DIO
CONSERVI A NOI.
LUNGAMENTE
LO ZELANTIS. E. REVERENDIS
D. LUIGI. PICCINI.
NOSTRO
NOVELLO PIEVANO.
GLI ESULTANT.
PARROCCHIANI
[12] The quantity of gold with which the decorations of Venice were once covered could not now be traced or credited without reference to the authority of Gentile Bellini. The greater part of the marble mouldings have been touched with it in lines and points, the minarets of St. Mark's, and all the florid carving of the arches entirely sheeted. The Casa d'Oro retained it on its lions until the recent commencement of its Restoration.
[13] Indeed there should be no such difference at all. Every architect ought to be an artist; every very great artist is necessarily an architect.
[14] This passage seems at variance with what has been said of the necessity of painting present times and objects. It is not so. A great painter makes out of that which he finds before him something which is independent of all time. He can only do this out of the materials ready to his hand, but that which he builds has the dignity of dateless age. A little painter is annihilated by an anachronism, and is conventionally antique, and involuntarily modern.