Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/53

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II.—JOHN THE PISAN.
33

itself. It seems as if in Perugia, as in London, you had the fountains in Trafalgar Square against Queen Elinor's Cross; or the viaduct and railway station contending with the Gothic chapel, which the master of the large manufactory close by has erected, because he thinks pinnacles and crockets have a pious influence; and will prevent his workmen from asking for shorter hours, or more wages.

43. It seems only; the antagonism is quite of another kind,—or, rather, of many other kinds. But note at once how complete it is—how utterly this Greek fountain of Perugia, and the round arches of Pisa, are opposed to the school of design which gave the trefoils to Niccola's pulpit, and the traceries to Giovanni's Campo Santo.

The antagonism, I say, is of another kind than ours; but deep and wide; and to explain it, I must pass for a time to apparently irrelevant topics.

You were surprised, I hope, (if you were attentive enough to catch the points in what I just now read from Vasari,) at my venturing to bring before you, just after I had been using violent language against the Sienese for