Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/216

202 springing from our mental state, they possess more or less of analogy with the rest of our lives and fortunes.

But now I have also been to the famed scientific building called the Institution, or Gli Studj. The edifice is large; and the inner court especially has a very imposing appearance, although not of the best style of architecture. In the staircases and corridors there was no want of stuccos and frescoes. They are all appropriate and suitable; and the numerous objects of beauty, which, well worth seeing, are here collected together, justly command our admiration. For all that, however, a German accustomed to a more liberal course of study than is here pursued will not be altogether content with it.

Here, again, a former thought occurred to me; and I could not but reflect on the pertinacity, which in spite of time, which changes all things, man shows in adhering to the old shapes of his public buildings, even long after they have been applied to new purposes. Our churches still retain the form of the basilica, although, probably, the plan of the temple would better suit our worship. In Italy the courts of justice are as spacious and lofty as the means of a community are able to make them. One can almost fancy himself to be in the open air, where justice used once to be administered. And do we not build our great theatres, with their offices under a roof, exactly similar to those of the first theatrical booths of a fair, which were hurriedly put together of planks? The vast multitude of those in whom, about the time of the Reformation, a thirst for knowledge was awakened, obliged the scholars at our universities to take shelter as they could in the burghers' houses; and it was very long before any colleges for pupils (Waisenhäuser) were built, thereby facilitating for poor youths the acquirement of the necessary education for the world.