Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/380

354 We have gone carefully through the city. The style of architecture resembles for the most part that of Naples; but the public buildings, for instance the fountains, are still further removed from good taste. Here there is no artistic mind to regulate the public works: the edifices owe both their shape and existence to chance. A fountain, which is the admiration of the whole island, would, perhaps, never have existed, had not Sicily furnished a beautiful variegated marble, and had not a sculptor well practised in animal shapes happened to be in favour precisely at the time. It would be a difficult matter to describe this fountain. In a moderately sized site stands a round piece of masonry, not quite a staff high (Stock hoch). The socle, the wall, and the cornice are of variegated marble. In the wall are several niches in a row, from which animals of all kinds, in white marble, are looking with stretched-out necks. Horses, hons, camels, and elephants, are interchanged one with another; and one scarcely expects to find, within the circle of this menagerie, a fountain, to which, through four openings, marble steps lead you down to draw from the water, which flows in abundance.

The same nearly may be said of the churches, in which even the Jesuits' love of show and finery is surpassed, but not from design or plan, but by accident,—just as artist after artist, whether sculptor, carver, gilder, lackerer, or worker in marble, chose, without taste or rule, to display on each vacant spot their several abilities.

Amidst all this, however, one cannot fail to recognise a certain talent in imitating natural objects: for instance, the heads of the animals around the fountains are very well executed. By this means it is, in truth, that the admiration of the multitude is excited, whose