This Would Enrich Us Beyond The Dreams Of
Avarice In A High-Grade Portrait Statuary; It Would Give Work To
Hundreds Of Sculptors Who Now Have Little Or Nothing To Do, And Would
Revive Or Create The Supplementary Industries Of Casting In Metal Or
Carving In Stone.
The time was in Genoa, it seems, as the time is now with us, when a
great many people did not know what to do with their money.
There were
sumptuary laws which forbade their spending it, either they or their
wives or daughters, in dress; apparently they could not even wear Genoa
velvet, which had to be sold abroad for the corruption of the outside
world; and this is said to be the reason why there were so many palaces
built in Genoa in the days of the republic. People who did not wish to
figure in that hall of fame put their surplus into the immense and often
ugly edifices which we still see ministering to their pride in the wide
and narrow streets of the city. Now and then a devout family built or
rebuilt a church and gave it to the public; but by far the greater
number put up palaces, where, after the house-warming, they dwelt in a
cold and economical seclusion. Some of their palaces are now devoted to
public uses; they are galleries of pictures and statues most worthy to
be seen, or they are municipal offices, or museums, or schools of art or
science; but part are still in the keeping of the families that
contributed them to the splendor of their city.
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