The Cathedral Builders

In most histories of Italian art we are conscious of a vast hiatus of several centuries, between the ancient classic art of Romewhich was in its decadence when the Western Empire ceased in the fifth century after Christand that early rise of art in the twelfth century which led to the Renaissance.This hiatus is generally supposed to be a time when Art was utterly dead and buried, its corpse in Byzantine dress lying embalmed in its tomb at Ravenna. But all death is nothing but the germ of ne...