MARCO
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

[FLORENCE: THE PITTI PALACE
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

[FLORENCE: THE HOUSE OF DANTE
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

[FRONT OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

[INTERIOR OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

[THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

[VENICE: PIAZZA OF ST. MARK'S, DUCAL PALACE ON THE LEFT
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

[VIEW OF VENICE FROM THE CAMPANILE
Illustration: Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]

In this ample period breathes the grandiose pride and intense patriotism
of the ancient republics. Athens under Pericles, and Rome under the
first Scipio cherished no prouder sentiments. At each step, here as
elsewhere, in texts and in monuments, is found, in Italy, the traces,
the renewal and the spirit of classic antiquity.

Let us, accordingly, look at the celebrated Duomo--but, the difficulty
is to see it. It stands upon flat ground, and, in order that the eye
might embrace its mass it would be necessary to level three hundred
buildings. Herein appears the defect of the great medieval structure;
even to-day, after so many openings, effected by modern demolishers,
most of the cathedrals are visible only on paper. The spectator catches
sight of a fragment, some section of a wall, or the facade; but the
whole escapes him; man's work is no longer proportioned to his organs.
It was not thus in antiquity; temples were small or of mediocre
dimensions, and were almost always erected on an eminence; their general
form and complete profile could be enjoyed from twenty different points
of view.

After the advent of Christianity, men's conceptions transcended their
forces, and the ambition of the spirit no longer took into account the
limitations of the body. The human machine lost its equilibrium. With
forgetfulness of the moderate there was established a love of the odd.
Without either reason or symmetry campaniles or bell-towers were
planted, like isolated posts, in front or alongside of cathedrals; there
is one of these alongside of the Duomo, and this change of human
equipoise must have been potent, since even here, among so many Latin
traditions and classic aptitudes, it declares itself.

In other respects, save the ogive arcades, the monument is not Gothic,
but Byzantine, or, rather, original; it is a creature o