Nothing I think left to
us in the world is more sumptuous and gorgeous than this interior.
Everywhere are glittering mosaics, precious slabs of marble, priceless
columns of beautiful marble. And where the mosaics have been destroyed
or left unfinished, as in the cupola and the body of the church,
baroque artists have filled the place with their paintings, paintings
which in their own style are matchless and which it is now foolishly
proposed should be destroyed.[1]
[Footnote 1: We know nothing of any mosaics other than those in the
presbytery and the tribunes, it may be that the church was covered
with mosaic or was painted by the Byzantine artists, and this as well
where the marble slabs now cover the piers as elsewhere. If so it must
have been glorious indeed. Nothing that we can do can restore this
work to us, and we achieve nothing but destruction by destroying the
work that is now there.]
In our examination of the church we turn first to the presbytery,
which is entirely encrusted with most precious marbles and mosaics. In
the midst of it stands the altar consisting of slabs of
semi-transparent alabaster, within which of old lights were set.
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