"We fix our gaze on the remains of a triumphal arch, a portico, a pyramid, a temple, a palace, and we plunge into meditation. We anticipate the ravages of time, and our imagination scatters over the very buildings in which we live. All at once, solitude and silence reign around us. We alone remain, of an entire nation that no longer exists; and this is first line of the poetics of ruins." —Denis Diderot