8. You are in mid thirteenth century; 1200-1300. The Greek nation has been dead in heart upwards of a thousand years; its religion dead, for six hundred. But through the wreck of its faith, and death in its heart, the skill of its hands, and the cunning of its design, instinctively linger. In the centuries of Christian power, the Christians are still unable to build but under Greek masters, and by pillage of Greek shrines; and their best workman is only an apprentice to the 'Graeculi esurientes' who are carving the temple of St. John. 9. Think of it. Here has the New Testament been declared for 1200 years. No spirit of wisdom, as yet, has been given to its workmen, except that which has descended from the Mars Hill on which St. Paul stood contemptuous in pity. No Bezaleel arises, to build new tabernacles, unless he has been taught by Daedalus. 10. It is necessary, therefore, for you first to know precisely the manner of these Greek masters in their decayed power; the manner which Vasari calls, only a sentence before, "That old Greek manner, blundering, disproportioned,"--Goffa, e sproporzionata. "Goffa," the very word which Michael Angelo uses of Perugino. Behold, the Christians despising the Dunce Greeks, as the Infidel modernists despise the Dunce Christians. [1] [Footnote 1: Compare "Ariadne Floreutina," § 46.] 11. I sketched for you, when I was last at Pisa, a few arches of the apse of the duomo, and a small portion of the sculpture of the font of the Temple of St. John. I have placed them in your rudimentary series, as examples of "quella vecchia maniera Greca, goffa e sproporzionata." My own judgment respecting them is,--and it is a judgment founded on knowledge which you may, if you choose, share with me, after working with me,--that no architecture on this grand scale, so delicately skilful in execution, or so daintily disposed in proportion, exists elsewhere in the world. 12. Is Vasari entirely wrong then? No, only half wrong, but very fatally half wrong. There are Greeks, and Greeks.