United States or Cameroon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The room was fitted up in the purest Greek style, not without an affectation of archaism, in the severe forms and subdued half-tints of the frescoes which ornamented the walls with scenes from the old myths of Athene. Yet the general effect, even under the blazing sun which poured in through the mosquito nets of the courtyard windows, was one of exquisite coolness, and cleanliness, and repose.
We had our lunch in a room opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch enclosing images and frescoes a curious episode in a place devoted to the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk.
The church too has suffered many violations, and to-day there are but two frescoes left of all the work Angelico did here, a triptych in a chapel, a Madonna and Saints restored by Lorenzo di Credi, and a Crucifixion in the sacristy.
Every visitor to Florence knows the venerable monastery of San Marco, with its hallowed relics of Savonarola, and its beautiful frescoes of Fra Angelico. In a large apartment of this monastery, which was formerly the library of the monks, are now held the meetings of the famous Della Cruscan Academy, instituted in 1582 for the purpose of purifying the national language.
Within, though it could not be said that any part had exactly fallen to decay, there were many rooms which had been long disused, in which the old frescoes and architectural designs in grey and white, and bits of bold perspective painted in the vaults and embrasures, were almost obliterated by time, and in which such furniture as there was could not survive much longer.
Above the alabaster slabs plastered decorations were used; in some cases painted frescoes have been found, or mosaics formed with enamelled bricks of various colours. In the out-buildings and the more retired rooms of the palace, the alabaster slabs were omitted, and plaster decorations used, from the ground upwards.
As holy-thursday is in great part devoted to the sufferings of Christ, the festival of Corpus Christi with its procession was instituted about the middle of the thirteenth century by Urban IV at the petition of B. Juliana of Mount Cornelione, and in consequence of the miracle of Bolsena, well known as the subject of one of Raffaello's frescoes in the Vatican. See Bened.
With the horn sounding its hoarse warning, we thundered through the narrow, tortuous, cobble-paved streets, between rows of old, old houses with faded frescoes on their plastered walls and with dim, echoing arcades.
The sun streamed over the sunken pavement to the neglected little altar with its coarse mosaics and paper flowers, over the rickety little pulpit and the traces of Byzantine gilding, and over the quaint old effigy of the founder. It fell, soft and brilliant and caressing, on the frescoes of Giotto.
The hunchback slid down from the little scaffolding he had constructed to enable him to survey the large area covered by the frescoes. "I suppose I have understood what you said," he cried.
Word Of The Day