DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26532#0032
X
INTRODUCTION,
works of art; to discover the reasons of that effect;
and to sorm upon them such rules as should gene-
rally guide successful praCtice. These, once settled
and exemplified by superior artists, become the stand-
ard of execution and of judgment; and, for a season,
confine the operations of art to that chastity, pro-
priety and dignity of manner, which ennoble its
productions. But, alas, this Rate is never lasting !
Tired of the monotony of perfection, restless ima-
gination, excited by the love of novelty, soon breaks
through the restraint of rules ; indulges itself in all
the extravagances of lawless caprice, introduces every
species of incongruity, and finally triumphs in ab-
surdity and confusion. Having presented this general
idea of the improvement and perversion os the arts,
it remains to offer a slight sketch of the restoration
of that of Architecture, from its growing corrup-
tions after the decline of the Roman Empire.
Its more observable advance in recovery began
with Filippo Brunelleschi,5 a Florentine, bom
those of Cl. Perrault in French, 2d. Edition, Paris 1684, fol.
maj. and of the Marquis Berardo Galiani in Italian, Naples
1758, are incomparably the bell. Upon the authority of Cselio
Calcagniniin a letter to J. Ziegler, the celebrated Raphael of Ur-
bino has been numbered among the Commentators on Vitruvius.
His labours to this purpose have never appeared; nor is it very
probable that a first-rate genius, who executed so many great
works, loved society, was gay arid amorous, and died at thirty
seven, should have bellowed a length of close application on so
dissicult an author ; even supposing him provided with the learning
requisite for the undertaking. See Poleni Exercitat. Vitruv. pri-
mal, p. 27.
s Brunelleschi, born 1377, died 1444, aet. 67.
in
INTRODUCTION,
works of art; to discover the reasons of that effect;
and to sorm upon them such rules as should gene-
rally guide successful praCtice. These, once settled
and exemplified by superior artists, become the stand-
ard of execution and of judgment; and, for a season,
confine the operations of art to that chastity, pro-
priety and dignity of manner, which ennoble its
productions. But, alas, this Rate is never lasting !
Tired of the monotony of perfection, restless ima-
gination, excited by the love of novelty, soon breaks
through the restraint of rules ; indulges itself in all
the extravagances of lawless caprice, introduces every
species of incongruity, and finally triumphs in ab-
surdity and confusion. Having presented this general
idea of the improvement and perversion os the arts,
it remains to offer a slight sketch of the restoration
of that of Architecture, from its growing corrup-
tions after the decline of the Roman Empire.
Its more observable advance in recovery began
with Filippo Brunelleschi,5 a Florentine, bom
those of Cl. Perrault in French, 2d. Edition, Paris 1684, fol.
maj. and of the Marquis Berardo Galiani in Italian, Naples
1758, are incomparably the bell. Upon the authority of Cselio
Calcagniniin a letter to J. Ziegler, the celebrated Raphael of Ur-
bino has been numbered among the Commentators on Vitruvius.
His labours to this purpose have never appeared; nor is it very
probable that a first-rate genius, who executed so many great
works, loved society, was gay arid amorous, and died at thirty
seven, should have bellowed a length of close application on so
dissicult an author ; even supposing him provided with the learning
requisite for the undertaking. See Poleni Exercitat. Vitruv. pri-
mal, p. 27.
s Brunelleschi, born 1377, died 1444, aet. 67.
in