But these first endeavours of the Romantic spirit to assimilate the Classic mannerism--essays no less interesting than those of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, of Donatello and Omodei in sculpture--all of them alike, whether buildings, poems, paintings, or statues, displaying the genius of the Italic race, renascent, recalcitrant against the Gothic style, while still to some extent swayed by its influence (at one and the same time both Christian and chivalrous, Pagan and precociously cynical; yet charmingly fresh, unspoiled by dogma, uncontaminated by pedantry)--these first endeavours of the Romantic spirit to assimilate the Classic mannerism could not create a new style representative of the national life.

They had the fault inherent in all hybrids, however fanciful and graceful.
They were sterile and unprocreative.

The warring elements, so deftly and beautifully blent in them, began at once to fall asunder.

The San Galli attempted to follow classical precedent with stricter severity.
Some buildings of their school may still be reckoned among the purest which remain to prove the sincerity of the Revival of Learning.

The Sansovini exaggerated the naivete of the earlier Renaissance manner, and pushed its picturesqueness over into florid luxuriance or decorative detail.