We Build With Our Brains, Not By Hands
(Letters to the Ancients #2)
To write letters to the ancient sages was once a noble discipline, a means by which the wise sharpened their judgment and deepened their understanding.
This is my attempt to revive the tradition.
Dear Cicero,
Forgive me for sending another letter before receiving your response to my last. I write to you from a place far from where I usually do, and I thought to share with you images of a city that did not yet exist when you walked upon this earth.
One great philosopher, poet and painter who lived near your home once said that we create by our brains, not by hands. I write these words with an evidence that the great Michelangelo who uttered these words was correct.
As you know, Nature fashioned friendship as an aid to virtue, and with one such friend, I visited one of the grandest temples of our time - Saint Nicholas’s Church in Prague.
Looking at the images I have enclosed, you might think that the spirit of humankind has ascended to the heights beyond what many of your time deemed possible. The level of artisanship, intellect, and spiritual fortitude required to bring such a masterpiece into being is indeed beyond imagination. Yet, I must caution you - human nature does not ascend in an unbroken arc; it ebbs and wanes, grows tired of its own strength, and at times embraces weakness, only to relearn the vices of frailty and be reborn in strength once more.
Most modern buildings are erected by hands with minimal engagement of the mind and an almost complete absence of spirit. In my time, we build to satisfy appetite, not to nourish the soul. We have learned much from rediscovering the architecture of your era, my dear Cicero, yet those who one day unearth the structures raised by my generation will have little choice but to call this age a new Dark Age.
You were born before Christ replaced Juno as the guiding light of life, yet if you could step into this temple, you would feel your soul fortified, your sorrows giving way to hope for the future.
Not because you would come to believe in a new deity, but because you would be reminded of what the human spirit is capable of when it places virtue above vice.
The more I immerse myself in history, the more I realise that we can learn just as much - if not more - from the architecture of the past as from the texts that claim to know about it. Written words, after all, are easily counterfeited, distorted, or forged. This has happened countless times throughout history. The truth within a text is only as reliable as the honesty and credibility of its author.
But cathedrals and churches cannot be forged. They stand as witnesses to the aspirations, life choices, and spirit of those who built them. The Duomo reveals more about the strength of soul, moral depth, and way of life of the Florentines than any historian ever could. One need only gaze upon Brunelleschi’s Dome to understand everything about his character - his genius, his ingenuity, his defiance of limitation - without reading a single word from any biographer.
As my friend and I stood breathless, our chins pointing upward, lost in the beauty of the frescoes around us, a charming Italian lady - whom we had never met before -approached. For a moment, we thought she might lose her balance, intoxicated by sheer architectural beauty.
— “Magnifico! Magnifico! Oh my God” - she exclaimed - her gaze shifting to us as if searching for kindred souls who could understand her awe. I could see her mind reaching for English words to capture what we were all witnessing, yet none seemed sufficient.
As my friend and I walked past these marvellous statues, I turned to my companion and said: The same creature who built this cathedral now erects soulless glass towers. The only difference between the former and the latter is the strength of their inner citadel - the shape of their soul.
I have enclosed the best pictures I could take for you, my dear Cicero, but I must share with you this proverb: It is better to see something once with your own eyes than to hear of it a thousand times from another’s lips.
I truly hope that the spirit that once gave rise to the greatest architectural wonders will awaken once more. Until then, we must strive to preserve it, for mediocrity always seeks to level all things down, leaving no trace that anything greater than itself ever existed.
Confide tibimet,