Venice

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XI THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS IN the early years of Venetian history we find the most delicate artistic workmanship applied to the adornment of the churches, the only buildings at that time constructed with splendour and magnificence. The refugees from the Roman municipia of the mainland brought to their...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XI THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS IN the early years of Venetian history we find the most delicate artistic workmanship applied to the adornment of the churches, the only buildings at that time constructed with splendour and magnificence. The refugees from the Roman municipia of the mainland brought to their lagoon homes the traditions of classical art, and on these Roman traditions were gradually grafted elements native to Venice itself or imported from the artistic work of the barbarians. For if it is true that classical traditions transformed much of this barbaric work, still it cannot be denied that certain characteristics of the Gothic, Lombard and Prankish style assumed a permanent place in the art products of the West. Gothic art was both rich and varied; and the objects found in Gothic tombs, jewels and ornaments, of which some specimens may be seen in the Museum of Cividale, are characterised by a singular caprice of form. Lombard work is less distinguished but more delicate, owing to its closer contact with the conquered Italian races; Theodolinda's treasury, preserved at Monza, is a proof. Exquisitely graceful and in certain respects masterly is the work of the Carolingian period.1 Roman art undoubtedly had a profound effect upon the barbarians, but they adopted the principles and the methods of that art to suitthemselves and applied them to their own native designs, which were well known to the Venetians, thanks to their frequent relations, both political and commercial, with the conquerors of the mainland. But high above both barbaric art, which was assimilating to itself so much of Latin art, and classical Roman art, which was in rapid decline and growing daily ruder, shone out the art of Byzantium, whose home was chiefly in Ravenna and in the islands of the Venet...