Architecture Indebted to Coins
Architecture is largely indebted to coins, medals, and seals for accuracy and data. We learn from the medal of Septimus Severus the faultless beauty of the triumphal arch erected to celebrate his victory over Arabs and Parthians. This medal was produced two centuries before the Christian era, and is a marvel of art, for its perspective is wrought in bas-relief—an achievement which was not again attained before the execution of the celebrated Bronze Gates by Ghiberti, for the Baptistery at Florence, A. D. 1425. This exhumed arch was excavated long after its form and structure were familiar to men of letters through the medals.