[Footnote 1: The present traceries are of fifteenth century work,
founded on Giovanni's design.]
We will look at something more of his work, however, before drawing
such conclusion.
38. In the centres of the great squares of Siena and Perugia, rose,
obedient to engineers' art, two perennial fountains Without engineers'
art, the glens which cleave the sand-rock of Siena flow with living
water; and still, if there be a hell for the forger in Italy, he
remembers therein the sweet grotto and green wave of Fonte Branda. But
on the very summit of the two hills, crested by their great civic
fortresses, and in the centres of their circuit of walls, rose the two
guided wells; each in basin of goodly marble, sculptured--at Perugia,
by John of Pisa, at Siena, by James of Quercia.
39. It is one of the bitterest regrets of my life (and I have many
which some men would find difficult to bear,) that I never saw, except
when I was a youth, and then with sealed eyes, Jacopo della Quercia's
fountain. [1] The Sienese, a little while since, tore it down, and put
up a model of it by a modern carver. In like manner, perhaps, you will
some day knock the Elgin marbles to pieces, and commission an
Academician to put up new ones,--the Sienese doing worse than that (as
if the Athenians were _themselves_ to break their Phidias' work).
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