United States or Wallis and Futuna ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Centaur tore away; and Dante and Virgil were gazing after him, when they heard voices beneath the bank on which they stood, crying, "Who are ye?" The pilgrims turned their eyes downwards, and beheld three spirits, one of whom, looking about him, said, "Where's Cianfa?" Dante made a sign to Virgil to say nothing. Cianfa came forth, a man lately, but now a serpent with six feet.
The question as to the existence of an indigenous school of painting before the Italian artistic invasion is still a subject of acrimonious discussion among critics; there is none, however, as to its existence in the plastic arts. The old French tradition died hard, and not before it had stamped upon Italian Renaissance architecture the impress of its native genius and adapted it to the requirements of French life and climate. The Hôtel de Cluny, finished in 1490, still remains to exemplify the beauty of the native French domestic architecture modified by the new style. The old Hôtel de Ville, designed by Dom. da Cortona and submitted to Francis in 1532, was dominated by the French style, and not until nearly a century after the first Italian Expedition were the last Gothic builders superseded. The fine Gothic church of St. Merri was begun as late as 1520 and not finished till 1612, and the transitional churches of St. Étienne and St. Eustache remind one, by the mingling of Gothic and Renaissance features, of the famous metamorphosis of Agnel and Cianfa in Dante's Inferno, and one is tempted to exclaim, Ome, come ti muti! Vedi, che gi
Word Of The Day