Rome [antikvár]

PREFA CE Every visitor to an archaeological site knows the difficulty, pften indeed the impossibility, of imagining what it was lik^e before its buildings were destroyed. The ruins are dead things; they speak their own language, which is romantic enough, but does not evoke a picture of the monuments in their original life and splendour. This is a guide that will help him to see not only what a monument is, but, at the same time, what it was. The itinerary followed is not in chronological order, but we hope that from the commentary accompanying each plate it will be quite clear to what historical period each monument belonged. The monuments of the eternal city can give us a sense of participation in the stream of history, far more vividly than any object preserved in a museum. Artists like Ghirlandaio, the Sangallos, Dosio, the Peruzzi, Labacco, Vignola, excavated with enthusiasm and energy in order to discover the proportions and rhythms of classical buildings.