Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/32

18 executed by the masters of that day, are by no means equal to the ornaments, taken for the most part from heathen temples, and employed in the construction of the same bath. It is said, that Constantine proceeded in like manner with the temple which he built in the garden of AEquitius, and which he endowed and gave to the Christian priests. The magnificent church of San Giovanni Laterano, erected by the same emperor, is an example of a similar kind, proving that sculpture had already declined greatly in his day : the figures of the Saviour and of the twelve Apostles, which he caused to be made in silver for this building, were in a very inferior style, without art, and with very little merit in design. Whoever will diligently examine the medals of Constantine moreover, with his statue and other works executed by the sculptors of his time, and now in the capitol, will see clearly that they are far from exhibiting the perfection displayed by the medals and statues of earlier emperors,— all which demonstrates clearly, that sculpture had greatly declined in Italy long before the coming of the Goths.

Architecture remained, as has been said, if not in its perfection, still in a much better state ; nor will this occasion surprise, for since almost all the more important edifices were erected from the spoils of earlier buildings, it was not difficult for the architects, in raising the new fabrics, to imitate the old, which they had always before their eyes ; and this they could do more easily than the sculptors, who, the art being wanting, were deprived of this advantage of imitating the noble works of the ancients. Of the decadence of sculpture, the church of the Prince of Apostles on the Vatican gives us clear proof ; for the riches of this building proceed solely from columns, capitals, bases, architraves, cornices, doors, and other ornaments and incrustations, all taken from different localities, and from the edifices so magnificently constructed in earlier times. The same thing may be said of the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, built by Constantine at the entreaty of his mother Helena. Of that of San Lorenzo, without the walls of Rome, and of St. Agnes, erected by the same emperor at the request of Constantia, his daughter. And who is now ignorant of the fact that the