frieze and pediment, as the Greeks did, or inlay it with other
coloured marbles as they did in Venice. Otherwise you had better
build in simple red brick as your Puritan fathers, with no pretence
and with some beauty. Do not treat your marble as if it was
ordinary stone and build a house of mere blocks of it. For it is
indeed a precious stone, this marble of yours, and only workmen of
nobility of invention and delicacy of hand should be allowed to
touch it at all, carving it into noble statues or into beautiful
decoration, or inlaying it with other coloured marbles: for 'the
true colours of architecture are those of natural stone, and I
would fain see them taken advantage of to the full. Every variety
is here, from pale yellow to purple passing through orange, red,
and brown, entirely at your command; nearly every kind of green and
grey also is attainable, and with these and with pure white what
harmony might you not achieve. Of stained and variegated stone the
quantity is unlimited, the kinds innumerable. Were brighter
colours required, let glass, and gold protected by glass, be used
in mosaic, a kind of work as durable as the solid stone and
incapable of losing its lustre by time. And let the painter's work
be reserved for the shadowed loggia and inner chamber.

'This is the true and faithful way of building. Where this cannot
be, the device of external colouring may indeed be employed without
dishonour - but it must be with the warning reflection that a time
will come when such aids will pass away and when the building will
be judged in its lifelessness, dying the death of the dolphin.
Better the less bright, more enduring fabric. The transparent
alabasters of San Miniato and the mosaics of Saint Mark's are more
warmly filled and more brightly touched by every return of morning
and evening, while the hues of the Gothic cathedrals have died like