Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/34

20 ting the mention of many others, the church built beyond the walls of Arezzo, in honour of St. Donatus, bishop of that city, who suffered martyrdom, together with the monk Hilarin, under this Julian the Apostate, was in no respect of better architecture than those before mentioned. Nor is this to be attributed to any other cause than the want of better masters in those times ; since this octagonal church, as may be still seen in our own day, built from the spoils of the Theatre, the Colosseum, and other edifices, which had been erected in Arezzo before that city was converted to the faith of Christ, was constructed without any restriction as to the cost, which was very great; the church was, besides, further adorned with columns of granite, porphyry, and varicoloured marbles, which had belonged to the antique buildings above named. And, for my own part, I make no doubt but that the people of Arezzo—to judge from the expense to which we see that they went for this church—would have produced something marvellous in that work, if they had been able to procure better architects ; for we perceive, by what they have done, that they spared nothing to render it as rich and in as good style as they possibly could make it ; and since architecture had lost less of its perfection than the other arts, as we have said more than once, there is exhibited a certain degree of beauty in this building. The church of Santa Maria in Grado, was at the same time enlarged, in honour of St. Hilarian, who had been long a resident in that church, when he received with St. Donatus the palm of martyrdom.

But as fortune, when she has raised either persons or things to the summit of her wheel, very frequently casts them to the lowest point, whether in repentance or for her sport, so it chanced that, after these things, the barbarous nations of the world arose, in divers places, in rebellion against the Romans ; whence there ensued, in no long time, not only the decline of that great empire, but the utter ruin of the whole, and more especially of Rome herself, when all the best artists,