serve as examples to the moderns; and all you show us is a perfect
image of the excellence of your mind, because it is not possible to
build correctly without good sense and a well cultivated understanding."

In his directions to the Prefect of Rome, on the architecture of the
public edifices, Theodoric thus wrote:

"The beauty of the Roman buildings requires a skillful overseer, in
order that such a wonderful forest of edifices should be preserved with
constant care, and the new ones properly constructed, both internally
and externally. Therefore we direct our generosity not only to the
preservation of ancient things, but to the investing the new ones with
the glories of antiquity. Be it known, therefore, to your illustrious
person, that for this end an architect of the Roman walls is appointed.
And because the study of the arts requires assistance, we desire that he
may have every reasonable accommodation that his predecessors have
enjoyed. He will certainly see things superior to what he has read of,
and more beautiful than he could ever have imagined. The statues still
feel their renowned authors, and appear to live: he will observe
expressed in the bronze, the veins, the muscles swollen by exertion, the
nerves gradually stretched, and the figure expressing those feelings
which act on a living subject.

"It is said that the first artists in Italy were the Etruscans, and thus
posterity has given to them, as well as to Rome, almost the power of
creating man. How wonderful are the horses, so full of spirit, with
their fiery nostrils, their sparkling eyes, their easy and graceful
limbs;--they would move, if not of metal. And what shall we say of those
lofty, slender, and finely fluted columns, which appear a part of the
sublime structure they support? That appears wax, which is hard and
elegant metal; the joints in the marble being like natural veins. The
beauty of art is to deceive the eye. Ancient historians acquaint us with
only seven wonders in the world: the Temple of Diana, at Ephesus; the
magnificent sepulchre of the king Mausolus, from whence is derived the
word mausoleum; the bronze Colossus of the Sun, in Rhodes; the statue of
Jupiter Olympius, of gold and ivory, formed by the masterly hand of
Phidias, the first of architects; the palace of Cyrus, King of Media,
built by Memnon of stones united by gold; the walls of Babylon,
constructed by Semiramis of brick, pitch, and iron; the pyramids of
Egypt, the shado