DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61893#0323
Ch, VIII. THROUGH ITALY. 295
the new mole, from the elevation of the light-
house that terminates it, and from the admirable
arrangement of the Lazaretto, he seems to have
merited the celebrity which he enjoyed. It is
difficult, however, to conceive what motives
could have induced him to place an arch, of so
mixed a composition, and so heavy a form, so
near to the simple and airy edifice of Trajan,
unless it were to display their opposite qualities
by the contrast, and of course to degrade and
vilify his own workmanship. But all modern
architects, not excepting the great names of
Michael Angelo, Bramante, and Palladio, have
had the fever of innovation, and more than ten
centuries of unsuccessful experiments have not
been sufficient to awaken a spirit of diffidence,
and to induce them to suspect that, in deviating
from the models of antiquity, they have aban-
doned the rules of symmetry ; and, that in erect-
ing edifices on their own peculiar plans, they
have only transmitted their bad taste, in stone
and marble monuments, to posterity.
The cathedral of Ancona is a very ancient,
but a low, dark edifice. It contains nothing
within, and exhibits nothing without, to fix at-
tention. Its situation, however, compensates in
a great degree, its architectural defects. Placed
near the point of the Cumerian promontory,
the new mole, from the elevation of the light-
house that terminates it, and from the admirable
arrangement of the Lazaretto, he seems to have
merited the celebrity which he enjoyed. It is
difficult, however, to conceive what motives
could have induced him to place an arch, of so
mixed a composition, and so heavy a form, so
near to the simple and airy edifice of Trajan,
unless it were to display their opposite qualities
by the contrast, and of course to degrade and
vilify his own workmanship. But all modern
architects, not excepting the great names of
Michael Angelo, Bramante, and Palladio, have
had the fever of innovation, and more than ten
centuries of unsuccessful experiments have not
been sufficient to awaken a spirit of diffidence,
and to induce them to suspect that, in deviating
from the models of antiquity, they have aban-
doned the rules of symmetry ; and, that in erect-
ing edifices on their own peculiar plans, they
have only transmitted their bad taste, in stone
and marble monuments, to posterity.
The cathedral of Ancona is a very ancient,
but a low, dark edifice. It contains nothing
within, and exhibits nothing without, to fix at-
tention. Its situation, however, compensates in
a great degree, its architectural defects. Placed
near the point of the Cumerian promontory,