But however much Constantine may himself have done, the bad taste and clumsy execution introduced at this time, certainly contributed much to the subversion of the fine arts. The Goths made an attack upon Rome in the year 537, which likewise proved very disastrous to the an cient monuments. Procopius mentions, that in the assault they made upon the fortress, now called of St. Angelo, formerly the Mausoleum of Hadrian, the ample summit of which was peopled with statues of great value, the Greeks and Romans who defended the walls broke these masterly works into pieces, for the purpose of hurling them down upon the enemy From the state in which most of the remnants of ancient art arc now found, it is likely that a great proportion of these was subjected to a similar fate ; more especially as the public buildings where these monuments were generally deposited, were the most of any exposed to attack, from the shelter they afforded to those who sought the protection of their strong walls.
Tiraboschi is of opinion that more destruction ensued from this cause, than from any wilfulness of the victorious Goths ; as they appear to have shown considerable regard for sculpture at least, and continued to give it encourage ment even after they had made themselves masters of Italy ; but he doubts their having given any countenance whatever to painting, as he finds no notice taken of it. There is an enumeration given of the workmen employed in repairing and embellishing the royal palace of the Gothic monarch, in the sixth century, in which are men tioned the architects employed ; the marble sculptors; founders of bronze ; those who constructed the domes; workers in stucco and in mosaic: but no mention whatever is made of painters. Neither do any of the writers of the age take notice of its practice, except in the lives of the Popes, where it is recorded that some of the churches were decorated with pictures. The popes St. Sylvester and St. Leo, in the fifth century, added pictures and mo saics to the decorations of certain churches, as appears from the fresco paintings bestowed by the latter pontiff on the church of St Paul in Rome. On the walls of the church of St. Urbain, it is still possible to distinguish traces of the frescos of the tenth century. They are now only interesting in an historical point of view, as the date 1011 appears upon them. There are some others of a similar description at Orvietto, Fiesole, and elsewhere in Italy. At Venice, for instance, the Greeks of Constanti nople, in the eleventh century, ornamented antique gem, the church of St. Mark, with the magnificent mo
saics still to be seen there.
In the time of Justinian, the Bishop of Naples bestow ed upon the church of St. Stephen, besides many mosaics, a particular picture of the Transfiguration, which was looked upon as marvellous. Pictures are likewise men tioned to have constituted an important article in the de coration of his own palace. So that, even at this period, it does not appear that Italy was absolutely barren of pain ters, however much the art may have languished.
It was not likely to have languished less under the rude government of the Lombards ; but although devastation continued its course during the constant struggle which succeeded the invasion of the Goths, yet the barbarity of the Lombards proved less fatal than the rapacity of the Greeks themselves. For when the emperor Constans, in the year 663, began to follow t xample of his prede cessors in stripping Italy of het.easures of ancient art, he swept away every thing that he could transport to Con stantinople, even the bronze covering of the roof of the Pantheon. Yet we are not without the record of pictures in the time of the Lombards ; for Pope John VII. in the year 705, was employed in the decoration of some Roman churches with paintings. His example was followed by Gregory III.; besides the works in mosaic which are fre quently mentioned by the writers of that period, Pope Za chary had a description of the world painted in the Late ran palace, upon a very large scale, most probably a sort of map ; and the bishop of Ravenna had a series of por traits painted of himself and his predecessors in the pon tificate; so that the absolute extinction of the art, at any period, seems to be a vulgar prejudice. There are many that maintain, and even some Italian authors themselves, that these examples mentioned of the practice of painting during the dark ages, were merely the remnants of some of the Greek itinerant artists who went about vending their productions. This may be the case, but there is no proof of it ; and there is, moreover, decided evidence that, at that period which is generally considered as the most barbarous, painting of portraits and scriptural subjects was practised by the native Lombards themselves. Of this description is a picture in the church of St. Ambro sins, at Milan, which there is every reason to suppose a work of the seventh century. It represents the portraits of the suffragan bishops of that church.