Note 11 — ABATE LUIGI LANZI.

I do not admit this principle. Horace laid it down for the art of poetry alone, because it is a faculty that perishes when it ceases to give delight. Architecture, on the other hand, confers vast utility when it does not please, by presenting us with habitations; and painting, and sculpture, by preserving the features of men, and illustrious actions. Besides, let us recollect, that Horace denounces the production of inferior verses, because there is not space enough for them; "Non concessere columnæ," but it is not so with paintings of mediocrity. In any country Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, may be read, and he who has never read a poor poet, will write better than if he had read a hundred. But it is not every one who can boast either in the houses or temples of his country, of possessing the works of good artists; and for purposes of worship or of ornament, the less excellent ones may suffice; wherefore these also produce some advantage.