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                                                                         MIRACOLO CHURCH OF
                                                                      Church of Miracoli:  It is entered  under a kind of gallery supported
                                                                      by two square shafts - so vile, meagre and miserable in
                                                                      proportion that I could not believe them stone - they
                                                                      looked like some upholsterers work under a gallery in
                                                                      London:  They are covered with exquisite arabesques:
                                                                      a serpent fighting w[i]ith a bird, full of spirit, and
                                                                      the scales on the serpent head most scientifically and
                                                                      thoroughly plated on:  Some nestlings above are as beauti-
                                                                      ful in arrangement as those of the doge’s palace;  but
                                                                      instead of a nest, they have a plaited basket
                                                                      which altogether spoils their effect.  The loveliest
                                                                      thing in the church is the base of the great pillar
                                                                      on the left hand of the chancel:  it is a group of
                                                                      Stothard like children, playing with a wreath of
                                                                      flowers of which the central mass if the sweetest,
                                                                      richest - plunge depth of silky leafage I ever saw
                                                                      in marble.
                                                                      	The correspondent one opposite is nearly as good:  The
                                                                      repetition of the cinque cento common place nonsense -
                                                                      lions ending in birds, and griffins in leaves, and
                                                                      everything in the eternally repeated line of beauty
                                                                      curve, utterly wearies the eye, and has nothing to
                                                                      offer to the mind;  It is the pursuit of aesthetic
                                                                      beauty in its most senseless form, until it is utterly
                                                                      satiating, all thought - all teaching - all true manli-
                                                                      ness sacrificed to flowing curves and crisp edges

[Version 0.05: May 2008]