The use of this ancient material suggests the true solution of the difficulty which every one must feel; how such a thing as this can be fine when we generally find such imitative work rather mean, rather lazy, rather expressive of the disposition to shirk one's duty than a thing to be commended. It might be objected in the first place that here evidently there has been no reluctance to undertake hard work, for the fitting of old and new details into the same general design, while the character of the old decoration has not been marred in the least, is difficult work enough for any workman. This, however, it is not necessary to urge. The essential thing in the whole situation is this: The reproduction of the fifteenth century house is practicable where the real fifteenth century house might have stood. In Milan, on a quiet by-street of the old city, we can imagine this house having remained intact and unaltered from some time in the second half of the fifteenth century until now. Had any family been rich enough and possessed of the spirit of continuity, that building would have been so preserved. The climate allows of it; the habits of the people would make it easy; one family, or, as perhaps in this case, the families of two brothers, may inhabit such a mansion, and might have inhabited it at any time from 1575 onward for three hundred years. Moreover, there is no time when such a house might not have been built. At least, if we admit that the artists of earlier days were incapable of deliberate and faithful copying of details—that is all that would separate a house built on these lines in the eighteenth century from this one of to-day. The traditions have remained, the masons have worked on these lines, the stone-cutters have wielded the chisel just as their forefathers did before them; nothing but a deliberate resolve to call into prominence the traditional knowledge and the traditional habits which have lingered among the workmen has been necessary in order to call into existence this memory of the past.
Largest Inner Court with Graffiti; Vestibule with Ancient Wooden Ceiling.
You could not build in that way in another country. This house on the streets of Paris would have been an absurdity. In Milan it represents the wholesome feeling of national and local sentiment, family pride perhaps, a sense of what is fitting, a sense of continuity, all that is noble and dignified in the sentimental or theoretical side of fine art—it is this and nothing worse or lower than this which has directed this interesting piece of work. In France, as we have said, and still more strongly in the United States, such a piece of work would have been a mere tour de force, a mere piece of deliberate copying, and, still more, a deliberate avoidance of the critical problem—how to plan and build an American city house. In north Italy it is the legitimate and wholly sensible scheme of building an old-fashioned Milanese house to serve new Milanese purposes—and anyone may respect and sympathize with such an undertaking as that.
Smaller Inner Court: Graffiti and Stucco Ornaments in Low Relief.
The full title of the work above-mentioned is as follows:
QUI SI CONTENGONO LE TAVOLE RAPPRESENTANTI LI DISEGNI DE LA CASA DE LI FRATELLI BAGATI VALSECHI CHE RITROVASI IN MILANO AL Ñ. 7 DE LA VIA DE SAN SPIRITO FEDEL RIPRODOTTI DAL VERO CON LA NUOVA INVENTIONE DE LA ELIOTIPIA.
Fausti et Iosephi Frarum de Bagatis Opus An. Dei. MDCCCXCV.
The reader will note in the Italian title the difference in spelling, as of the proper names, caused by the antique form in which it is cast.