thatthe semi-nude figure of a man on winged wheels which occupiesthe centre is neither Mercury nor Fortune, but the personifica-tion of Time—that time allotted by God to man that he maydo good and combat his own bad passions. Such is tlie meaningsuggested to me by the scales and the truncheon that he holds 336 in his hands. On the right one sees the figure of an aged manwho has let time pass away without profit. He is stroking hisbeard, but tears and grief await him in the form of a woman fullof profound melancholy. On the left hand, by way of contrast,is sculptured a youth who seizes Time by the hair, and behindhim a figure of Victory (which I recovered), with palm andcro^^n, represents the joys of paradise reserved for him. Thesame intention and the same signification

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