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Show PISA LIVES BY ITS CATHEDRAL. "I cannot believe it. It is impossible!" cried Commendatore Ettore Ximenes, director of fine arts in the Italian Ministry of Public- Instruction and sculptor of the Verrazzano monument in Battery Park, when told of the report re-port that a mob had destroyed and burned the Cathedral of Pisa. "Such an act of vandalism might be possible in some cities, but in Pisa, no! What would Pisa be without its cathedral? cathe-dral? The town lives on its cathedral; that is all that attracts anyone to the city, which has no trade, no manufacturing manufac-turing and scarcely any life but what it derives from the DeoDle who come from all over the world just to see Its cathedral." The famous Italian artist was sitting at his easel in the studio he is using while in New York, painting in pastel the head of a wonderfully beautiful model posed before him. His first ejaculation ejacu-lation of disbelief was one of mere incredulity, in-credulity, but as the thought sank into him he fairly roared with wrath. He threw down his pastels, rose from his seat, paid a delicate compliment to his model and seized a pen. "I will write you what I think of the report," he said, as he seated himself at a desk. And this is what he wrote: "It cannot be as announced. Tuscany is cultured, is the most highly civilized of all the regions of Italy, especially in the cult of art. "The barbarians and the iconoclasts destroyed and smashed inestimable treasures of art. But those were eras of reprisal. Christianity was trying to assert itself and paganism was struggling strug-gling against perishing. "Pisa lives by its cathedral, by its leaning tower, by its pulpit of Nicola Pisano. Without its Duomo it would have to go into bankruptcy. "The impression this news makes upon me is stronger than that I received re-ceived from the fall of the Campanile of San Marco. Yet I say now, as I said then, that nature in demolishing it has given a reason to art. But in spite of the trouble which that masto-donic masto-donic pile gave to the authorities and in spite of the way it diminished the majesty of the Church of St. Mark, the Venetians wanted it rebuilt. "The home, the walls of a city are as dear to its people as are their children. chil-dren. If acts of vandalism are committed com-mitted among savage peoples they are due not to the very inhabitants of a city, but to barbarians who invade it. "Now, who among the Italians would storm the walls of Pisa to destroy the most beautiful jewel that Italy boasts? "If the shooting of Ferrer weakens the monarchy of Spain, socialism and anti-clericalism would be morally killed by such a deed of vandalism as that." |