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THE BROCHURE SERIES The Duomo and the Campanile: Florence. Grotesques from Notre Dame, Paris. JUNE, 1900 |
| PLATE XLIII | THE DUOMO AND THE CAMPANILE |
THE | ||
| 1900. | JUNE | No. 6. |
THE DUOMO AND THE CAMPANILE: FLORENCE.
"It was in the middle of the thirteenth century," writes Symonds, "during the long struggle for independence carried on by the republics of Lombardy and Tuscany against the Empire and the nobles, that some of the most durable and splendid public works were executed. The domes and towers of Florence and of Pisa were rising above the city walls, while the burghers who subscribed for their erection were staining the waves of Meloria and the cane-brakes of the Arbia with their blood. Sismondi remarks with just pride, that these great works were republican. They were set on foot for the public use, and were constructed at the expense of the commonwealths. It is, however, right to add that what the communes had begun the princes continued. The Despots held their power at the price of magnificence in schemes of public utility. So much at least of the free spirit of the communes survived in them, that they were always rivalling each other in great works of architecture. Italian tyranny implied æsthetic taste and liberality of expenditure."