reason that although that
building, which is likewise composed for the greater part of spoils, was
made with good enough proportions, it cannot be denied any the less, not
to speak of certain other parts, that the frieze made right round above
the columns with ornaments in stucco and in painting is wholly wanting
in design, and that many other things which are seen in that great
church demonstrate the imperfection of the arts.

Many years after, when the Christians were persecuted under Julian the
Apostate, there was erected on the C[oe]lian Mount a church to S. John
and S. Paul, the martyrs, in a manner so much worse than those named
above, that it is seen clearly that the art was at that time little less
than wholly lost. The buildings, too, that were erected at the same time
in Tuscany, bear most ample testimony to this; and not to speak of many
others, the church that was built outside the walls of Arezzo to S.
Donatus, Bishop of that city (who, together with the monk Hilarian,
suffered martyrdom under the said Julian the Apostate), was in no way
better in architecture than those named above. Nor can it be believed
that this came from anything else but the absence of better architects
in that age, seeing that the said church (as it has been possible to see
in our own day), which is octagonal and constructed from the spoils of
the Theatre, the Colosseum and other edifices that had been standing in
Arezzo before it was converted to the faith of Christ, was built without
thought of economy and at the greatest cost, and adorned with columns of
granite, of porphyry, and of many-coloured marbles, which had belonged
to the said buildings. And for myself I do not doubt, from the expense
which was clearly bestowed on that church, that if the Aretines had had
better architects they would have built something marvellous; for it may
be seen from what they did that they spared nothing if only they might
make that work as rich and as well designed as they possibly could, and
since, as has been already said so many times, architecture had lost
less of its perfection than the other arts, there was to be seen therein
some little of the good. At this time, likewise, was enlarged the Church
of S. Maria in Grado, in honour of the said Hilarian, for the reason
that he had been for a long time living in it when he went, with
Donatus, to the crown of martyrdom.

But because Fortune, when she has brought men to the height of her
wheel, i