The austere Benedict, who, his biographer tells us, left the walls of the
consistory naked, appears to have expended little on the pictorial
decorations of the halls and chambers erected during his pontificate; but
with the elevation of the luxurious and art-loving Clement VI., a new
spirit breathes over the fabric. The stern simplicity and noble strength
of his predecessor's work assume an internal vesture of richness and
beauty; the walls glow with azure and gold; a legion of Gallic sculptors
and Italian painters lavish their art on the embellishment of the
palace....
Such, in brief outline, was the progress of the mighty fabric and its
internal decoration which the great popes of Avignon raised to be their
dwelling-place, their fortress, and the ecclesiastical center of
Christendom. Tho shorn of all its pristine beauty and robbed of much of
its symmetry, it stands to-day in bulk and majesty, much as it stood at
the end of Clement VI.'s reign, when a contemporary writer describes it as
a quadrangular edifice, enclosed within high walls and towers and
constructed in most noble style, and tho it was all most beautiful to look
upon, there were three parts of transcendent beauty: the Audientia, the
Capella major, and the terraces: and these were so admirably planned and
contrived that peradventure no palace comparable to it was to be found in
the whole world.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184