Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/31

The rise of art in Rome must have taken place at a late epoch, if it be true, as we find asserted, that among her first statues was the bronze figure of Ceres, formed from the spoils of Spurius Cassius, who was deliberately put to death by his own father, for having aspired to become king. And although the arts of sculpture and painting continued to be practised to the close of the reign of the twelve Caesars, yet they did not maintain themselves in that degree of excellence and perfection which they had previously displayed ; so that, in all the buildings erected by the emperors, one after another, the arts may be gradually seen to decline, until all perfection of the art of design was ultimately lost. To the truth of this assertion, the works in sculpture and architecture, executed in Rome under Constantine, bear ample testimony, more particularly the triumphal arch, raised to him by the Roman people, near the Colosseum, where we perceive that, for the want of good masters, they not only availed themselves of sculptures executed in the time of Trajan, but also of the spoils brought to Rome from other parts of the empire. The observer who remarks that the sacrificial processions on the medallions, sculptured in mezzo-rilievo, with the captives, the larger reliefs, the columns, cornices, and other ornaments, formed of spoils and executed in earlier times, are well done, will also perceive that the works executed by the sculptors of the day, to fill up the spaces remaining unoccupied, are extremely rude. The same may be said of the small historical representations beneath the medallions and of the basement, where certain victories are represented, which, as well as the river-gods between the arches, are so rudely done, that we are justified in assuming the art of sculpture to have even then commenced its decline, although the Goths, and other barbarous and foreign nations, by whom Italy was ravaged, and all the nobler arts destroyed, had not then made their incursions. It is true that architecture suffered less during those times than the other arts, as may be inferred from the bath erected by Constantine at the entrance to the principal portico of the Lateran ; for besides the columns of porphyry, capitals in marble, and the double bases, taken from different localities, all very finely executed, the whole arrangement of the building is also excellent ; while the stuccoes, on the contrary,with the Mosaic and other incrustations,