Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/33

 of territory, nor any large amount of population? The answer is, 'their commercial enterprise and industry did it for them.' True; but it is equally remarkable, that in all these states and cities the fine arts gave their powerful aid to those pursuits, as the splendid manufactures of these people testify. And where have the arts been fostered with more parental solicitude, or in what region have they shed more glory upon mankind, than they have done in these comparatively small territories? But it was the same principle that produced such splendid works in Greece: the cause and effect were precisely the same, the mode only was changed. But the principles are universal and eternal, and they may be brought to operate in other countries, to the fullest extent, and with as much grandeur, grace, and beauty, as they ever did attain, even in their most prosperous periods, under the guidance of Pericles, when they reached the highest splendor of Chryselephantine art, under the master minds of Phidias and Praxiteles, Callicrates and Ictinus, and at a later period displayed the equally resplendent genius of Apelles, Zeuxis, and Parrhasius, in the time of Alexander—those splendid epochs of painting, sculpture, and architecture, which shed an imperishable lustre upon the most enlightened states of the Hellenodic confederacy, and on the throne of the greatest conqueror of ancient times. We must not omit mentioning their palmy state in the Augustan age of Rome, and their still more glorious elevation there during the memorable cinque cento.