eBooks Base 2000

These,
however, we did not see. There are very glowing frescos on portions of
the walls; but, there being much whitewash instead of incrusted marble,
it has not the pleasant aspect which one's eye learns to demand in Roman
churches. There is a good deal of statuary along the columns of the
nave, and in the monuments of the side aisles.
In reference to the interior splendor of Roman churches, I must say that
I think it a pity that painted windows are exclusively a Gothic ornament;
for the elaborate ornamentation of these interiors puts the ordinary
daylight out of countenance, so that a window with only the white
sunshine coming through it, or even with a glimpse of the blue Italian
sky, looks like a portion left unfinished, and therefore a blotch in the
rich wall. It is like the one spot in Aladdin's palace which he left for
the king, his father-in-law, to finish, after his fairy architects had
exhausted their magnificence on the rest; and the sun, like the king,
fails in the effort.


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