zo at Milan, or that of S. Giulia at Brescia, because all of
them were very costly, but in a most ugly and rambling style. In
Florence the style of architecture was slightly improved somewhat
later, the church of S. Apostolo built by Charlemagne, although
small, being very beautiful, because the shape of the columns,
although made up of pieces, is very graceful and beautifully made,
and the capitals and the arches in the vaulting of the side aisles
show that some good architect was left in Tuscany, or had arisen
there. In fine the architecture of this church is such that Pippo di
Ser Brunnellesco did not disdain to make use of it as his model in
designing the churches of S. Spirito and S. Lorenzo in the same city.
The same progress may be noticed in the church of S. Mark's at
Venice, not to speak of that of S. Giorgio Maggiore erected by
Giovanni Morosini in the year 978. S. Mark's was begun under the Doge
Giustiniano and Giovanni Particiaco next to S. Teodosio, when the
body of the Evangelist was brought from Alexandria to Venice. After
the Doge's palace and the church had suffered severely from a series
of fires, it was rebuilt upon the same foundations in the Byzantine
style as it stands to-day, at a great cost and with the assistance
of many architects, in the time of the Doge Domenico Selvo, in the
year 973, the columns being brought from the places where they could
be obtained. The construction was continued until the year 1140, M.
Piero Polani being then Doge, from the plans of several masters who
were all Greeks, as I have said. Erected at the same time, and also
in the Byzantine style, were the seven abbeys built in Tuscany by
Count Hugh, Marquis of Brandenburg, such as the Badia of Florence,
the abbey of Settimo, and the others. All these structures and the
vestiges of others which are not standing bear witness to the fact
that architecture maintained its footing though in a very bastard
form far removed from the good antique style. Further evidence is
afforded by a number of old palaces erected in Florence in Tuscan
work after the destruction of Fiesole, but the measurements of the
doors and the very elongated windows and the sharp-pointed arches
after the manner of the foreign architects of the day, denote some
amount of barbarism. In the year after 1013 the art appears to have
received an access of vigour in the rebuilding of the beautiful
church of S. Miniato on the Mount in the time of M. Alibrando,
cit