Many were filled with paintings from a school which had precedence in time and merit over its sister nurseries of art in Germany.
All were peopled with statues.

All were filled with profusely-adorned chapels, for the churches had been enriched generation after generation by wealthy penitence, which had thus purchased absolution for crime and smoothed a pathway to heaven.
And now, for the space of only six or seven summer days and nights, there raged a storm by which all these treasures were destroyed.

Nearly every one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents; not for the purpose of plunder, but of destruction.

Hardly a province or a town escaped.

Art must forever weep over this bereavement; Humanity must regret that the reforming is thus always ready to degenerate into the destructive principle; but it is impossible to censure very severely the spirit which prompted the brutal, but not ferocious deed.