The Arts XI-XIV Centuries

Cue (NZERS), 1 June 1944, Page 13

The Arts XI-XIV Centuries

It must not be t supposed - that during these, troubled times the arts were wholly dead. In the 1 i-th and 12th Centuries considerable restoration of Roman Churches was carried out. In particular, St. Sabina, the Prascde and .S’. Cecilia. Good antique stone was dragged from classic temples, for it was found that the cost and difficulties of /transport had vastly increased the value of the material which Rome had plentifully at hand. ' .

In the 13th Century the Gothic influence spread in southern Italy but hardly touched Rome, where the old style lingered. . The population of Rome which might have been 50,000 at the time of the Jubilee — exclusive of . Pilgrims—was. further reduced by a plague in the middle of the Century, when it fell to a level almost as low in proportion as. the 17th Century Athens, then only a village. Rome, which had 1,250,000 inhabitants in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, had 17,000 about 1350 after the Black Death.