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and most perfect state, to those which time 

 iias most defaced and mutilated. 



Many of the first great masters of the 

 revived art, Leonardo da Vinci, M. Ange- 

 Jo, Raphael, G. Romano, and others, were 

 architects as well as painters ; and several 

 buildings were executed after their designs, 

 and under their inspection. But I am now 

 considering architecture as it appears in 

 pictures, and mixed with other objects ; 

 and among these great artists Raphael is 

 the only one, who has left a number of 

 historical compositions in which buildings 

 and architecture form so principal a part, as 

 may enable us to form a judgment of the 

 result, of the whole. The general charac- 

 ter of his architecture, like that of his 

 figures, is a sedate and simple grandeur, 

 equally free from superfluous ornament, 

 and from strongly marked contrasts : and 

 -such is that of the painters of the Roman 

 and Florentine schools taken in a general 

 view, and with the exceptions and modifica- 

 tions which in such views must occur. 



