It is towards this structure of twelve hundred years' duration, erected
by hands stained with blood, and yet preserved as a star of peace in the
midst of stormy centuries of war, that we would direct the reader's
attention. What art has done for the modern church, time has effected
for the ancient. If the one is majestic to the eye by its grandeur, the
other is hallowed to the memory by its age.
As this church by its rise commemorated the triumphant establishment of
Christianity as the religion of Rome, so in its progress it reflected
every change wrought in the spirit of the new worship by the ambition,
the prodigality, or the frivolity of the priests. At first it stood
awful and imposing, beautiful in all its parts as the religion for whose
glory it was built. Vast porphyry colonnades decorated its approaches,
and surrounded a fountain whose waters issued from the representation of
a gigantic pine-tree in bronze. Its double rows of aisles were each
supported by forty-eight columns of precious marble.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131