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Ruskin, John, 1819-1900

"Val d'Arno"

, and Martin IV.
Sending was made for John, you see, first, when Pope Urban IV. died in
Perugia--whose tomb was to be carved by John; the Greek fountain being
a secondary business. But the tomb was so well destroyed, afterwards,
that only a few relics remained scattered here and there.
The tomb, I have not the least doubt, was Gothic;--and the breaking of
it to pieces was not in order to restore it afterwards, that a living
architect might get the job of restoration. Here is a stone out of one
of Giovanni Pisano's loveliest Gothic buildings, which I myself saw
with my own eyes dashed out, that a modern builder might be paid for
putting in another. But Pope Urban's tomb was not destroyed to such
end. There was no qualm of the belly, driving the hammer,--qualm of the
conscience probably; at all events, a deeper or loftier antagonism than
one on points of taste, or economy.
44. You observed that I described this Greek profane manner of design
as properly belonging to _civil_ buildings, as opposed not only to
ecclesiastical buildings, but to military ones. Justice, or
Righteousness, and Veracity, are the characters of Greek art.


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