DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73713#0134
129 THE WORKS OF
ness, and painted with good fresco. In short is
one compares these paintings with all the works
of the moderns, and if one considers that they
Were done in a place of such little consequence,
one may know how much the paintings of the
ancients were superior to ours.
I have made this little digression, to remove
the doubt which many have entertained, that
the ancients were better painters than the mo-
derns, founding their sentiments upon the me-
diocrity of the paintings of Herculaneum, and
©f others, which are conserved at Rome, with-
out ressecting upon the unhappy Rate to which
the Romans reduced painting. Painting had
finally the same fate as sculpture, and the pro-
fessors of both, falling into extreme ignorance
and disregard, and contributing also to the abo-
lition of idolatry, one may say, that it was al-
most entirely sorgotten, or at least reduced to a
miserable Rate, which we see by some holy
images, and barbarous mosaics, which are pre-
served in some ancient churches.
For many ages it remained in this miserable
Rate ; and the fingularity is, that the same
cause of its ruin, was the cause of its revival,
that is, the worship of the christian religion.
The great commerce of Italy with Greece, and
other parts of the world, introduced opulence ;
and the Italians wilhing to build churches, and
to adorn them with images, employed these
miserable painters, and Grecian artists of mo-
saics, to perform that little which they knew,
and on this occasion, some Venetians, Bolog-
ness, and painted with good fresco. In short is
one compares these paintings with all the works
of the moderns, and if one considers that they
Were done in a place of such little consequence,
one may know how much the paintings of the
ancients were superior to ours.
I have made this little digression, to remove
the doubt which many have entertained, that
the ancients were better painters than the mo-
derns, founding their sentiments upon the me-
diocrity of the paintings of Herculaneum, and
©f others, which are conserved at Rome, with-
out ressecting upon the unhappy Rate to which
the Romans reduced painting. Painting had
finally the same fate as sculpture, and the pro-
fessors of both, falling into extreme ignorance
and disregard, and contributing also to the abo-
lition of idolatry, one may say, that it was al-
most entirely sorgotten, or at least reduced to a
miserable Rate, which we see by some holy
images, and barbarous mosaics, which are pre-
served in some ancient churches.
For many ages it remained in this miserable
Rate ; and the fingularity is, that the same
cause of its ruin, was the cause of its revival,
that is, the worship of the christian religion.
The great commerce of Italy with Greece, and
other parts of the world, introduced opulence ;
and the Italians wilhing to build churches, and
to adorn them with images, employed these
miserable painters, and Grecian artists of mo-
saics, to perform that little which they knew,
and on this occasion, some Venetians, Bolog-