DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61893#0446
418
CLASSICAL TOUR
a. xiL
into forts and castles, and disfigured with towers
and Gothic battlements; the country was overrun
with banditti, and the city itself convulsed and
defiled with perpetual scenes of violence and
bloodshed.
At length the Pontiff returned to his See; and
after some struggles a regular government was
established: Julius the Second, a stern and ar-
bitrary prince suppressed anarchy > the arts began
to revive, architecture was restored, a Leo rose,
and Rome, even ancient Rome, might have ex-
pected the return of her Augustan glory. But
such an expectation would have been ill-founded;
the very restoration of the arts, while it contri-
buted to the splendor of modern Rome, was the
last blow that fate gave to the magnificence of
the ancient city. While new temples and new
palaces arose, the remains of ancient edifices dis-
appeared; and posterity still laments that the
Perizonium was demolished, the Coliseum de-
formed, and the Pantheon plundered, to supply
materials or ornaments for the Farnesian and
Barbarini palaces, and for the new Basilica of
St. Peter. With regard to the latter, the man of
taste and the lover of antiquity, as Gibbon justly
observes, will perhaps pardon the theft; as it
contributed to the triumph of modern genius, and
to the decoration of the noblest edifice that hu-
CLASSICAL TOUR
a. xiL
into forts and castles, and disfigured with towers
and Gothic battlements; the country was overrun
with banditti, and the city itself convulsed and
defiled with perpetual scenes of violence and
bloodshed.
At length the Pontiff returned to his See; and
after some struggles a regular government was
established: Julius the Second, a stern and ar-
bitrary prince suppressed anarchy > the arts began
to revive, architecture was restored, a Leo rose,
and Rome, even ancient Rome, might have ex-
pected the return of her Augustan glory. But
such an expectation would have been ill-founded;
the very restoration of the arts, while it contri-
buted to the splendor of modern Rome, was the
last blow that fate gave to the magnificence of
the ancient city. While new temples and new
palaces arose, the remains of ancient edifices dis-
appeared; and posterity still laments that the
Perizonium was demolished, the Coliseum de-
formed, and the Pantheon plundered, to supply
materials or ornaments for the Farnesian and
Barbarini palaces, and for the new Basilica of
St. Peter. With regard to the latter, the man of
taste and the lover of antiquity, as Gibbon justly
observes, will perhaps pardon the theft; as it
contributed to the triumph of modern genius, and
to the decoration of the noblest edifice that hu-