Thus early, it seems, the antagonism of profane Greek to
ecclesiastical Gothic declares itself. It seems as if in Perugia, as in
London, you had the fountains in Trafalgar Square against Queen
Elinor's Cross; or the viaduct and railway station contending with the
Gothic chapel, which the master of the large manufactory close by has
erected, because he thinks pinnacles and crockets have a pious
influence; and will prevent his workmen from asking for shorter hours,
or more wages.
43. It _seems_ only; the antagonism is quite of another kind,--or,
rather, of many other kinds. But note at once how complete it is--how
utterly this Greek fountain of Perugia, and the round arches of Pisa,
are opposed to the school of design which gave the trefoils to
Niccola's pulpit, and the traceries to Giovanni's Campo Santo.
The antagonism, I say, is of another kind than ours; but deep and wide;
and to explain it, I must pass for a time to apparently irrelevant
topics.
You were surprised, I hope, (if you were attentive enough to catch the
points in what I just now read from Vasari,) at my venturing to bring
before you, just after I had been using violent language against the
Sienese for breaking up the work of Quercia, that incidental sentence
giving account of the much more disrespectful destruction, by the
Perugians, of the tombs of Pope Urban IV.
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