BEICK AND MARBLE 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES.
 
 Uniform ivitli the present Volume. 
 
 THE GOTHIC AECHITECTUEE OF SPAIN : from Per 
 SONAL Observations made during several Journeys. By G. E. STREET, 
 R.A. Second Edition, with 100 Illustrations. Medium 8vo, 30s 
 
 " Mr. Street has opened a new vein of architectural interest. Every part of this work pre- 
 sents evidence of the labour and deep interest with which he pursued his investigations, and the 
 result is one of the most curious and valuable architectural works which we have received for 
 some time." — (iuardian. 
 
 " A valuable contribution to the history of Gothic architecture. It will form a useful addition 
 to the few books with which a traveller may profitably equip himself for the- Peninsula. With 
 the exception of tbe great work of Villa-Amil and Escosura, we have no publication which 
 throws so much light on the architectui-al monuments of Spain — especially on those of the earlier 
 Christian period." — Edinburgh Review.

 
 1.— NOKTH PORCH, STA MARIA MAGGIORE, BERGAMO. 
 
 Fioiitispiece.
 
 BRICK AND MARBLE 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES : 
 
 Itotcs of (jboiirs ill tljt llortjj of Italj). 
 
 By GEORGE EDMUND STREET, EA., 
 
 MEMBKU OF THK IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, VIENNA, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MUREAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1874. 
 
 [/"//<• rigkt of TransliitioH is reserved. \
 
 PKINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 STAMFORD STFEET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 NA 
 
 I 113 
 
 ^0 tlje '^zimv^ 
 
 THE RIGHT EEV. SAMUEL WILBERFOECE, 
 
 LOKD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, 
 
 ETC. ETC., 
 
 IN TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR'S MOST SINCERE AFFECTION, 
 
 AND 
 
 IN GllATITUDE FOR NUMBERLESS BENEFITS RECEIVED FROM HIM, 
 
 THIS VOLUME, 
 
 ORIGINALLY DEDICATED TO HIM IN 1855, 
 IS NOW INSCRIBED. 
 
 36875^
 
 ( vii ) 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The First Edition of this volume has been so long out of 
 print that I had almost ceased to regard myself as responsible 
 for all that it contains. It was the rapid and fresh summary 
 of a happy journey undertaken in the early years of my 
 artistic career. There were, I knew, many details in which 
 it could easily be improved, and many journeys taken over 
 the same ground might have enabled me to go far more into 
 detail than I was able to do when I published it. I find, 
 however, on reading again what I wrote so long ago, that age 
 and greater knowledge of the subject have generally confirmed 
 my old ideas, and that, as far as regards the principles of my 
 book, I still believe them to be true and just. In revising 
 what I wrote, however, I have found myself obliged to make 
 many alterations and additions, sometimes in relation to 
 towns not visited on my first journey, sometimes in reference 
 to buildings either not described at all or at best insufficiently 
 described before. In doing this I have endeavoured not to 
 increase too much the bulk of the volume, and as far as 
 possible not to interfere with the general character or tone 
 of its contents, though in the process of revision the larger 
 l)ortion of the book has had to be re-written, 
 
 T hope, if other occupations admit of it, before long to 
 add to this volume a second, containing notes of tours in tlie
 
 Vlii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 centre and south of Italy, undertaken with the same object 
 of studying and describing the too little aj)preciated art of 
 Italy in the Middle Ages, which seems to me to be almost 
 equally full of interest in all parts of the Peninsula. 
 
 The materials which I have accumulated for this purpose 
 are only too considerable, and the very richness of the subject 
 has made me shy of approaching it ; but the necessity of 
 publishing another edition of this volume has revived my 
 resolution to complete as soon as possible the work which 
 I originally proj)osed to myself, and of which I have never 
 lost sight. But whether I accomplish this or not, the 
 volume which I now republish may, I hoj^e, give a tolerably 
 complete view of Italian Gothic architecture north of the 
 Apennines. 
 
 Those who wish for further archaeological details as to 
 the age and history of buildings, will not find great diffi- 
 culty in supplementing what I have written. For myself I 
 confess at once that I have not had time or opportunity 
 for examining the documentary history of the buildings I 
 have described, and that the dates where I have given them 
 are generally obtained at second-hand, though never given 
 save where they accord with the architectural character of 
 the Avork. It was never for merely archaeological purposes 
 that I made my many journeys in Italy. Before I first 
 travelled there I had made myself well acquainted with all the 
 best remains of the Middle Ages in England : I had travelled, 
 sketch-book in hand, through France and Germany, and I 
 knew, therefore, something of the art of our fathers in most 
 districts north of the Alps. But so far I had found no time 
 or opportunity for the study of those early Italian buildings 
 which give the key to the history and style of ours, or of 
 those later works in which, v/ith more or less distinctness, 
 the architects north of the Alps repaid the debt they had 
 previously incurred to the South.
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. ix 
 
 I lelt then, as I do now, that no study of architecture was 
 complete which did not proceed exhaustively with the study 
 of all European varieties, and above all of that of Italy. 
 Moreover, there was something in the practice and tendencies 
 of our own day which gave special interest and fascination to 
 such a study. We had gone on in our old paths, studying 
 the works of our own country, which in some respects were 
 deficient in their teaching. We wished to combine the best 
 architecture, the best painting, and the best sculpture in our 
 works. The world seemed to respond to our aspirations, and 
 it is south and not north of the Alps that examples of such a 
 combination have to be looked for. So again it was desirable 
 at any rate to meet the demand which was naturally arising 
 for colour in construction, and here again it was in Italy only 
 that numerous ancient examples of such a combination were 
 to be found. These were the special inducements to me in 
 my earliest journey to Italy, and their influence is as strong 
 as ever upon me. I feel, indeed, even more now than then, 
 the importance of such study to the English architect of to- 
 day. The more men educate themselves by the study of 
 ancient examples, the more is their w^ork likely to become 
 refined and scholarly, whilst at the same time there is no real 
 risk of its becoming less original. 
 
 It is quite possible, and one wishes above everything to 
 see it usual, for architects to design all their work without 
 special reference to, or really copying from, any old work. 
 But before doing this they ought at least to put themselves 
 in the same position as to knowledge of what had been done 
 before as that in which their forefathers were. Unless they 
 do so, the desire for originality will only be satisfied by the 
 production of excesses and monstrosities, whose only claim is 
 that they are new — one which, in spite of those who demand 
 a new style, I venture to declare to be their snflicient 
 condemnation.
 
 X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 It remains only to say, that since I first visited Italy two 
 works liave been publisiied which add infinitely to our know- 
 ledge of the sister arts of painting and sculpture, and enable 
 the artist to travel with a full certainty that he will not 
 lose anything by reason of the ignorance or carelessness of 
 his guide. I need hardly say that I refer to Messrs. Crowe 
 and Cavalcasel.le's ' History of Painting in Northern Italy,' 
 and to Mr. C. C. Perkins's admirable volumes on ' Italian ' and 
 ' Tuscan Sculptors.' To the latter, indeed, I owe I know not 
 how many acknowledgments for the information 1 have 
 derived from him. He has done that for the History of 
 Mediaeval and post-Mediaeval sculpture in Italy which had 
 before hardly even so much as been attempted, and his facts 
 and conclusions are almost always so stated as to command 
 the assent of his readers.
 
 ( •-! ) 
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 In these days of railways and rapid travelling there is 
 scarcely any excuse for ignorance of Continental art. The 
 most busy man finds some short holiday in the course of the 
 year, and, if wise as well as busy, spends it not in quiet 
 sojourn at home, but in active search of the picturesque, the 
 beautiful, or the old, in nature or in art, either in his own 
 country or abroad. 
 
 And as the holidays of busy men are short, and therefore 
 to be made as much of as possible, I conceive that I shall be 
 rendering some service, and providing myself with a fair 
 excuse for my presumption, if I venture to shew, by a 
 simple narrative of a tour undertaken in the course of the 
 year before last, how much it is possible to accomj)lish with 
 pleasure, and, when one has some definite object in view, 
 with profit of no common kind, even in a short holiday. 
 
 There are many classes of travellers, and each doubtless 
 flatters itself that its own is the very best of all modes of 
 travelling ; and sorry should I be to attempt to disabuse any 
 one of so pleasant a self-deceit. But the more I think of it, 
 the more certain it appears that the reasons and objects 
 wliich always take me away from home are precisely such as 
 make up the sum of happiness and pleasure to a traveller. 
 
 Indeed, without some definite object before him, beyond
 
 xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 the mere desire of relaxation and pleasure, few travellers 
 know that thorough joy of heart which an architect feels as 
 he begins the journey which hears him away from home on 
 some ecclesiological or architectural ramble. 
 
 Such an one, hard-worked for more than five-sixths of 
 the year, may, if he will, press into the short remainder left 
 to him for a holiday as much both of profit and of pleasure 
 as it is j)ossible to conceive. He goes, sketch-book in hand, 
 with some ancient town or thrice noble cathedral set before 
 him as his goal ; and, passing along smiling valleys, or over 
 noble mountains, drinks in all that he sees, not the less 
 gratefully or delightedly in that he views it as the preface 
 only to his more intense enjoyment in the study and pursuit 
 of his own well-beloved art. 
 
 If such be my case— and such it is — wonder not, gentle 
 reader, that I desire to shew how much enjoyment may be 
 snatched from time in little more than one short month, nor 
 that I am anxious to put on paper the thoughts that have 
 been uppermost in my mind as I travelled, and looked at 
 and drew the old builders' works in the north of Italy, the 
 more as they seem to bear with much force upon questions 
 debated with more and more eagerness and anxiety every 
 day, by very many of those who take the most lively 
 interest in the progress of Christian art. 
 
 In past years I had travelled — rapidly, it is true, but not 
 without learning much, very much, of what was useful— by 
 the noble cities of Belgium, up the church-besprinkled banks 
 of the fair Rhine, over the plains of Bavaria, and through 
 much that was most noble and interesting in different parts 
 of France and Germany ; I had dreamt of old times and old 
 men in the antique streets of Bruges and Nuremberg, and 
 under the shade of the still more ancient walls of Eegens- 
 burg, in the solemn naves of Amiens, of Koln, of Freiburg, 
 of Strasburg and Chartres, and of many more most noble
 
 PREFACE TO THE FlllST EDITION. Xlll 
 
 piles ; I had paced the ruins of old abbeys, and studied, so 
 far as I could, in all of thoni the science and the art of my 
 forefathers ; but so far all my time had been devoted to the 
 study of Northern art, and I had found no time and no 
 opportunity for the study of that modification of the pointed 
 stylo which distinguishes the cities and the churches of the 
 north of Italy. No wonder then that, with a prospect at 
 last of a first sight of Italy and Italian architecture before 
 me, I looked forward long and anxiously for the end of 
 summer, for that happy autumn which brings ease and 
 relaxation to so many a wearied heart ; and that when at 
 last, at the latter end of August, I found myself absolutely 
 on my way, I was in no common degree disposed for the 
 thorough enjoyment of all that I met with. 
 
 It is well here to observe, by the way, that there is much 
 in the present j)osition of architects and the world which 
 may give to these few remarks upon the pointed architecture 
 of the north of Italy — slight and sketchy though they may 
 be — a degree of value beyond Avhat they would have had 
 only a short time since. 
 
 It is impossible not to feel that the great and general 
 interest in art, created by the revival of true principles 
 within tlie last few years, is a subject of the greatest con- 
 gratulation to all true artists. It is not only in architecture, 
 but happily in painting also, that first principles are now 
 studied with some determination by men who command the 
 respect of a world educated hitherto to admire and believe 
 in the falsest and weakest schools of art. It was, therefore, 
 with the desire to see how far these first principles were 
 worked out by the architects of the Middle Ages in Italy, 
 liow far moreover they were developed in directions un- 
 attempted by their brethren in the North, and how far they 
 have succeeded in leaving us really noble works for our 
 study and admiration, that I undertook my journey.
 
 XIV PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 Let me say, too, at the same time, that I started without 
 either the intention or the desire to examine at all carefully 
 the works of the Eenaissance architects. For this there 
 were many reasons — among others my own unfitness by 
 predilection and education for the task, the shortness of my 
 time, and the fact that, as it appears to me, their works 
 have already received as much both in the Avay of illustration 
 and of description as they deserve. 
 
 I should wish also, I must confess, in all my studies of 
 foreign architecture, to confine myself to those buildings in 
 which there appear to me to be the germs at least of an art 
 true and beautiful in itself, and of service to us in our 
 attempts to improve our own work. It does not appear to 
 me that the works of the Italian Eenaissance architects 
 really contain this. I see no reason whatever for doubting 
 that if we wish for a purer school of art we must either 
 entirely forget their works, or remember them so far only as 
 to take warning by their faults and failures. I see no 
 reason, for allowing that they have succeeded in carrying 
 out true principles, either of construction or ornamentation, 
 to any greater extent than their imitators in England. 
 The same falseness of construction, and heaviness, coarse- 
 ness, and bad grotesqueness of ornamentation, seem ever to 
 attend their works, together with the same contempt of 
 simplicity, repose, and delicacy which we are so accustomed 
 to connect with them. In short, I see but little reason to 
 difi'er from the estimate which Mr. Kuskin has given of their 
 merits in the ' Stones of Venice,' and what he has so well 
 said I need not attempt to enlarge upon. 
 
 My own feeling is, that as in the pointed arch we have 
 not only the most beautiful, but at the same time incom- 
 parably the most convenient feature in construction which 
 has ever been, or which, I firmly believe, ever can be invented, 
 we should not be true artists if we neglected to use it.
 
 PliEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. XV 
 
 I hold firmly the cloetriue that no architect can properly 
 neglect to avail himself of every improvement in construction 
 which the growing intelligence of this mechanical age can 
 afford him ; but this doctrine in no way hinders the constant 
 employment of the pointed arch ; on the contrary, it makes 
 it necessary, because it is at once the most beautiful and 
 the most economical way of doing the work that has to 
 be done. 
 
 There are, I well know, advocates for the round arch, 
 whose theory appears to be that we ought to go back for 
 some ages, to throw ourselves as it were into the position of 
 men who knew only the round arch, and from this to 
 attempt to develope in some new direction : this is Mr. 
 Petit's theory, and it is, as appears to me, one which it is 
 not difficult to meet. 
 
 Its supporters as^sert that pointed architecture is so 
 essentially the efibrt of a particular age, and marked by 
 certain peculiarities so decided, as to be filled, even in its 
 most noble works, with a kind of spirit which in this age it 
 is vain to attempt again to evoke, ' The old Gothic spirtt is, 
 they say, dead ; and, glorious as it was, its flight was but 
 meteor- like, and, having passed across the horizon of the 
 world in its rapid course, it has sunk beyond all possibility 
 of revival. 
 
 It appears to me that those who so argue confound the 
 accidents with the elements of the true Gothic architecture 
 of the Middle Ages, and mistake altogether the object which, 
 I trust, most architects would propose to themselves in 
 striving for its revival. The elements are the adoption of 
 the best principles of construction, and the ornamentation 
 naturully and properly, and without concealment, of the 
 construction ; the accidents are, as it appears to me, the 
 particular character which individual minds may have given 
 to their work, the savageness, or the grotesqueness as it
 
 XVI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 has been called, whieli is mainly to be discovered in the 
 elaboration of particular features by some particular sculptor 
 or architect, and which in the noblest works — and, indeed, I 
 might say, in most works — one sees no trace of. The true 
 Gothic architects of the Middle Ages had, in short, an intense 
 love of nature grafted on an equally intense love of reality 
 and truth, and to this it is that we owe the true nobility 
 and al)iding lieauty of their worLs; nor need we in this age 
 despond, for if we be really earnest in our work, there is 
 nothing in this which we need fear to miss, nothing which 
 we may not ourselves possess if we will, and nothing there- 
 fore to prevent our working in the same spirit, and with the 
 same results, as our forefathers. 
 
 —- The mediseval architecture of Italy presents, however, 
 one further practical argument against this theory of the 
 lovers of the round arch which they cannot, I think, meet. 
 
 It will be found in the following pages that in Italy 
 there did not exist that distinction between the use of round 
 and pointed arches which did exist for three centuries north 
 of the Alps. They were content there to use whichever 
 was most convenient, and whichever appeared to them to be 
 most effective in its intended position. We therefore find, 
 in most Italian mediaeval buildings, round and pointed arches 
 used in the same work, the former generally for ornament, 
 the latter for construction ; and the effect of this is in some 
 degree to make us lessen the rigidity with which a study of 
 Northern art might otherwise affect our views on this point. 
 But I think no argument can be used by the lovers of the 
 round arch which would ever go farther than to leave us open 
 to the choice of both round and pointed arches, just as in 
 these old Italian buildings : they have no right to say, 
 "You may not use the pointed arch at all," but they perhaps 
 may be allowed to ask, " Why exclude for ever the round 
 arch ? " and then I should refer them to Italy for a j^roof
 
 IMIKFACK 'i'O THK FIRST JODITION. XVll 
 
 tliat as a rule the mixture of the two is neither harmonious 
 nor satisfactory ; whilst at the same time I should go on to 
 shew them that, when they talk of the virtues of Koman and 
 Romanesque architecture, of the repose and the simplicity 
 which distinguish them, of their grandeur and their general 
 hreadth and nobility of effect — in all these things they do 
 hut sing the praises of the best Italian architecture of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and that in studying the 
 style we may well be guided by it in what we do, not to the 
 forgetfulness of the glories of our own land, but to the 
 development in a forward direction of what we inherit from 
 our forefathers of that architecture which, after a lapse of 
 three centuries, we now see on all sides reviving with fresh 
 vigour from its temporary grave, and which requires only 
 prudence and skill on the part of its professors to make even 
 more perfect than before. 
 
 My object therefore in the following pages will be mainly 
 to shew the peculiarities of the development of pointed 
 architecture in Italy, and specially to shew in what way the 
 materials so commonly used there — brick and marble — were 
 introduced both in decoration and in construction. All these 
 points are of the very greatest importance to us, for I am 
 persuaded that not only will some reference to Italian models 
 do somewhat towards the improvement of our art, but that 
 in no matter is information more needed, and improvement 
 more easy, than in the use of brick in architecture ; whilst 
 Avorking in marble has been as yet so little practised among 
 us, that we may almost regard it as at present unattempted, 
 though, as I hope to shew, there is no longer any reason why 
 this should be the case. 
 
 It is impossible to conclude this Preface without mention 
 of the obligations which not only all who travel in Italy, 
 but all who are interested in good architecture, owe to Mr. 
 Ruskin, No man need or can profess his acquiescence in 
 
 h
 
 xviii PREFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. 
 
 every one of the opinions whicli he has proponnded, but as 
 an architect I feel strongly that a great debt of gratitude is 
 owing to him for his brilliant advocacy of many laws and 
 truths in which every honest architect ought gladly to 
 acquiesce. He may be well content to bear the opposition 
 which he has evoked, satisfied that all that he has written is 
 in the main most certainly for the benefit and exaltation of 
 art of all kinds. 
 
 Nor less is a debt of gratitude to be acknowledged by 
 every traveller to my friend Mr. Webb for his most excellent 
 and trusty work on ' Continental Ecclesiology :' it is certainly 
 the most absolutely correct guide-book ever drawn up for 
 ecclesiologists anywhere ; and in travelling over the same 
 ground, as I have done in this tour, my excuse for giving 
 what I have in the way of descriptions of the same buildings 
 is, that what I have written has been all with a view, beyond 
 that of merely describing the churches, of shewing the 
 principles upon which their builders worked, and giving, so 
 far as the limits of such a work will allow, drawings of the 
 buildings I have described. 
 
 It will depend on circumstances whether I am able at some 
 future day to continue my inquiries among the churches and 
 domestic buildings of Central Italy, a tract at least as rich as 
 that over which the tour described in the following pages 
 took me. 
 
 It remains only to say that all the illustrations which I , 
 have given are engraved from my own drawings on the wood ' 
 from my sketches made on the spot, and that I have en- 
 deavoured as much as possible to avoid giving subjects which 
 have been before published. It would have been easy to 
 add largely to them, especially from my sketches in A^enice, 
 but it seemed to me that, as this could only be accomplished 
 by adding also to the cost of tlie book, it was much better to 
 omit them. I have avoided therefore giving drawings of
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xix 
 
 any buildings already drawn by Mr. Gaily Knight, to wliose 
 work I must refer my readers for representations of several 
 of the buildings described, and for illustrations of Venice I 
 must refer to Mr. Ruskin's engravings and to the photographs 
 which have rendered her features so well known to almost all 
 students of architecture. 
 
 In conclusion, I cannot speak too highly of the assistance 
 afforded to the architectural student by Murray's Handbook 
 of Northern Italy : it is almost invariably correct, and gives 
 just what one wants to know of nearly all buildings of any 
 interest or importance. 
 
 Oxford, 1855.
 
 ( xxi ) 
 
 C N T E N T S. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I'AOK. 
 
 Koiitcs to Italy — I'iiiis — Strasburg — Rouffach — Basel . . J. 
 
 CHAPTEII II. 
 
 Churches of Basel — Storks — ■ Rheinfelden — Frick — Baden — 
 Zurich : tlie Cathedral — Foudness of the Swiss for bright colours 
 
 — Lake of Ziirich — Kapperswyl — Linth Canal — A Wayside 
 
 Inn — Weseu ......... 14 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Walleustadt — Sargaus — Gorge of the Tamina — Ragatz — Chur — 
 Ems — Reicheiiau — Thusis — Zillis — Andeer — Spliigen — The 
 Spliigen Pass — The Custom-house — Cascade of the Medessimo — 
 Camjx) Dolcino ......... 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Chiavenna — Lake of Riva — Colico — Gravidoua — Lake of Como — 
 Vareuna — Stelvio Pass — Lecco — Bergamo : Broletto — Churches 
 
 — Castle of Malpaga ........ 44 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Palazzuolo — Coccaglio — Brescia : new and old Cathedrals — Broletto — 
 Churches— ^Donato — Desenzaoo — Lago di Garda — Riva — Trent — 
 Verona .......... G3
 
 xxil CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Verona: Campanile of the Palazzo dei Signori — Sta. Anastasia — 
 Monuments — Piazza dell' Erbe — The Duomo — The Baptistery 
 — Sta. Maria TAntica — Cemetery and Palace of the Scaligers — 
 Domestic Architecture — Piazza di Bvh — The Austrians — Ponte 
 di Castel-Vecchio — San Zenone — San Fermo Maggiore — Chapel 
 near the Duomo — Romeo and Juhct — Dwarfs — Wells . . 84 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 Neighbourhood of Verona — Vicenza : Cathedral — San Lorenzo — 
 Santa Corona — Palazzo della Eagione — Gothic Palaces — Palladio's 
 Works — Teatro Olympico — Padua : Giotto's Chapel — The 
 Eremitani — Sant' Antonio — The Duomo .... 12G 
 
 chaptf:r vnr. 
 
 Padua and Venice Railway — Venice: Piazza and Church of S. 
 Mark — Torcello — The Lagoon — Murano — Sta. Maria dei Frari 
 
 — SS. Giovanni e Paolo — Sta. Maria dell' Orto — Other Churches 
 
 — Domestic Architecture — Fondaco de' Tiu'chi — Other Byzan- 
 tine Palaces — The Ducal Palace — Foscari Palace — Ca' d'Oro 
 
 — Other Gothic Palaces — Balconies — Venetian Architecture 
 
 — A Festival — Paintings ....... 140 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 New Roads to Venice — The Pusterthal — Inuichen — Dolomite 
 Mountains — Heiligenblut — Kotschach — Kirchbach — Gail Thai 
 — Hermagor — Ober Tarvis — Predil Pass — Gorizia — Aquileja 
 — Grado — Udine — Pordenone ...... 238 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Venice to Verona — Verona to Mantua — Villa Franca — Mantua: 
 its Churches and Palaces — The Theatre — Montenara — Campitello 
 — Casalmaggiore — Longadorc — Cremona : the Cathedral — 
 Churches and Public Buildings — Lodi — Pavia: its Churches — 
 Castle of tlie Visconti — The Ccrlosa — Drive to Milan
 
 CONTENTS. xxiii 
 
 CHAPTER XI, 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 Drive fruni I'atUia to Ferrara — Monsulice — Rovigo — Ferrara : 
 Cathedral — Castle — Gallery — Iload to Bologna — Altcdo — 
 Bologna : Cathedral — San Petronio — San Domenico — San Giacomo 
 — Sta. Maria Maggiore — San Francesco — San Stefano — Leaning 
 Towers — Casa dei Mercanti — Domestic Remains — Academy — 
 Modena : Cathedral — Parma : Cathedral — Correggio — The Baptist- 
 ery — Piacenza: The Palazzo Publico — Cathedral — San Francesco 
 — Sant' Antonino — San Giovanni in Cauale — Asti : Cathedral — 
 San Secoudo — Campanili ....... 286 
 
 CHAPTER XTI. 
 
 Milan : Ihe Cathedral — Sant' Arabrogio — Sant' Eustorgio — Sta. Maria 
 delle Grazie — Certosa of Chiaravalle — Novara — Vercelli — 
 Monza: the Cathedral — The Broletto — Sta. Maria in Strada — 
 Como: the Brolet to — The Cathedral 315 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Departure from Como — Varese — Lake of Varese — Italian Boatmen 
 — Intra — Laveno — Lago Maggiore — Magadino — Road to Hos- 
 penthal — The Dazio Grande — Airolo — Hospenthal — Ascent of 
 the Furca — Valley of the Reuss — Lake of Luzern] — Luzern — 
 The Unter Hauenstein — Strasburg ..... 344 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Concluding Summary — Classic and Gothic Architecture — Italian 
 Gothic — Shafts — Cornices — Monuments — Cloisters — Windows — 
 Brickwork — Colour in Construction — Truth in Architectural 
 Design and Construction ....... 3G1 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Catalogue of the Subjects of the Sculptured Capitals in the Lower 
 Stage of the Doge's Palace, Venice ..... 409
 
 ( XXV ) 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 (THE FILL-PAGE EXGRAVINGS ARE NUMHERED IN ORDER.) 
 
 10. 
 11. 
 
 12. 
 
 Frontispiece. N. Porch, Sta. 
 
 Jlai'ia Waggiore, Bergamo. 
 
 Shoii-wiiuldw, Kheiufelilen . . IG 
 Cloister ot" Zurich Cathedral 
 
 to face 19* 
 Church on the Lake of Ziirich . 22 
 Wooden spire, Kagatz ... 32 
 Interior of Cathedral, Chur to face 33 
 Gravidoua, ground-plan of Bap- 
 tistery 48 
 
 Gravidoua, the Baptistery to face 48 
 
 The Broletto, Bergamo . „ r)4 
 
 Campanile, Bergamo ... 59 
 
 Malpaga Castle . . . to face 62 
 
 Wmdow, Coccaglio .... 64 
 
 House at Coccaglio . . to face 65 
 Detail of windows and corbelling 
 
 for chimneys, Coccaglio . . 65 
 Wooden balcony, Coccaglio . . (SQ 
 Broletto, Brescia . . to face 69 
 Cloister, Broletto, Brescia . . 69 
 Detail of circular window, Bro- 
 letto, Brescia 70 
 
 Doorway, Broletto, Brescia. . 71 
 
 Brick cornice, Broletto, Brescia 71 
 San Francesco, Brescia . . .72 
 Details of brickwork in Broletto 
 
 to face 72 
 
 Cloister of the Carmine, Brescia 74 
 Duomo, Trent, Eastern doorway 
 
 to face 81 
 Campanile of Scaliger Palace, 
 
 Verona .... to face 84 
 Plan of Sta. Anastasia, Verona . 87* 
 Pavements, Sta. Anastasia, Ve- 
 rona to face 89 
 
 Sta. Anastasia, Verona, aisle 
 
 window 90 
 
 Door-frame, Sta. Anastasia . . 92 
 
 Door-frame, San Pietro Martire 94 
 Crest of metal railing, Verona . 102 
 
 PACK 
 
 Jletal railing, Verona . . . 103 
 
 13. Courtyard of the Scaliger Pa- 
 
 lace, Verona . . . to face 104 
 
 Doorway, old house, Verona . 10.") 
 
 Windows, old house, Verona . 1U6 
 Brick battlement, Viccolo Cava- 
 
 letto, Verona 106 
 
 14. Courtyard of old house, Verona 
 
 to face 106 
 
 15. Cloister of San Zenone, Verona 
 
 to face 111 
 
 16. Interior of San Zenone . ,, 112 
 
 17. San Fermo Maggiore, Verona, 
 
 west front . . . to face 121 
 
 18. Italian brickwork . . „ 122 
 Domestic window, Verona . . 123 
 
 19. Porta di Castello, Vicenza to face 128 
 
 20. Houses in the Contrada Porto, 
 
 Vicenza ... to face 131 
 
 Arena Chapel, Padua, west end 137 
 
 Arena Chapel, side window . 139 
 Sant' Antonio, Padua, ground- 
 
 j)lan 145* 
 
 21. Sant' Antonio, view from the 
 
 east t' I face 147 
 
 S. Mark's, Venice, ground-plan 156* 
 
 22. Duomo, Torcollo, ambou and 
 
 screen .... to face 168 - 
 Sta. Fosca, Torcello, east end . 171 
 
 23. Interior of Sta. Maria dei Frari, 
 
 Venice .... to face 177 
 
 24. Exterior of Sta. Maria dei Frari, 
 
 Venice .... to face 180 
 Window, San Stefano, Venice . 186 
 
 25. Campanile, San Giacomo del 
 
 Kialto .... to face 187 
 
 26. Byzantine well, V^enice . „ 193 
 
 27. Corte del Remer . . „ 196 
 
 28. View of Venice, from the Ko- 
 
 mance of Alexander, Bodleian 
 Library . . . .to face 204
 
 XXVI 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 29. Archway, Ponte del Paradiso 
 
 to face 
 
 30. Doorway on the Ponte San Toma 
 
 to face 
 Brick battlement, Venice . 
 
 31. Angle window . . . to face 
 
 Balcony, Venice 
 
 Capital of window-shaft, Venice 
 
 32. Palazzo Segredo . . . to f(ce 
 
 33. Window, Ponte del Fornaro „ 
 
 34. Staircase, Casa Goldoni . „ 
 Venetian chimneys .... 
 Aquileja, Patriarch's throne 
 
 35. Aquileja, interior of Duomo 
 
 to face 
 
 36. Udine, Palazzo Publico . „ 
 
 37. Udine, steps to Palazzo Publico 
 
 to face 
 Udine Cathedral, aisle windows 
 
 38. Udine, tower and cathedral door- 
 
 ways to face 
 
 39. Ducaf Palace, Mantua . „ 
 
 40. Windows in ditto . . „ 
 
 41. Castello di Corte, Mantua „ 
 Brick window, Sant' Andrea 
 
 42. Gateway, Palazzo della Ragione 
 
 to face 
 
 43. Campanile of Sant' Andrea 
 
 to face 
 Brick window, Sant' Andrea 
 Brick window, Campitello . 
 Brick window, near Casalmag- 
 giore 
 
 44. North transept, Duomo, Cremona 
 
 to face 
 Brick window, Duomo, Cremona 
 Rose window, ditto .... 
 
 45. Palace of the Jurisconsults, 
 
 Cremona .... to face 
 Window-jamb, ditto . 
 Chimney and battlement, ditto . 
 
 46. San Michele, Pavia, interior 
 
 to face 
 
 47. Castle of the Visconti, Pavia „ 
 
 48. Bay of courtyard of ditto „ 
 
 49. San Pantaleone, Pavia . ,, 
 
 50. West end of San Francesco, Pavia 
 
 to face 
 
 51. Certosa of Pavia 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 210 
 
 53 
 
 212 
 
 
 214 
 
 
 216 
 
 54 
 
 217 
 
 
 220 
 
 55. 
 
 221 
 
 
 222 
 
 
 223 
 
 
 224 
 
 
 243 
 
 56. 
 
 244 
 
 
 248 
 
 
 
 57. 
 
 249 
 
 
 250 
 
 
 250 
 
 
 255 
 
 
 256 
 
 
 257 
 
 58. 
 
 258 
 
 
 
 59. 
 
 258 
 
 60. 
 
 
 61. 
 
 259 
 
 
 259 
 
 
 262 
 
 62. 
 
 262 
 
 63. 
 
 
 64. 
 
 266 
 
 
 267 ' 
 
 
 268 
 
 
 269 
 
 
 269 
 
 
 270 
 
 
 276 
 
 
 277 
 
 
 278 
 
 
 279 
 
 
 281 
 
 65. 
 
 284* 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ferrara, the Duomo . to fice 288 
 San Petronio, Bologna, south 
 
 aisle to face 291 
 
 San Petronio, Bologna, plan . 292* 
 
 San Petronio, Bologna, section . 293* 
 San Petronio, Bologna, interior 
 
 to face 294 
 Monument near San Domenico, 
 
 Bologna . . . .to face 296 
 
 Cloister, San Stefano, Bologna 298 
 Brick window, Palazzo Publico, 
 
 Bologna 301 
 
 South front of Duomo, Modena 
 
 to face 304 
 Baptistery, Parma, plan . . 307* 
 Baptistery, Parma, section . . 307* 
 Piacenza, view of Palazzo Pub- 
 lico to face 308 
 
 Brickwork, Palazzo Publico, Pia- 
 cenza 310 
 
 Sant' Antonino, Piacenza, plan . 312* 
 Sant' Antonino, Piacenza, section 313* 
 Duomo, Milan, ground-plan . 317* 
 Sant' Ambrogio, Milan, balda- 
 chin to face 326 
 
 Piazza dei Jlercanti, Milan „ 329 
 
 Certosa of Chiaravalle . „ 330 
 Sant' Andrea, Vercelli, interior 
 
 to face 332 
 Window in Duomo, Monza . . 335 
 The Broletto, Monza . to face 337 
 Window in Broletto . . . 337 
 The Broletto, Como . . to face 340 
 Sta. Maria, Corao . . „ 342 
 Cornice, San Francesco, Brescia 379 
 String-course, Palace of Juris- 
 consults, Cremona . . .391 
 Window in north transept, Cre- 
 mona 392 
 
 Detail of window-jamb, Cre- 
 mona 393 
 
 Brick archivolt, Vescovato, Man- 
 tua 394 
 
 Arch-mould, Cremona . . . 394 
 
 Window, Verona 396 
 
 Brick window, Sant' Andrea, 
 
 Mantua 397 
 
 Key-plan of Capitals in Doge's 
 
 Palace, Venice . . to face 409 
 
 *#* The engravings mai'ked * are taken from Mr. Fcrgussou's 'History 
 of Architecture.'
 
 BRICK AND MAEBLE 
 
 M IDDLE AGES 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 " Yet waft me tVoni the harbour-mouth, 
 Wild wind ! I seek a warmer sky, 
 And I will see before I die 
 The palms and temples of the South." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Koutes to Italy — Paiis— Strasburg — Eouffach — Basel. 
 
 An architectural tour in Italy seems to afford about as 
 much prospect of pleasure and information combined as any 
 which it is possible for an English student to take. He 
 may see, if time allows, so much on his road, that whether 
 one thinks of the journey or the end of it all is, at any rate 
 in the perspective, charming. And in these days when, what 
 with railways, through-tickets, and Cook's and other guides 
 for timid tourists, the journey from one end of Europe to 
 the other is made so quickly and so cheaply as to be 
 within most educated men's reach, it is no wonder if most 
 of us in our turn make the venture. 
 
 Many are the ways by which one may reach the North 
 of Italy, but one or two only of them seem now to be 
 commonly used, to the exclusion of all others, and with 
 great loss of pleasure to all travellers who make the journey 
 more than once. The natural, because the quickest, road is 
 now by the Mont Ceuis tunnel to Turin, and for the country 
 
 B
 
 2 ROUTES TO ITALY. [Chap. I. 
 
 described in these pages nothing can be more convenient. 
 But when my first journey was made, it was more easy to 
 take one of the passes leading to Milan, and so I went by 
 the Spliigen. Since those days I have found my way to 
 and from Italy by other roads which I recommend strongly 
 to others. I pass by such a well-known road as that 
 by railway over the Brenner, in order to suggest three 
 other roads, either of which brings the traveller down 
 upon Venetia in the happiest possible frame of mind if 
 he is at all capable of being moved to j)leasure by the 
 sight of exquisite scenery, pleasant and religious people, 
 and roads and country not too much crowded with tourists. 
 
 The first of these is by the Lake of Constance, the 
 Vorarlberg, and the Yintschgau to Botzen ; the next by 
 the Brenner pass as far as Franzensfeste, and thence by the 
 Ampezzo pass through Cortina and Cadore — Titian's country 
 — to Conegliano, and so by railway to Venice, a road lighted 
 up by the wild beauty of the Dolomite mountains and now 
 unaccountably neglected by English tourists ; the third, 
 and perhaps the most charming, though somewhat indirect, 
 and requiring more time, again by the Brenner as far as 
 Franzensfeste, thence by railway to Lienz — stopping to see 
 the fine church and Dolomite mountains at Innichen on the 
 way — and then by country carriages from the Pusterthal into 
 the Gailthal where there is the most charming combination 
 I know of pastoral and picturesque scenery, seasoned by 
 interesting old churches ; and thence to Ober Tarvis and by 
 the stern and magnificent Predil pass to the head of the 
 Adriatic at Gorizia, whence— after seeing Aquileja and Grado 
 — the traveller may, with halts at Udine and Pordenone, 
 reach his goal at Venice by railway. 
 
 But in this my first journey to Italy, I was sufiiciently 
 happy in finding the Spliigen prescribed for me as on the 
 whole the most convenient mode of reaching in succession
 
 Chai'. I.] ROUTES TO ITALY. 3 
 
 all the spots which had most special interest for me. My 
 scheme was to make myself fairly well acquainted with 
 some of the most interesting Italian cities north of the 
 Apennines, and for this purpose to descend from the Spliigen 
 on Bergamo, and from thence to go on to Venice, halting as 
 often as necessary by the way, and then to return by Mantua, 
 Cremona, and Pavia, or by Ferrara, Bologna, Parma, and 
 Piacenza to Milan, and so home. And railways, if they have 
 made the journey somewhat more easy than it was, and 
 have deprived it now and then of the charm which always 
 attends the recollection of impediments and difficulties on 
 the road, have not in any way altered the advantages of such 
 a route for those whose tastes are at all akin to those which 
 I carried abroad with me in those days, and carry still with 
 undiminished strength. Whether, however, one enters Italy 
 by one pass or another, the first part of one's journey is by 
 the well-worn road to Paris, which, by reason, I suppose, of 
 its being the prelude to nearly every holiday tour that I 
 make, never seems to be stale, old, or too well-known. 
 
 There is something very novel, and it strikes me more 
 every time it is seen, in the aspect of everything directly you 
 have crossed the Channel; indeed, there is no country in 
 Europe so much as France, and no city, perhaps, so much 
 as Paris, which strikes an Englishman as being foreign in 
 its aspect, and new in all its customs and proceedings. 
 The dress of every one, the arrangements of the railways, 
 the harnessing and character of the horses, the mode of life 
 in hotels, and the ordinary habits and pleasant traits of the 
 middle classes are all quite fresh to the English eye. Nor 
 is the aspect of the country less so : fields cut up into small 
 strips of a dozen kinds of crops ; unprosperous-looking cows, 
 each feeding discontentedly and drearily, tethered to a man 
 or woman on a small patch of grass ; corn cut and then 
 stacked in small cocks for a month or two of exposure to the 
 
 B 2
 
 4 AMIENS. [Chap. T. 
 
 pleasant changes of the atmosphere; and the entire absence 
 of hedge-rows and other trees than pophirs, all go to 
 make up a thoroughly un-English picture. 
 
 After skirting the coast and its dreary expanse of 
 sandhills, reminding one very much of those singular 
 sands on the north coast of Cornwall, which are so often 
 shifting about, covering up new churches, or uncovering 
 the old oratory of some early British saint, we reach the 
 banks of the Somme, and then travel along a poor peaty 
 tract of country until the famous west front and short 
 but lofty nave of Abbeville come in view. Thence by a 
 valley (rather more rich than is common in good churches) 
 we continue our race for Amiens. Among these churches 
 I may instance the hipped saddle-back roofed steeples of 
 Picquigny, Hangest, and Pont Eemy, as very valuable 
 examples of their order ; that of Picquigny, indeed, sur- 
 mounting a central steeple, and finished at the top with 
 some delicate open ironwork, is about as graceful a specimen 
 as I know. 
 
 At Longpre is another church with a steeple of some 
 pretension, but not satisfactory. It has a perforated spire 
 of stone much too small for the size of the tower, and 
 ungraceful in the extreme. 
 
 At Amiens one always longs to stop again and again 
 to feast one's eyes upon its glorious cathedral, perhaps after 
 Chartres and the Parthenon the noblest and most mascu- 
 line piece of architecture in the world. But with us this 
 was impossible; our destiny was — come what might — 
 to endeavour at any rate to discharge ourselves in Paris 
 within the shortest possible number of hours from London ; 
 and the dusk of the early autumn evening prevented our 
 having more than the very slightest glimpse of the Minster. 
 
 The refreshment-room at Amiens is one of the best I 
 have ever been in — reasoniiblc, clean, and good— and placed
 
 Chap. I.] PARIS. 5 
 
 just at that liappy distance from the sea at 'wliich the poor 
 wretches who have heen in the depths of woe on the passage 
 begin to recover their presence of mind, and with it, of 
 course — as good Englishmen — their appetites; what wonder 
 then if the Buflet at Amiens prospers ! 
 
 The rest of our journey to Paris was all performed 
 in the dark, relieved only by the sight of the then long- 
 expected comet, and it was almost midnight ere we found 
 ourselves settled at our hotel. 
 
 I am never sorry to have a day in Paris. In spite of 
 alterations and reconstructions which have converted 
 an interesting old city into the most spick-and-span 
 place in the world, there are even to the present day 
 parts which are untouched by the improver, and full of a 
 pleasant national character which seems to be little to the 
 liking of the rulers of the French. There is, too, in spite 
 of the changes which a great and rich city must always 
 undergo, a great deal which is interesting to the architect. 
 We may look at old engravings, and wish ourselves back in 
 those old times when the walls surrounded the city where 
 now the Boulevards run round its heart, when the Temple 
 and a number of other important buildings, now wholly 
 destroyed, adorned the country just outside the w^alls ; but 
 the city wdiich has still, among other architectural treasures, 
 such churches as Notre Dame, S. Germain des Pres, the 
 Sainte Chapelle, S. Martin des Champs, and a host of lesser 
 lights, and the Chapel of Yincennes, and S. Denis within a 
 short drive, is in quite a different category from such a city 
 as London, and is indeed hardly second to any other in 
 Europe in architectural interest. 
 
 To come to much later times and very different work, 
 it is alw^ays pleasant to be able to walk down the 
 Boulevard des Italiens to the Madeleine, and for a few 
 minutes to gaze at a church whicli certainly presents one
 
 6 PARIS. [Chap. I. 
 
 very grand idea — that of space — clothed in very gorgeous 
 dress. One always feels a certain sym^^athy for a church 
 in which so many people are ever praying ; and I have 
 never yet heen into this church without being able to count 
 them by scores. The last time I was at Paris I remember 
 being struck by seeing for the first time a peripteral 
 building made really useful. The walls within the columns 
 were hung with rich draperies, and a long procession coming 
 out marched round the circuit of the church between the 
 columns and the walls, and in again at the west door ; the 
 eflfect was, as may be imagined, very striking. 
 
 From the Madeleine we found our way to the new church 
 of S. Clothilde, a large cruciform church, and the last erected 
 in Paris in the Gothic style. Its design is intended to be 
 of early character, but in reality is quite late in its effect ; 
 nor do I know when I have seen anything much less success- 
 ful than the two western steeples rising but a short distance 
 above the nave roof, and looking mean and weak to a 
 degree. In plan the church is not badly arranged ; there is 
 just such a choir as might easily be properly used, and a 
 large space for congregational purposes. 
 
 How much we want churches, in this respect at least, 
 somewhat like S. Clothilde, in our large cities in England ! 
 
 There are here a great many windows filled wnth stained 
 glass, executed, I believe, by Mons. Marischal. His windows 
 are illustrations of a truth which men are very slow to receive 
 and act upon, viz. that in decorating a transparent material, 
 one whose transparency moreover is the sole cause of its use, 
 we have no right to shade it with dark colours so far as 
 to destroy its brilliancy. These windows were elaborately 
 shaded, and, as a necessary, consequence, were heavy and 
 dismal in their efiect ; besides which, most unpleasant 
 mixtures of green, yellow, and ruby, and of ruby and blue 
 — very glaring and very bad — abounded.
 
 Chap. I.] MODERN SCULPTURE. 7 
 
 The carving of the capitals is, as is usually the case in 
 recent foreign works, all derived from natural types of foliage, 
 and is fairly well done : but the carving of rather elaborate 
 sculptures of the " Stations " did not please me, having none 
 of the severity of ancient examples. When shall we see a 
 school of sculptors rise able really to satisfy the require- 
 ments of the times ? I confess I despair more on this point 
 than on any other ; for I have as yet seen no fair attempt 
 made to recover the style, or work upon the principles, of 
 the best mediaeval sculptors. The work of our modern 
 sculptors is nearly all foreign and unreal, and almost always 
 involves the assumption that they are representing the 
 proceedings of the Greeks or Eomans, and not of the 
 English : it is impossible therefore that such a school can 
 be healthy, strong, or successful. We lack men who will 
 give us (clothed with as much anatomical correctness as 
 they like, so that they do not leave them lifeless and aca- 
 demical) representations of subjects from English history 
 and national life, illustrations of the Scriptures which we 
 still believe, of the faith which we still profess, conceived in 
 something of the architectonic and yet really dramatic and 
 romantic spirit which marks the best sculpture of the 
 middle ages. The strange thing is that with works near 
 at hand which few living men could rival, they absolutely 
 refuse to study them at all, and I believe if we were to 
 summon all the most eminent sculptors to a conclave and 
 put them to the question, not one in four of them would 
 confess to having ever been to Chartres or Eourges, and four 
 out of five would assert that it would have done them no 
 good if they had. If they would give us anything at all 
 comparable to the great works of the best Greeks the 
 case would be altogether different, but to be served with 
 a rechauffe of the antique when one is crying out for 
 something suitable to the present, is cause enough for the
 
 8 MODERN SCULPTURE. [Chap. T. 
 
 apathy of the English public about sculptors' work. We 
 ask for English history or Bible story, and are treated to 
 nymphs combing their hair ; and for figures of our Lord 
 and St. Peter, and get nothing but Musidoras and Clyties. 
 No sculptor would lose much by the study of the best 
 mediaeval examples of drapery — and there are among the 
 gothic statues which deck the doors and porches of the 
 churches I have named, some of the most admirable de- 
 scription, such as warrant any one, who is at all troubled 
 with feeling for his art, in using strong language about 
 those who neglect them. In Italy we shall find the same 
 careful shutting of men's eyes to what is good, simply because 
 it belongs to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Orvieto 
 is left on one side in order to spend time over work not 
 possessed of a tithe of the beauty of that on its cathedral 
 fafade ; and, indeed, just as the French examples, they appear 
 only too often never even to have been so much as heard of ! 
 The study of ancient sculpture in England is not quite 
 so easy, because our old buildings are not so rich in it as 
 are the French ; but if one is told — as one is too often — that 
 the art of sculpture in the middle ages was unknown or 
 rude in comparison with its state now, one may fairly refer 
 to some of the modern attempts at its imitation for a proof 
 that this was not the case, as e.g. to the recumbent effigy of 
 Archbishop Howley at Canterbury, or to another, of some 
 more humble individual, in the south transept of Chichester 
 Cathedral ; a glance only at which, and a comparison with 
 some of the noble medigeval effigies lying in all the state- 
 liness of their repose by their sides, will at once show any one 
 that it is not merely necessary to put an effigy upon its back 
 with its hands in prayer in order to vie with the effigies of 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The position is 
 something, but not all, and requires very much more skill 
 in its treatment than of late years we have had to bestow.
 
 CiiAP. T.j THE SAINTE CIIAPKLLE. 9 
 
 From S. Clotliilde we went first to the pleasant gardens 
 of the Luxembourg — gardens which always make one envious 
 for London — and thence to Notre Dame. Here I always 
 feel no slight pride in the success which its architect has 
 achieved. Six hundred years have passed over Paris, one 
 eftbrt after another has been made, vast sums of money have 
 been spent, and still this great work stands supreme and 
 separated by a vast distance from all competition, and 
 greatest beyond comparison of all Parisian buildings, not 
 only in its general scheme, but equally in the admirable 
 design and execution of every detail. There is much to 
 be seen and learnt here in every way. The west doors are 
 superb. The planning and construction are very fine, and 
 the series of sculptures behind the stalls full of interest 
 and well worthy of study. 
 
 From Notre Dame one goes, of course, to the Sainte 
 Chapelle. When this journey was undertaken everything 
 about this chef-d'oeuvre was gradually growing to perfection : 
 the fleche was being put up on the roof, the painting on 
 the walls was nearly finished, and the altar was in progress. 
 Since then it has escaped, as it were by a special providence 
 (and why not ?), from the incendiary fire which destroyed 
 almost the whole of the surrounding Palais de Justice, and 
 it still rises uninjured among the ruins. Of all the chapels 
 of the same kind it is certainly the most beautiful — and 
 whether one names our own St. Stephen's, or thinks of 
 others, such as the Chaj)el at S. Germer and the other 
 at liiom, the Paris chapel is certainly by far the finest — 
 being in truth a real work of inspired genius. 
 
 Altogether, I cannot help thinking that the effect upon 
 the mind of what one sees in Paris is very unsatisfactory ; 
 the revival of Christian art seems, as it were, to be only 
 skin-deep ; there seems to be no enthusiasm for it. What 
 is done is done in the same way as other public works, as
 
 10 STRASBURG RAILWAY. [Chap. J. 
 
 the business of the state, not by the will of the people. 
 The scaffolding, which was just being removed from the 
 avenue leading from the Tuileries to the Barriere de I'Etoile, 
 after having assisted at the fete of Napoleon, was an illustra- 
 tion sufficiently apt of the work which seems to engage too 
 many of the artists of Paris ; Parisian fete composers and 
 decorators really appear to be the architects of the day, and 
 of course this fact must militate very much against real art 
 in every branch, as its tendency is to make people accus- 
 tomed to temporary exhibitions, the shortcomings of which 
 are pardoned on the score of their temporary character, and 
 so the artist is lowered in his tone by assisting in the pro- 
 duction of works which are not intended — as all great works 
 ought to be intended — to last for ages. 
 
 A day in Paris is generally a long and tiring one ; and 
 so we found it ; but nevertheless we pushed on without 
 delay, and leaving our hotel before the table-d'hote was 
 much more than half over, we drove to the station of the 
 Strasburg Eailway, and in a few minutes we were en route. 
 If any one doubts the possibility of really resting one's body 
 in a railway carriage, let him take the same precaution that 
 we took, and he need not despair : a day of sight-seeing in 
 Paris is certainly the best possible recipe for sound sleep 
 in a railway carriage, and I believe that when we arrived at 
 Strasburg, at about eight the next morning, we were very 
 fairly rested. I confess, however, that I did feel a twinge of 
 horror when I found that the train by which we were anxious 
 to reach Basel left again in about half an hour — too long to 
 wait, but not long enough for either breakfast or dressing. 
 There seemed, however, to be no alternative, and so on we 
 went, comforting ourselves as best we might with some sour 
 grapes and bad dry bread — the sole edibles procurable at the 
 Strasburg buffet ! 
 
 The llailway from Strasburg to P)asel is much more
 
 CiiAi'. I.] ROUFFACH. 11 
 
 t'lijoyablo than iron-ways generally arc. There is scarce a 
 cutting (luring the whole extent of the journey, and the 
 views of the chain of the Vosges are — before one has gazed 
 on real mountains in Switzerland — very delightful. 
 
 The railway runs up the hroad valley of the Ehine, and 
 within a few miles of Strashurg approaches very near to the 
 mountainous district. The outlines of the hills are bold, 
 picturesque, and well varied; and, as they rise rather 
 precipitously from the valley, are often crowned with ruined 
 castles, and have on their lower slopes large and populous- 
 looking villages, they are at any rate very pleasing neigh- 
 bours for a railway journey. 
 
 A few architectural notes of such churches as are passed 
 on this route (which I travelled not for the first time) will 
 not be out of place, though, with one exception, there is not 
 anything of great value. 
 
 At Schlestadt there is a large tower of late date to the 
 principal church, which is rather fine in its efiect. It has 
 its two upper stages nearly similar, which is rarer at home 
 than abroad. Another church has an early spire ; and there 
 is a smaller church with a good open turret. Opposite 
 Schlestadt the chain of the Vosges is very striking, and some 
 of the picturesque outlines of hills capped with ruined castles 
 remind one of the more famous banks of the lower portion of 
 the Ivhine. Beyond Schlestadt we reach Colmar, the cathe- 
 dral of which is large, and has a late tower capped with an 
 ugly bulbous roof. Another church in Colmar has a good 
 open-work and very light turret rising from the middle of 
 the lencfth of its roof. The effect of this kind of turret, 
 of which we in England have no examples, is always very 
 satisfactory. 
 
 But the best church in the whole extent of this journey 
 is that of Rouff'ach, one on whose merits ' Murray ' — whose 
 services all travellers must gratefully acknowledge — is
 
 12 BASEL. [Chap. T. 
 
 silent. It is of early date, cruciform in its plan, and the 
 crossing surmounted 1)y a good Csarly tower and spire of 
 octangular form. Each side of the tower has a good 
 window, above which a string-course forms the base to a 
 gable on each side. The angles of the spire spring from the 
 bases of these eight gables, and the whole design reminded 
 me somewhat of the only example of the same type in England 
 — the beautiful steeple of Lostwithiel. Eouffach has a good 
 choir terminating in an apse, and a south-western steeple, 
 surmounted by a slender spire too small for the tower. 
 Altogether, the general effect of the church is very fine. 
 Beyond this point there are no features of interest ; the 
 Vosges retreat into the distance, and nothing is to be seen 
 but a dead flat of field and w^ood, relieved occasionally by a 
 village or town, remarkable mainly for the ugliness of 
 its church. The busy manufacturing towai of Mulhausen is 
 passed, the number of stations is carefully reckoned, 
 and long before you catch the first view of Basel you are 
 heartily sick of the slow pace at which the Strasburg and 
 Basel liailway Company always arrange to carry their 
 passengers. 
 
 Those who know the Hotel of the Three Kings at Basel will 
 understand how grateful was the information given to us, as 
 we mounted its steps, that the table-d'hote was to be ready 
 in half an hour. Kefreshing enough at any time, such an 
 announcement was doubly so to travellers just arrived from 
 a journey from Paris without a stoppage ; and in no bad 
 spirit did we enter the sallc a manger, whose windows, 
 opening into Ijalconies which absolutely overhang the 
 great and glorious Ithine, flowing strong and (juick for 
 ever in the same unceasing current, make it about the 
 pleasantest room of the kind that I know. 
 
 There are few things in the world so line as a mighty 
 river, few rivers so fine as tlic L'liinc, and few spots so
 
 CnAi'. I.] THE RHINE. 13 
 
 favourable for its contemplation as the balcony at Basel, As 
 you look at the deep colour of the water, you think of all 
 the wonders which on its way it has scon. You remember 
 your own exploits and pleasant walks in past times along the 
 lovely valley of the Aar, and over the barren and stony 
 waste of the Grrimsel, to the source of this beautiful feeder 
 of the Rhine ; or you think of Lake Constance and Schaflf- 
 hausen, and of the beautiful valley of the Upper Ehine, and 
 of the lakes of Wallenstadt, Lucerne, Brienz, and Thuii — 
 every one of which seems to the mind's eye to be re- 
 presented and brought near by each wave that dashes madly 
 along before your gaze. And then, whither do they all so 
 swiftly wend- their way ? Down by minsters and by castles, 
 along broad plains, through narrow water-worn chasms, and 
 again through great, dreary, but many-peopled flats, into 
 the sea, there to mix themselves and all their recollections 
 in the great, glorious, but tradition-despising depth of Old 
 Ocean.
 
 14 VIEW OF BASEL. [Chap. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 "For pallid autumn once again 
 Hath swell'd each torrent of the hill ; 
 Her clouds collect, her shadows sail, 
 And watery winds that sweep the vale 
 Grow loud and louder still." 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 Churches of Basel — Storks — Kheinfelden — Frick — Baden — Zurich: the 
 Cathedral — Fondness of the Switis for Bright Colours — Lake of Zurich — 
 Rapperswyl — Linth Canal — A Wayside Inn — Wesen. 
 
 At Basel we engaged a voiturier to take us to Baden, whence 
 the only Swiss railway was to have the privilege of conveying 
 us to Zurich. Our scheme for reaching Italy was to pass 
 by the lakes of Zurich and Wallenstadt, and then, following 
 the valley of the Rhine, to cross over the pass of the 
 Spliigen to Chiavenna, and so to reach Lake Como. 
 
 We left Basel at two o'clock in the afternoon, hoping 
 to reach Baden by about nine ; the weather looked threaten- 
 ing, but we took a cheerful view of this, as of everything 
 else, as all good travellers should, and comforted ourselves 
 with the thought that at any rate we could better afford to 
 have a wet day between Basel and Baden than between 
 Zurich and the Spliigen. 
 
 The view of the city as you leave it is certainly very 
 striking ; the cathedral spires are picturesque in their 
 outline, and the number of churches with turrets and steep 
 roofs combine with them to produce a most ecclesiastical-
 
 Chap. II.] KOAD TO BADEN. 15 
 
 looking town. Nor need any one interested in arcliitecture 
 despair of finding much pleasure in a more careful inspection 
 of its buildings. They are full of interest, though generally 
 passed too rapidly by people in a hurry to get on to enjoy 
 the pleasures which await them beyond. 
 
 The roofing of the cathedral is worthy of notice as being 
 composed of variously coloured tiles, arranged in diamond 
 patterns over the surface of the roof, and giving a degree of 
 richness to the colouring of this generally heavy part of the 
 building which is very admirable. 
 
 In another fine church of the early part of the four- 
 teenth century here, I remember being amused to see how 
 quietly the storks possess themselves of all kinds of places 
 for their nests, and think even the ridge of the steep 
 roof of a church a proj^er place for their abode. The 
 good people at Basel build their chimneys with flat tops 
 for the exj)ress benefit of their long-legged friends ; who, 
 from their elevated and well-warmed abodes, look down 
 sedately, and with a well-satisfied air upon their unfledged 
 brethren below. 
 
 Why the people here love storks, the people of Venice 
 pigeons, and the people of Berne bears, I leave to more 
 industrious inquirers to decide, satisfied only to notice 
 the fact that it is so, as each of these fancies adds one 
 to the list of local peculiarities so valuable in the recol- 
 lections of a journey. 
 
 The road from Basel to Baden is for the first half of the way 
 very pretty ; we came in, unfortunately, for rather drenching 
 rain, and so lost all beyond the suggestion of some striking 
 views. The towns through which we passed were not o much 
 interest, though there were many picturesque and pleasant- 
 looking subjects for the pencil. The most striking place on 
 the road was liheinfclden, a largish village (or perhaps 
 I ought to say small town, as it rejoices in a Eath-haus
 
 16 
 
 RHEINFELDEN-STKIX. 
 
 [Chap. IT. 
 
 of some pretension), surrounded by very high walls, and 
 entered ])y tall stone gate-towers, pierced with pointed 
 
 arches, and surmounted hy 
 upper stages of timber, vnih 
 tiled roofs of quaint and 
 effective character ; and here 
 and at Stein and Baden I 
 noticed that almost all the 
 houses were old and very 
 little altered. I observed 
 particularly the old shop- 
 windows of very simple 
 design, closed with folding 
 shutters, and taking one 
 SH0P-1VIND0W, RHKixFELuEN. bact to old tlmcs most 
 
 decidedly in their design. 
 Beyond Eheinfelden the road, which so far has skirted 
 the Khine rather closely, leaves it again for a few miles until 
 it touches it for the last time at the small town of Stein. 
 
 From Stein we saw an imposing-looking church on the 
 other side of the river at Sekingen. It has a great western 
 front with two bulbous-topped steeples, and is of very 
 considerable length. The division between choir and nave is 
 marked by a delicate turret, and the whole church, as far as 
 one can judge by a distant view, looks as though it would 
 well repay a visit. There are six bays in the nave, five and 
 an apse in the choir. The former has very simple windows, 
 whilst in the latter they are rather elal)orate. There is no 
 aisle to the choir and no transept. 
 
 The rain continued incessantly until we reached the long 
 straggling village of Frick, a quaint and antique-looking 
 place, where our voiturier stopped for an hour to bait his 
 horses, wlio, however, at lUicinfcldcn liad enjoyed a treat in 
 the sha]H> of a loaf of very brown bread, a kind of food second
 
 Chap. II.] FIIICK— ISADKN. 17 
 
 only, in the estimation of foreign steeds, to the precious 
 morceaux of lump sugar with which Swiss vbituriers are so 
 fond of encouraging and petting them. 
 
 We were nothing loth to stretch our legs ; and finding 
 that the church was worthless — one of those unhappy bul- 
 hous-spired and bulbous-roofed erections so common in some 
 parts of the Continent, and the roof of even the eastern apse 
 of which was twisted into a most ingenious and ugly compound 
 curve — we took up our quarters in the respectable hostelry 
 and " Bierbrauerei " of the Angel, and devoted ourselves to 
 the consumption of coffee and beer of no bad quality. Our 
 host wished sadly to see us located under his roof for the 
 night, but we were resolute in our determination to reach 
 Baden that night, and so persisted in going, though to our 
 subsequent regret. 
 
 It was soon dark, and the new moon, which shone cheer- 
 fully upon us, gave us just a glimpse occasionally of the 
 scenery, which about Brugg, where we crossed the Aar, and 
 again at Konigsfelden, seemed to be remarkably good. 
 
 At last, at about half-past ten o'clock, we reached what we 
 fondly hoped was to be our resting-place. But Baden chose 
 not to take us in, and to our horror, as we drove up to the 
 chief and only available inn, we were met with the dismal 
 announcement from the mouth of the civil landlord, that all 
 the rooms were full. 
 
 However, we dismounted, and found that there was no 
 other inn in Baden proper, but that at the Baths there were 
 several ; at them our landlord assured us that he knew we 
 should find no room, and so we thought it useless to return 
 and try. Our only course seemed to be to feed our horses 
 again and then go on to Zurich ; and as Swiss drivers and 
 Swiss horses never seem to tire of trotting on slowly and 
 drowsily along the road, there was no difficulty in at once 
 coming to an arrangement with our coachman. 
 
 c 
 
 i'3
 
 18 ZURICH. [Chap. 11. 
 
 Accordingly, at midniglit we started again, hoping at 
 some early lionr in tlie morning to reach Zurich. It was 
 sufficiently provoking to be toiling on slowly and sleepily for 
 nearly four hours almost alongside of a railroad which would 
 have taken us early the next morning in three-quarters of an 
 hour ; hut there was no help for it, and so we did the hest 
 we could, by sleeping whenever we were able, to -pass the 
 weary hours away. 
 
 At last, just as the day began to dawn, we came in sight 
 of Zurich and its hike, and last, not least, we reached the 
 great hotel. Here we pulled up, knocked desjjerately, awoke 
 the slumbering porter — but, alas ! only to hear again the 
 unwelcome sounds which had greeted our ears at Baden ! 
 He suggested, however, that at the Hotel Belle Yue we 
 should probably find beds, and so on wc drove, rather in 
 despair at our prospects, though, happily, unnecessarily so, 
 for the Belle Vue gladly oj)ened its arms for our reception, 
 and ere long we were, oblivious of all our toil, comfortably 
 ensconced in bed. From our windows we had a pleasant 
 view of our quarters ; it was broad daylight, and the prospect 
 was — as from such a position, looking up a lake, it always is 
 — very fair and charming. 
 
 We were up again soon after eight, and were glad to find 
 the morning fine, though the clouds were low, and we saw, ■ 
 consequently, nothing of the distant view of mountains which 
 lends its greatest charms to Zurich, The town is, however, 
 pretty and striking. The picturesque houses, with wooded 
 hills on all sides beyond them, and very charming views of 
 the lake, if they do not make its attractions first-rate, at 
 any rate make them very considerable. 
 
 The main feature of interest for me was the cathedrul, a 
 fine liomanesque church, very fairly perfect, but mutilated 
 in its interior iirrjingements by the Calvinists, in whose hands 
 it now is. In plan, it has a nave willi aisles of six bays, a
 
 ^^^^^ ''//\V \% 
 
 2.— CLOISTEE, ZDRICH CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Page 19
 
 CiiAi'. II.] ZUIMCH. 19 
 
 sliort choir, and east of this a square-ended sanctuary, the 
 aisles having apses, roofed with semi-domes. In the nave 
 two of the aisle-arches make one groining hay. The trans- 
 verse groining-rihs are of a simple square section, the diagonal 
 ribs having in addition a large round member. The triforium 
 is very large and fine, and is made use of for congregational 
 purposes, being fitted up with seats, which, curiously enough, 
 are all made to turn up as misereres. There are no transepts. 
 The sanctuary arch is loftier than the choir arch, and seems 
 to have been intended to be very distinctly marked. In the 
 clerestory there are. two simple round-headed lights in each 
 bay ; the choir is arcaded all round internally, and for frigid- 
 ity of eifect cannot be surpassed ; the internal fittings com- 
 prise an immense pulpit, but, so far as I could see, not even 
 an apology for an altar. 
 
 The exterior has two western steeples,^ and a north 
 doorway, each jamb of which has three detached shafts, 
 standing considerably in advance of the wall, which is entirely 
 covered with diapers. The arch itself is semi-circular, and 
 very simple in its moulding ; but this simplicity rather adds 
 to than detracts from its general grandeur of efi'ect. The 
 whole is inserted in an additional thickness of wall, set on, 
 as it were, against the original wall, and the extreme width 
 of the doorway itself is no less than eighteen feet nine inches. 
 The cloisters were remarkable, and very good of their kind ; 
 the arches rested on detached shafts, the capitals of which 
 were elaborately carved in a very peculiar manner, but very 
 effectively. The whole design was unlike any Northern 
 liomanesque, and bore much more similarity to the best 
 Lombard work. Unfortunately, the whole of this cloister 
 
 ' In a view of Ziuicli, published a.d. ]654, these steeples are shown with 
 octagonal spires rising above the gabled sides of the towers ; the belfry stages 
 and cnpoliis now existing must then fore be of a date sul),se([nent to the 
 publication of this view.
 
 20 COLOURED ROOFS. [Chap. II. 
 
 was rel3uilt in 1851, the carving having been re-worked, or 
 renewed throughout in imitation of the original. It will he 
 seen, however, that, in spite of alterations, this is a very 
 fine chnrch, of a very early type, and peculiarly valuable 
 in a country which, like Switzerland, has comparatively 
 little left that is really good in the way of architectural 
 examples. 
 
 There are other churches in Zurich, but I believe not old, 
 and at any rate I had no time to examine them. One of 
 them is appropriated to the use of the Roman Catholics ; 
 and there is one desecrated, rising from the edge of the lake, 
 and forming a prominent object in the general view of the 
 town as you leave by the steamer ; this is of good outline, 
 but has no details remaining of any value. The point chiefly 
 to be noticed in the churches of Zurich appears to be the 
 way in which their spires are all painted red, looking in tlie 
 full sunshine very bright and picturesque. 
 
 The Swiss have a great feeling for bright colour, and on 
 our way from Basel to Baden we noticed one of the many 
 instances of this in several turrets covered with brightly- 
 coloured glazed tiles. A light green seems to be the favourite 
 colour, and is commonly used without mixture with any 
 other. They look best with their lower side rounded, and 
 when of small size ; and are constantly used in turrets rising 
 out of roofs which are entirely covered with plain tiles. I 
 remember, two years before, noticing with extreme jDleasurc 
 the beauty of some dark green tiles used at Schafi'hausen ; 
 and I have already had occasion to mention those on the 
 cathedral at Basel with equal commendation. Unhappily, 
 we have to lament that English people, in their insane hatred 
 of bright colours, if ilicy saw sucdi tiles used in England, 
 would be horrified at such a violation of the correct sim- 
 plicity and uniformity of colour to which the cheapness of 
 slate has made them accustomed. Some modern attempts. 
 
 I
 
 CiiAi". II.] LAKK OV ZUrJCH. 21 
 
 liuwcver, at introducing coloured tiles have not been so suc- 
 cessful us could be wished; and of all, perhaps the least so 
 is the roof of the new Maria Hilf churcli at IMunich, on 
 which tiles of light blue colour are nsed in such large masses, 
 that at first sight it seems that half the roof is stripped, and 
 that the pale blue sky is seen instead of roof. 
 
 At ten o'clock we left our hotel by the steamer for 
 Schnierikon at tlie head of the Lake of Zurich. The weather 
 still looked doubtful, though much better than on the \n-e- 
 vious day, and our host of the Belle Vue, taking a good view 
 of this, as is a landlord's duty, conducted us to the boat 
 with smiling anticipations of fine days to come. 
 
 The shores of the lake are, for the greater part of its 
 length, literally fringed with houses all painted white, and 
 contrasting violently with the trees, vineyards, and green 
 hills by which they are backed. On the north the shore is 
 low and gradually shelving down to the water ; on the south 
 it is rather more precipitous, but after all not very striking. 
 At the head of the lake heavy dark round clouds hung upon 
 the hills, and left us in pleasant doubt as to whether or no we 
 had fine mountains to discover when they cleared away ; a 
 doubt, as it happened, not settled, as far as we were concerned, 
 save by certain lively and not too trustworthy represen- 
 tations which we afterwards met with, in the shape of ad- 
 vertisements of the Zurich hotels, and which showed a line 
 of snow mountains as the ordinary horizon of their visitors 
 
 The churches on the lake are very numerous and very 
 similar. The steeples are almost always gabled, and from 
 these gables rise spires painted red, and very thin and taper 
 in their form. The gabled sides of the towers are generally 
 made useful rather than ornamental by the introduction of 
 enormous clock-dials. The only decidedly mediaeval church 
 which I saw between Zurich and Kapperswyl was at one 
 of the villau'es on the north shore of the lake, I think at
 
 22 
 
 LAKE OF ZUKICH. 
 
 [Chap. H. 
 
 Meilen, but I am rather uncertain as to the name. Its 
 design is both novel and very good ; the pinnacles on the 
 gable being unusual in saddle-backed steeples, and giving 
 considerable picturesqueness of outline. The accompanying 
 woodcut will show the general character of the design, and 
 
 CHCKCH ON THE LAKE OF ZCBICH. 
 
 it will be seen that the tower is on the north side of tlie 
 choir. The steeple roof is covered with greyish-red tiles, 
 witli a ])att('m marked on them with yellow tiles. 
 
 The steamers on this, as on most Swiss lakes, are somewhat 
 tedious in their journeys, as they take a most zigzag course, 
 lirst calling on one side of the lake and tlien on the other, 
 until one d()ii1>(s whether one will ever reach the journey's end. j
 
 CiiAi'. 11.] IJAl'rKRSWYL. 23 
 
 At lloigeii ui' course we diseliarged a lar^e })ruportion of our 
 English passengers, who were all bound for the Rigi, but 
 their places were soon occupied by the umbrella-loving 
 natives, who flocked in and out of the boat in great numbers 
 at every station, and by the time we reached Eapperswyl we 
 liad no more fellow-countrymen in the boat, and perhaps, 
 like many Englishmen, to say the truth, we then first 
 tlioroughly realised that we were abroad. Much as one 
 loves one's country, certainly one source of pleasure when 
 abroad is the not hearing too much English spoken or 
 seeing too many English faces. 
 
 At Eapperswyl, famous for having the longest bridge in 
 the world, there is a most conspicuous group of buildings on 
 rising ground above the lake, very picturesquely thrown 
 together ; it consists of a church and a castle ; the latter 
 has several towers capped with pyramidal and saddle-backed 
 roofs, and the former has two towers in the position of 
 transepts, with saddle-back roofs gabled north and south, 
 the southern tower being considerably the larger of the two. 
 Altogether, the group is one of uncommon variety and 
 picturesqueness of outline. Below, in the town, is a small 
 church, with a most happily-conceived though very simple 
 bell-turret rising out of the roof, square in its plan, but 
 capped with an octagonal spirelet. This is a not uncommon 
 plan in this part of Switzerland, and is always most agree- 
 able in its effect. The views from the terrace by the side of 
 this castle are of singular beauty. It is high enough above 
 the lake to command a good view of its whole expanse, and to 
 secure a not too distant view of some of the mountain peaks 
 of Glarus. Eapperswyl is a good point to stop at, for the 
 sake of a visit to the famous pilgrimage church at Einsiedeln, 
 certainly one of the spots in Switzerland most curious and 
 interesting, though its buildings have no claims to our 
 regard on the score of architectural beauty.
 
 24 LINTH CANAT,. [Chap. II. 
 
 Passing under, or rather throngli, the bridge, we found 
 that it was very narrow and had no side railing of any kind, 
 so that it appears to be far from a pleasant contrivance for 
 crossing the mile or two of shallow water which here scarce 
 serves to keep up the appearance even of a lake ; and perhaps 
 it is upon the score of the absence of real danger of drown- 
 ing if one fell over that they dispense with any protection. 
 At Schmerikon, which we reached in four hours from Zurich, 
 we left our steamer, and immediately embarked on a barge 
 in order to go by the Lintli canal to Wesen ; but we found 
 that, however expeditious this might be in descending, it 
 was a kind of conveyance not to be recommended highly to 
 any one wishing to ascend the canal, inasmuch as — unlike 
 ordinary canals — this is neither more nor less than the 
 glacier-torrent of the Linth bringing down the melting 
 snow from the Glarnitsch and Todi glaciers, and rushing 
 along at a really tremendous pace ; to those, however, who 
 have time, it may be commended as affording magnificent 
 views of the mountains of Glarus and of those which rise so 
 grandly above the Lake of Wallenstadt. 
 
 As we entered the canal from the lake we were amused 
 l)y the unsuccessful attempts of our crew to secure some 
 wild-fowl, two of which they succeeded in shooting, and 
 then, without any kind of regard for the feelings of passen- 
 gers panting to arrive at Wesen in the promised two hours 
 and a half, they deliberately proceeded — of course in vain — 
 to chase the unhappy birds, which, though wounded, were 
 quite able to dive much deeper than their enemies could 
 reach, and so the only consequence of the chase was a hearty 
 laugh at the expense of the baffled sportsmen, half an hour's 
 delay, and much lost ground to be made up. 
 
 The entrance to the canal was very striking ; a low hill 
 covered with larch and birch rose from the water's edge, and 
 aboNc this, llic mouutaiiis, gradually shelving n[)\vards, were
 
 Chap. U.] A WAYSIDK INN. 25 
 
 terminated in a line of n)cky ridges of very grand and 
 riiesed character. Whilst we were admiring the view a 
 slight shower passed over us, and the sun suddenly breaking 
 out, produced one of those lovely eftects of colour so peculiar 
 to mountain scenery ; a rainbow seemed exactly to fill up 
 one of the great basins formed by the undulations of the 
 mountains, and, after bathing a great sweep of mountain- 
 side in the richest and most distinctly marked colours, 
 gradually died away. 
 
 The canal, which at first looks more like a river, soon 
 takes a bend to the S.W., and then, passing under a quaint 
 wooden bridge, over which passes the road to Uznach, we 
 found ourselves in what certainly looked sufficiently canal- 
 like. The stream is so rapid that the walls built up on 
 either side are preserved from being washed away by stone 
 groins running out into the stream, and acting as so many 
 breakwaters to keep the water in the centre. Slowly and 
 steadily our horses pulled us up, whilst we, mounted on the 
 top of the cabin, were able to see over the walled sides of the 
 canal, and to enjoy the glorious prospect before us. 
 
 Before long our captain blandly informed us that he wa« 
 going to stop for dinner at a wayside house, so we, anxious 
 to make the same good use of our time, attempted to follow 
 his example. LTnfortunatcly the landlord, though very jolly- 
 looking, had a very badly stocked larder, and we had to 
 satisfy ourselves with bread, honey, and wine. It is true, 
 indeed, that our host did produce some cold meat — portion, 
 as I imagined, of a goat dressed some ten days back — but 
 this was not eatable, and was valuable only as furnishing an 
 opportunity to him of showing his perfect power of making 
 the best of a bad thing. To season the goat he brought in 
 vinegar and oil, and, putting them upon the table, exclaimed 
 with some enipyesseiiient, "• Yoila, monsieur ; mais le vinaigre 
 n'est pas bon I" just as if this was the strongest recom-
 
 26 WESKN. [Chai'. II. 
 
 meiidation lie could give us ! We laughed heartily, avoided 
 the vinegar, and parted good friends with our host, thanking 
 him from our hearts for having saved us the painful opera- 
 tion of making the discovery about its quality for ourselves ! 
 Our not very satisfying repast finished, we embarked 
 again upon our barge, and in the occasional intervals, when 
 sudden and heavy storms of rain obliged us to seek shelter 
 in the cabin, we were much amused in watching the pro- 
 ceedings of some men belonging to the boat, who spent 
 the whole of the five hours consumed in the journey in an 
 unceasing game of cards ; I must do them the justice to say 
 that they played very good-humouredly, and laughed without 
 ceasing. Under no circumstances could we have seen the 
 scenery more gloriously ; occasional bright gleams of sun- 
 shine broke in upon and followed clouds of the most inky 
 hue, and then came pelting down heavy showers, accom- 
 panied by howling wind and darkness ; and as we reached 
 the opening of the valley, looking up beyond Glurus to the 
 great mountains which close in its upper end, I think the 
 efiect was really more grand and terrific than anything I 
 have ever seen. The mountains are of very fine outline, 
 and of great height, as we saw by the more than occasional 
 glimpses which we had of snow about their summits. By 
 the time we reached Wesen the wind was so violent that we 
 found it difficult to keep our places upon the top of the 
 cabin ; and we disembarked just before dark, in time to see 
 the fine mountains on each side of the Lake of Wallenstadt 
 here and there through the storm-clouds, and its waters 
 beaten by the wind into not insignificant waves. We had to 
 walk tJnough tlie entire length of the village — a picturesque, 
 quaint little j^lace, sheltered under the almost overhanging 
 rocks at the side of the water — and arrived at last at the 
 capital and thoroughly Swiss inn, the Hotel de I'Epee, 
 where we were to sleep.
 
 CiiAP. 11.] WESEN. 27 
 
 Travellers now speed very clifrercntly along tliis country, 
 and, I fear, see less than they ought of its beauties. Steam- 
 Itoats no longer attempt to pass beyond Kapperswyl, and the 
 railway hurries one along by the beautiful Lake of Wallen- 
 stadt to the valley of the Ehine, only earning one's gratitude 
 when one is in violent haste, and because by a branch line 
 it makes a detour to Grlarus and Stachelberg much more 
 possible than it was when iirst I made the journey. On the 
 wliole I fear, where railways pass through beautiful scenery, 
 the tourist loses more than he can possibly gain, not only 
 ill the views of the country, but equally in the incidents of 
 travel, which are becoming only too monotonous and similar 
 everywhere.
 
 '^8 WALLENSTADT. L^-'i'ap. HI. 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 " Where the mountains 
 Lift, tlu'ough perj)etual snows, tlieir lofty and luminous summits." 
 
 Evangeline. 
 
 W'iiUcustadt — Ssirgans — (iorge i)f the Tamina — Ragatz — Cliur — -Ems — 
 Reichonau — TImsis — Zillis — Andeer — Spliigen — The Spliigpn Piiss — 
 The Gust' •iu-hoiis;e— Cascade of the IMedessimo— Campo Dolcino. 
 
 The storm of the evening gave no kind augury of sunshine 
 on the morrow, and with rather anxious thoughts we listened 
 as it roared among the mountains which overhung our 
 hostelry. But it seemed that we had suffered enough, and 
 when we woke we found that, though the clouds had not yet 
 cleared off from the sides of the mountains, there was 
 nevertheless every prospect of a fine day. 
 
 We were obliged to leave by an inexorably early steamer 
 at half-past five for Wallenstadt, and so lost all but the 
 suggestion only of the magnificence of the mountains which 
 tower up so grandly over the north shore of the lake. Like 
 (xoethe on his way into Italy, we might exclaim, " What do 
 we not pass over, both on the right hand and on the left, in 
 order to carry out the one thought which has become almost 
 too old for the soul !" r)ut our time was limited, and our 
 chief anxiety to spend as much of our short holiday as we 
 could in Italy ; and so, sad though wc were to miss what 
 was doubtless so well worthy of being seen, on wc were 
 1m Mind to go witluiiit delay.
 
 Chap. III.] WALLENRTADT. 29 
 
 Before we started I had secured a voiturier whose 
 carriage was at Wallenstadt to take us on to Chnr, so that 
 on this score I had no tronhle heforo me. Our voyage was 
 only too soon made. Unlike the Lake of Zurich, where the 
 traveller rather hopes that each place at which he stops may 
 l»e the last, on this lake, as the tiny steamer ploughs its 
 way rapidly over its surface, with its goal always in view, and 
 with not a place to stop at on its road, he ceases not to long- 
 that his pleasure may be j)rolonged ! 
 
 By seven o'clock we were in our carriage, and en route. 
 The sun began to shine, and every minute the clouds rose 
 liigher and higher ; so that, before we finally lost — by 
 turning into the valley of the Khine— the last view of the 
 valley of the lake, we could «ee the peaks of the mountains 
 which we so wished to have seen before, the Sieben- 
 Churfiirsten, which tower so grandly over the lake. 
 
 Wallenstadt is but a poor place, its situation being 
 unwholesome, and its inns not much to be commended. It 
 has a church of modern character, with an old-looking tower 
 in the position of a transept, with a saddle-back roof, 
 gabled north and south. On the lower part of the south 
 side of this tower are paintings of the Crucifixion and some 
 other subjects, apparently of some antiquity. Just above 
 the town, on the right, we passed the ruins of an old 
 castle ; and at a slight rise in the road had a lieautiful 
 view of the calm waters of the lake, looking blue, but very 
 much smaller than it really is. This, no doubt, is owing to 
 the great height of the precipitous rocks on its north side, 
 which we now saw for the first time, the clouds having at 
 last risen and disclosed some of the beauties which they 
 had been concealing from us. 
 
 The valley from Wallenstadt to Sargans, just beyond 
 which our route, after crossing the very low watershed, 
 joined the valley of the Eliine, was strikingly beautiful.
 
 30 SARGANS. [Chap. IIT. 
 
 Its ecclesiological features were not, however, remarkable, if 
 I except the constant repetition of what I have often noticed 
 in the Catholic cantons of Switzerland and in Tyrol — the 
 occurrence, namely, of grated openings on either side of the 
 western door-way, commanding the interior and protected 
 by an open porch, through which passers-by, though not 
 able to enter, might still see the altar. On our journey 
 from Basel to Zurich we passed a church the altar of which 
 was lighted up, and the doors behind these gratings left 
 open very late at night. It was in a lonely place, and when 
 I passed there was no one in or near the church. I never 
 see this arrangement without wishing to introduce it in 
 England. There are so many of our Churches which can- 
 not conveniently be left always open, and where such a 
 provision might suggest to passers-by, as it does here, the 
 propriety of using a church at other times than those of 
 public service. 
 
 The cultivation of this valley is not so uninteresting as 
 its ecclesiology. Here we first found the vines trained about 
 in the horizontal Italian fashion, whilst under them great 
 gourds and pumpkins developed themselves to a prodigious 
 size. 
 
 Sargans is a very picturesque old town, and has some 
 capital examples of good Swiss carpentry in its houses ; in 
 addition to which there is a picturesque and antique-looking 
 castle, rising high above the liouses on a rock, guarding 
 the eastern entrance to the town, and commanding the 
 junction of our road with that of the valley of the Rhine 
 leading to the Lake of Constance. 
 
 Our coachman was under a bond to travel as fast as 
 a diligence whicli lumbered on slowly in advance of us, 
 and as far as liagatz was quite true to his word ; there, 
 however, we determined to pause for a few hours, not 
 willing to pass anything so famous as the baths of Pfeffcrs
 
 Chap, in.] GORGE OF TITK TAMINA. 31 
 
 without ji visit. Leaving our carriage, we mounted a 
 light car, and were soon ascending the beautiful gorge of 
 the Tamina to the baths. The road is capitally made, and 
 follows the windings of the mountain torrent so closely as 
 to require some nerve in those who drive rapidly along 
 on their road to or from the baths. The ascent is 
 steep, l)ut in rather less than an hour we found our- 
 selves at the baths. The rocks rise nearly perpendicu- 
 larly behind the ledge of rock on which they stand, and 
 the only mode of access to the upper and more wonder- 
 ful jiart of the chasm was by jxissing through the long 
 corridors, which betokened the once religious object of the 
 building. These passed, and in charge of a guide, we 
 , crossed the torrent by a rude bridge, and then by a rather 
 l)recarious path made our way, as it seemed, almost into the 
 bowels of the mountain. The gorge is so very narrow that 
 in many parts the light of the sky is no longer visible, the 
 rocks overhanging each other above the head. All the 
 while the torrent is roaring by our sides, and we feel that 
 we are indeed enjoying an excursion into the very heart of 
 the rocky earth. At last we reach the end of the path, are 
 compelled by our guide to ensconce ourselves, one by one, in 
 a small kind of box formed round the source of the spring — 
 to pronouiLce it very hot and very nasty (its two most 
 eminent qualities) — and then, still admiring the matchless 
 grandeur of the rocky way, we regain our car, and are soon 
 again whirled down the hill to Kagatz. 
 I Our driver is a cheerful, pleasant fellow, talks German 
 
 I much better than the man we brought from Wesen, is 
 I communicative, moreover, and seems to enjoy a laugh and 
 ] a joke uncommonly. Of course we become friends, and 
 I with no trouble on our parts, though with some little on 
 1 his, it is arranged that our old driver shall remain where 
 I he is, and that our new friend, })roud in the possession of
 
 32 
 
 EAGATZ. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 the then very necessary Austrian passport, shall take us 
 on as far at any rate as Chiavenna. A hurried Swiss 
 luncheon — wine, honey, hreacl and butter — is soon des- 
 patched, and again we are on our way under the auspices 
 of our new voiturier. 
 
 But we must not leave Eagatz without noticing its 
 church, remarkable for its exceedingly good octagonal 
 wooden spire springing in an unusual manner out of a 
 square wooden belfry stage, and another church at (I think) 
 Vilters, close to Eagatz, which has a lofty tower finished on 
 each side with a sharp gable, and a 
 thin octagonal spire rising from the 
 intersection of the cross-gabled roof; 
 both these steeples are in a position 
 which for some reason is very popular 
 in this district — the south side of the 
 chancel. 
 
 From Eagatz to Chur the churches 
 are all very similar ; they have tall 
 towers generally in the same position 
 as those near Eagatz, and capped with 
 bull)ous roofs, or sharp spires covered 
 with metal. The road is not quite 
 the most agreeable we have travelled ; 
 some of the views, it is true, are most 
 lovely, and the mountains — among 
 which towers pre-eminent the grand 
 outline of the Falkniss — are very 
 noble ; but, despite all this, the valley 
 is too wide, and the Ehine, by periodical 
 inundations, manages to secure so 
 nearly its whole extent to itself, that there is a waste, 
 desolate, and pestilential look in the foreground which is 
 not prepossessing. We arrived at Chwv at about lialC-past 
 
 wooDKX .srrisr — raoatz.
 
 
 3.— CATHEDRAL, CHUE.
 
 Chap. III.] CHUR. 33 
 
 one, auJ, not sorry that our horses required rest, betook 
 ourselves to the inspection of this very curious town. 
 
 It is entered by okl gateways, and many of the streets 
 are still full of ancient houses. The curious feature of the 
 place is however its complete division into two quarters — 
 the Protestant and the Catholic — the latter walled off, and 
 entered by its own gates. ^ It occupies the upper part of 
 the town, and contains in the cathedral church of S. Lucius 
 an attraction for architects which has unusual merit and 
 interest. Its plan consists of a nave of three bays, a choir of 
 one bay raised by twelve steps above the nave, and a sanctuary 
 much narrower than the nave and choir, and also of one bay. 
 ! The steps from the nave to the choir are narrow and on each 
 \ side, and between them is a very flat wide arch, under which 
 access is obtained to the crypt, the floor of which is a few steps 
 below the nave, and extends under the choir and sanctuary. 
 The plan is, it will be seen, not unlike that of the Cathedral at 
 Zurich, save that here there are no apsidal terminations at all. 
 A sketch of the interior of so singular a church cannot 
 be uninteresting, and it will be seen from this that the 
 whole is of the very earliest pointed work, and good of its 
 kind; the crypt is supported in the centre by a column 
 resting upon a grotesque animal. Two of the altars have 
 fine shrines of metal of the thirteenth century, and two other 
 
 ' Tliis division is seen clearly iu one of the curious prints by Me- 
 rian, which illustrate a most valuable and interesting book, entitled 'Topo- 
 i graphiii Helvetii«,' published at Franktbrt-am-Main, a.d. 1654, and lull 
 I of most picturesque and exact views of Swiss towns; they are valuable, 
 i as proving beyond all question their state iu the beginning of the seven- 
 I teenth century, and as being executed with very much artistic feeling. That 
 I of Cluir gives the whole town in the most complete manner ; the castle, the 
 ) churches, the walls, and the many watch-towers, with the magnificent 
 i mountuins behind them, making one of the most pictuiesque ensembles con- 
 ceivable. Many of these views of Swiss towns are remarkable, as proving how 
 j very regularly the mediaeval towns were planned whenever there was the 
 j opportunity, the streets all at right angles, and the great church and market- 
 i place in the centre of the whole.
 
 34 OHLIR. [Chap. III. 
 
 altars have ancient pricket candlesticks, and there are some 
 fine brass standard candlesticks also ; the choir stalls are old, 
 and there is a late triptych behind the high altar, and a 
 very fine Sakramentshans with metal doors just below the 
 northern flight of steps to the choir, which reminded me of 
 the very fine example in a similar position in the' cathedral 
 at Ulm. The altar is of stone of the thirteenth century, 
 with five detached shafts in front, supporting the slab or 
 mensa. The whole church is groined. It is worthy of 
 notice that the choir makes a great bend out of the straight 
 line towards the north — so much, indeed, that it is impossi- 
 ble to avoid noticing it as one enters the church. The 
 steps from the nave to the choir lack dignity. But it is 
 true that if they had been in the centre, and the entrances 
 to the crypt on each side, the crypt would not have been 
 seen, as it now is, from the nave, and a striking efi'ect would 
 have been lost. The west end has a fine round-arched door- 
 way with several shafts in each jamb, above this a large 
 window of the same character, and in the gable a small 
 middle-pointed window. About ten feet in advance of the 
 west doorway is a curious remnant of a gateway with piers 
 and shafts resting upon monsters, looking, however, very 
 much as though it had been removed from elsewhere. 
 
 Service commenced just as I was obliged to think of 
 leaving the church ; the priests wore red cassocks and 
 tippets, and very short surplices edged with lace, and 
 looked unclean and untidy ; there was no one in the body 
 of the church, and the sacristan, after the service had 
 commenced, walked backwards and forwards about the 
 choir, down the steps into the nave, and then — after a 
 little attention bestowed on some matter there — out of the 
 church. On a subsequent visit to this church (in 1872) I 
 found repairs in progress, which bade fair to destroy some 
 of its great archaeological interest. 
 
 i
 
 CiiAP. 111.] KMS— KEU'HENAU. 35 
 
 Dcscencling from the melancholy and squalid-looking 
 Catholic quarter, we soon came upon the Protestant church, 
 dedicated in honour of S. Martin, ^Yhich is now somewhat re- 
 markable. It is old, but it has been j)lastered, whitewashed, 
 and then painted by some original artist over its whole ex- 
 terior, in an extraordinary imitation of all kinds of incon- 
 sistent architectural devices ; pilasters, cornices, mouldings, 
 tracery, and the like, are all boldly represented with black 
 paint, and in such style that we all stopped the moment we 
 saw it, struck by the conviction that it must be a scene from 
 some play, so utterly absurd, flat, and out of all perspective 
 did the whole look. 
 
 The situation of Chur is very lovely, placed as it is just 
 at the point where the Schalfiker Thai joins the valley of 
 the Rhine, and upon the steep and rugged bottom slope of 
 the mountains. 
 
 The weather was every moment becoming more glorious, 
 and just as we left Chur, along the road which leads to 
 Keichenau, we had one of the most lovely views we had 
 enjoyed. It is not always the case, however beautiful may 
 be the scenery, or however lovely the weather, that one 
 finds everything group together perfectly ; here, however, 
 it did, and I commend the subject to the pencils of those 
 who follow me on this route. 
 
 We soon reached Ems, whose church, situated upon 
 
 a green knoll above the village, has the peculiarity of a 
 
 small apsidal building east of the chancel apse. The key 
 
 was not to be found, so that I could not go in to examine 
 
 what this building was. This church had an octangular 
 
 i steeple, whilst another church in the same village had one 
 
 i of the bulbous coverings of which I have before complained. 
 
 ! At Eeichenau it is proper to go to see the house in which 
 
 i Louis Philippe acted in 1793 as schoolmaster under a 
 
 ! Monsieur Jost, and I fear we fell" rather in the 'good opinion 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THUSIS— VIA MALA. [Chap. HI. 
 
 of our driver when we neglected so proper and regular a 
 custom ; but so it was. The garden of the inn is charming, 
 and from its edge you obtain the best view of the junction 
 of the Yorder and Hinter Ehine, and having enjoyed this 
 thoroughly, we passed rapidly through Eeichenau, across its 
 two quaint covered wooden bridges, and by the beautiful 
 meeting of the waters, until we found ourselves following the 
 course of the Hinter Khine and fairly on the Spliigen road. 
 
 We only w^ished to reach Thusis by sunset, and so our 
 time was ample for enjoyment ; we walked much of the way, 
 detecting eagerly every here and there patches of snow on 
 the mountains in the distance, each of which is hailed as a 
 discovery by every fresh traveller, who feels himself trans- 
 ported with delight by the distant view of the pure white 
 against the sky. 
 
 Castles are here as numerous as ever upon the Ehine, 
 and at least a dozen, I should think, might be reckoned 
 perched on every favourable spot between Eeichenau and 
 Thusis. As the road advances the valley widens out into a 
 kind of basin, into which flow two streams, the one through 
 the as yet unperceived gorge of the Via Mala rather to the 
 right, the other through an opening in the mountains 
 directly in front of us, which allows us a charming view 
 of the snowy heights above the Julier Pass, drinking 
 in the last red rays of the setting sun, long since passed 
 away from the ground on which we stand ; then there is a 
 long ascent, and, passing peasants coming in from hay- 
 making, merrily laughing and singing, we drive up the 
 straight ugly street of Thusis to the Via Mala Hotel. But 
 the evening is too glorious to lose, and in five minutes we 
 are out again on foot to explore the commencement of the 
 black defile ; and until we are absolutely turning into it, 
 so narrow is the gorge that it is not seen, but when seen, 
 and by such a light, how 'grand and beautiful it is! We
 
 Chap. III.] A^IA MALA. 37 
 
 ascended some distance and then stood and admired. Above 
 us tremendous rocks towered liigli into the air, riven in two 
 for the narrow chasm in which we stood, at whose bottom 
 we heard the distant roar of the Ehine, and down below 
 and beyond, framed as it were between the grand outline of 
 rocky crag and pine-covered mountain, lay the valley of 
 Domleschg, still retaining, by contrast with the gloom 
 around us, some light upon its fields, and castles, and 
 villages. Rest was well earned after such a pleasant and 
 actively spent day, and, if we were late in starting in the 
 morning, it was as much the fault of our coachman as of 
 ourselves. However, though not so early as we intended, 
 we left soon after six, and in a few minutes were again in 
 the Via Mala. And now by daylight I doubt whether 
 we were not all disappointed ; there is so much in a 
 name that one expects something very terrific from such 
 a name, and this it scarcely is. It is seldom fair to 
 compare one piece of scenery with another, but still I feel 
 that this was certainly not the most savage I had ever seen, 
 and therefore not justly my Via Mala. But beautiful in the 
 extreme it was, and I believe we all regretted that we so 
 soon found ourselves again in the more open valley on the 
 road to Zillis. Here we found a church with a lofty tower, 
 in the same position, and with a spire of the same design, as 
 that at Eagatz ; the nave low and ugly, the chancel lofty, 
 with a steep pitched roof and apse ; the windows pointed 
 but modernized ; the belfry windows of the steeple of three 
 lights, with circular arches, and divided by shafts, which 
 were continued on in blank panels on each side of the 
 windows, so as to form an arcade of five arches on each side. 
 And this I believe was the last noticeable church we saw 
 before we reached Chiavenna, and in its arcaded belfry I 
 fancied that I saw something of an Italian influence at work, 
 which might well have been the fact. 
 
 ^68754
 
 38 ANDEER TO SPLUGEN. [Chap. III. 
 
 We soon reached Andeer, where we waited but a short 
 time, and then commenced a steep ascent. The lovely- 
 scenery, the mountains closing in round us, and the roar of 
 the falls of the Eofla making music in our ears, made our 
 way very enjoyable. There was but little chance, however, 
 of rapid progress, as from Andeer to Spliigen the road 
 is almost always on the ascent, sometimes gradually, at 
 others in steep zigzags up the shoulder of some obstructive 
 hill, and constantly overhanging or crossing the rapid, 
 white, foaming mountain-stream, sole representative here of 
 the noble river whose broad waters have been admired 
 at Basel. The air of desolation becomes more decided 
 as one reaches Spliigen. Trees and shrubs more scarce, and 
 often blasted by the fierce rush of the wintry wind, or the 
 keen sharp blow of the fallen rock, or the swift sweep of 
 the avalanche, aid in making up the desolate picture. 
 Vegetation has well-nigh ceased, and the eye, though 
 deceived at first by the intensely red colour perceived every 
 here and there on the hill-sides and on the rocks, discovers 
 presently that not to flowers or plants, but to lichen or 
 other such desolate vegetation, is it owing. 
 
 By the time we caught the first sight of Spliigen the 
 sky was overclouded, the wind rose, and a sudden heavy 
 storm of rain gave us a lesson in the customs of the weather 
 in these regions, to which our driver's quiet assurance that 
 we should probably have a snowstorm on the pass added the 
 few remaining drops required to make up the draught which 
 we saw ourselves doomed to swallow. 
 
 Spliigen, however, was reputed to have an inn which 
 would give us enviable sliclter for a couple of hours, and we 
 entered at once, hoping, if we waited, again to see the, blue 
 sky before we crossed the boundary between the North and 
 the South— between Switzerland and Italy. 
 
 The table-d'iintc was just alK.ut to coiumcnce, and in
 
 Chap. III.] SPLUGEN. 39 
 
 came a diligence from IMilaii, and out came the passengers : 
 another carriage, which had pursued us relentlessly all the 
 way from Andeer, came in at the same moment, and down 
 we sat, about fifteen English people, not one of whom had 
 been in the house ten minutes before, not one of them 
 stopping for more than their own and their horses' dinners, 
 and all proceeding in difi'erent directions, either on their 
 way home satiated with travel, or just about to dive like 
 ourselves in full quest of pleasure and excitement, into a 
 new country. These meetings are always curious, generally 
 amusing, and to the quiet and attentive observer of char- 
 acter not a little edifying. On this occasion there was 
 subject-matter enough, and we found an old gentleman, 
 travelling sorely against his will, under the care of an active 
 and thoroughly vulgar wife, some literary old maids of 
 another party, and the enthusiastic damsel of a third, each 
 in their way amusing, and not the less so in that it was 
 necessary to inspect them and part with them so rapidly. 
 
 Spliigen, in a soaking rain, is not a pleasant place ; and 
 as I employed myself in sketching from the inn window the 
 very picturesque old bridge, which gives^ all its architectural 
 character to the village, I conceive that I accomj)lished all 
 that was necessary ; and when we got into our carriage 
 again, and, crossing by the bridge, left the Bernardin road 
 to the right, and finally plunged really into the Spliigen 
 route, it seemed like a reward for my industry to find the 
 rain cease and the sun again occasionally shine out. 
 
 The ascent begins with a series of zigzags, which 
 
 rapidly carry the road high above the valley of the Ehine, 
 
 and then, passing through one of the long covered galleries 
 
 for which this route is famous, it emerges in an upland 
 
 • I j^rifve tt) suy it does so no longer. When I last crossed the Spliigen, 
 in 18G1), this bridge hud disappeared, and one of iron had been erected in lis 
 place. It was a capital example of the skilful carpentry of the old iSwiss 
 bridge-buildi'rs.
 
 40 THE SPLUGEN PASS. [Chap. III. 
 
 valley or dip between two mountains, np wliicli it takes a 
 steady course along a road macadamized, iDy-tlie-by, mainly 
 with the white marble which abounds here, until, just below 
 the summit, it comes again upon a steep mountain-side, to be 
 surmounted only by a patient unravelling as it were of the 
 intricacies of an endless zigzaging, which at last brings us 
 to the Swiss guard-house and the entrance to the great 
 gallery. The clouds are low and gathering ; but still as we 
 see below us white patches of snow every here and there, 
 and above us the blue edge of a great glacier marked with 
 lines of crevasses and fringed with a white edge of snow, 
 we feel that we have really at last achieved the summit. 
 Noisily we trot through the arched gallery, and then, after 
 another slight ascent for a few minutes, we stop and put on 
 the drag, and then down we go rapidly and cheerily, back- 
 wards and forwards, occasionally giving a merry tap to some 
 corner post at the turns of the road, in order to let it be 
 known that we, our driver, and our horses, are all of us 
 heartily glad that we are at last on the south side of the 
 pass — no longer the German Spliigew, but, as we learn from 
 divers notices along the road, the Italian Spluga. A short 
 drive takes us to the custom-house — not looked forward to 
 cheerfully by those who have met, as we had at Spliigen, a 
 man turned back by mistake, and after two days' delay again 
 retracing his steps — but happily, in our case, passed easily 
 enough, and with an exhibition of the greatest courtesy and 
 civility from the Austrian officer, the mention of whom 
 reminds me of the great change which has taken place in 
 the political status of this country since first I made ac- 
 quaintance with it. It is a change of no little importance to 
 the traveller, who now goes without let or hindrance almost 
 everywhere, instead of being worried out of his lite by 
 troubles about passports which even Austrian courtesy could 
 not nifikc toloraltlf.
 
 Chap. III.] THE SrLUGEN PASS. 41 
 
 We are soon oft* again across a drear and peaty-looking 
 plain, with no view of the neighbonring mountains, and 
 accompanied along the road by a troop of wild smuggler- 
 like fellows, in broad-brimmed steeple-crowned hats, loose 
 jackets, knee breeches, and coarse stockings, riding wildly 
 along on rough horses, without saddles or bridles, but 
 every one of them handsome grand-looking fellows, showing, 
 as they smiled, teeth of the purest white, and more nearly 
 coming up to one's idea of real Italians than any with 
 whom, later in our journey and more in Italy, we happened 
 to meet. Before long, however, we again commenced the 
 descent, and then, after passing through two or three 
 galleries of prodigious length, at last came out upon one 
 of those spots, the view from which, as much perhaps 
 by reason of its associations as for its intrinsic beauty, 
 rests on the mind for ever after, as one of the most lovely 
 ever seen. On our right a steep mountain track slopes 
 rapidly and almost perpendicularly down to a narrow valley, 
 whose opposite and no less precipitous side we are about to 
 descend ; below us, far down, we see the village roofs of 
 Isola, with its church and Italian campanile ; beyond— and 
 this is indeed the great charm of the prospect — down the 
 valley, where the atmosphere seems redolent of the South, 
 we see a grandly formed mountain, and again to its right 
 another but more distant ; between these two dim and dis- 
 tant shades lies the lake of Como — beyond them the broad 
 rich plain of Lombardy ; the sun shines forth, and we dream 
 henceforward of that valley, looked down upon from the 
 gallery on the Spliigen, as one of the brightest prospects of 
 our lives ! 
 
 "We had not gone far beyond the last gallery before 
 our voiturier made good a boast which he had often re- 
 peated, of showing us a real waterfall on a grand scale 
 before we ))arted company, and, jiulling up his horses, made
 
 42 CASCADE OF THE MEDESSIMO. [Chap. III. 
 
 US — not unwilling — dismount to look down the cascade of 
 the Medessimo. A passage has been formed from the road 
 to a point which just overhangs the fall, and here, securely- 
 parapeted round, you look down over a grand sheer fall 
 of some eight hundred feet, in the course of which the 
 torrent which goes to feed the threadlike Lira down below 
 us in the valley, and just now roaring in bold volume 
 underneath our road, loses itself m soft, delicate, and 
 fairy-like spray, and ere it reaches the rock below, seems 
 like some delicate mist falling from the sky for ever in 
 endless and exquisite change of form. Just beyond the 
 cascade the most wonderful part of the descent in an 
 engineering point of view commences, and the road seems 
 really to descend the perpendicular face of the rock, 
 surpassing in boldness most other roads that I know, and 
 uftbrding very fine and varied views of the cascade on the 
 descent. We soon reached Campo Dolcino, a miserable and 
 most dirty-looking village ; and were, sorely against our 
 will, obliged to wait for our horses to bait ; and then on we 
 went, the sun some time set, and the night dark and 
 cloudy. Presently a storm arose ; and without lights, and 
 travelling along a road turning sharj) angles every minute, 
 and never losing the music in our ears of the roaring Lira, 
 our lot seemed more wild than enviable ; at last we came to 
 a house and tried unsuccessfully to borrow a light, but 
 presently at another house we succeeded, and then guided 
 by a lantern we pursued our way safely enough, I have 
 seldom been out in so grand a storm ; the lightning was 
 vivid beyond all that I could conceive ; and as at one 
 minute it played about on the foaming water beneath us, 
 and at another lighted up the whole mountain-side beyond 
 with pale and intensely lovely light, flickering, playing, and 
 dancing about in the wildest fashion, I l)t'lievc Ave felt 
 half sad when Ikuisc alter house ajipeared, and at last we
 
 (HAP. ni.l ARRIVAL AT CI-IIAVENNA. 43 
 
 cutorcd the long, narrow, iind thorouglily Italian streets of 
 C'liiavenna. 
 
 Another journey took me to Chiavenna at the same time 
 in the evening, on my way north from Como. It was the 
 night of the 8th September, the Nativity of the Blessed 
 Virgin, and every peasant in his solitary chalet on the 
 mountain-side was burning a bonfire in her honour. There 
 seemed to me to bo something very touching in this flaming 
 Inirst of distant greeting from mountain to mountain, and few 
 circumstances have ever brought home more vividly to me 
 the isolation of these mountaineers, than the compensating 
 power of a sympathetic faith which made them thus bid 
 each other welcome by their flaring fires.
 
 44 CHIAVEXNA. [Chai>. IV. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 " But now 'tis pass'd, 
 That turbulent cliaos; and the promised land 
 Lies at my feet in all its loveliness ! 
 To him who starts up from a terrible dream, 
 And lo, the sun is shining and the lark 
 Singing aloud for jo}', to him is not 
 Such sudden ravishment as now I feel, 
 At the first glimpses of fair Italy." 
 
 Eogers. 
 
 Chiaveima — Lake of Kiva — Colico — Gravidona — Lake of Comri — Varenna — 
 Stelvio Pass — Lecco — Bergamo: Broletto— Churches— Castle of Malpaga. 
 
 The situation of Chiavenna is eminently beautiful : in a 
 deep valley surrounded on all sides by mountains whose 
 slopes are covered with soft and luxuriant foliage of oak 
 and chestnut, and where every available oj)en space is 
 devoted to trellised vineyards, it contrasts strongly with the 
 pine-covered hills so lately passed on the northern slopes of 
 the Alps ; placed, too, at the confluence of two streams — the 
 Meira and the Lira — it rejoices in the constant rushing 
 sound of many waters. 
 
 It was only necessary to move out of the shade of our 
 hotel into the melancholy piazza in which it stands, to 
 discover that an Italian sun lighted up the deep blue 
 sky ; and a walk to the principal church, dedicated in 
 honour of S. Lawrence, a stn)ll through the narrow streets, 
 und a rather toilsome ascent through a vineyard formed
 
 Chap. IV.] CHIAVENNA. 45 
 
 upon a rock which towers up behind a kind of ruined castle, 
 and from which a capital view is obtained of the singular 
 and beautiful cul-de-sac in which the town is planted, 
 sufficiently convinced us of its power. 
 
 The church of S. Lawrence is entered from a large ob- 
 long cloister, in one angle of the space enclosed by which 
 rises a tall campanile, its simple form, and its arcaded 
 belfry full of musical bells, contrasting well with the outline 
 of the hills which overhang and hem it in. On the east 
 side of the cloister are the church, an octagonal baj)- 
 tistery, and a bone-house, all ranged side by side and 
 opening into it, and the latter curious as an example of the 
 extent to which the people of Chiavenna amuse themselves 
 by arranging sculls and arm-bones into all kinds of re- 
 ligious and heraldic devices, and with labels to mark the 
 names of their former owners. The tout ensemble is pictu- 
 resque in its effect, and the cool pleasant shade of the 
 cloister, with the view of the church and its tall campanile, 
 and irregularly grouped buildings looking brilliantly white 
 in the clear sunshine, was very pleasing.^ 
 
 Italian beggars, persevering, and, at any rate in ap- 
 pearance, very devout, did their best to annoy us here and 
 everywhere when we ventured to stoj) to examine or admire 
 anything ; and Italian beggars are certainly both in 
 pertinacity and in filth about the most unpleasant of their 
 class. 
 
 My voiturier gave me a lesson worth learning, and not 
 perhaps unworthy of note for other unsuspicious travellers. 
 
 ' Probably most travellers who pa^s by Chiavenna are now on their way 
 to or from the Engadiii by the beautiful INIaloja pass. They will do well 
 before they reach tiie top of the pass to notice on their left the ruined remains 
 of a Gothic chapel of the fifteentii oentuiy, which may, I suppose, aspire to the 
 honour of being at a greater height above the sea than any other Gothic 
 church in Europe. Its architectural merit is not great, but .still it has a 
 certain value, as showing how well a simple little Gothic church looks among 
 the wildest mountain scenery.
 
 46 SCENERY OF LAKE COMO. [("hap. IV. 
 
 We had a written contract to Chiavenna, and thence to 
 Colico he had agreed verhally to take us for a certain sum ; 
 before we started I found, however, that he intended to 
 charge us three times as much as we had agreed upon, and, 
 as very luckily we found a diligence on the point of starting, 
 we secured places in the cabriolet at its back, from which 
 we had the best possible position for seeing the views, and 
 so left him in the lurch, with divers admonitions to behave 
 himself more honestly for the future. 
 
 At ten we left, and had a very enjoyable ride to Colico. 
 The valley, however, bore sad traces of the havoc made by 
 the inundations of the Meira, and of the storm of the 
 previous night. We soon reached the shores of the little 
 Lake of Eiva, along whose banks our road took us sometimes 
 in tunnels, sometimes on causeways built out into the water, 
 until at last we reached the valley up which runs the Stelvio 
 road, and then, after joassing along the whole length of 
 a straight road lined on each side with a wearisome and 
 endless row of poplars, we were at Colico. Here we 
 prudently availed ourselves of the opportunity of an hour's 
 delay in the dejDarture of the boat for an early dinner, and, 
 then embarking, waited patiently the pleasure of our 
 captain. 
 
 The scenery of Lake Como has been so often extravagantly 
 praised that I was quite prepared to be disappointed ; but for 
 the whole distance from Colico to Lecco it is certainly on 
 the whole more striking than any lake scenery I have seen. 
 The mountains at its head are extremely irregular and 
 picturesque, and throughout its whole length there is great 
 change and variety. In this respect it contrasts favourably 
 Avith most other lakes, and I certainly think that not even 
 in the Lake of Lucerne is there any one view so grand as that 
 which one has looking up from within a short distance of 
 the head of Como over the Lake of Eiva to the mountains
 
 Chap. IV.] GRAVIDONA. 47 
 
 closing in the Stelvio, and rising nobly above the sources of 
 the Meira and the Lira. 
 
 Somewhat, too, may be said of the innumerable villages 
 and white villas with w^hicli the banks of the lake are 
 studded ; they give a sunny, inhabited, and cheerful feeling 
 to the whole scene ; and, reflected in the deep blue lake in 
 those long-drawn lines of flakey white which arc seen in no 
 other water to such perfection, add certainly some beauty to 
 the general view. 
 
 One of these villages — Gravidona — within half an hour's 
 sail of Colico, ought not to be left unvisited by any one 
 who cares about architecture. 
 
 Close to its little harbour stand two churches side by 
 side, one an oblong basilica, the other a baptistery of, as it 
 seems to me, such great interest that I give illustrations 
 both of its plan and of its exterior. It will be seen that 
 the dimensions are small, the total internal width being less 
 than forty feet, whilst the design of the east end is most 
 ingeniously contrived so as to give no less than five eastern 
 apsidal recesses. There are two stair-turrets in the wall on 
 each side of the western tower which lead up to a sort of 
 triforium-passage which is formed behind an arcade in the 
 side wall of the church, and one of them leads also to the 
 first floor of the tow'er. The triforium consists of an arcade 
 of seven arches in each side w^all. The three small apses at 
 the east have each their own semi-dome, and the chancel 
 as well as all the other apsidal recesses are similarly roofed. 
 All the walls retain more or less traces of old paintings, 
 the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin occupying the principal 
 apse, and the Last Judgment the west wall. The whole 
 church is built in white marble and black lime-stone used 
 in courses, or stripes, with extremely good efi'ect. 
 
 The roof of this Baptistery is of wood. The exterior 
 is best explained by reference to my drawing of the west
 
 48 
 
 GRAVJDONA. 
 
 [Chap. IV. 
 
 front. It stands on a charming site with a background of 
 lake and mountain, snch as one seldom enjoys. There is 
 a contrast here, which strikes one very much, between the in- 
 genious skill of the planning of snch a building as this 
 and the rudeness of the execution of the details. I know 
 
 I'LAK — BAPTISTICRY, G RAVIDONA. 
 
 nothing as to the history of Gravidona ; but it looks as though 
 the plan came from the hands of men wdio knew something 
 of the Church of San Vitale at Kavenna, whilst its execution 
 was left to the rustic skill of the nmst)ns of the country.
 
 M 
 
 4'. Bi^PTISTEI-^V. qi^?i\^IDO]^S 
 
 1. 4:^
 
 Chap. IV.] GRAVIDOXA. 49 
 
 The Baptistery is dedicated to S. Jolm the Baptist. 
 Close to it, as I liavo said, stands tlic Chnrcli of San 
 Vincenzo, which thoujuli Eomanesque in its foundation has 
 been much modernized, and is now mainly interesting on 
 account of the exquisite examples of late fifteenth century 
 silversmiths' work which still enrich its sacristy. Con- 
 spicuous among these is a silver processional cross. This 
 cross is nearly two feet across the arms by three feet in height 
 from the top of the staff. There is a crucifix on one side 
 and a sitting figure of Our Lord on the other ; figures of 
 SS. George, Vincent, Sebastian, Christoj)her, and Victor, 
 and Our Lord on the base or knop ; and half-figures of the 
 I Evangelists on the arms of the cross. The ornaments 
 consist of crockets bent and twisted, of blue enamels, filigree- 
 work, nielli, and turquoises set in the centre of dark-blue 
 enamels. It is, in short, a piece of metal work which might 
 well make a modern silversmith run down swiftly into the 
 lake and drown himself in despair at the apparent im- 
 possibility in these days of rivalling such a piece of artistic 
 and cunning workmanship, in spite of all our boasted 
 progress ! 
 
 Not much less splendid is a chalice of about the same 
 age. It is ten and three-quarter inches high, has a plain 
 bowl, but knop, stem, and foot all most richly wrought 
 with figures, niches and canopies, and the flat surfaces filled 
 in with fine blue and white Limoges enamels. The paten 
 belonging to this chalice is very large — nearly ten inches 
 across, and quite plain. 
 
 Half the passengers on the steamboat were, of course, 
 Austrian soldiers and officers, the other half English or 
 Americans, either resident at or going to Como. We, how- 
 ever, stopped on the way, and, leaving the steamboat in the 
 middle of the lake, after a row of about twenty minutes 
 found ourselves at Varenna, a village exquisitely placed just 
 
 E
 
 50 STELVIO EOAD. [Chap. IV. 
 
 where tlie three arms of the Lake — the Como, the Lecco, and 
 the Colico branches — separate, affording, whether seen from 
 here, from BeUagio, or from CadenaT)bia, the most lovely- 
 lake views it has ever been my good fortune to see. 
 
 Here we had what seemed likely to be an endless 
 discussion upon the relative merits of a four-oared boat and 
 a carriage as a means of conveyance to Lecco, We inclined 
 to the latter ; but, leaving the matter in the hands of an 
 active waiter, we busied ourselves with eating delicious 
 fruit, admiring the tall cypresses growing everywhere about 
 the shores of the lake, and watching the exquisite beauty of 
 the reflections of Bellagio and the opposite mountains on the 
 smooth bosom of the water. 
 
 We were soon off again, and well satisfied to find our- '\ 
 selves trotting rapidly along the well kept Stelvio Eoad, ! 
 instead of dragging heavily and slowly along as one always \ 
 does with a Swiss voiturier ; soon, however, we were to find ' 
 that our driver was an exception to the Italian rule, and 
 that he who wishes to travel fast must not expect to do so 
 with vetturini. 
 
 The churches which we passed were in no way re- 1 
 markable ; they all had campanili, with the bells hung in 
 the Italian fashion in the belfry windows, with their wheels 
 projecting far beyond the line of the wall; but they all 
 seemed alike uninteresting in their architecture, so that we 
 were in no way sorry to pass them rapidly on our way to 
 Lecco. This eastern arm of the lake, though of course 
 much less travelled than the rest of its course, is very beau- 
 tiful, and its uninhabited and less cultivated looking shores, 
 with bold cliffs here and there rising precipitously from 
 the water, were seen to great advantage, with the calm 
 unrippled surface of the lake below, and the sky just tinged 
 with the bright light of the sun before it set above. 
 
 Lecco contains nothing to interest a traveller : we had
 
 Cii.u'. IV.J LECCO— BEP.GAMO. 51 
 
 an hour to si^end tliere before we could i>'et fresh horses 
 to take us on to Bergamo, and wandered about the quaint- 
 hioking streets, which were full of people — some idly enjoying 
 themselves, others selling lascious-looking fruit. We went 
 into a large church not yet quite completed ; it was Ee- 
 naissance in style, almost of course, and on the old plan, 
 with aisles, but very ngly notwithstanding. In the nave 
 was a coffin covered with a pall of black and gold ; six large 
 candles stood by it, three on either side, and two larger than 
 the others on each side of a crucifix at the west end. The 
 whole church revelled in compo inside and out. and there 
 was external access to a wretched bone-house in a crypt. 
 
 Leaving Lecco, we had a long drive in the dark to 
 
 Bergamo ; the night was very dark, but the air was 
 
 absolutely teeming with life and sounds of life ; myriads of 
 
 ciciile seemed to surround us, each giving vent to its 
 
 pleasure in its own particular note and voice with the 
 
 greatest possible determination ; and had I not heard them, 
 
 I could scarcely have believed it possible that such sounds 
 
 could be made by insects, however numerous they might be. 
 
 We changed horses at a village on the road, and went on 
 
 rapidly. The old town of Ponte San Pietro was passed, having 
 
 j been taken at first to be Bergamo, and remembered by the 
 
 I sound of a troop of men singing well together as they passed 
 
 ! us in the dark in one of its narrow streets, awakening with 
 
 j their voices all the echoes of the place, which till then had 
 
 j seemed to us to be supernaturally silent. It was eleven 
 
 ! o'clock before we reached Bergamo, and tired with our long 
 
 I day's work, we were soon in bed. 
 
 j A prodigious noise in the streets before five o'clock the 
 j next morning gave us the first warning that the groat fair 
 1 of Bergamo was in full swing ; sleep was impossible, and so 
 jwe were soon out, enjoying the busy throng which crowded 
 j the streets of the Borgo, in a before-breakfast walk ; the 
 
 E 2
 
 52 BERGAMO. [Chap. IV. 
 
 crowd of women selling fruit, the bright colours of their 
 dresses, the rich tints of stuff' hung out for sale, the display 
 of hair-pins and other ornaments in the innumerable silver- 
 smiths' shops, and the noisy, laughing, talking people who 
 animated the whole scene, made the narrow arcaded streets 
 of the busy place most amusing. 
 
 After breakfast we started at once for the Citta, as the 
 old city of Bergamo is called. It stands on a lofty hill over- 
 looking the Borgo San Leonardo, within whose precincts 
 we had slept, quite distinct from it and enclosed within its 
 own walls. The ascent was both steep and hot, but the 
 view at the entrance gateway of the Citta over the flat 
 Lombard country was very striking, and well repaid the 
 labour of the ascent. This vast plain of bluish-green 
 colour, intersected in all directions by rows of mulberry- 
 trees and poplars, diversified only by the tall white lines 
 of the campanili which mark every village in this part 
 of Lombardy, and stretching away in the same endless 
 level as far as the eye could reach, was grand if only on 
 account of its simplicity, and had for us all the charm of 
 novelty. 
 
 Through narrow and rather dirty streets, which do little 
 credit to the cleanly habits of the Bergamask nobility, to 
 whom it seems that the Citta is sacred, and whose palaces 
 are, many of them, large and important buildings, we reached 
 at last the Piazza Vecchia, around which is gathered almost 
 all that in my eyes gives interest to Bergamo. 
 
 Across the upper end of the Piazza stretches the Bro- 
 letto, or town-hall, supported on open arches, througli 
 which pleasant glimpses are obtained of the cathedral and 
 church of Sta. Maria Maggiore, which last is the great 
 architectural feature of the city. 
 
 But we must examine the Broletto before we go farther. 
 And first of all, its very position teaches a lesson. Forming
 
 CiiAi'. IV.] THE BKOLl^TTO. 53 
 
 oil one side the boundary of a spacious Piazza, on the other 
 it faces, within a few feet only, the church of Sta. Maria 
 ]\[aggiore, and abuts at one end upon the west front of the 
 Duomo. It is to this singuhirly close — even huddled — 
 grouping that much of the exquisite beauty of the whole 
 is owing. No doubt Sta. Maria and the original cathedral 
 were built first, and then the architect of the Broletto, not 
 fearing — as one would fear now — to damage what has been 
 done before, boldly throws his work across in front of them, 
 but upon lofty open arches, through which glimpses just 
 obtained of the beauties in store beyond make the gazer 
 even more delighted with the churches when he reaches 
 them, than he would have been had they been all seen from 
 the first. It is, in fact, a notable example of the difference 
 between ancient grouping and modern, and one instance 
 only out of hundreds that might be adduced from our own 
 country and from the Continent of the principle upon which 
 old architects worked ; and yet people, ignorant of real 
 principles in art, talk as though somewhat would be gained 
 if we could pull down S. Margaret's in order to let West- 
 minster Abbey be seen ; whereas, in truth, the certain 
 result would be, in the first place, a great loss of scale in 
 the Abbey seen without another building to compare it with 
 and measure it by ; and in the next, the loss of that kind 
 of intricacy and mystery which is one of the chief evidences 
 of the Gothic spirit. Let us learn from such examples as 
 this at Bergamo that buildings do not always require a large 
 open space in front of them, so that they may be all seen 
 and taken in at one view, in order to give them real 
 dignity. 
 
 The whole design of the Broletto is so very simple as 
 to be almost chargeable with rudeness of character. The 
 ground on which it stands is divided by columns and piers, 
 the spaces between them being all arched and groined.
 
 54 BERGAMO. [Chap. IV. 
 
 Towards the Piazza three of these arches, springing from 
 rather wide piers, snpport the main building, and another 
 supports an additional building to the west of it. Above 
 the three main arches are three windows, of which that 
 in the centre, though very much altered, still retains a 
 partially old balcony in front, and was evidently the 
 Einghiera, from which the people standing in the Piazza 
 were wont to be addressed by their magistrates. The 
 windows on either side are very similar in their design and 
 detail ; their tracery is of fair middle-pointed character ; and 
 the main points in which they strike one as being different 
 from English work are the marble shafts with square capitals 
 in place of monials, a certain degree of squareness and 
 flatness in the mouldings, and the very pronounced effect 
 of the sills, which have a course of foliage and moulding, 
 and below this of trefoiled arcaded ornament, which in one 
 shape or another is to meet the traveller everywhere in 
 Northern Italy ; either, as here, hanging on under the sills 
 of windows, or else running up the sides of gables, forming 
 string-courses and cornices, but always unsatisfactory, be- 
 cause unmeaning and unconstructional. The origin of this 
 sort of detail is to be found in the numerous brick buildings 
 not far distant, where the facility of repeating the patterns 
 of moulded bricks led (as it did in other countries also) 
 to this rather unsatisfactory kind of enrichment. The 
 detail of the arcades suj^porting the U2)per part of the 
 building is throughout bold and sim^jle, and I should say 
 of the thirteenth century ; the bases are quite northern 
 in their section, the caps rather less deej) in their cutting, 
 but still in their general design, and in the grouping of tufts 
 of drooping foliage regularly one above the other, reminding 
 one much of Early French work, though they are certainly 
 not nearly so good as that generally is. There is a flatness 
 about the carving, too, which gives the imjiression of a
 
 Chap. IV.] S'l'A. MAKIA MAGGIOKE. 55 
 
 striifTgle, in the hand of the carver, between the Classic and 
 Gothic principles, in which the latter never quite asserted 
 the mastery. The lesson to be learnt from such a building 
 as this Broletto appears to mc to be the excessive value of 
 simplicity and regularity of parts carefully and construction- 
 ally treated ; for there are no breaks or buttresses in the 
 design, and all its elements are most simple, yet nevertheless 
 the result is beautiful. 
 
 To the west of the Broletto is a good open staircase 
 (much like that in the Piazza dei Signori at Yerona),^ 
 forming a portion of one side of the Piazza, and leading 
 to the upper part of the buildings, and, I think, to the 
 great clock-tower, which, gaunt and severe in its outline, 
 undecorated and apparently uncared for, rears its great 
 height of rough stone wall boldly against the sky, and 
 groups picturesquely with the irregular buildings around 
 it. I have omitted to notice that the whole of the 
 Broletto, with the exception of the window-shafts, is exe- 
 cuted in stone, and without any introduction of coloured 
 material, so that it in no way competes with the exquisite 
 piece of coloured construction which we have next to ex- 
 amine, immediately behind it. 
 
 A few steps will take us under the open-arched and 
 cool space beneath the Broletto, to the face of the north 
 porch and baptistery of Sta. Maria Maggiore. This is 
 a very fine early Eomanesque^ church, but with many 
 additions and alterations on the outside, and so much 
 modernized inside as to be quite uninteresting to any one 
 who thinks good forms and good details necessary to good 
 efl'ect. The plan is cruciform, with apses to the choir, on 
 the east and west sides of the south transept, on the east 
 of the north transept, and at the west end of an additional 
 
 ' See illustration opposite page 104. 
 
 - The church was bui't in a.i>. 1131 hv Maestro Fedro.
 
 56 BERGAMO. [Chap. IV. 
 
 north aisle ; in all no less tlian five apsidal ends. The nave 
 is of three bays with aisles, and to each transept have been 
 added, in the fourteenth century, porches, thoroughly Italian 
 in their whole idea, and novel to a degree in their effect 
 upon an English eye. 
 
 A domed chapel, erected as a sepulchral chapel by 
 Bartolomeo Colleoni in the Kenaissance style, on the north 
 side of the nave, is most elaborately constructed of coloured 
 marbles. The effect is too bizarre to be good ; there is an 
 entire absence of any true style in its design, and there is 
 nothing which makes it necessary to criticize it with much 
 minuteness. 
 
 The best and most striking feature in the whole church 
 is the north porch,^ a most elaborate structure of red, grey, 
 and white marble, to which a drawing without colour can 
 hardly do justice. It is supported upon detached marble 
 shafts, whose bases rest upon the backs of rather grand- 
 looking lions, curiously grouped with children and cubs. 
 Above the arches which rest upon these shafts, and which, 
 though circular, are elaborately cusped, is another stage 
 divided by columns and trefoiled arches into three spaces, 
 the centre of which is occupied by a noble figure of a certain 
 Duke Lupus on horseback, with a saint on either side in the 
 other divisions. All the shafts except those in the upper 
 division are of red marble ; the highest stage of all is en- 
 tirely of grey marble ; in the middle stage all the moulded 
 parts are of red, and the trefoiled arches and their spandrels 
 of grey marble ; the space at the back of the open divisions 
 and the wall over the main arches of the porch are built 
 in courses of red and white marble. All the groining is 
 divided into diamond-shaped panels, composed alternately 
 of black, red, and white marble, all carved in the same kind 
 of pattern. In the great arch of the porch the outer 
 ' Fur a viuw uf this iiciruli, sec tht- rrontisijiecc of this vuluiue.
 
 CiiAP. IV'.] STA. MARIA MAGGIORE. 57 
 
 moukliug is of red marble, and all the cusping of "•rev. 
 The construction of the whole is obviously very weak, and 
 depends altogether for its stability upon iron ties in every 
 direction. 
 
 The approach to the porch, by seven steps formed al- 
 ternately of black and white marble, increases the impres- 
 siveness of the grand doorway, in front of which it is built, 
 the whole of which is of white marble, whose carved 
 surfaces and richly moulded and traceried work have ob- 
 tained a soft yellow colour by their exposure to the changing 
 atmosphere, and are relieved by one — the central — shaft being 
 executed in the purest red marble. There are three shafts 
 in each jamb, carved, twisted, or mouhled very beautifully. 
 These shafts are set in square recesses, ornamented, not 
 with mouldings, but with elaborate flat carvings, in one 
 place of saints, in another of animals, and with foliage 
 very flat in its character, and mainly founded on the 
 acanthus. 
 
 To an English eye these columns in the doorways are 
 some of the most charming features of Italian architecture ; 
 but they must be always looked at as simply ornamental, 
 and not as constructional features ; and perhaps in all 
 doorways the shafts, being really incapable of supporting 
 any considerable weight, would be better if, by their twisting 
 and moulding, it were clearly shown that their architect 
 meant them to be simply ornamental. In the Bergamo 
 doorway the spaces between the shafts are so strong in their 
 eft'ect, though carved all over their surface, that any light- 
 ness in the columns themselves is amply atoned for. Such a 
 work as this northern porch at Bergamo is indeed a great 
 treat to an English architect, teeming as it does with fresh 
 and new ideas, and in a small compass showing so many of 
 the radical points of difl'erence between northern and southern 
 Gothic, and at the same time oft'ering so beautiful a study of
 
 58 BEEGAMO. [Chap. IV. 
 
 constructional colouring, that it is impossible to tire of 
 gazing at it. 
 
 The porch to the south transept is of a simpler but 
 somewhat similar design. Both are placed against the 
 western half of the gable against which they are built, with 
 a pleasant ignorance of those new-fangled views of regularity 
 of plan which are the curse of modern architects. This 
 southern porch is round-arched, and fitted exactly to the 
 doorway which it shields. Its outer arch is carried on 
 detached shafts resting on the backs of monsters, and it is 
 mainly constructed of black and white marble. It is of only 
 one stage in height, and has a deep cornice enriched with 
 a series of niches with figures. An inscription below the 
 cornice gives the date as 1360.^ Above the porch, but in- 
 dependent of it, is a lofty monumental pinnacle corbelled out 
 from the wall, and richly sculptured with crocketed pinnacles 
 and gablets. When the church is entered, the reason for 
 the apparently eccentric position of the porches is seen. 
 They were so placed to give more space for the altars to the 
 east of the transepts, and their successful effect is good 
 evidence that no artist need ever distress himself about a 
 want of regularity, if it is the result of a little common 
 sense attention to convenience in the arrangement of his 
 plan. 
 
 The southern side of the church gives a very fair idea of 
 what the general character of the original building of 1134 
 was. The windows were very plain, the walls lofty, the 
 roof flat, and ornamented with corbel-tables uj) the gables 
 and under the eaves, and j)ilasters were used at intervals 
 instead of buttresses. There is a central octagonal lantern 
 
 1 ">J<MCCCLX • MAGISTEK • JOIIANES ■ FILIUS • C • DNI ■ 
 VGI • DE • CAMPILIO • FECl'I' ■ HOC • 0I'U8." Tliis Giovanni du 
 Campionc was one of a family of airliitects of miioli celol)]!!}'. Sec their 
 genealogical tree in ' Italian Sculj)toi>,' p. 10(j.
 
 ClIAP. IV. J 
 
 S'l'A. MAKIA MAGGFORE. 
 
 59 
 
 which may be old, but which is entirely modernized. The 
 most interesting remains are the various apses already 
 mentioned. They are of two divisions in height, the lower 
 adorned with very lofty, boldly- moulded arcades, above 
 which is an elaborate cornice, and above this again a low 
 arcade on detached shafts, behind 
 wliich the walls are considerably re- 
 cessed to form galleries which produce 
 a very deep shadow. The capitals are 
 elaborately carved, and the upper 
 cornice is again very rich. Altogether, 
 little as remains unaltered of the old 
 fabric, it is enough to give an idea of 
 a very noble and interesting phase of 
 art. Near a doorway into the north 
 chancel- aisle the external walls have 
 traces, faint and rapidly decaying, of 
 some very exquisite frescoes or, more 
 probably, tempera paintings. 
 
 The steeple is in a most unusual 
 position — east, namely, of the south 
 transept — not less, I believe, than some 
 three hundred feet in height, of good 
 and very simple pointed character, 
 without any approach to buttressing, 
 and remarkable as having an elabo- 
 rately arcaded string-course a few feet 
 below the belfry windows, which have 
 geometrical traceries enclosed within 
 semi- circular arches, affording, like the 
 south transept porch, a curious illustration of the indifference 
 of Italian architects to the use of the pointed arch where 
 strength was not of consequence. 
 
 Italian campanili have quite a character of their own, 
 
 CAMl'ANILR — UE11GA510.
 
 60 
 
 HERGAMC). 
 
 [CHA1>. IV. 
 
 SO distinct from and utterly unlike the steeples of Northern 
 Europe, that this, the first Gothic example I had seen, 
 interested me exceedingly. Perhaps its detail was almost 
 too little peculiar, if I may venture to say so ; for certainly 
 it has left no such impression of individuality on my mind 
 as has the beautiful campanile to whose grace so much of 
 the charm of Yerona is due. 
 
 The cathedral at Bergamo, which is close to the Broletto 
 and Sta. Maria, may be dismissed in a word. It has been 
 rebuilt within the last two hundred years, and appeared 
 to be in no way deserving of notice. In a courtyard on its 
 north side is a small detached polygonal baptistery, founded 
 in 1275, which must have been very interesting. It is 
 all built of marble, and richly adorned with shafts ; but 
 so far as I could see every portion of it has been renewed 
 within a few years. Beside Sta. Maria Maggiore and the 
 Broletto we found little to see. Two churches — one in the 
 Citta, and another, desecrated, in the Borgo — have very good 
 simple pointed doorways, with square-headed openings and 
 carved tympana ; but beyond these we saw scarcely any 
 trace of pointed work. We had a luxuriously hot day in 
 Bergamo, and, as we sat and sketched the Broletto, a crowd, 
 thoroughly Italian in its composition and proceedings, 
 gathered round us and gave us a first lesson in the penance 
 which all sketchers must be content to undergo in Italy. 
 Before long I found that my only plan was to start an 
 umbrella as a defence both against the sun and the crowd, 
 and this, though not entirely successful, still eft'ected a great 
 improvement. 
 
 The walk down the hill to the Borgo was more pleasant 
 than the climb up, and we were soon at our inn again ; and 
 then, after a most delicious luncheon of exquisite fruit and 
 coolest lemonade, concluded by a very necessary dispute 
 with our landlord about the amount of his bill, ending, as
 
 Chap. IV.] CASTLE OF MALPAGA 61 
 
 sncli disputes generally do in Italy, with a considerable 
 reduction in the charge and the strongest expressions of 
 regard and good wishes for our welfare on our way, we 
 mounted our carriage, and were soon on the road towards 
 Brescia. 
 
 Not far from this road and within about eight miles 
 of Bergamo lies one of the most interesting of the many 
 castles of which one so frequently sees remains in the North 
 of Italy. This is the Castle of Malpaga, which was in- 
 habited by the famous Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, of 
 whom we have already heard at Bergamo, and of whom we 
 shall see something again at Venice. It belongs now to a 
 nobleman who lives in the Citta of Bergamo, and leaves this 
 old and stately pile to the keeping of his hinds, who tend 
 his silk-worms, gather his grapes, make his wines, look after 
 his corn and cattle, and do as much as in them lies to gather 
 the fruits wdiich mother earth yields in these parts with 
 such ungrudging profusion, but trouble themselves little 
 about the preservation of the old castle or its belongings, 
 seeing that they seem to give scant pleasure to their lord. 
 
 The castle as originally built was a square building 
 enclosing a courtyard built of brick externally, and adorned 
 with a forked battlement, which is common everywhere in 
 old buildings between this and Viceuza, and with four 
 square corner towers, of which one larger than the others 
 has a very bold and fine overhanging machicolated parapet. 
 In the centre of the south front the drawbridge still remains 
 in use, and was lowered for our exit from the castle. Out- 
 side the square castle was a space, and then a low wall again 
 furnished with the forked battlement. This must have been 
 a very picturesque arrangement ; but unfortunately its real 
 character is now only intelligible to the skilled eye. For the 
 great Colleoni, finding himself in possession of a castle which 
 gave him insufficient space for his magnificence, built up
 
 62 CASTLE OF MALPAGA. [Chap. IV. 
 
 walls ou the top of the old hattlemented outer wall, and 
 created his state rooms in the space between this new wall 
 and the old external wall of the castle. These rooms of his 
 have much damaged the effect of the outside of the castle ; 
 but internally they are still interesting, owing to the sump- 
 tuous character of the painted decorations with which he 
 had them adorned. These were executed at about the time 
 of the visit of Christian II. of Denmark to Colleoni, and are 
 interesting if not great works of art. The old courtyard 
 though small is very fine in its efi'ect. The upper walls are 
 carried on pointed arches and are covered with fresco or dis- 
 temper paintings, said to have been executed by Giovanni 
 Cariani of Bergamo, or by Girolamo Eomanino of Brescia, 
 extremely striking and attractive in their general style of 
 colour and drawing. Tlie most picturesque incidents are 
 illustrations of Colleoni's career — the Doge of Yenice giving 
 Colleoni his baton in the presence of the Pope, and a fine 
 battle subject. 
 
 A squalid area for rubbish, children, pigs, cats, and what 
 not, is left all round the moat, and beyond this are all the 
 farm buildings and labourers' residences, which go to make 
 up the tout ensenihle of a great Lombard farmyard. The 
 surroundings are not clean nor very picturesque, but the 
 castle itself has so great an interest, that no one who visits 
 Bergamo should pass it by unseen. 
 
 ' The rmiiid cliuicli of San Tommaso in Ijimiiie, do.srrihcd by Mi'. Cally 
 Knight as similnr in plan to San Vitnle, at Eavcnna, is only eight miks to 
 the north of Bergamo, and ought, e(|ually with Malpaga Castle, to be seen. 
 I I'egret that I have never ycit vi>it( d it.
 
 CiiAP. v.] PAI.AZZUOLO. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ■ Am 1 in Italy ? Is this the Mincius ? 
 Are those the distant turrets of Verona? 
 And shall I sup where Juliet at the masque 
 Saw her level Montague, and now sleeps by him?" 
 
 Bogers. 
 
 Palazznolo — Coccagli(j — Brescia : new and old Cathedrals, Broleitn— Churclics 
 — Donato — DLsenzaiio — T-ago di Garda — Riva — Trent — Verona. 
 
 Our drive from Bergamo to Brescia was strikingly un- 
 like what we had hitherto been so much enjoying. Mile 
 after mile of straight roads, between fields so closely planted 
 with fruit-trees that one never sees more than the merest 
 glimpse of anything beyond them, are certainly not pleasant ; 
 and the hot sun above us, and the thirsty and dry beds of 
 rivers which we crossed on our way, made us feel glad when 
 evening drew on, and we found ourselves rapidly nearing 
 Brescia. 
 
 I made notes at two or three places on the way. At 
 Pahizzuolo is a great circular belfry, ornamented with a large 
 figure at the top and divers others about its base, built of 
 brick rusticated to look like stone, and altogether about as 
 base a piece of architecture as could well be found, but par- 
 doned here because of the pure blue of the sky I saw behind 
 it, and partly on account of the view which it commands, 
 reaching, it is said, as far as Milan, and including the great 
 plain out of which, upon a slight hill, it rises. Palazzuolo is
 
 64 
 
 COCCAGLIO. 
 
 [Chap. V. 
 
 nicely situated, and upon the first of the many rivers which 
 we had passed from Bergamo which had any water in its. hed. 
 The houses, too, were almost all suj^ported on arcades, giving 
 pleasant shelter from the sun. 
 
 Beyond this we came to Coccaglio, a' small village with a 
 wretchedly bad modern church, glorying in a glaringly 
 sham front, and faced on the opposite side of the street by 
 the remains of a mediaeval church — whose place it has taken 
 — and which is now shut up and rapidly going to ruin. The 
 new church is built north and south — the old one orientat- 
 ing properly ; but then the west front was the great feature 
 of the new church, and therefore it was necessary, of course, 
 to place it towards the road ! 
 
 M IN- 1 1< ) \y — OOCC A G I.IO. 
 
 Coccaglio still has, liowovor, some very valuable remains 
 of mcdiseval domestic work in its houses, of which I was able
 
 Chap. V.] 
 
 COCCAGLIO. 
 
 65 
 
 to obtain some sketches. They were entirely executed 
 in brick and terra-cotta, except, of course, the capitals 
 and shafts of the windows, and appeared to be of the four- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The upper portion of the house of which I give a sketch 
 remains very fairly perfect, though its lower story has been 
 entirely modernized. It will be seen that it is very uniform 
 in its design, the large and small windows alternating 
 
 DETAIL OK WIM>OWS AND CORBKLLING FOR (HIMNKVS— COCCAGLIO. 
 
 regularly ; and that scnii-circular arches arc used in the 
 windows in connection with ogee trefoils. This is one of 
 the apparent inconsistencies which occur in almost all Italian 
 Gothic work ; and might seem to give us ancient authority 
 for any amount of licence in our combination of the elements 
 of what we ordinarily consider to be thoroughly different 
 styles. The windows are marked l)y the same elaljoraliou
 
 66 
 
 COCCAGLIO. 
 
 [Chap. V. 
 
 of their sills which we noticed in the Broletto at Bergamo, 
 and the detail of these, as also of the corbelling out from the 
 wall of several chimney-hreasts, is exceedingly good. 
 
 In a hack street in the village I found a house the 
 balconies around which were corbelled forward on finely 
 moulded beams, which, judging by the moulding, could 
 hardly be of later date than the commencement of the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 
 WUOUKN BALCONi — COCCAGLIO. 
 
 Wooden mouldings of this kind are much rarer in Italy 
 than they are in the North, and I particularly notice this 
 little relic, therefore, which still remains to show how well 
 the science of moulding was sometimes understood even 
 there. 
 
 Such a village as Coccaglio is, as I found afterwards, a 
 place to be made much of; for generally, except in public 
 or important buildings in large towns, one sees very little 
 trace of any mcditevjil doiiicstic woik licyond tlic perpetually
 
 Chap. V.] BRESCIA. 67 
 
 recurring arcading under the houses which is so general a 
 feature in all the towns in the North of Italy. 
 
 There is nothing further of any interest on the road, and 
 just after sunset we reached Brescia, too late to see any- 
 thing of the general effect of the city. 
 
 Brescia is mainly famous, I believe, first for its connec- 
 tion with a story of the generosity of Bayard, the " chevalier 
 sans peur et sans reproche," and next for the large dis- 
 coveries of Roman remains which have from time to time 
 been made there. It is one of those towns, moreover, of 
 which guide-books, with an immense list of churches and 
 the 2)ictures they contain, give perhaps too grand an idea 
 before they have been seen. It is, however, undoubtedly a 
 place of much interest, not only for the antiquary, but also 
 for the student of medigeval art, since, though its churches 
 are generally uninteresting, it has in the Broletto, sadly 
 mutilated and modernized as it is, the remains of one of 
 the most extensive and grand of these buildings, and to a 
 considerable extent executed in very excellent brickwork. 
 
 Our first visit in the morning was to the Piazza, in which 
 
 stand the two cathedrals — the old and the new — side by side, 
 
 and just beyond them the front of the Broletto, stretching its 
 
 great length up a slight hill and along a narrow lane beyond 
 
 the Piazza, whilst at its angle, towering up between it and 
 
 the cathedrals^ stands a tall and rugged stone campanile, 
 
 without break or window until at the top, where, just as in 
 
 I the corresponding tower at Bergamo, great rudely-arched 
 
 ! openings are left, through which appear the wheels and works 
 
 I of the bells. 
 
 ! The new cathedral, approached by a flight of steps from 
 I the Piazza, has a great sham front. It has, moreover, a large 
 ! dome, said to be inferior only in size to those of S. Peter's 
 ' and the cathedral at Florence, but not prepossessing in its 
 I tlcct ; nor did the church seem to contain any pictures of 
 
 r 2
 
 68 BRESCIA. [Chap. V. 
 
 value. By a descent of some twenty steps from the south 
 transept the old cathedral is reached. This is of very early 
 date, and constructed partly in stone and partly in brick. 
 The most remarkable feature is the nave, which is circular in 
 jjlan, with an aisle round it ; the central j)ortion, divided by 
 eight arches from the aisles, being carried up into a dome. 
 The choir and transepts are projected on the east side of the 
 dome, and the former is groined and has a five-sided apse. The 
 walls retain some fair mediaeval monuments, and beneath the 
 church is a large cryj)t. The old stone altar in the choir is 
 a fine examjjle of the thirteenth century. The mensa is, as 
 so often is the case, carried on shafts, no less than sixteen 
 in front and six at the ends, with carved capitals. The 
 stalls are in the apse, and a fine lectern stands behind the 
 altar. 
 
 The whole air of the Duomo Yecchio is chill and dismal 
 to a degree ; it is neglected and dirty, and apparently shut 
 up except for occasional services, and left no pleasant impres- 
 sions on our minds of our first Lombard cathedral ; and yet 
 undoubtedly there is both here and at Aachen — where the 
 plan of the cathedral is so very similar — much to admire 
 in the idea of the plan, and I can quite imagine that a very 
 noble and useful church might in any age have been founded 
 upon this old Lombard type.^ 
 
 Those who know anything of Spanish churches will be 
 reminded here of the two cathedrals at Salamanca, the relative 
 positions of which are just the same, a steep flight of steps 
 in either case, leading down from the south aisle of the new 
 cathedral into the old and deserted one. 
 
 From the cathedral we went at once to the Broletto, which 
 
 ' S. Gcronn, at Koln, is a niagnificont exani23l«3 of a clnirch upon the 
 s.irae kind of [Ann ; a grand clioir projected from a decagonal nave, tlie effect 
 of wliicli is oai)'tal. No doubt such a nave docs much more than merely 
 suggest tlie possibility of adapting tlnj dome to Gothic buihlings.
 
 % 
 
 8— BROr.BTTO, BRESCIA. 
 
 Paja 6».
 
 Chap. V.] 
 
 BROLETTO. 
 
 69 
 
 stands in the same Piazza. The main portion of this immense 
 l)uikling appears to have been built rather early in the 
 tliirteenth century. The arches throughout are both round 
 and pointed, used indifferently ; but this mixture does not 
 betoken any diversity of date, as it would in England. 
 
 CLuIsrF.R — limil.ETTO, BKKSCIA. 
 
 A large quadrangle is formed by the buildings, which has 
 a cloister on two sides, and traces of another cloister on a 
 third side now built up. The cloister still remaining on the 
 east side is ancient and on a large scale ; it opens to the 
 quadrangle with simple pointed arches resting upon heavy 
 piers, and a row of piers running down the centre divides it 
 into two portions, so that it may be judged that its size is very
 
 70 
 
 BRESCIA. 
 
 [Chap. V 
 
 considerable. The groining has transverse and diagonal ribs, 
 the former being very remarkable, and, as not unfrequently 
 seen in good Italian work, slightly ogeed ; not, that is to say, 
 regular ogee arches, but ordinary arches with the slightest 
 suggestion only of an ogee curve in the centre. Of the 
 external portion of the building the west front is the most 
 perfect, and must always have been the finest ; it consists 
 of a building containing in the upper story five windows, 
 the centre being the largest, and possibly once the Ein- 
 
 i 
 
 DETAIL OF CIRCULAR WINEOW— BKOLETTO, BRESCIA. 
 
 ghiera, to the south of which rises the great belfry of rough 
 stone, and beyond that a wide building with traces — but 
 no more — of many of the original windows ; north of the 
 building with the five windows is a very beautiful composition 
 executed almost entirely in finely-moulded bricks ; it has an 
 exquisite door with some traces of fresco in its tympanum, 
 executed mainly in stone, of wliich I give a drawing, and a 
 magnificent brick rose window, above which is a brick cornice, 
 which continues over the remainder of the west front and 
 along the whole of the north side.
 
 Chap. V.] 
 
 BROLETTO. 
 
 71 
 
 The size of the buikling is prodigious, and certainly the 
 detail of all the parts (excepting perhaps the cornice, which 
 
 DOOKV W — BROLFTTO BRl-sCIA 
 
 BRICK COHNICK — BUOI.ETTO, HRESCIA. 
 
 is of the common arcadod kind) is most beantiful and valu-
 
 72 
 
 BRESCIA. 
 
 [Chap. V. 
 
 able. The brickwork is so good and characteristic that I 
 have given several sketches of it. All the arches have occa- 
 sional vonssoirs of stone, and the centre of the arch is always 
 marked by a key-stone, and these are sometimes slightly 
 carved to distinguish them from the other stone vonssoirs. 
 The abaci are of brick, moulded and very varied. The 
 doorway given in the woodcut on the preceding page has 
 stone jambs, caps and bases, lintel and outer arch, the label 
 and cusps being of terra-cotta ; above this the whole of this 
 portion of the front is of brick, and very admirably built. 
 
 SAN FKANCESCO — liRKSCIA. 
 
 Of the churches of Brescia there seem to be but few of 
 any interest ; that of San Francesco, of whose west front 1 
 give a sketch, is the best, and, though not of uncommon 
 design, is worth notice ; the mixture of white and black
 
 CiiAP. v.] SAN FRANCESCO. 73 
 
 marble and brick is very judicious ; but I must protest once 
 more against the arcaded eaves-cornices, wbich are very- 
 elaborate and heavy ; nor can I bring myself to like the great 
 flat gable, covering both nave and aisles, and divided only by 
 pilaster strips, which characterizes so many mediaeval Italian 
 churches. In this west front of San Francesco the cornices 
 and the mouldings of the small circular windows are all of 
 brick, and the rest of the front of stone, the rose window 
 having voussoirs of black and white marble. The only other 
 part of the church which appeared to be of any interest was 
 a campanile on the south side of the choir : this had stone 
 belfry windows, well treated with simple plate tracery, and 
 there is a singular and lofty lantern over one of the chapels 
 on the north side of the church, all of rich brickwork dating 
 from about 1480. 
 
 The sun was at its hottest as we wandered about the 
 streets of Brescia ; but there was so much pleasure in the 
 examination of the busy people who thronged its narrow 
 tortuous streets, that we enjoyed it very much. In Italian 
 towns, too, there is not much difficulty in finding the way ; 
 we ask the road to some church, and forthwith, in place of a 
 long and not very intelligible direction, in which we are sure 
 entirely to confuse our right hand with our left, the j^erson 
 we ask turns round with us, walks by our side, shews us our 
 object, and, politely taking off his hat and bowing, takes leave 
 of us. It was by such aid as this that we found the church 
 of the Carmine, which is another very late Grothic church. 
 The west front is most fantastic and unpleasing, and the 
 pinnacles composed of round bricks, disposed alternately over 
 each other, and common in most Italian Itrick buildings, are 
 very ugly ; there is, however, a good simple cloister attached 
 to the church on the north ; it is of the same design as 
 almost all in this part of the world, having simple round 
 shafts with carved caps and circular arches. An inner
 
 74 
 
 BRESCIA. 
 
 [Chap. Y. 
 
 cloister which I i-emember of okl as occupied by the ever 
 present Austrian sokliers, is now (1872) open to all the world, 
 and neither cared for nor nsed. Here the south side of the 
 
 CLOISTER OF THE CAHMINE COKVKNT — BRKSCIA. 
 
 cloister is of two stories in height, the lower similar to the 
 one just mentioned, the upper having two arches to one arch 
 of that ))elow, and the arches picturesquely shaped, being 
 cinquefoils, willi the central division of ogro form, ;ind with
 
 Chap. V.] STA. AFRA. 75 
 
 moulded terminations to the cusps. There is a fair cam- 
 panile here, with brick traceries and strings, but with a 
 modern belfry-stage. 
 
 A little bit of cloister, or gallery, on the north side of Sta. 
 Afra, has arcading of similar character in its upper gallery, 
 but the arches are trefoiled. 
 
 In the Contrada della Pace there remains a very bold frag- 
 ment of a castle tower. It is built of very roughly-jointed 
 stone, and is perfectly plain till near the top, where it has 
 a bold machicolation with tall square angle-turrets, the whole 
 Inattlemented wath a forked battlement. Out of the centre 
 of the tower a tall thin tower rises to some height above the 
 battlements. 
 
 One of the most picturesque spots in the city is the 
 Piazza, at the end of which stands the Palazzo della Loggia ; 
 the effect on coming into it from the narrow^ streets in which 
 we had been wandering was very pleasant, the large open 
 space being surrounded with rather elaborate Renaissance 
 work with rich coloured sun-blinds projecting from the 
 windows over the sunny pavement, which in its turn was 
 thronged with people in picturesque attire selling fruit and 
 vegetables. The streets are all arcaded, and some of them 
 have very considerable remains of frescoes on the exterior, 
 giving much interest to the otherwise ugly walls ; they 
 have, however, suffered very greatly from exposure, and 
 are only in places intelligible ; still they give traces of 
 brilliant external colour, and are therefore much valued in my 
 recollections of Brescia. 
 
 Compared with Bergamo, Brescia has the air of a smart 
 and busy place ; its streets are wider and better paved, and 
 the smells wdiich still greeted us were not quite so bad as 
 there. The staple manufacture of the city seems to be that 
 of copper vessels ; shop after shop, indeed street after street, 
 is full of coppersmiths' shops ; the men all sitting at work,
 
 76 KOAD FROM MILAN TO VERONA. [Chap. V. 
 
 and keeping up a ceaseless din of liammeriug, in open shops, 
 so that all the world may see them. Nor is the copper- 
 smiths' the only trade that loves publicity, for here as else- 
 where the barbers' shops are very amusing, quite open in 
 front, with perhaps a yellow curtain hanging down half way, 
 affecting only to conceal the inviting interior, which however 
 is always sufficiently visible, occupied in the centre by a 
 chair, on which sits the customer gravely holding a soap- 
 'dish to his chin whilst the barber operates ; and this going 
 on all day makes one think that shaving is, after all, one of 
 the great works of an Italian's time ! 
 
 When we left Brescia the heat was intense ; the road, 
 too, was deej) in dust to an extent not to be understood in 
 England. There had been a drought of some weeks' dura- 
 tion, and the much-travelled road from Milan to Verona, 
 along which our way now lay, plainly told the tale which 
 the dry, parched, cracked-looking earth on each side of our 
 way, and the sad faces of every one as they talked about the 
 failure of the vintage, amply confirmed. Unluckily for our- 
 selves we had not taken the advice of our driver to have a 
 close vehicle, but had insisted upon having an open carriage, 
 the consequence of which piece of self-will was that we had 
 hard work, even with the aid of umbrellas, to protect our- 
 selyes from coups de soleil. We now learnt that in hot 
 weather in Italy it is not always the best plan to have as 
 much of the sun as one can get. In England it always is, 
 but he who acts on his English experience in Italy will 
 surely repent his mistake. 
 
 We managed, however, to exist through the clouds of 
 dust, relieved perhaps by the sight of a regiment of swarthy 
 and unpleasant looking Austrian scddiers marching through 
 the sun and dust, many of them with their knapsacks and 
 arms, but all with great-coats on to preserve their white 
 uniforms. When we saw them we could not help con-
 
 Chap. V.] DESENZANO— LAGO DI GARDA. 77 
 
 trastiiig our relative lots, and thou, feeling how much worse 
 off they were than ourselves, we went on a little more con- 
 tentedly than before. The road, too, became slightly more 
 interesting ; instead of miles upon miles of straight lines, we 
 had a more winding way, and after a time occasional beautiful 
 glimi3ses of the mountains which marked to us the situation 
 of the Lago di Garda. 
 
 "We drove without stopping through Donato, a place of 
 no interest apparently save for the huge dome of its church, 
 and then passing under a very line viaduct resting upon a 
 long range of pointed arches, (which carries the railway 
 which soon after our return was opened, and now whisks 
 only too many travellers from Milan to Venice and back 
 without a halt on the way,) we commenced the descent 
 towards the town of Desenzano, beyond and above whose 
 roofs stretched the beautiful expanse of fair Lago di Garda, 
 with its great calm surface, and fine group of distant moun- 
 tains hemming in with jiicturesque and irregular outline, its 
 ujijper end. 
 
 We soon reached the poor and desolate streets of the 
 town, and diving into the dark court of the not over- clean 
 looking hotel, gave ourselves up for a time to the contem- 
 plation of the quiet loveliness of the scene. The contrast 
 between the flat shores of the lower part of the lake and 
 the mountains which crowd around its head is very 
 striking, and to this it is that Desenzano owes all that it 
 has of interest. We strolled out for a short time, looked at 
 washerwomen kneeling in small tubs on the edge of the lake, 
 and washing their linen upon the smooth face of the stones 
 which pave its shore, and then went on, as in duty bound, to 
 look into the church. This we found to be neither very old 
 nor very interesting, but curious as illustrating the extent 
 to which, in Italy, the practice is sometimes carried of 
 ]>utting altars in evci'v direction witliout reference to their
 
 78 LAGO DI GARDA. [Chap. V. 
 
 orientation. Here the high altar and some others faced due 
 south, whilst most of the remainder faced east, and I think 
 scarcely one turned to the west. 
 
 The remains of an old castle rise picturesquely above the 
 little harbour, from which steamboats sail for the tour of 
 the lake, and bidding farewell for a time to dusty roads, let 
 us embark on one of these for Kiva at the head of the lake 
 on our way to Trent, which is, artistically speaking, the north- 
 ernmost really national city and cathedral in Italy. 
 
 Our steamboat kept to the west side of the lake, 
 touching at a few villages and towns, and for the most 
 part ploughing its way along beneath some of the highest 
 and most precipitous rocks that I know. We took a band 
 on board on the way, and discharged them into a big barge 
 under a cliff, on the top of which was being held a village 
 festa, at which they were to perform ; and we all looked with 
 no little compassion upon the heavily weighted performers 
 as we saw the people who had preceded them climbing the 
 steep mountain sides above us. 
 
 The Lago di Garda seems to me to be in its upper reach 
 one of the most beautiful of Italian lakes. But it should 
 always be taken in the way we went, for the contrast between 
 the sublimity of the upper end and the tameness of the lower 
 end is so great that nothing but disappointment w^ould be 
 felt by those who saw the head of the lake first. 
 
 One or two of the towns on the western shore have 
 churches of some interest. At Salo there is a Gothic church 
 with windows which have a wide external splay and an 
 enriched brick moulding or label all round them. The 
 windows are of one light, and have ogee-cusped heads. 
 Another church, at (I think) Gargnano, is of much more 
 importance. It is cruciform, with a domical lantern at 
 the crossing. The nave has a simple clerestory and aisles, 
 and the west end, built in black and wliite courses, has
 
 Chap. V.] TRENT. 79 
 
 one great arch wliicli encloses the doorway, above this a 
 hmcet window, and above this again a circuhir window 
 without tracery. 
 
 From Piiva — one of the most pleasant resting-places on 
 the Italian lakes — a good road through fine scenery leads to 
 Trent, a journey of some six or eight hours. The descent upon 
 Trent is very fine. The town standing by itself well away 
 from the fine mountains which form the background to the 
 view, the old walls and towers around it, and the interest 
 of the cathedral and other buildings behind them, combine to 
 give a sense of the importance and grandeur of the city 
 which the facts of the case hardly justify. Perhaps, too, 
 there is something in the historical importance of the place 
 which, without one's knowledge, sways the judgment. 
 
 There is in fact only one building of great architectural 
 importance — the cathedral ; but, as I shall shew, it has 
 the greatest interest, not only on account of its real merit, 
 but also l>ecause it is a startling example of the way in 
 which, in the thirteenth century,' the Lombard architects 
 adhered to their old lessons and habits in sjjite of all the 
 developments which were then universally accepted on the 
 northern side of the Alps. 
 
 The church is a round- arched building throughout, but 
 the mouldings and details everywhere show a knowledge of 
 thirteenth century work, and have none of the character of 
 true Komanesque or Lombard art. Yet at the same time 
 there is in many respects a most close imitation of Lombard 
 features. There are arcades under the cornices of the aisles, 
 arcades under the eaves of the aj^ses, open porches supported 
 on shafts whose bases rest on monsters, and other features 
 
 ' I !^a> tliis ad\isiilh-, though knowing,' very well that sonic German anti- 
 ((iiaries assert this cathedral to have been built in the time of Bishop Ulrich II., 
 A.i). 1022-10.55. Those who say so must, I think, be entirely blind to all archi- 
 tictural dt taih
 
 80 TRENT. [Chap. V. 
 
 which, looked at apart from the sections of moiiklings and 
 details of sculj^tnre, might well warrant a much earlier date 
 being fixed on for the execution of the work than I have 
 named. An inscription which fixes the date of, some works 
 here in 1212 ^ may fairly, I think, be assumed to give the 
 date of the greater part of the fabric, though some portions, 
 as e. g. the western wheel window and the northern porch, are 
 probably not so early by at least a hundred years. But I am 
 not concerned to deal with the question only from an 
 archaeological point of view, and will at once therefore go 
 on to give some description of the building. 
 
 The ground-plan is in the shape of a Latin cross — with 
 an eastern apse, tw^o small apses to the east of the transepts, 
 and a nave and aisles of seven bays. There is an octagonal 
 lantern over the crossing, and the whole church is groined. 
 The doors are, two in the east walls of the transepts, one at 
 the west end (of marble), and one with a projecting open 
 porch over it near the east end of the north aisle. Two 
 western towers were intended to be built, and the staircases 
 to them are carried up in the western and southern aisle 
 walls in a very unusual and picturesque fashion. They 
 commence in the third bay east of the towers, and are 
 carried up in a continuous rise, opening to the church with 
 a series of arches stepping up to suit the level of the 
 staircases. The western bay to which these stairs lead is 
 croined at a lower level, as well as at the nave level, so as 
 to form a very lofty gallery open to the church. 
 
 The clerestory consists of very small windows, and there 
 is no triforium ; the main portion of the columns goes up to 
 
 ' Anno Domini Mccxu. ultima die Fcbruaiii prcsideute venenibile Triden- 
 tino Episcopo Frederico de Vanga, ct disponente hujus Eccksic oimsinceisit et 
 construxit magister Adam dc Arognio Cumane Dioc. et circuitum ipse, sui 
 filii, inde sui Aplatiei cum appendiciis intrinscce tt extrinsece istius ecclcsie 
 magistorio falniciiruiit. Cuju.s ot sue prolis hie sidstus scpulcium in;mtt. 
 Orate i)ro eis.
 
 10. X>\JOJA.<>. TI\E]^T. 
 
 81.
 
 Chap. \.] THE CATHEDlfAL. 81 
 
 and carries the <j;roiiiing, and tlion^li the main arches are all 
 semi-circular, there is nevertheless an evident attempt — and 
 it is successful — to give an impression of height to the in- 
 terior. The continuous arcades under the eaves are carried 
 also across the front of the transepts, and give a great effect of 
 richness to the external architecture. Of the two towers only- 
 one is complete, and this was huilt in the sixteenth century. 
 The northern porch is the only place in which the pointed 
 arch appears, and it seemed to me to be of the fourteenth 
 century, though the doorway is of Lombard character, with 
 very quaint but poor carving in its tympanum, of Our Lord 
 with the four Evangelists, The whole church is built of stone, 
 I and has a Classical want of life and vigour which one notices 
 L only too often in the best Lombard work. Were it not for the 
 1 building attached to its north-east angle, I suspect the general 
 i impression would be much less agreeable than it is. This is a 
 ' lofty erection with two square turrets and a small apse at the 
 east, parts of which seem to be earlier than the date I have 
 given to the cathedral. It is connected with the north-east 
 angle, but its axis is not parallel with that of the cathedral, 
 and there is consequently a good deal of picturesqueness in 
 i the perspective, besides which it prevents the otherwise in- 
 sipid outline of the whole building being perceived. 
 
 The porch on the east side of the south transept, of which 
 I I give an illustration, is one of the most interesting portions 
 I of detail in the building. Its front is supported on two 
 ; shafts, one of which is an octagon, resting on the back of a 
 j lion, the other four shafts cut out of a single block and in- 
 j geniously knotted together in the centre, and resting on the 
 i shoulders of four sitting figures — altogether about as strong 
 j an illustration of mediaeval love of change and variety as could 
 i be found. It must have been the work of a sculptor who was 
 I just a little savage with the somewhat tame uniformity of 
 the whole of the architectural scheme of the cathedral. 
 
 a
 
 82 TRENT. [Chap. V. 
 
 I found little else to see in Trent. Sta. Maria. Maggiore 
 has a liomanesquc steeple, quite plain below, but with its 
 two upper stages arcadecl, the arcades resting in the lower 
 stage on shafts coupled one behind the other, and in the 
 upper tripled in the same way. I do not remember before 
 to have seen this last arrangement. A tower in the walls 
 between this church and the cathedral is a rhomboid in plan, 
 and was, I suppose, built of this strange shape to suit some 
 necessity arising out of the position of streets and walls. 
 Considerable portions of the walls remain ; they are of stone, 
 finished on the top with the forked Italian battlement, and 
 having square projecting towers at short intervals. 
 
 Trent Cathedral and the tine church at Innichen in the 
 Pusterthal, are quoted frequently as the two finest churches 
 in Tyrol. That at Innichen has not the same entirely 
 Italian character wdrich marks that at Trent. In the latter 
 I always feel that climate, people, and town are all in concert 
 to make one suppose oneself in Italy, which certainly is not 
 the case at Innichen. North of Trent the architecture of the 
 Tyrol (as at Botzen and Meran) is entirely German, whilst 
 in Trent itself, were it not for a steep roof here and there 
 covered with bright glazed tiles, and a few such slight indi- 
 cations, no one would suspect the presence of any German 
 influence whatever. 
 
 I have travelled so frequently from Trent to Verona by 
 the railway that I always regard it as one of the most 
 natural and obvious roads of approach to Italy for English- 
 men. It takes its course through so fine a countjy that one 
 does not easily tire of the journey, and finally, it sets travel- 
 lers down in tlie city which, perhaps more than any other in 
 northern Italy, chai'ms the cultivated traveller by the beauty, 
 interest, and grandeur of its buildings. Who that has taken 
 this way to Verona docs not remember with pleasure the last 
 quarter of an hour ol' his journey, as the railway, making a
 
 Chap. V.] VKKOXA. 80 
 
 circuit round two-thirds of the city, rcvouLs first a mixed 
 grouj) of lofty steeples, presently the great church of Sau 
 Zenoiie, then Sta. Anastasia, anon San Fermo, then crosses the 
 swift-flowing Adige, and at last lands one at the station, full 
 of anxiety to make the nearer acquaintance of the buildings 
 of " Verona la degna," which from afar look so wondrous 
 brave and fine ? 
 
 G 2
 
 84 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 'Come, go with me. Go, sirrah, trutlge about 
 Through fair Verona." 
 
 lioineo and Jxiliet, act i. scene 2. 
 
 Verona: Campanile of the Palazzo <lei Signori — Sta. Ana stasia— Monuments 
 
 — Piazza dell' Erhe — The Duomo — The Baptistery — Sta. Maria TAutica 
 
 — Cemetery and Palace of the Scaligers — Domestic Architecture — Piazza 
 di Brii — The Austrians — Pontc di Castel-Vecchio — San Zenone — San 
 Fermo Maggiore — Chapel near the Duomo — Romeo and Juliet — Dwarfs 
 —Wells. 
 
 We reached Verona in the evening, and were up early on 
 the next morning, anxious to get a general idea of the city. 
 But I was no sooner out of my hed than I saw from my 
 window, over the roofs of the opposite buildings, the 
 campanile of the Palazzo dei Signori, a lofty, simple, and 
 almost unbroken piece of brickwork, rising, I suppose, at 
 least three hundred feet into the air, and pierced with 
 innumerable scaffold-holes, in and out of which, as I looked, 
 flew countless beautiful doves, whose choice of a home in the 
 walls of this tall Veronese tower will make me think kindly 
 of putlog-holes for the future. Certainly, if the Italian and 
 English principles of tower-building are to be compared with 
 one another, the Italian need give no fairer examj)le of its 
 power than this simple and grand erection. 
 
 It rises, as we found afterwards, out of a large pile of 
 buildings, and for a short distance above their roofs is built 
 in alternate courses of brick and a verv warm-coloured stone,
 
 ; Chap. VI.] VERONA. 85 
 
 and then entirely with brick, pierced with only one or two 
 small openings, and terminating with a simple belfry-stage ; 
 the belfry windows, with their arches formed without mould- 
 ings, and with the sharp edges only of brick and stone 
 1 used alternately, are divided into three lights by shafts of 
 ', shining marble ; the shafts, boing coupled one behind the 
 other, give strength with great lightness, and are very striking 
 in their eflect. These windows have, too, remarkably large 
 balconies, but without balustrading of any kind. The upj)er 
 I and octangular stage of the campanile is comparatively 
 1 modern, but rather improves the whole effect than otherwise. 
 I could hardly tear myself away from this noble work ; 
 ' but much more w^as to be seen, so I dallied not long before I 
 ^ set forth on a journey of discovery, giving myself up gladly 
 i to sketching and ecclesiology. 
 
 The hotels in Verona are both of them near Sta. Anas- 
 
 ! tasia, and at the eastern end of the long and at first narrow 
 
 and picturesque Corso. The Adige separates the city from 
 
 ! its eastern suburb, and from the hills crowned by the Castel 
 
 I San Felice and the picturesquely stepped city walls. Its 
 
 j yellow waves wash with an angry rush the foundations of 
 
 the houses which overhang it all along its course, but the 
 
 j only views of it are to be obtained from the bridges, and from 
 
 j the open space near the Castel Vecchio. At the extreme 
 
 { north-western angle of the town stands the church of San 
 
 1 Zenone. One soon finds one's self constantly on the Corso, and 
 
 i to the north of this lie the cathedral, Sta. Eufemia, the Castel 
 
 Vecchio, and San Zenone, whilst to the south of it are the 
 
 tombs of the Scaligers, San Fermo Maggiore, the Konian 
 
 Amphitheatre, and the Palazzo Publico. Without further 
 
 attempt to describe the map let us visit the buildings, of 
 
 which the list I have given, though by no means exhaustive, 
 
 includes the finest. 
 
 The Veronese architects in the Middle Ages were certainly
 
 86 VERONA. [Chap. VJ. 
 
 some of the best in Italy. San Zenone is by very much the 
 finest ehnrch of its kind that I know ; Sta. Anastasia is on 
 the whole one of the best churches of a later date ; and 
 San Fermo Maggiore afi'ords some of the best detail of brick- 
 work, and the tombs of the Scaligers the best examples of 
 monuments in all Italy. 
 
 The first thing seen on turning out of the hotel is the 
 west front of the church of Sta. Anastasia, looking so beauti- 
 ful at the end of the narrow street, whose dark shade con- 
 trasts with the bright sunshine which plays upon its lofty 
 arched marble doorway and frescoed tympanum, and lights up 
 by some kind of magic the rough brickwork with which the ^ 
 unfinished church has been left so brightly, that, as you gaze, i 
 thoughts pass across your mind of portions of some lovely • 
 painting or some sweeter dream ; you feel as though Fra 
 Augelico might have painted such a door in a Paradise, and 
 as though it were too fair to be real. There, however, it is, 
 rich and delicate in colour, shining with all the delicate tints 
 of the marbles of Yerona, pure and simple in its softly- 
 shadowed mouldings, beautiful in its proportions, and on a 
 nearer approach revealing through the dark shade of its 
 opening, and over and beyond the people who early and late 
 throng in and out, the vague and misty forms of the solemn 
 interior. 
 
 Sta. Anastasia is one of the most complete and representa- 
 tive pointed churches in the North of Italy, and deserves, 
 therefore, a rather detailed description. Its date is about 
 1260 to 1290. The ground-plan is very simple — a nave of 
 six bays, then one which is the crossing of the transepts, a 
 very short choir of one bay finished with an apse and 
 two chapels on the east side of each transept. The nave 
 aisles are nan-ow, and the whole design is characterized by 
 intense simplicity of detail and arrangement. The width of 
 the nave, and tlic height of tlie columns and arches, give, on
 
 CnAi-. VI.] 
 
 STA. ANASTASIA. 
 
 87 
 
 entering, au idea of vast space and size. The columns are 
 
 very simple, cylindrical in section, and support arches built 
 
 of brick, and only chamfered at the edge ; from the caps of 
 
 the columns flat pilasters run 
 
 up to the commencement of 
 
 the groining, and above the 
 
 nave arcades there are tAvo 
 
 small circular openings, one 
 
 in the place of a triforium, 
 
 opening into the roof of the 
 
 aisle, the other above it and 
 
 larger, filled in with plate 
 
 tracery in stone, and forming 
 
 the clerestory. 
 
 The arrangement of the 
 plan is in several respects un- 
 like that of northern Clothic 
 buildings, and as most com- 
 plete Gothic churches in Italy 
 are very much of the same 
 type, it is as well here to 
 
 point out the peculiarity. The most marked features 
 are first the shortness of the choir, and next, the fact that 
 whereas in northern Europe it is usually the aisle vault- 
 ing bay which is square, whilst the nave bay is oblong from 
 north to south, here the nave groining bay is square, and 
 the bays of the aisle oblong in the direction of east and west. 
 The difference of efiect is great, simple as the statement 
 seems. In these Italian churches there is much greater 
 space between the columns of the nave arcades, the groining 
 is consequently divided into much larger bays, and the whole 
 interior has a largeness of treatment which is not common 
 in the North. On the other hand there is much less of 
 the complexity and intricacy which are so charming in 
 
 STA. ANASTASIA — VEUOXA.
 
 oO VERONA. [Chai-. VJ. 
 
 our interiors, and you see at a glance tlie whole of the 
 church. - 
 
 In Sta. Anastasia the apses on each side of the choir have 
 an even number of sides, as has also the sacristy, which is a 
 room on a magnificent scale, to the north of the church. 
 This is a peculiar feature, producing as it does an angle in 
 the centre of the apse, which we shall see again at Venice and 
 Vicenza, and which is seldom seen out of Italy. ^ 
 
 The whole is so simple in design and construction that 
 it depends for its rich effect on the painting which covers 
 almost every part of it, and which harmonizes well with the 
 architectural lines. The decorations appear to have been 
 done, or at any rate commenced, within a short period of 
 the completion of the church, and are therefore very valuable. 
 The ground of the painting is white, many of the patterns 
 of borders being very elaborate compositions of flowers and 
 foliage. The main arches are painted to represent voussoirs 
 of red brick and stone, but I am inclined to think that they 
 are really entirely of brick ; their soffeits, which are very 
 broad and flat, are all painted with large scroll patterns of 
 foliage. In the groining the diagonal ribs are painted at the 
 intersection with stripes of colour alternating with white, 
 and on each side of all the ribs a wide border of foliage is 
 painted, whilst in the centre of each groining-cell some 
 large device is painted in a medallion, some of these being 
 merely ornamental, others having figures. The detail of 
 much of the painting is cinquecento in its character, and 
 not valuable as an example to be literally copied,^ but its 
 general efl'ect is certainly very beautiful, and it is worthy of 
 all praise in respect of the strictness with which it is kept 
 subservient to the architecture, and in some respects, indeed, 
 
 ' Tlie chuicli of thu Capuflans, at I>uj.';o, is a Spanish example of the same 
 arrangement. 
 
 ^ Admirable drawings of it have boon publishod by Mr. (Jriincr.
 
 Vincent Brooks .DavS- Son, LitJi 
 
 sa;^"i'a Afj astasia. yei<<>}ja. 
 
 P.-ivcmciU'f
 
 CiiAi'. VI.] MONUMENTS. 89 
 
 even serves to atoue lor its deticienoies, as, e. g., in the broad 
 painted horizontal borders, which take the phice, very 
 successfully, of brick or stone string-courses, which in the 
 construction are entirely omitted. 
 
 It surprised me, I confess, very much, to find a church 
 painted throughout without any use of gold, and yet with 
 good result ; so it is, however ; the effect is most solemn 
 and religious, and there is a very rich effect of colour ; the 
 fact is, that the white ground answers the same purpose in 
 a degree, though of course not to the full extent, that gold 
 would. 
 
 But if the walls are beautiful in their colour, not less so 
 is the pavement, which, from one end of the church to the 
 other, remains to this day to all appearance just as it was 
 on the day that the church was finished. The nave and 
 transepts are all in one pattern ; the spaces between the 
 columns in a variety of beautiful designs, and divided from 
 the nave and aisle pavements by a strip of white marble on 
 each side ; and the aisles again are on the same scheme 
 throughout. The colours of the marble used are white, red, 
 and bluish grey, and the patterns very simple and generally 
 geometrical in outline, and there is a quiet richness of effect 
 in their arrangement which is exceedingly beautiful. Such 
 a pavement must unhappily be for ever Italian, and we in 
 England can scarce hope ever to attain to anything so 
 exquisite ; but we do not well to forget that by the mixtnre 
 of a small quantity only of marble with our encaustic tiles 
 we should attain to much greater beauty of effect than we 
 can by the use of tiles alone, and there are many towns — as, 
 e.g., Plymouth^the very pavement of whose streets is of a 
 material which might most advantageously be introduced, 
 more often than it has yet been, inside the walls of our 
 sanctuaries, as well as under the feet of every passer along 
 the streets.
 
 90 
 
 VERONA. 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 There are some monumeiius and paintings here quite 
 worth looking at. The Pellegrini Chapel, next to the choir, 
 has two fine trefoil-headed monuments in red marble with 
 the background painted with subjects of about the same 
 age (circa 1392) ; and in the Cavalli Chapel there is an 
 admirably painted wall, against which has been put a 
 monument which, though somewhat rude and coarse in its 
 sculpture, nevertheless produces a very fine effect of colour 
 and architecture combined.^ 
 
 The window tracery of Sta. Anastasia is rather singular 
 plate tracery, consisting of mere piercings through the 
 
 
 AISI.E WINDOW — STA. ANASTASIA, VKRONA. 
 
 stone with very little moulding; most of the windows are 
 of two very lofty trefoiled lights with circles and trefoils 
 
 ' An cxtrciucly careful cliroiaii-lithogriiiih of tliit, wall and moiuuiicnt has 
 been issued by the Arundel Souiety, accompanied with a uolice of both, 
 wiittcn V)v Jlr. Kusklu.
 
 Chap. VI.] MONUMENTS. 91 
 
 pierced ubove, very simple mul severe, and remarkable 
 for the quaint way in which the cusping is arranged, not 
 with some reference to vertical lines, as is ordinarily the 
 case with us, but just as fancy or chance seems to have 
 dictated. The clerestory windows are circular openings 
 cuspcd. 
 
 There is a curious but not very happily treated arrange- 
 ment inside — a step all round the inside walls, projecting 
 some three or four feet from them, and panelled all round 
 against the riser with a small trefoil arcading — the whole 
 in red marble. 
 
 Externally the church is almost entirely built in red 
 brick with rich cornices and rather ungainly .buttresses and 
 pinnacles of brick ; the windows have brick jambs with 
 stone tracery, and on the north side of the choir is a fine 
 lofty campanile, finished at the top with a low, very plain, 
 and octangular capping, and unpierced with openings, except 
 in the belfry-stage. Of the west front only the doorway has 
 been completed ; this is in courses of red, grey, and white 
 marble, and most effective ; the rest of the front is left in 
 l)rick, finished exceedingly rt)ughly, with a view to leaving 
 a key for the marbles with which, no doubt, it was intended 
 to veneer the entire front. The wooden framework of this 
 door, of which I give a detail, is very curious ; it is of deal, 
 coeval witli the doorway, and the framework is external, not 
 internal. 
 
 The west front of the church stands in a small piazza, 
 on the north side of which is the little church of San Pietro 
 Martire, between the east end of which and Sta. Anastasia 
 is a wall dividing a small burial-ground from the Piazzetta ; 
 on the top of this wall, and supported upon corbels, is one 
 of those monuments peculiarly associated with Verona, 
 because so numerous there, though they are often met 
 with elsewhere in Italy ; they are either large pyramidal
 
 92 
 
 VERONA. 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 canopies supported upon trefoiled arches resting on four 
 marble shafts, with a kind of sarcophagus or an effigy 
 beneath ; or else, when attached to a wall, they have two 
 detached shafts supporting the same kind of trefoiled arch 
 and surmounted by a flattish pediment. Their efiect is 
 almost invariably beautiful in the extreme, and their only 
 defect is, that they all require to be held together by rods 
 
 1 -TmfTnrm-iT — — Tj™.T'Tiinm-n[^^ 
 
 Doon-rnAME— STA. anaptasta. 
 
 of iron connecting the capitals of the columns. This, 
 however, is soon forgotten when one feels that there is no 
 pretence ever or anywhere at its concealment ; and notwith- 
 standing this slight defect, one cannot help loving and 
 admiring them ; for there is a grace and beauty about the 
 form and proportion of the Veronese trefoiled arch, such as 
 is never seen, I think, elsewhere, and the very flatness of 
 the carving and the absence of deep moulding seem all 
 adopted in order that nothing may interfere with the simple 
 beauty of the outline of the arch. In this case the monu- 
 ment is supported on a large slab of stone corbelled forward 
 and balanced upon the top of a thin wall over the archway
 
 Chap. VI.] SAN PIETRO. 93 
 
 wliicli leads into the eliurchyartl of San Pietro. Four shafts 
 with sculptured capitals, resting on the angles of this slab, 
 support four trefoiled arches, (those at the ends narrower 
 than tlie others), wdiich are almost destitute of moulding save 
 that the outer line of the arch has a broad band of delicate 
 sculpture all round it. The arch terminates in a small 
 cross, and above on each side is a very flat pediment, 
 moulded and finished oil the under side with one of the 
 favourite Italian arcaded corbel-tables ; the finish is a 
 heavy pyramidal mass of stone rising from behind the 
 pediments. The four bearing-shafts are of white marble, 
 all the rest of the monument of red. Within the four 
 supporting shafts stands a sarcophagus, suj)j)orted on the 
 backs of couchant lions, very plain, but ornamented at 
 the angles in very Classic fashion, and bearing a recumbent 
 effigy. 
 
 The church of San Pietro has three or four smaller monu- 
 ments enclosed within its small courtyard ; two of them 
 are on the ground and have round arches on detached shafts 
 with an Agnus Dei carved in the centre. The third is 
 corbelled out from the wall, and the face of the monument 
 is covered with sculpture, that of the figures being very 
 inferior in style to that of the foliage enrichments. This 
 little group of monuments, varying in date from 1283 to 
 1392, is well worth study, and I found it more than usually 
 interesting owing to its entire unlikeness to any English 
 w'ork. The church against which these monuments are built 
 is small but deserves notice ; it is of brick with a stone canopy 
 on shafts corbelled out above the west door ; the buttresses 
 are mere pilasters, and run up without any weathering till 
 they finish in an arcaded corbel-table at the eaves ; the 
 windows have wide brick splays outside, and trefoil heads of 
 stone without any chamfer or moulding; on the south side, 
 the church — in point of size a mere chapel- -is divided into
 
 94 
 
 vp:kona 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 four bays, one of wliich has a monument corbelled out by 
 the side of the window. It is built entirely of red brick, 
 not relieved in any way, except that the window arches are 
 in alternate voussoirs of brick and stone. The wooden 
 framework of the west door deserves notice as being very 
 unlike the English mode of door-framing, and very good 
 in its effect. The accompanying sketch will best explain 
 it : and it must be understood that, instead of being in- 
 ternal, as such framing would usually be in England, in this 
 
 Llll(v|i 
 
 DOOa-IKAMK — SAN PILTBO MARTIRE. 
 
 example it is external, just as in the somewhat similar 
 door of Sta. Anastasia, of which I have already made 
 mention. 
 
 Turning back from the Piazzetta of Sta. Anastasia, and 
 traversing again the narrow and gratefully shady street by 
 which we reached it, we soon found ourselves at the end of 
 the Piazza dell' Erbe, the most picturesque square in the 
 city, and at an early hour in the morning quite a sight to 
 be seen. TIk^ wliole open space was as full as it could be 
 of dealers in vegetables and fruits, all of them protecting 
 themselves and their stores from the intense glare of the sun 
 under the sliadc of prodigious unilircllas, at least five times
 
 CiiAi-. VI.] 'JHK CATlIEDliAI,. 95 
 
 as lur<j;e as any of ordinary size, and certainly five times as 
 l)ri,c;ht in their colonrs, the prevailing colour being a very 
 l)right red. Altogether it was a thoroughly foreign scene. 
 The houses, some ancient, but all picturesque and irregular, 
 surrounding the irregularly-shaped Piazza, the magnificent 
 campanile of the Scaligeri Palace rising proudly behind the 
 houses on the left, the fountain in the centre, and the great 
 column of red Veronese marble rising close to us, which at 
 one time bore the winged lion — mark of the dominion of the 
 Venetians — all combined to produce a very striking picture. 
 An hour or two later in the day when we passed, the people, 
 the umbrellas, and the fruit were all gon(>, and somewhat of 
 the charm of the place was gone with them. 
 
 From the Piazza dell' Erbe we went to the cathedral, 
 anxious to see and hear somewhat of a service which we 
 found was to take place. There was a great throng of 
 peo2)le, and we had some difficulty in finding even standing- 
 room among them ; we were not at all sorry, however, to 
 have gone, for we came in for a sermon most energetically 
 })reached, and enforcing in very powerful language the ne- 
 cessity of repentance. The pulpit was very large, and as 
 the preacher delivered his sermon he walked from side to 
 side, and often repeated again to those on his left the 
 sul)stance of what he had already said to those on his 
 right. The people, who crowded every available place 
 within hearing, were exceedingly silent and attentive ; and 
 at intervals the preacher stopped for a minute to cough 
 and use his handkerchief, which was a signal for an imme- 
 diate general blowing of noses and coughing all over the 
 church. The "Ehhen iiifelici !" with which he commenced 
 his sermon, was a good index to its whole tone, and makes 
 me rememl)er with pleasure; the vast crowd listening to 
 Christian doctrine in the grand nave of the Duomo. Would 
 that we could see any prospect of the day when in England
 
 96 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 our larger churches may be used in this way, when, 
 with pews and all their concomitant evils swept away, we 
 may see a vast crowd standing and sitting, leaving no 
 passage-way and no waste room, anxious only that they 
 may, by pressing near, join in the services at the altar, and 
 hear every word of warning and of advice ! The nave of 
 Westminster, so thronged, would soon show how great has 
 been our mistake in leaving our large churches so long 
 unused.^ 
 
 The Duomo is a really fine church, Eomanesque in its 
 shell, but altered completely internally in the fourteenth 
 century. It has only five bays in length, but the dimensions 
 are so large that the nave and aisles alone measure about 225 
 feet X 97 feet inside. There are slightly recessed Romanesque 
 apses in the side walls, and a great tomb or shrine of S. Agatha, 
 which is worth looking at. The columns in the interior are 
 very lofty, of red marble, and, instead of being plain and 
 cylindrical, as at Sta. Anastasia, are moulded with very 
 good effect. Their capitals are, however, heavy, and the 
 carving of the foliage on them not at all satisfactory. The 
 whole interior is very solemn, and specially beautiful on 
 this bright September day, with almost all the light ex- 
 cluded by thick curtains — here and there a stray gleam of 
 the most intensely bright light finding its way through 
 some chink, lighting up with sudden brilliancy the deep 
 cool shade, and — reflected from the bright surface of some 
 great marble shaft — suggesting the grandeur which can 
 hardly really be seen. 
 
 The choir is divided from the nave by a screen of marble, 
 consisting of detached columns with Ionic capitals and a 
 continuous cornice, the whole screen semi- circular in plan, 
 and coming forward into the nave. This, the work of 
 
 ' T leave this passage ns it originally stood. It is i)lc<asant to feel how 
 fiimpletely unnecessary it is now to use such language on the subject.
 
 Chap. VI.] 'riIF<: liAPTTSTEIlV. 97 
 
 Sanmicliele, is certainly about the most eftective work of 
 this kind and age that I have seen. 
 
 The west front of the Duomo is still in the main in its 
 original state. It has a rich porch snppm'ted on shafts (whose 
 bases rest on the backs of lions), and of two stages in height, 
 a flat pediment surmounting the upper stage. Another flat 
 pedimental cornice is carried over the whole front at the 
 same level ; but out of this a wall rises above the central 
 portion the width of the nav'C and height of the clerestory, 
 which is again surmounted by a third flat pediment — a con- 
 fused and not very graceful arrangement, which found an 
 imitator in Palladio, when he built that ugliest of fronts, the 
 west end of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice. 
 
 The windows at the ends of the aisles are very Italian in 
 their character. They are insertions in the wall of two 
 narrow lights within an enclosing arch, which is again 
 surrounded by a square line of moulding. The effect of this 
 not uncommon Italian arrangement is exceedingly unsatis- 
 factory, as it appears to make the window with its arch and 
 tracery quite independent, constructively, of the wall in 
 which it is placed ; it appears in fact to be merely veneered 
 on to the face of the wall. 
 
 On the north side of the cathedral is a cloister of good 
 
 detail, which was originally of two stages in height, but is 
 
 now considerably altered in parts. It is exceedingly similar 
 
 to the cloister of San Zonone, which we shall see presently, 
 
 j consisting of a long arcade of pointed arches carried on 
 
 I marble shafts ; it is now in a very ruinous condition. 
 
 1 The Baptistery — San Giovanni in Fonte— is a detached 
 
 I church near the east end of the cathedral, which does not look 
 
 } as if it had been at first intended for its present use. It is a 
 
 I building of the twelfth century, with nave and aisles ending in 
 
 ! three apses, lighted by a small clerestory, and with some 
 
 jcolumns which arc ]))(>lial)]y Iloniau. Tlic font, which stands 
 
 I H
 
 98 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 in the centre, is of enormous size, and is sculptured with eight 
 subjects beginning with the Annunciation and finishing with 
 the Baptism of Our Lord. These sculptures are very rude. 
 The bason of the font is almost seven feet in diameter, and in 
 its centre is another smaller bason of graceful shape. I do 
 not happen to have seen an explanation of these inner basons 
 in the fonts in Italian baptisteries. They look as if they 
 were meant for the priest to stand in whilst he immersed the 
 catechumens around him. 
 
 And now that we have visited two of the great churches, 
 we must no longer delay our visit to the church of Sta. 
 Maria I'Antica, whose small burial-ground is fenced from the 
 busy thoroughfares, which on two sides bound it, by an iron 
 railing of most exquisite design, divided at intervals by 
 piers of stone on whose summits stand gazing upward as in 
 prayer, or downwards as in warning to those who pass below, 
 a beautiful series of saintly figures. Within, a glorious 
 assemblage of monuments meets the eye — one over the 
 entrance doorway, the others either towering up in pictu- 
 resque confusion above the railing which has been their 
 guardian from all damage for so many centuries, or meekly 
 hiding their humility behind the larger masses of their 
 companions. 
 
 The monuments are all to the members of one family 
 — the Scaligeri — who rose to power in the thirteenth 
 century, and held sway in Yerona until almost the end of 
 the fourteenth. In this space of time it was, therefore, that 
 these monuments were erected, and they are consequently of 
 singular interest, not only for the excessive beauty of the 
 group of marble and stone which, in the busiest highway of 
 the city, among tall houses and crowds of people, has made 
 this churchyard, for some five hundred years, the central 
 point of architectural interest, but because they give us 
 dated examples of the best pointed work during nearly the
 
 Chap. VI.] STA. MAIIIA L'ANTICA. 99 
 
 whole time of its prevalence in Verona. In the monument 
 of the first Duke we see the elements of that beauty w^hich, 
 after ascending to perfection in that of another, again 
 descends surely and certainly in the monument of Can 
 Signorio, the largest and most elaborate of all, and, there- 
 fore, I am afraid, the most commonly admired, but the one 
 which shows most evidence of the rise of the Eenaissance 
 , spirit, and the fall of true art. Nor is it, I think, to be 
 I forgotten, as an evidence of the kind of moral turpitude which 
 \ so often precedes or accompanies the fall of art, that this 
 Can Signorio first murdered his own brother Cangrande II. 
 that he might obtain his inheritance, and then, before he 
 died, erected his own monument, and adorned it with effigies 
 of SS. Quirinus, Valentine, Martin, George, Sigismund, and 
 Louis, together with allegorical figures of the Virtues with 
 whom he of all men had least right to associate himself 
 in death, when in life he had ever despised them. The 
 inscription, which records the name of the architect on this 
 monument, does but record the vanity of him who w^as 
 content thus to pander to the wretched Can . Signorio's 
 desire to excuse the memory of his atrocious life by the 
 sight of an immense cenotaph.^ 
 
 The tomb of Cangrande I. forms the portal of the church 
 
 as well as the monument of the first and greatest of the 
 
 family. It is perhaps altogether the finest of all ; the shafts 
 
 which bear the pyramidal canopy are supported on corbels ; 
 
 between them is a simple sarcophagus sculptured with a 
 
 j bas-relief, and upon it lies Cangrande wntli his arms crossed 
 
 I in token of his resignation and faith. At the top of the 
 
 I pyramidal covering is the figure of the brave kniglit riding 
 
 I forth to war on his gaily caparisoned steed. 
 
 ' It is not a little remarkable tiiiit this shoulil be the riionuineiit a eo])y of 
 wliich the late Duke of IJrnnswiclc desired in liis will to have en eted over liis 
 jrrave ! 
 
 H '2
 
 100 ' VERONA. [Chap. Y[. 
 
 Next to this nionument in date, as in merit, is that of 
 Mastino II., wanting perhaps in some of the severe sim- 
 plicity of the otlier, but even more striking, as it stands 
 at the angle of the cemetery. It is a thoroughly grand 
 and noble erection of two stages in height, the lower 
 unimjjortant, and only serving as a means of raising the 
 monument sufficiently high to be well seen from the exterior ; 
 upon this stand four shafts, between which, and supported 
 upon four much smaller shafts, is the sarcophagus on which 
 lies the recumbent effigy, at whose head stand angels 
 with expanded wings ^ guarding the deceased. The sarco- 
 phagus is adorned with bas-reliefs —that on the west side 
 being the Crucifixion — and has engaged angle-shafts. The 
 four main bearing-shafts at the angles of the monument have 
 finely carved caps with square abaci from which rise simple 
 trefoiled arches with steep pediments on each side filled with 
 sculpture in relief, and between these are exquisitely simple 
 niches, each a miniature reproduction of the entire monument, 
 and containing between their delicate detached shafts figures 
 of saints. The whole is finished with a heavy pyramidal 
 capping, crocketed at the angles with crockets so abominable 
 in their shape and carving that they go far to spoil the 
 entire Avork, and surmounted by the figure of the Gapitano 
 del Poj)olo, spear in hand, riding on his war-horse ; the horse 
 and horseman riding with their faces towards the setting sun, 
 as all in life must ever ride ; the effigy below lying so that at 
 the last day the beams of the day-star in the East may first 
 meet its view, and awaken him that sleej)eth here in peace. 
 
 This contrary position of the figure in life and in death, 
 observed also in others of these monuments, is an evidence 
 of the care and thouglitfulncss with which every detail of 
 these noble works was wrought out. 
 
 ' The wiiigH of tlicse .angels iuo of metal, tli(uigh the figures tlieiuK'lves are 
 niiirl)le.
 
 Chap. VI.] STA. MAIUA L'ANTICA. 101 
 
 The monument of Can Signorio is not woitliy of so long 
 a description ; it is octagonal in its plan, and in many- 
 respects below the idea shadowed out so beautifully in the 
 others; the reduplication of niches and gables, far from 
 improving, only perplexes the design : and when to this is 
 added tliat the carving throughout, as well as the other 
 details, show strong signs of a leaning towards Kenaissance, 
 one may see some reason why this, the most elaborate and 
 complicated of all the monuments, is after all far from being 
 the most successful. 
 
 Mastino II. died in the year 1351, and we may therefore, I 
 think, look upon his monument as a fair enough example of 
 Italian architecture just at the period at which in England it 
 had reached its culminating point, and a careful examination 
 of it cannot, therefore, be thrown away. In the first place, 
 I must notice that the sculpture, which has the air of being 
 rather sparingly used as too sacred a thing to be idly or 
 profusely employed, is exceedingly good. The foliage is 
 almost always very closely copied from natural forms, is very 
 thin and delicate in its texture, and thus really j)resent 
 to the gazer that idealized petrifaction of nature which it 
 ought always to be the sculptor's effort to give, and not, 
 as is, I fear, sometimes the case, even in good English 
 work, so profusely scattered over the whole surface as to 
 give one a sense of its lack of great value. The worst part 
 of the carving is, as I have before said, that of the crockets, 
 which are as bad as the worst modern Gothic could be. 
 The sculpture of the human figure is throughout very 
 good; remarkable for simple, bold, deep folds in the 
 draperies, quite Gothic in spirit, and much more akin 
 to our best iburteenth-century work than to any Classic 
 examples. 
 
 As an example of the science of moulding this work is 
 liowever valueless; there is al>solutely no moulding upon
 
 102 
 
 VERONA. 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 it ; and why should there be ? Woukl it have been well 
 that the lovely marble, whose brilliant white gloss was sure 
 ere long to be stained with dark streaks of black by the 
 beating of rain and the staining of age, whilst here and 
 there the white would stand out more brilliantly than 
 ever, — would it have been well, I say, that this should have 
 been still further streaked with deej) lines of many 
 mouldings ? Most assuredly not : the architect had to deal 
 with a material which best takes its polish and exhibits its 
 beauty and purity when used in flat surfaces and in shallow 
 carving, and he did right therefore in not moulding it as he 
 would have moulded stone. 
 
 There is a sharpness and hardness about the lines of the 
 arches, however, which perhaps almost verges upon rudeness, 
 and, though I can see that it may be fairly defended, I could 
 yet wish that it might have been softened. 
 
 But the points in which such work is a grand example 
 to us are, first, the value which it shows that we ought to 
 place upon the simple detached circular shaft, and, next, 
 the beauty and strength of effect which the cusping of a 
 large arch in a proper manner gives. In these two points 
 
 JtKST OF MlTAf, RAILING— VKKONA . 
 
 this monument and most of its class teach us lessons which 
 we ouglit not to be unwilling to learn, and which, if we at all
 
 Chap. VI.] 
 
 STA. ^lAHIA L'ANTICA. 
 
 103 
 
 wish to (levelope beyond the point at which our own an- 
 cestors ever arrived, we must not fail to attend to in our 
 own work. 
 
 And now I must bid farewell to this lovely spot, the 
 most attractive certainly, to me, in Verona. The situation 
 of the monuments, rather huddled together, with the old 
 church liehind them, the archway into the Piazza dei Signori 
 on the other side, and the beautiful iron grille^ which 
 surrounds them, the number of saintly and warlike figures 
 
 
 
 .'..i.iAL KAIIJ.NG — VtUUXA. 
 
 and the confused mass of pinnacle and shaft, half obscured by 
 the railing, do, I verily believe, make the cemetery of Sta. 
 Maria I'Autica one of the best spots in the world for the 
 study of Christian art in perfection. What either Koln 
 or Eegensburg Cathedral, or the Wiesen-Kirche at Soest 
 is to Germany, the Choir of Westminster Abbey or the 
 
 ' Tliis grille is worthy of especial notice. Instead of being hard and stiff, 
 it is all linked together, so that it is more like a piece of chain mail than of 
 iron railing. Tt.s intricacj' adds manifold to the effect of the group of tombs 
 wliicli it half conceals.
 
 104 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 Chapter-House at Southwell to England, Amiens Cathedral 
 or the Sainte Chapelle of Paris to France, such is the 
 Cemetery of the Scaligeri in Verona to Italy — the spot 
 where at a glance the whole essence of the system of a 
 school of artists may be comprehended, lavished on a small ■ 
 but most stately effort of their genius. 1 
 
 Close to their burial-place stands also the Palace of the 
 Scaligers. The old portion of this fronts towards the Piazza 
 dei Signori, a small square used only by foot-passengers, 
 and surrounded by elaborate Renaissance work. The 
 buildings surround a quadrangle— the Mercato Vecchio — out 
 of one angle of which rises the immense campanile which I : 
 have already noticed, and which is said to have been erected 
 by Can Signorio about a.d. 13G8, though I should have 
 thought that a rather earlier date would have tallied better 
 with its style. Besides this the most striking feature is the 
 external staircase in the courtyard, whose treatment, of a 
 kind not uncommon in ancient Italian architecture, is very 
 beautiful, though I fear very weak and unstable, if I may 
 judge by the number of the iron bars by which it is held 
 together. There are many windows here of very good detail, 
 and an arcaded cornice all round the courtyard, and close 
 by and also facing the Piazza dei Signori there is another 
 fine lofty battlemented tower. J 
 
 In a street close to the monuments of the Scaligers, whose ■ 
 name I have forgotten, but in a line with the Viccolo 
 Cavaletto, I found a most valuable example of domestic work 
 in a very fairly perfect state. As far as I could make it out, 
 it consisted originally of three sides of a quadrangle, the 
 fourth side towards the street being enclosed by a wall and 
 arched gateway. The buildings all had arcades on the 
 ground-level, forming a kind of cloister, and the staircase to 
 the iirst floor was external, and built against the wall on the 
 road side. A great many alterations have been made in the
 
 SiWl'
 
 ClIAI-. VI.] 
 
 1)( )MKS'riC A lUJlirrECTURE. 
 
 105 
 
 house at vurious times, but iii the sketch which I give I 
 hiiA^e shewn so much only of it as appeared to belong to the 
 original foundation. In its construction pointed and round 
 arches liave been used quite indiscriminately, and in some of 
 the arches the depth of the voussoirs increases towards the; 
 centre of the arch. Tliis is a rather favourite Italian 
 device, and I was always as much pleased as at the first 
 
 
 IXWJltWAY — OLD HODSK, VEKOKA. 
 
 with the etlect of strength and good proportion which it 
 produces. Most of the arches are built with alternate 
 voussoirs of brick and stone, but beyond tlie outside line of 
 the brick and stone arch there is invariably a line of very 
 thin bricks laid all round the arch, delicately defining 
 without pretending to strengthen the main arch, just as a 
 label does with us. I noticed too, generally, that this thin
 
 106 
 
 VERONA. 
 
 [Chap. YI. 
 
 brick was of a deeper, better colour than the other bricks, 
 which are seldom any better than the common English bricks, 
 
 ' — 3^5®- 
 
 WINDOWS — OLD HOUSE, VERONA. 
 
 and are always built with very coarse joints. This house is 
 finished at the top with the quaint forked or swallow-tailed 
 Ghibelline battlement, so characteristic of Verona, and which. 
 
 m.ICK il.MTI.l.Ml.Nr — VICCOLO CAVALETTO, VERONA. 
 
 as we found afterwards, was in use at Mantua, Cremona, 
 and for some distance south of Yerona, but which I first 
 met with in Verona. 
 
 I am not pretending to journalize regularly, but rather
 
 ajtfllTT.SC. 
 
 H.— COURT -YARD OF OLD HODSE, VERONA. 
 
 Page 105.
 
 Chap. VI.] PIAZZA DI BRA. 107 
 
 to note clown the remarkable points of the various buildings 
 as they occur to me, and, before I forget that it was Sunday 
 when I was first looking at the Veronese churches, I must 
 mention that in the evening we found our way to the great 
 Piazza di Bra, surrounded by barracks and public buildings, 
 and containing the vast Koman amphitheatre for which 
 Verona is so celebrated. Its size is prodigious, and, except 
 in the outer circuit of wall, it is nearly perfect ; indeed, it is 
 impossible to look ujjon such a vast structure without a 
 great admiration for the men who ventured to conceive and 
 carry it into execution. 
 
 It is difficult now to conceive how the audience could be 
 found who would fill so vast a space ; and certainly the 
 modern eftbrts in this direction are mainly serviceable as 
 shewing the immensity of the theatre. When I was last in 
 Verona a theatre had been erected in the arena, and a 
 performance was in jjrogress. The audience might have 
 been tolerably large in an enclosed theatre, but here it 
 seemed to be the merest handful ; and when we stood on the 
 highest attainable part of the walls, we found ourselves so 
 far from the stage as to be unable to hear a single word that 
 was said. There is no need to describe here so well-known a 
 building as this ; suffice it to say, that though the detail of 
 the architecture is poor, the general design and execution of 
 the structural arrangements, and the magnificence of the 
 whole scheme cannot fail to strike one with the same wonder 
 that one feels in the presence of many of these great Eoman 
 works ; and it is striking indeed, to see one of them so 
 perfect as to be still capable of use, and really used. 
 
 All the Austrian portion of the inhabitants of Verona 
 crowded the Piazza di BrJi on Sunday evening to hear 
 an Austrian military band, and we enjoyed not a little a 
 stroll among a crowd of uniforms of all shapes, kinds, and 
 colours. Verona more than most towns, even in Austrian
 
 108 VEKONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 Lombardy, seems to be sacrificed entirely to Austrian soldiery. 
 It is quite melancholy to walk along a street of palaces, 
 some of them converted into old-furniture stores, others 
 going to ruin ; and when suddenly you do come upon a flour- 
 ishing and smart palace, if you look in you are sure to see an 
 Austrian sentinel, and find that it is an oflic^r's quarters ; 
 and equally when you meet a conveyance, if it is smart and 
 dashing, with good horses and a stylish coachman, it is 
 quite certain to be occupied by some dignified-looking 
 military man. So, too, on the Monday evening, v/hen we 
 went to the French opera (a very pretty, tastefully got-up 
 theatre by the way) there were absolutely none but 
 Austrians in the house — in the boxes, ofiicers and their 
 wives, in the pit, subordinate ofiicers and 23rivates. Who 
 can see this immense stafi" of foreigners in occupation of a 
 city like Verona without feeling sadly for the people who live 
 under such a rule, and for the ruler who is compelled to 
 maintain such a force to keep his subjects in order? ^ 
 
 This, however, is a digression, and I must go on to 
 describe the remaining architectural features of the old 
 city. 
 
 On the way to San Zenone Maggiore, Avhich is quite on 
 the extreme western verge of the city, one j)asses the 
 Castello Vecchio, a very grand pile of simple mediaeval for- 
 tifications erected in the fourteenth century by Cangrande II. 
 There are several towers and lofty walls, all topped with the 
 forked Veronese battlement ; and connected with it is the 
 magnificent Ponte di Castel- Vecchio, a great bridge across 
 the rushing Adige, built entirely of brick, the parapet of the 
 regular Veronese type, and the piers between the arches 
 rather large and angular, and finishing with battlements 
 
 ' I need lianlly say Hat all this is chaiigecl, and I lioj)e changed for the 
 bttter. The city looks moic thriving than it did, and more of tlie old mansions 
 are properly occupied tlian was tlie case in the time of the Austrians.
 
 CiiAi'. VI.] PONTE 1)1 CASTEL VECCIUO. 109 
 
 rather above those of the bridge. The main arch is of great 
 size — it is said to he not less than one hundred and sixty- 
 feet — and one of the most remarkable points in its appear- 
 ance is, that, instead of being in the centre, it is on the side 
 of the river next the castle, while the other two arches, 
 descending rapidly to the north bank of the river, give the 
 bridge an odd, irregular, and down-hill kind of look. The 
 architectural features of this bridge are, however, not the 
 only objects of interest on this spot ; for just after passing 
 the castle the road bends down to the side of the river, and 
 presents an admirable view of the campanili, steeples, and 
 spires, with the steep hills on the opposite bank of the 
 stream, and the mountains in the distance, with the rapid, 
 turgid, white-looking Adige flowing strongly at one's fest. 
 
 A longish walk through squalid suburbs leads us to tlie 
 open space in front of the noble basilica of San Zenone ; it 
 is a desolate waste-looking space, and the poor, old, uncared- 
 for church looks now as though its day was well-nigh past ; 
 as if neglect and apathy were all that men could give now 
 where once they were wont to lavish so much of their 
 treasure, and love, and art. 
 
 The church, as it now stands, seems to have been entirely 
 rebuilt in the course of the eleventh or twelfth century, and 
 its proportions are so very grand, and its detail generally so 
 perfect, that I think it may certainly be regarded as on the 
 whole the noblest example of its class; indeed, except the 
 very best Gothic work of the best period, I doubt whether 
 any work of the Middle Ages so much commands respect and 
 admiration as this Lombard work. There is a breadth and 
 simplicity about it, and an expression of such deep thought 
 in the arrangement of materials and in the delicate sculp- 
 ture, which with a sparing hand is introduced, that one 
 cannot sufficiently admire the men who planned and executed 
 it. Beyond tliis, the constructive science was so excellent
 
 110 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 and so careful, that with ordinary care such a church as 
 San Zenone woukl seem still likely to last for ages. 
 
 The view of the west front is certainly very striking. 
 The whole church has been singularly little modernized. 
 By its side to the north is a fine simple red brick tower, 
 I sujipose originally belonging to the city walls ; behind and 
 near the east end of the church, but visible here, the tall 
 and much-arcaded campanile ; and on the other side the 
 little church of San Procolo with a fourteenth-century 
 painting of Our Lord under a gabled canopy overhanging the 
 doorway. The west front of San Zenone is simple but 
 dignified. The nave and aisles are finished with cornices 
 following the flat pitch of the roofs. The walls are divided 
 by many vertical lines of pilasters which rise from the 
 plinth to the eaves-cornice. The main part of this front is 
 stone, but a good deal of marble is used, e.g., the rose 
 window has tracery of red marble enclosed within an order 
 of white marble ; the doorway and sculpture are in white 
 marble, once much enriched with colour, and the arcaded 
 band all across the front is of red marble. Add to this 
 that the stone used is all of an extremely warm yellow 
 colour, and an idea may be formed of the efibrt that was made 
 here in the principal front (as often in Italian churches) 
 to shew that God's house was the noblest that could be 
 built. 
 
 The doorway well deserves a chapter to itself. Its lintel 
 has illustrations of the labours of the twelve months, its 
 jambs subjects on the right from the Old Testament, on the 
 left from the New. In front of this door there are detached 
 shafts standing on monsters and sujiporting a low canopy. 
 An inscription on the facade " Salvet in eternum qui sculpsit 
 ista Gruglielmus," gives the name of the sculptor, the same 
 man probably who about the middle of the twelfth century 
 sculptured the western doorway of the cathedral at Modenu.
 
 
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 W-- li'-l 
 
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 ..s:.i^-;-fL 
 
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 Chap. VI.] SAN ZENONE. Ill 
 
 No less worthy of study are the bronze doors of this door- 
 way. Here, as is so often the case in mediaeval Italian 
 works, -rt'e have the names of the artists employed — 
 Guglielmo and Nicola da Figarola — with the pious ex- 
 pression of hope that he who sculptured the work might he 
 saved eternally. The subjects are very rude in their detail ; 
 they illustrate subjects from the Old Testament, and are 
 executed in thin plates of bronze nailed on to the wooden 
 doors. A row of small windows, one in each of the many 
 divisions of the front, extends all across near the top of the 
 porch ; whilst above is a large circular window, filled in 
 with wheel tracery, and treated as was not uncommon as an 
 illustration of the Wheel of Fortune. Bound this window is 
 an inscription explaining its symbolism. 
 
 We went first into the cloister on the north side of the 
 nave. The arches are very small, and of brick, supported 
 on coupled shafts of red Veronese marble, which have 
 marble caps and bases, and rest on a dwarf wall of stone 
 capped with a thin course of marble. The arch bricks are 
 of a rich red colour, and contrast well with the brickwork of 
 the ordinary kind above them ; they are used without any 
 kind of moulding or ornament — and yet I doubt whether I 
 have ever seen a more lovely cloister than this. The 
 arcades on the north and south sides have round arches ; 
 those on the east and west are pointed ; and on the north is 
 a projecting arcade of the same detail, which once formed 
 the lavatory. The whole of this cloister is in a very sad 
 state of filth, neglected and unused, and will, I fear, ere 
 long become ruinous.^ 
 
 From the cloister you enter by a side door into the 
 north aisle of the choir ; much better, however, would it 
 always be to enter from the west, for it is there, when 
 
 ' This cloister is said to liave bcfn built in 1 12:!. 'Jliis is, I tliink. at least 
 fifty years earlier tliaii its real date.
 
 112 VERONA. [Chap. YI. 
 
 standing; at the top of the flight of ten or twelve steps 
 which leads down from the door to the floor of the nave, 
 looking down the great length of the church, scanning its 
 singular perspective of timber roofing, the great height and 
 simplicity of its walls, and the mysterious view down into 
 the crypt under the choir through the recently opened 
 arches, that one feels most deeply the great and religious 
 effect of the church. To an eye used to northern Gothic 
 there is something very new in such a building. Its shape, 
 its material, its arrangement, are all unlike what an English 
 eye is used to, but I cannot say that I paused for an instant 
 in doubt as to whether I might really admire or not ; for I 
 felt at once how very good the work was, not only in its 
 general eff'ect, but as much in the treatment of the details, 
 in its colour, and in its arrangement. 
 
 The general plan is very simjfle — a great parallelogram, 
 divided into a nave of vast width with northern and southern 
 aisles ; the aisles terminated with square east ends, the 
 choir with an apse of five bays, which is, however, of later 
 date than the rest of the church. The chief singularity in 
 the design is the division of the piers of the main arcades 
 into primary and secondary — the first being large heavy piers 
 supporting great arches spanning the nave and aisles, which 
 are finished in a line with the top of the walls ; and the 
 latter more delicate circular marble columns of very Classical 
 character, with finely carved capitals, and looking almost 
 too slight to support the vast height of clerestory wall 
 which towers up above the arcade which they carry. The 
 timber roof, or ceiling, is curious ; the framing is all con- 
 cealed, with the exception of the collar-beams, which connect 
 the 2M)ints of the trefoil which forms the internal line 
 of ceiling. This trefoil outline is all boarded, divided into 
 panels, and painted. The cfTect of this great length of 
 panelled roofing, partly ('(tnccalcd l)y the great arches which
 
 o 
 
 <P
 
 riiAi>. VI.] SAN ZENONE. 113 
 
 cross the nave, is certainly fine. Tlie wooden roofs of the 
 aisles, too, are original, and their beams are painted very 
 much like the Aiistrian sentry-hoxes, in zigzag lines of l)lack 
 and huff. Much of this painting, however, did not appear 
 to me to he old. 
 
 At about two- thirds of the length of the church between 
 the west door and the apse it is cut in two, so to speak, by 
 that which perhaps is now the greatest charm of the interior 
 — the crypt. When I first visited San Zenone this crypt 
 existed, but its existence was not realized from the nave. 
 The only access to it was from the aisles, and even here the 
 arches were partially blocked up. A flight of steps across 
 the whole east end of the nave led up to the choir and 
 concealed the old entrance to it. This, it has lately been 
 found, was originally formed by three open arches from the 
 nave with a flight of steps descending under them to the level 
 of the crypt, whilst two arches on either side of these gave 
 access to it from the aisles. This is the old scheme, and the 
 only possible approach to the raised choir must originally have 
 been that which has now been restored, viz., two narrow flights 
 of steps against the side walls, so contrived as not to interfere 
 with or conceal any part of the sculjjture or other decora- 
 tions on the western face of the arches to the crypt. The 
 church as now restored yields to few with which I am 
 acquainted in the solemn effect which is the result of 
 mysterious light and shade, multiplied vistas of columns 
 and arches, and picturesque originality of design. It is 
 evidently rather a result of growth than of first intentions. 
 The crypt — like our own remarkable example at Wimborne 
 — seems to be an insertion. The columns and piers of the 
 choir pass on into the crypt, whose piers and vaults are 
 built against them. There is an obvious difference too in the 
 style of th(^ church and of the crypt, showing that at least 
 a hundicd vciirs mnsl liavc claiisfd lictween the erection of
 
 114 VERONA. [Chap. Vf. 
 
 the former and the insertion of* the latter. The choir now 
 occupies the three eastern arches of the okl constrnctional 
 nave, and beyond this has a square bay and a five sided apse, 
 the two hxst divisions being groined and decorated with a 
 good deal of colour. The apse is of the fourteenth century, 
 but all its windows have been modernized. The crypt follows 
 exactly the dimensions of the choir, but is divided into no 
 less than nine bays in width, and six bays in length, ex- 
 clusive of the apse. The red marble columns which support its 
 groined roof are all monoliths, delicate in their proportions, 
 and many of them probably antique. The vaulting is quadri- 
 partite, and there are considerable remains of wall paintings, 
 which appear to be nearly coeval with the crypt. In the 
 centre of this crypt is the shrine of San Zeno, half concealed 
 by the gloomy but effective lighting, and surrounded by 
 a metal railing made of quatrefoils, buckled or tied to- 
 gether, very much in the same style as the railings round 
 the Scaligeri monuments. The altar in this crj-pt is worth 
 notice on account of its sculptured front. This has in the 
 centre a small crucifix with SS. Mary and John, and on 
 either side, under arches, figures of the Evangelists. The 
 face towards the nave of the seven arches which form the 
 western part of the crypt is decorated with extreme care 
 and finish. They are admirable examples of the really 
 polished work of the Italian artists of the end of the 
 twelfth century. The arches from the north aisle deserve 
 special notice. They are carried on coupled shafts which, as 
 well as their capital, are of red Veronese marble, the archivolt 
 being of stone. The section of both shafts is circular, but 
 one of them is delicately twisted to a spiral curve on its 
 upward course. The refinement of this treatment of shafts is 
 very characteristic of the best Italian work, and this coupled 
 shaft, simple as its treatment is, and common as are the 
 t'lements of its design, is so beautiful that it makes a real
 
 Chap. VI.] SAN ZEXONE. 115 
 
 sunsliine in a shady place. Not less are the arches above it 
 worthy of admiration. The sculpture here, of a trailing 
 branch of foliage, is very slightly relieved, but its outline is 
 so graceful, its imitation of nature so close without being 
 merely realistic, and its fitness for its position so complete, 
 that I think I have never seen anything in its way more 
 satisfactory, and certainly never anything really ornamental 
 in the best sense, the elements of which were more severely 
 simple.^ 
 
 The colour of the whole interior is, to my mind, charm- 
 
 I ing. It was first of all built in alternate and very irregularly 
 
 L divided courses of brick and stone. On this warm-coloured 
 
 ground, one pious man after another came and painted what 
 
 I seemed to him best — a Madonna, a crucifixion, a saint, or a 
 
 \ group of figures — with not much thought beyond that of 
 
 I making the particular work in which he was interested tell 
 
 I its own story w^ell and produce its own effect. So little did 
 
 he think of other men's previous work that the same subjects 
 
 are not unfrequently repeated. The result is that the walls 
 
 were here sober and there gorgeous, but everywhere coloured, 
 
 and everywhere more or less interesting. Yet the materials 
 
 of which they are built are just those which we see every day 
 
 of ouiv lives, and it was the skill of the workman, not the 
 
 richness of his materials, which made his work so worthy of 
 
 our admiration. 
 
 Only one portion of the church is decorated upon a 
 regular system ; this is the eastern part of the choir and the 
 apse, which has part of its walls and its groining very 
 elaborately painted, though with but little gold ; the 
 groining ribs are richly coloured, and on each side of them 
 is a wide border, generally subdivided into regular geometri- 
 cal figures, and the spaces between these borders are painted 
 blue and powdered with gold stars. In the south aisle is an 
 
 ' Tile sculptor of this work left his name — Ailainiuus— on lUo I'iijiital. 
 
 I 2
 
 .116 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 altar under a baldachin, supported at the angles by four 
 clustered shafts knotted together in mid height — a capricious 
 custom of which Italians seem to have been especially fond, 
 and the only excuse for which, so far as I can see, -is that it 
 proves that all the shafts were cut out of one block, and 
 therefore of more value than four plain detached shafts cut 
 out of separate blocks could be. There is perhaps, also, a 
 relief to the mind, after looking at a long series of similar 
 shafts, to come at last upon some one or two marked by 
 capricious singularity such as this. Be this, however, as 
 it may, the eye certainly always feels inclined to admire 
 them, though the reason is never quite satisfied ; and 
 perhaps some better excuse does exist for their use than I 
 have as yet been able to discover. It is probable that these 
 columns belonged originally to the baldachin over the 
 high altar. The canopy which they now support is not 
 old. 
 
 The vestry on the north side of the choir is worth a 
 visit, if only for the sake of its prettily panelled and painted 
 ceiling. Here the panels are very small, and left in the 
 natural colour of the pine, and the ribs are decorated 
 with white, red, and black. There is also in this room a very 
 good fourteenth-century marble cistern and lavatory under an 
 arch in the wall ; and lastly, in the wardrobes, among many 
 things not worth seeing, a finely embroidered bishop's mitre 
 of the twelfth century, wrought in gold on linen. In front 
 is a figure of Our Lord, at the back one of the Blessed 
 Virgin, with emblems of two Evangelists on each, and a band 
 below with figures of the Apostles, the stoles also being 1 
 adorned with figures. 
 
 The arrangement of the choir shows the common Italian . 
 
 I 
 
 plan of stalls round the apse behind the altar. They are of { 
 early Renaissance character, witli some relic of Gothic feeling i 
 in the traceries of tlio backs and elbows. There is also a !
 
 Chap. VI.] SAN ZENONE. 117 
 
 good example of a square elioir lectern, with a large, base to 
 contain l)ooks, and a revolving gabled desk. 
 
 Until the beginning of this century, there were only two 
 altars in this church, one in the choir the other in the 
 crypt. The verger told me that his father remembered the 
 other altars being brought from a suppressed church, and 
 erected here. 
 
 The campanile is well seen from the cloister, where it 
 
 composes finely with the coursed walls of the church, and 
 
 the many-shafted arcades of the cloister. It is a lofty 
 
 ^ square tower of several stages, with small pinnacles, and a 
 
 low circular brick spire crowning it. 
 
 I must not leave San Zenone without mentioning the 
 construction of the exterior, which — with the exception of 
 the west end, which is of stone and marble — is entirely of 
 red brick and very warm-coloured stone. The courses 
 of stone are, as a general rule, of about the same height, 
 whilst those of brick are very varied, some only of one 
 course, others of four or five. The cornices at the tops of 
 the walls, too, are very good, supported upon corbel-tables 
 with round arches resting upon corbels, and much improved 
 in their effect by the judicious introduction of thin deep-red 
 bricks between the courses of carved stone, which are thus 
 thrown out forcibly. It is in this use of red brick, and 
 in the bold and successful way in which brick and stone 
 are shown in the interior, that this church is so full of 
 instruction to an English eye ; and I could not see such 
 a work without regretting bitterly the insane prejudice 
 which some people indulge against anything but the cold, 
 dreary, chilling respectability of our English plastered 
 walls, which to me seems to be fit only for occupation by 
 savages. 
 
 Every time I visit this noble church, I leave it with 
 greater regret ; its exceeding grandeur appears to deserve a
 
 118 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 better fate than the spare use to which it seems now to he 
 abandoned. To see all these painted or coloured walls, 
 all these marble j)iers, and all this vast expanse of wall and 
 roof waste and desolate, apparently not half used and never 
 filled with a throng of worshippers, reminds me too strongly 
 of the sad and similar fate of some of our own English 
 churches not to awaken a sigh as I look at it. To some 
 men it is a comfort to find that their neighbours are no 
 better than themselves in these matters, but I confess that 
 to my mind a great church disused is a subject only for 
 mournful recollection, just as a noble church much used 
 and filled with crowds of worshippers is an object for 
 emulation and admiration. Here, in good truth, I know not 
 where the worshippers are to come from, so decayed and 
 forlorn is the neighbourhood. 
 
 On the way back from San Zenone into the city a small 
 church is passed — the oratory of the same Saint — where 
 his body is said to have rested for a time before it was 
 taken to the Basilica. The only architectural features are 
 of a long subsequent period, a very good circular window 
 in the west gable, and a doorway with a pointed canopy 
 supported on shafts above it, under which of old no doubt 
 there was a painting. 
 
 Beside San Zenone I think the only very grand church 
 as yet unmentioned is that of San Fermo Maggiore — a vast 
 Romanesque basilica without aisles, but with small transejits, 
 and a chancel and north and south chancel-aisles opening 
 into the nave by three arches, which exactly correspond with 
 its vast width ; a not very beautiful arrangement, which we 
 shall meet with again in the church of the Eremitani at 
 Padua, and in others of the great churches of the preaching 
 orders of monks. 
 
 The fabric of the cast end, and the eastern half of the 
 nave appears to be of very early date — I should be disposed
 
 C'jiAr. XL] SAN FEKMO MAGGIORE. 119 
 
 to say the end of the tontli, or beginniiif^ of the eleventh 
 century. A lofty crypt is constructed under the whole 
 of this part, all the columns of which are square; some of 
 them mere masses of masonry, others shmder monoliths. 
 The mouldings here are rather Eoman in character than 
 Lomhard. The groining is all of hrick, and very extensive 
 remains of paintings are still to he seen throughout, the 
 large columns having single figures painted on them, one on 
 each face. Access to the crypt is ohtained (hy the clergy) 
 from the cloister, south of the church, and hy the people 
 through a very spacious staircase entered from the outside 
 by a door just west of the north porch. So good indeed are the 
 means of access, that no doubt the crypt was once extensively 
 used by the laity, for whom these stairs were specially 
 intended. It is now not used at all — ^just as is the case with 
 old crypts all over Europe — but then it is fair to say that the 
 church is no longer served by the Eegular Clergy by whom it 
 was built, and that their conventual buildings were when first 
 I saw them occupied by Austrian soldiers, and are now still 
 turned, I believe, to some equally secular use. I think we 
 may fairly assume that in 1313, when the church was restored 
 and in part reconstructed, the old crypt was retained partly 
 on account of its associations, and partly because of its con- 
 venience for those who might at first not quite sympathize 
 with the novel arrangements of the church above, a great 
 unbroken area built and contrived for the use and conve- 
 nience of an order of preachers, and not for receiving a 
 number of altars. 
 
 A monument close to the entrance of the crypt is worth 
 notice. It represents a professor with his pupils sitting 
 each at a desk. The books have inscri^itions on them. 
 The professor's has " Yita brevis ;" a pupil, " Ars longii ;" 
 another, "judicium difficile;" and another, "tepus fugit." 
 In the intericu" of the nave we have, as has been observed,
 
 120 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 a work which has been so much altered that it is in 
 fact, as we now see it, a work of the fourteenth century. 
 It is about fifty feet in width, and covered with a timber 
 roof, constructed so as to form a ceiling of a number of 
 cusps boarded and panelled on the under side, and tied with 
 iron ties in place of collar-beams. Two vertical divisions of 
 the panelling are arcaded, and filled with paintings of saints, 
 and the whole roof is darkly stained, and richly painted. 
 Beyond this the only very striking feature is the pulpit, 
 which is corbelled out from the south wall about midway in 
 its length. It is old and picturesque, and is surmounted by 
 a delicately carved and lofty canopy — the whole in marble. 
 It is surrounded by wall paintings of about the same age, 
 and presents a fairly unchanged example of what such 
 combined works of the jiainter and the architect were in the 
 palmy days of the fourteenth century. These j)aintings are 
 of much interest. Behind the pulpit are the four doctors 
 and the four Evangelists seated, the ascent of Elisha in 
 a chariot of fire, and twelve prophets with scrolls. Under the 
 canopy is the Crucifixion. 
 
 Going to the exterior one finds on the north side two 
 transepts, and north of the chancel a tower. East of the 
 eastern transept and of the tower are small apsidal projec- 
 tions of Eomanesque character, both of them in ruins and 
 unused. The masonry here is difi'erent from that of the 
 later work, being of alternate courses of single brick, and of 
 stone. 
 
 The exterior of the principal apse is very remarkable, 
 and belongs to the fourteenth century. Each side has 
 a steep gable with elaborate cornices, mouldings, and 
 pinnacles, partly of stone and partly of brick. The gables 
 are built jwith circular bricks, and there is a cusped circular 
 window in each gable. Seen from the bridge which crosses 
 the Adige close to the church, this picturesque east end is one
 
 ml . %%\^ 
 
 17._S, FEEMO MAGGIORE, VERONA. 
 
 Pa§e 121
 
 Chap. VI.] SAX FERMO MAGGIORE. 121 
 
 (»t' the most picturesque things in Verona, Unfortunately 
 the campanile does not equal in importance the church to 
 which it belongs. 
 
 The west end will be best understood by the accom- 
 panying sketch. It is constructed entirely in red brick 
 and warm-coloured stone, and I confess that it impressed me 
 most pleasantly, as having in its four delicate lancet windows 
 some sort of affinity to our own English work. The north 
 porch is very fine of its kind, and the jambs of its doorway 
 are constructed of black, white, and red marble, used 
 alternately. The arcading against the walls is noticeable as 
 shewing the use of thin courses of red brick for the purpose 
 of defining the lines of the stonework. 
 
 The monuments on each side of the west door are good 
 simple examples of a favourite Italian type. They are, as 
 we shall see, of all dates, and even when developed to a great 
 size, are still corbelled in the same way out of the walls. 
 In the North of Euroj)e, we have no analogous treatment 
 of monumental memorials, and this rather enhances their 
 value. The arch to the monument on the left of the west 
 doorway is painted in a charmingly simple Giottesque style, 
 and there is a painting also behind a modern statue in the 
 door-arch, of Our Lord surrounded by angels. In the arcades 
 above the monuments there were figures of saints painted, 
 with imitations of mosaic. All these details are worth 
 mentioning in order to give some idea to those who have not 
 seen Yerona, of the extent to which everywhere the eye is 
 feasted with remains of early art. Indeed, one feasts un- 
 interruptedly there on all that can delight the eye in form 
 and in colour ! 
 
 With the mention of one more church I believe I may 
 bring my notes in Verona to an end, and this is a small 
 chapel which stands just opposite the south side of the 
 Puomo, and whose name I could not learn. It is much like
 
 122 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 San Pietro Martire in its general arrangement, bnt remark- 
 able for the exquisite beauty of its windows, the arrange- 
 ment of the bricks and stonework in which is beyond all 
 praise. These windows are constructed with trefoiLed heads 
 of stone, enclosed within an arch of mixed stone and brick, 
 round whose outer edge runs a band of delicate terra-cotta 
 ornament. The spandrels of the trefoils are filled in with 
 refined sculpture, instead of being pierced with the dark eye 
 usually found in northern Gothic. There is, too, an entire 
 absence of mouldings, yet, notwithstanding this, the general 
 effect is one of combined delicacy and richness of no common 
 kind, so much does carefully-arranged and contrasted 
 colour do for architecture. A third window is entirely 
 of brick, save the trefoil head of the opening. The side 
 elevation of this little chapel is very singular in its whole 
 arrangement ; there are three bays divided by pilasters, 
 which finish at the top in an arcaded cornice of brick ; in 
 each of the two western bays is a lancet window, and the 
 centre bay has in addition a doorway, and a corbelled out 
 monument above it ; in the eastern bay the window looks 
 just like one of those curious English low side windows, as 
 to the use of which we have had so many ingenious theories ; 
 the east end has no trace of any window, and is finished with 
 a flat-pitched roof, and a brick corbel-table running up the 
 pediment. There is no stone used except in the window- 
 heads and arches. 
 
 There are many other churches in Verona on both sides 
 of the river, and into several of them we went, but without 
 finding any of equal merit to those which I have already 
 noticed. Santa Eufemia has a fair west front, of late pointed, 
 and we found one or two good cloisters just like those men- 
 tioned at Brescia. Other churches have fronts built, and 
 interiors remodelled, by Sanmichele and his successors, in a 
 style which by no means approved itself to me ; others
 
 1.2.Wina^ws ai Vet^na. S. Cornice ^. Ambr«-gt<>,MUa.tt .
 
 Chap. VI.] 
 
 DOMESTIC WINDOWS. 
 
 1-23 
 
 there were which I did not succeed in reacliing,^ and there is 
 one dedicated in honour of S. Thomas of Canterbury, which 
 is not, however, otherwise of any interest ; it has a very 
 kite Gothic west front, of poor character. 
 
 It is impossible to walk about Yerona without meeting 
 at every turn with windows whose design is similar to 
 those so often seen in Venice, but the execution and arrange- 
 ment are generally so inferior here to what they are 
 there, that I shall defer saying 
 much about them until I am 
 descri])ing the palaces and an- 
 cient buildings of Venice. They 
 are almost always finished with 
 ogeed trefoils at the top, and are 
 arranged singly, or in couples or 
 more together, and one above the 
 other, the same in each story of 
 the hout^e ; their mouldings are 
 thin and reedy, and the carving 
 of ti eir finials, when they have 
 any, is very poor. Examples of 
 these windows will be seen by 
 most travellers in the rooms of 
 
 DOM l-:bTIC « I N UO\\ — V E H OK A . 
 
 the Albergo delle Due Torre. 
 
 The views from the bridges across the Adige are very 
 striking. The main part of the city is on the right bank, 
 and the river describes nearly a semi-circle round it. The 
 opposite bank is only partially built over, and has a largish 
 suburb, upon rather raj^idly rising ground ; be^'^ond this the 
 walls of the city are seen with occasional towers, and marked 
 
 ' Tlie most important of tliese is the interesting ehurcli of Sun Stefano in 
 tlie suburb on the opposite side of the Adige. It hns been much modernized, 
 but has still, I believe, an early crypt and an octagonal steeple over the 
 crossing, of the snme age as San Zenone.
 
 124 VERONA. [Chap. VI. 
 
 all the way by their serrated battlements climbing the 
 irregular outline of the hills in the boldest fashion. Then 
 crossing over to the other side and turning round, you see 
 the thickly-built city full of towers and churches rising far 
 above the turmoil of the crowd below into the pure sky, and, 
 by their number and size, making Verona one of the most 
 striking old cities I know. 
 
 Of course no one goes to Verona without thinking of 
 Komeo and Juliet, I fear, however, that when I was shown 
 the Casa de' Capj^elletti, a small inn in a narrow street, and 
 asked to connect it in any way for the future with the 
 creation of Shakespeare's brain, my fancy refused to be suffi- 
 ciently lively to perform the required feat. The simple fact 
 is that, real relics not existing, the good people of Verona 
 have wisely met the demand which Shakespeare has created, 
 and have discovered a tomb for Juliet, and other reminis- 
 cences of the fair Veronese, which I dare say satisfy very 
 well the majority of travellers. 
 
 At Verona, as in the other towns through which we 
 passed in Italy, we were quite astonished at the number of 
 misshapen dwarfs that we saw ; we could not account for 
 this at first, but I suppose it is because children, until they 
 can walk, are tied up in rolls of linen so stiffly as to deprive 
 them of all power of motion. The only wonder is how 
 any of these unfortunate children ever manage to walk 
 at all. 
 
 In the courts of the houses at Verona there are generally 
 wells, with ingeniously contrived arrangements for enabling 
 the occupants of the various surrounding houses and bal- 
 conies to let down their buckets for water without themselves 
 going down to the wells. There are guide-ropes to the well 
 from each angle of tlie courts round which the houses are 
 usually built, along which the buckets run, suspended by 
 rings and held l)y ropes from the balconies, until they reach
 
 Chap. VI.] DEPAirrUlJE FROM YEKONA. 125 
 
 the iron- work over the well, and then fall perpendicularly 
 down to the water. 
 
 I have visited Verona many times, and each visit seems 
 to me to give greater pleasure than the last. I fear I have 
 given but a faint idea of the indescribable charm which 
 it has to all who are fond of early art. There is little 
 which one can compare with the situation and surroundings 
 of such cities as Venice and Florence, and yet I suppose most 
 travellers would agree with me in reckoning the interest of 
 these three towns as not far from equal, and greater in very 
 many ways than that of any other Italian cities. 
 
 On this first journey we were driven away by bad weather 
 which, when it sets in, generally continues for several days, 
 and we left, inwardly resolving that no long time should elapse 
 before w^e returned — a resolution wdiich has been abundantly 
 and often fulfilled — and as the waiter at our hotel honestly 
 told us that we should be very likely to find fine weather at 
 Padua, whither we were next to journey, we took his advice, 
 and then, getting into an omnibus contrived to hold thirty 
 persons, and I should say at least twenty feet long, with four 
 horses harnessed with long drawn-out traces to increase the 
 already prodigious length, we were soon at the terminus of 
 the Verona and Venice railway.
 
 126 VEROiNA TO VICENZA. [Chap. VII. 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 ■ And vvliither journeyiug? — 'To the holy shriae_ 
 Of Saint Antonio in the city of Padua.' " 
 
 liogers. 
 
 Neighbourhood of Verona — Viconza : Cathedral — San Lorenzo — Santa 
 Corona — Pallazzo della Kagione — Gothic Palaces — Palladio's works — 
 Teatro Olympieo — Padua : Giotto's Chapel — The Ereniitani — Sant' An- 
 tonio — Tlie Diiomo. 
 
 Many of tlie villages near Verona are remarkable for the 
 remains of castles of the middle ages. I have never, however, 
 been able to find time for the examination of any of them, 
 and, judging from hurried views which I have had of three 
 or four castles south of Verona, I suspect that they would 
 scarcely repay a long detour ; they seem generally to be more 
 remarkable for their general contour, and their quaint forked 
 battlements, than for any of that delicate detail and appliance 
 to ordinary wants which it was especially my object to see 
 and study. 
 
 The railroad from Verona to Vicenza and Padua is not 
 interesting ; the country is beautiful and luxuriant in detail, 
 but rather tame, flat, and over-green in the general view. 
 The Veronese mountains, however, are in view on the north, 
 and as one approaches Vicenza the hills throw out their 
 spurs into the flat country, covered with vineyards, orchards, 
 and fruit trees ; village follows close upon village, each with 
 its white church and white campanile,. contrastijig strangely
 
 Chap. VI!.] VICENZA. 127 
 
 with the rich eok)nr iihove and around, and at hist the towers 
 and roofs of Vicenza are descried on oiir left. 
 
 And is it possible, my readers will exclaim, that you, an 
 architect, can have dared to pass Avithin sight of Vicenza 
 without making long sojourn there to drink in the lessons 
 which the works of your great master Palladio are there 
 to instil ! Even so, reader ; for in this world there are 
 unhappily two views of art, two schools of artists — armies 
 of men fighting against each .other ; the one numerous, 
 working with the traditions and rules of their masters in 
 the art, exclusive in their views, narrow in their practice, 
 and conventional in all their proceedings, to the most 
 painful forgetfulness of reality either in construction or in 
 ornament ; the other young and earnest, fighting for truth, 
 small in numbers, disciples of nature, revivers of an art to 
 all appearance but now all but defunct, yet already rising 
 gloriously above the traditional rules of three centuries. 
 The one class representing no new idea, breathing no new 
 thought, faithful to no religious rule ; the other rapidly 
 endeavouring to strike out paths for themselves as yet 
 untrodden, gathering thoughts from nature, life from an 
 intense desire for reality and practical character, faithful 
 moreover to a religious belief, whose propagation will be for 
 ever the great touchstone of their work. The one class, the 
 disciples of Palladio, journeying towards Vicenza with a shew 
 of reverence to learn how ho built palaces of compo with 
 cornices of lath and plaster, already in two short centuries 
 falling to decay, wretched and ruinous ! the other stopping 
 long at Verona, dreaming over the everlasting art of the 
 monuments of the Scaligers, and of the nave of Sta. Ana- 
 stasia, still, though five centuries have passed witli all their 
 storms about their heads, fresh and beautiful as ever, fit 
 objects of veneration for the artist in all ages ! 
 
 A disciple, therefore, of the last of tliese two schools.
 
 128 VICENZA. [Chap. VII. 
 
 I stayed not longer at Vicenza than was necessary to satisfy 
 myself of the truth of the charges against Palladio's work 
 there, and to note the few, hut interesting, mediaeval 
 remains. The situation of the city is heautiful. Near it to 
 the north are mountain ranges, and where these descend 
 into the plains there are smaller hills covered everywhere 
 with luxurious vegetation. The first view of it is also very 
 fine. In front is the old hrick tower at the Porta di Castello, 
 with its deep hrick machicoulis sloping boldly outwards, and 
 finished with a square battlement under a flat roof. Beyond 
 this are seen the steeples of the city, and highest among 
 them the Torre dell' Orologio, a tall slender brick tower in 
 the Piazza dei Signori, in the centre of the town. The 
 most important Gothic churches are the Cathedral, San 
 Lorenzo, and Santa Corona. They seem all to be in very 
 much the same style — one derived no doubt from Venice, 
 as we shall see when we arrive there. The plans usually 
 are of this kind. The bays of the nave are square in plan, 
 those of the aisles oblong in the direction of the length 
 of the church, the choirs apsidal, and the chapels on each 
 side of them also apsidal, but with an equal number of sides 
 so that there is an angle in the centre. The transepts are 
 square-ended, the sacristy at the end of one of them, and 
 the tower at the side of the chancel aisles. The Cathedral 
 departs from the type of plan just mentioned, but is, I think, 
 the only excej)tion to the rule. It has a very wide nave with- 
 out aisles some 55 or 60 feet in the clear, but it has been so 
 much repaired and altered that it is now very uninteresting, 
 Grood effect is obtained by the very great elevation of the 
 altar which is raised above a crypt, the entrance to which 
 is by flights of steps on each side of the steps which lead 
 up to the choir. The exterior is mainly of brick save at 
 the west end, which has an arcade of stone witli a doorway 
 in the centre division.
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 I^. POf(Ti^ »I CASTELLO. VlC'^Y^'^^R. 
 
 p. 12i
 
 Chap. VII.] SAN LOUENZO AND SANTA CORONA. 129 
 
 Thi.s kiud of west front is repeated in the more inte- 
 resting church of San Lorenzo, which is finished with one 
 vast gable in front of nave and aisles, and has for its lower 
 stage an arcade of seven divisions, with a fine pointed door- 
 way occupying the three central arches. This part of the 
 front is mainly of stone, with enriched members round the 
 arches in brick, and it is divided from the upper stage by 
 a corbel-table. The gable is of brick with a large stone 
 circular window in the centre, and five smaller circular 
 windows following the line of the flat gable which crowns the 
 whole. I was not much impressed by this design, the only 
 virtue of which is a certain amount of simplicity and breadth. 
 
 The interior of San Lorenzo is lofty and spacious. The 
 nave and aisles alone measure about 150 feet by 90, and 
 there are sj)acious transepts, choir, and chapels. The 
 columns are circular, and have capitals so badly carved that 
 it is somewhat difficult to say whether they have shells or 
 tufts of foliage for enrichment. Very small circular windows 
 in the clerestory, and a groined roof, complete the design. 
 The best portion of the exterior is, I think, the elevation 
 of the bays of the nave aisles. Here there are two simple 
 trefoiled lancets with a shallow buttress between them, and 
 a circular window above in each bay. This design is re- 
 freshingly pure and simple. The steeple is on the east 
 side of the north transept. It is of six stages in height, the 
 stages being marked by slightly sunk panels, and corbel- 
 tables under string-courses, which are formed by a pattern 
 in the bricks, not by any projecting moulding, so that the 
 straight outline of the steeple is not broken. The result is 
 not particularly good. 
 
 Santa Corona has, like the other churches, a single gable 
 in front of the nave and aisles, with a western doorway and a 
 large circular window above. I have a recollection of it 
 as of one of the most ungainly of fronts. The campanile 
 
 K
 
 130 VICENZA. [Chap. VU. 
 
 here is much like that of San Lorenzo, but has a low octa- 
 gonal belfry-stage finished with a small circular brick spire. 
 
 Santa Corona may well be more visited, for a picture by 
 John Bellini than for its own merits. This is a picture over 
 one of the altars in the north aisle representing the Baptism 
 of Our Lord — one so quiet and beautiful in colour, so dignified 
 and solemn in its design, that it is impossible to admire it 
 too much. Behind the group of angels who hold Our Lord's 
 garments, is a mountain landscape such as one sees from 
 Vicenza. It is a sublime work. The marble reredos is 
 coeval with the picture : it is furnished with two low screen 
 walls right and left of the altar, a common and proper ar- 
 rangement for its protection when, as here, the altar stands 
 in the aisle itself and not in a chapel. 
 
 I did not find any other church worth noticing, and soon 
 made my way to the Palazzo della Eagione. The great 
 feature of this building is the enormous hall, no less than 
 72 feet wide inside, and covered with a great arched timber 
 roof boarded on the under side, and divided into vertical 
 panels by bold ribs painted black and white. This roof 
 is held together by two tiers of iron ties, and being arched 
 and boarded at the end as well as at the sides, has some- 
 what the look of the inverted hull of a great ship. The 
 effect is imposing, though at the same time it is somewhat 
 gloomy, owing to the absence of all high light. 
 
 This great hall was Gothic inside and out until Palladio 
 cased the front with open arcades, standing out from the 
 walls and entirely concealing from below the old windows. 
 These were large single lights with moulded jambs, but not 
 of very good style. The original staircase remains with 
 good marble shafted balustrades. The old work here is said 
 to have been done before the year 1444, the hall having 
 been burnt in 1380. This date is of some importance, as 
 the walls of the upper portion are faced like the upper stage

 
 Vaiai'. VII.] GOTHIC PALACES. lol 
 
 of the Ducal Palace at Venice, with marble arranged in a 
 diaper. 
 
 The slender and lofty tower of brick which rises at one 
 end of the building, the two Venetian columns (Vicenza 
 became subject to Venice in 1404), and the Palazzo itself, 
 in spite of its small architectural merit, combine to make 
 a charming picture, rendered more beautiful when I saw it, 
 by the animated crowd of peasants who filled the Piazza. 
 The streets here are very picturesque, rather in spite of 
 Palladio and Scamozzi than in consequence of what they 
 did. Some of them are arcaded, and the Gothic houses are 
 still very numerous. They are all, however, of late date — 
 at least I saw none earlier than about 1350. They are of the 
 same design as some of the well-known Venetian palaces, only 
 here they rise out of narrow streets, instead of as they do 
 there from the water. The usual arrangement is to have on 
 the ground floor a single doorway, not necessarily central, and 
 on the inano nohile a fine traceried window with balconies in 
 the centre, single windows also with balconies near the angles, 
 and intermediate windows of the same design but w'ithout 
 balconies. These are always treated in the same way wnth 
 small shafts, and with animals seated on their angles, and are 
 supported on bold corbels. All the carving that I saw was 
 weak and confused in outline, and poor in detail, and the 
 capitals are generally too large for the arch mouldings 
 which rest on them — a common fault in Italian Gothic 
 work. 
 
 I give a view in the Contrada Porto which illustrates 
 two of the best of these houses. Almost the whole of this 
 street happens to consist of houses of the same age, and one 
 of them has on one side of its internal courtyard open arcades 
 on each story, the upper one having its balustrades re- 
 maining between the columns, similar in design to those in 
 window-balconies. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 VICENZA. [Chap. VII. 
 
 In their original state most of these houses seem to have 
 been left in red brick, the windows being of stone, with 
 thin white marble slabs fitted into the spandrels above the 
 arches. Projecting balls of marble are often fixed in front 
 of this marble lining. Some houses seem, however, to have 
 been plastered almost from the first with a view to painting, 
 and I can hardly say a w^ord against such a plan, with the 
 recollection of the glowing— in spite of their being faded — 
 tints which one still sees at Brescia, Genoa, and elsewhere 
 in Italy. But where the house has architectural features, 
 which are at all good of their kind, the painter is very apt 
 to ignore them entirely in his work, so that what was meant 
 to be a good piece of architectural work, becomes in the end 
 a badly cut -up ground for a painting. Where there is no 
 architectural detail to be spoilt, any amount of painting may 
 be lavished on an external wall ; and I know few examples 
 which better show with how much good efi'ect it may be done 
 than the great house of the Fugger family in Augsburg, 
 which many Italian tourists now-a-days may see and admire 
 on their way to or from Italy. The other objection to ex- 
 ternal painting is its evanescent character ; but good colour 
 is beautiful even in its decay, and I suppose the best artist 
 will paint what will do most good to his own generation, 
 and trust to his successors for doing as much for their own 
 times ! 
 
 One of the most fanciful houses in Vicenza is the Casa 
 Rigafetta, below the Palazzo Pubblico. The ornaments are 
 not pure, and there is too much straining to make the most 
 of an opportunity by putting everything possible into a 
 small space, but still the whole is decidedly pretty. The 
 balconies here are in plan half a quatrefoil. Near this 
 house is one with carved angle-shafts, a feature which I do 
 not remember to have seen in Venice. 
 
 Palladio's works are supposed now to be the glory of
 
 Chap. VII.] PALLADIO'S WORKS. 133 
 
 Vicenza. I cannot forgive the artist who did not care to 
 give solidity to his work, and the power of executing a vast 
 amount of enrichment in the cheapest way, and with the 
 commonest materials, is about the greatest snare into which 
 an architect can allow himself to fall. I am well aware that 
 Palladio was not the inventor of trumpery modes of construc- 
 tion. His admirers might quote the architects of Pompeii 
 fifteen hundred years before him, as offenders in the same 
 way, and the curious preservation of their works as the justi- 
 fication of their offence ; but Palladio followed after men of 
 his own kind and craft who for centuries had studiously 
 ; endeavoured to do their work honestly, and he deserves, 
 \ therefore, all the hostile criticism of those who object to 
 : a revival of bad practices which in our own day and country 
 have done more real damage to architecture than anything 
 else that can be named. 
 
 One only of Palladio's works interested me, and this 
 rather as a curious experiment than as a work of art. 
 This is the Teatro Olimjnco, a famous open-air theatre. 
 There is first of all a semi-circular auditorium open to the 
 sky, and only remarkable for a mean arrangement of jDilas- 
 ters at the back. The great object of interest is the stage, 
 on which a permanent scene has been constructed by Palladio. 
 In order to make this look much larger than it really is, the 
 streets, palaces, and temples which are represented are built 
 in perspective. To accomplish this the stage rises very 
 rapidly, the buildings are squeezed up, and built in sharp 
 perspective, so that in the end a triumphal arch, which is 
 really forty feet from the front, looks as if it were four 
 hundred. Should an actor by any chance so far forget him- 
 self as to walk into what looks like a practicable street, 
 in a minute he would find himself able to shake hands 
 with the statue on the top of the arch, the illusion would 
 be entirely destroyed, and the scenery would all look like
 
 134 PADUA. [Chap. VII. 
 
 a collection of dolls' houses. As an ingenious deception 
 from one point of view, and under certain conditions, the 
 scheme is successful, and probably this is as much as Palladio 
 himself would have claimed for it. 
 
 We had now seen all that we cared to see in Vicenza, and 
 gladly found ourselves again en route. There was nothing 
 to see on the road, and we were not sorry when our engine 
 gave token by its whistle of our approach to Padua. The 
 omnibus discharged us in a few minutes at the hospitable 
 doors of the Stella d'Oro, and we were soon out again Avith 
 the view of making the most of our time. 
 
 Padua, when I first saw it, seemed to me to be a most 
 melancholy city ; grass grew in the streets, the footways 
 Avere all formed under dark and dismal arcades, and not 
 only the externals of the half-occupied palaces, but those 
 even of all the houses, looked squalid, dirty, and miserable ; 
 nor was there any relief when one got into the more open 
 spaces, for the large piazze on either side of the Palazzo 
 della Eagione, or townhall, looked as squalid and uncared-for, 
 as dirty and unprepossessing, as they well could ; nor was this 
 universal squalor rendered at all less remarkable by the fact 
 that Padua rejoices in a caffe, Avhich is said to surpass any other 
 even in Italy, for its smartness ; and the array of well-dressed 
 gentlemen who frequented it, certainly made the neighbour- 
 hood look more Avretched by contrast than it otherwise would. 
 
 The Caffe Pedrocchi was however soon passed, and our 
 first object Avas the Palazzo della Eagione, whose vast and sin- 
 gular hall, about tAVO hundred and fifty feet long by ninety 
 feet wide, is one of the greatest architectural curiosities in 
 the city. Its exterior has been modernized, so that now 
 it is only remarkable for its long expanse of roof, but the 
 interior is still in its original state. The access to the Hall, 
 Avhicli in this and other respects much resembles that at 
 Vicenza, is from external arcades on the first floor, to which
 
 Chap. VII.] PALAZZO DELLA RAGIONE. 135 
 
 four staircases lead from below. The walls are low, and 
 covered with paintings arranged in arcaded panels ; some of 
 these are said to be by Giotto, and the whole of them, I be- 
 lieve, were at any rate painted in his time, but have probably 
 been repaired and retouched extensively long since. The 
 windows are small, low down in the walls, and admit scarcely 
 more than sufficient light for the lower part of the hall. 
 The roof shews in section a vast pointed arch of timber, 
 boarded and divided into panels by a succession of heavy 
 vertical ribs scarcely at all moulded. The construction is 
 obviously so weak as, from the very first, to have made the 
 iron ties which hold it all together absolutely necessary. 
 ' A curious feature in the design is, that instead of having 
 gable walls the roof is hipped, and shews therefore at 
 the end just the same section as at the sides. "What 
 little light finds its way into the dark obscurity of the roof 
 is admitted through some small dormers high up in its 
 framework. The effect of the hall is gloomy, and, compared 
 to our own great halls, certainly shows some lack of know- 
 ledge of construction on the part of its architect, and its bald 
 heaviness makes it absurd to compare it to our own noble 
 Westminster hall, though their very similar dimensions might 
 naturally tempt us to do so. It dates from about the begin- 
 ; ning of the fourteenth century, and the story runs that it 
 i was designed by a certain Frate Giovanni, who, travelling in 
 j India, saw the roof of a great palace the construction of which 
 I so pleased him that he brought back drawings of it with him, 
 } and erected its fellow here in Padua. How much truth 
 I there is in this tradition I cannot say, but this much 
 seems clear, that in some way Padua has, if not a very 
 I beautiful, at any rate a very remarkable Sala, and one which 
 is quite unlike any other room in Europe, with the single 
 exception of the corresponding room at Vicenza, which was 
 no doubt copied from it.
 
 136 PADUA. [Chap. YII. 
 
 It has been burnt and damaged in one way and another 
 repeatedly since it was first built, and in the course of the 
 restorations the j^aintings on the walls have been excessively 
 damaged, in many parts repainted, and in some obliterated 
 altogether. The work was commenced at any rate, if not 
 completed, just at the time that Dante and Griotto were 
 together in this part of Italy. The walls are all divided 
 into four panels in height by borders, with painted pilasters 
 for vertical divisions, and the panels are generally arched 
 and cusped. The paintings include the apostles, the signs 
 of the zodiac, representations of the months, the planets, and 
 the constellations. The whole scheme is far too complex to 
 be intelligible without a key. This fortunately is accessible 
 in the very careful and complete account of all the subjects 
 of the paintings on the walls which was prepared in 1858 
 by Mr. W. Burges, and printed in the ' Annales Archeolo- 
 giques.' With infinite pains he made out the meaning of 
 the whole of the figures — no light task, as the walls being 
 divided by painted borders and arcades into several stages 
 in height and an almost interminable number in length, 
 spaces are provided for some four hundred subjects.^ 
 
 At one end of the hall was the chapel of San Prodoscimo, 
 formed I presume by screens. The judges sat round the 
 hall, forming so many courts in one room. At the opposite 
 end was a cage or prison, so that here, under one roof, with 
 walls covered with illustrations, sat all the courts of Padua, 
 without any of those ingenious divisions and subdivisions 
 which are now necessary for the administration of the very 
 smallest sort of justice, and it may be hoped with as much 
 honesty as there certainly was simplicity. 
 
 Now-a-days the hall is quite unused save as a receptacle 
 for lumber, of which the most remarkable example is the 
 
 ' See also TietroBiaDclolesc, Sciiltuia, ritturu, &c., di Padova.' Padova, 1795.
 
 Chap. VII.] 
 
 GIOTTO'S CHAPEL. 
 
 137 
 
 remnant of a gigantic horse made by Donatello to travel ou 
 rollers in some old Paduan pageant. 
 
 From the Palazzo della Eagione, we found our way to 
 what must, so long as it lasts, be the great glory, as it is 
 the chief charm, of Padua — Giotto's Chapel , founded in 1303, 
 
 This stands in private grounds and on one side of a deso- 
 late green walk which leads up to a private house to which it 
 
 ARENA CHAPEL — PADUA. 
 
 now forms an appendage. From the first it was a little private 
 
 chapel, and in no respect remarkable for size or costliness of 
 
 1 material or design. The plan is a simple oblong nave with 
 
 ! an apsidal chancel, and a sacristy on the north side, and 
 
 i nothing can be simpler than the exterior. The walls are of 
 
 brick, divided into bays by narrow pilasters. The west door 
 
 is round arched, as are also the windows. The interior is 
 
 even more simple ; the whole nave has not a moulding, the
 
 138 PADUA. [Chap. VIT. 
 
 walls are continued on into the semicircular ceiling without 
 any cornice, and all the ornament is added in colour. 
 
 The windows all have a deep splay outside, very simple 
 stone traceries, and glass fitted to wooden frames placed in- 
 side against the stonework. There seem also to have been 
 shutters outside, for which the hooks still remain. A sort of 
 penthouse, or perhaj)s a cloister-roof was carried along in 
 front of the chapel, hut of this nought remains but the 
 corbels which carried it. There is no more to be said about 
 the exterior than that it is simple and good of its kind^ 
 the kind being very humble. 
 
 Let us go inside, and we shall pass a very different 
 verdict. Giotto is to many of us not only a person singu- 
 larly gifted in a great age, but in some sort the embodiment 
 of an idea. The idea is that of an artist, pure, simple, and 
 direct in his work, who should excel equally in all the arts, 
 and show — even though his work be an exception to all rules 
 — the consummate success of such a course. The man was 
 fortunate in his day and in his friends. Here, where we 
 stand to admire, he painted, whilst probably Dante looked 
 on. For merely human and artistic interest there is, there- 
 fore, no room which more rightly deserves to be the object 
 of endless pilgrimages ; and there is none in which one will 
 find the artist more faithful to his calling, more full of re- 
 collection and self-restraint than in this. 
 
 I know, therefore, no one building, of such very small 
 size and cost, which can claim the same degree of interest 
 as this small Chapel of the Arena. It is, indeed, one of the 
 glories of art that the works of its great masters cannot 
 diminish in value, or even be competed with by subsequent 
 masters : when once done, they are done for ever ; and so 
 the Pieta of Giotto, in this little chapel at Padua, is now — 
 as it was when first painted in the commencement of the 
 fourteenth century, and as it will continue to be so long as
 
 Chap. VII.] 
 
 GIOTTO'S CHAPEL. 
 
 139 
 
 the neglect with which it is now treated allows it to exist — 
 one of the great paintings of the world, one of those foun- 
 tains from which school after school and age after age of 
 artists may drink instruction and knowledge, and never fail 
 to gain more, the more they study its many excellences, and 
 its intensity of feeling and conception. 
 
 The architectural portion of the interior may be first of 
 all described. The apse is simply a sanctuary, and the 
 chancel is formed by marble screens on each side of the nave, 
 leaving a broad entrance-way between them, and enclosing 
 about one-third of its length. Against the west side of these 
 screens are altars, each with a small carved marble reredos ; 
 whilst on the east of them are steps leading to the two am- 
 bons ; that on the north being a book-rest, carved in marble, 
 and fixed with its face to the east ; that on the south of iron, 
 and turning upon a pivot. Between these screens and the 
 sanctuary arch are modern stalls on each side. The sanc- 
 tuary has seats all round the apse (except in the eastern 
 bay), each with a delicate 
 white marble canopy. 
 The sacristy is groined, 
 and has a thirteenth-cen- 
 tury press of wood of a 
 design rather curious 
 than beautiful, but very 
 rich in its detail. In the 
 nave, as I have already 
 said, the walls have nei- 
 ther cornices nor string- 
 courses to break their 
 even surfaces, and their 
 face is continued on in a 
 semicircular waggon vault. There are six lancet windows 
 on the south, none at all on the north, and a tliii'c-light 
 
 blUli WINIKlW — \liENA CHAPF.r,.
 
 140 PADUA. [Chap. VII, 
 
 window very high up in the gahle at the west end above the 
 doorway. 
 
 The architectural merit of the building is simply, I think, 
 that it performs satisfactorily the office of giving ample 
 unbroken surfaces of wall for paintings. 
 
 The arrangement of these is very regular. The vault is 
 divided into two parts by wide coloured borders, the space 
 between which is painted blue, powdered with gilt stars, and 
 in each bay there are five small medallions with figures on a 
 gold ground. The side walls are divided by borders into 
 three divisions in height ; the upper division containing 
 subjects from the life of the Blessed Virgin ; the central, 
 those illustrative of the life of Our Blessed Lord; whilst 
 those nearest to the ground are representations of the 
 Virtues and Vices opposed to each other ; the last division 
 tinted only in one colour, the others richly painted in 
 bright colours upon a field of blue. 
 
 The borders which divide the paintings are very well de- 
 signed, their patterns being always very clearly defined with 
 white leading lines, and a line of red on either side always 
 accompanying each line of white. The paintings themselves 
 are very wonderful ; there is an earnestness of purpose and 
 expression about them such as one rarely meets with ; each 
 subject is treated with a severe conscientiousness, not always 
 conventionally where a departure from strict rule is for any 
 reason necessary, but still, generally speaking, in accordance 
 no doubt with the ancient traditional treatment. This, 
 illuminated as it is by the thought and love and earnest 
 intensity of feeling which Giotto lavished on all that he 
 did, makes his work here the most perfect examj)le of a 
 series of religious paintings that I have ever seen. Of 
 course in such a large series of subjects there must be 
 great variety of excellence, and I am content to agree 
 with the rest of the world in awarding the palm of
 
 Chap. VIL] . THE EREMTTANI. 141 
 
 excellence to the Picta, in which the expression of intense 
 feelinjT in the face of the mourners over the body of 
 Our Lord is certainly beyond anything of the kind that 
 I know. 
 
 The series is very complete, and, beginning with the 
 history of Joachim before the birth of the Blessed Virgin 
 (tlie seventh subject), is continued down through the leading 
 acts of Our Lord's life to the -descent of the Holy Ghost on 
 the day of Pentecost ;' whilst the west wall is occupied by a 
 Last Judgment ; and throughout the subjects Our Lord, the 
 Blessed Virgin, and the apostles are always represented in 
 vestments of the same colour. 
 
 Most of these paintings are in very perfect condition, and 
 the tout ensemble is nearly as charming as it was when first 
 painted. I was sorry, however, to notice some of the paintings 
 lined all over by a recent copyist, and much damage has 
 been done by damp, especially in the Last Judgment on the 
 west wall. I do not care very much for the painting on 
 the lower part of the walls. The figures of Virtues and 
 Vices are very finely designed, but the imitations of marbles 
 and mouldings painted in perspective were, I hope — being 
 the last work to be finished — done after Giotto had com- 
 pleted his work. 
 
 Close to Giotto's Chapel stands the great, and to an English 
 eye, singular church of the Eremitani. It has a very broad 
 nave of immense length, unbroken by aisles, and roofed with 
 
 ' Since this was written the wliole of these subjects have been published 
 
 by the Arundel Society, and Mr. Ruskin's notice of them has also been given 
 
 to us : they arc very valuable as exemplifying, as well perhaps as colourless 
 
 engravings can do, the exceeding value and originalily of this series of paintings. 
 
 It is to be wislied that tlicy may produce some cftect upon the minds of our 
 
 I modern artists, who much require to take home to themselves the lesson of 
 
 I sincerity and earnestness of purpose, combined with the highest kind of subject, 
 
 I wliich Giotto so eminently exhibits in all his works. An extremely good 
 
 j series of photographs of the whole of these paintings may now also be obtained 
 
 in Venice.
 
 142 PADUA. [Chap. VII. 
 
 one of the ciisped roofs already noticed at Verona, in which 
 the real construction is (with the exception of the tie-beams) 
 entirely concealed by boarding on the under side ; this 
 boarding being generally arranged in a succession of large 
 cusps or curves ; the effect here is, I think, very heavy and 
 unsatisfactory, but we must bear in mind that the span is 
 prodigious, and the pitch of the roof very flat. The chancel 
 and an aisle on either side of it open into the east end of the 
 nave with three arches, and look so small as to be more like 
 mere recesses than important integral parts of the plan. 
 There are in this church a great many frescoes and paintings 
 of much interest — among which are some by Mantegna in a 
 chapel on the south side of the nave which are worthy of 
 careful study as being, probably beyond almost any other wall 
 paintings which exist, an evidence of the fact that interest 
 in treatment of subject, drawing and design of consummate 
 excellence, perspective and decorative colouring of the walls, 
 may all be included in a fresco without interference with 
 the wall surface, or indulgence in tricks of chiaroscuro, 
 without which no painter now seems willing to do his work. 
 Yet if Mantegna cheerfully accepted such rules for his 
 wall-painting, would it be beneath modern painters to do 
 the same for theirs, and could they ask for a better teacher 
 or guide than this consummate artist ? 
 
 Less interesting to the artist than these works of 
 Mantegna are the paintings in the apse executed by 
 Guarienti in the middle of the fourteenth century. Here are 
 figures of the planets : the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars, 
 Saturn, and Jupiter, each with allegorical figures, male and 
 female, of the Seven Ages of Man influenced by the planets.^ 
 
 At the west end of the have is a great painted Rood, one 
 
 • Tlic order of tlic planets attached to the seven ages is as follows: — I. The 
 Moon. If. Men-ury. III. Venus. IV. The Snn. V. Mar.s. VI. Juiiiter. 
 VII. Saturn.
 
 Chap. VII.] THE EREMITANI. 143 
 
 of those curiously sliapod crosses meant to receive a painting 
 of the Crucifixion instead of a carved figure, and cut round 
 with quaintly carved and cusped indentations, of which so 
 many examples remain, though they are generally found now 
 in picture galleries. This no doubt stood originally on a 
 Rood beam, where one sees such a Eood represented in one of 
 the wall paintings in the upper church of S. Francis at Assisi, 
 When I was last at Padua the west front of this church 
 was being repaired — a very dangerous and terrible operation 
 in Italy, where, so far as I have seen, there is less feeling 
 for, or knowledge of, Gothic architecture than in any other 
 part of Europe. The interior, too, has been ruined by the 
 way in which the old ceiling has been painted, in blue and 
 sliaded white. In a building whose characteristic feature is 
 a certain grand simplicity and austerity, it is especially 
 disgusting to see light and tawdry colouring introduced, 
 seeing how completely out of harmony with the whole idea 
 of the church it is. 
 
 At the west end are some fine monuments of stone and 
 marble boldly corbelled out from the wall, adorned with good 
 carving of foliage, and angels looking out from circles. 
 
 The east end is less altered than any part of the exterior 
 of the building. The immense gable of the nave is divided 
 into four parts, the outer of which have lancet windows, 
 whilst in the centre is an insignificant aj^se, which is 
 almost exactly repeated on the east side of the south 
 transept. The large sacristy on the north side, and a 
 campanile of not much interest on the same side redeem to 
 some extent w^hat w^ould otherwise have been a most un- 
 interesting elevation. The windows here have a wide 
 external splay, semi-circular arches, and stone trefoil heads 
 inserted rather clumsily under the arches. 
 
 What a grand idea it was on the part of the preaching 
 orders to build these enormous naves for their congregations !
 
 144 PADUA. [Chap. VII. 
 
 Here, when enthusiasm for preaching was new born and 
 general, a congregation, numbered rather by thousands than 
 by hundreds, may have gathered round the preacher, all 
 within sight of him, and, with the aid, probably, of an awning 
 stretched across the church over the pulpit, all within sound 
 of his voice. 
 
 From the Eremitani we found our way with some 
 difficulty through miserable streets to the church of Sant' 
 Antonio, probably the most remarkable architectural work in 
 many respects in this part of Italy. 
 
 It seems that about a.d. 1231 it was determined to erect 
 a great church in honour of S. Antony, the patron of Padua, 
 and Nicola Pisano, then one of the most eminent men of 
 his day, was sent for to undertake the work.^ The view of 
 the exterior which I give, will best serve to shew in how 
 singular and original a manner he accomplished his work. 
 S. Mark's at Venice must have been in his eye when he 
 designed his church, and the crowd of cupolas which form its 
 roof remind one forcibly of its most distinguishing feature. 
 
 On first sight Sant' Antonio certainly does not prepossess 
 the beholder in favour of such a bold departure from every- 
 day rules of art. It is built almost entirely of a light red 
 brick, not much better than the common London brick in 
 colour— a poor material wherewith to attempt the con- 
 struction of a noble church. Stone is used very sparingly in 
 the voussoirs of the arches and elsewhere. The cupolas are 
 heavy in their effect, but relieved by that over the intersection 
 of the nave and transepts, which rises higher than the others, 
 and is certainly striking in its design and outline, which is, 
 for the main portion of its height, that of a simple cone, 
 
 ' This is the tradition, but it is one which is not, I think, supported either 
 by documentary evidence or by the style of the building. Nicola left Padua 
 four years before the church was commenced ; and Fra. Carello is mentioned 
 in the archives of the convent as one of tlie architects, of whom no doubt there 
 were several before the work was finished.
 
 ClIAl'. VII.] 
 
 SANT' ANTONIO. 
 
 145 
 
 Eouiid and pointed arclies are used indiscriminately, and tlie 
 walls are divided everywhere by pilasters, and surmounted by 
 arcaded corbel-tables, in all these respects giving the building 
 the appearance of being much earlier than it is. The west 
 front is very peculiar, and recalls the fronts of the churches 
 in Viceuza which I have described, and is entirely un- 
 
 I V I A II A. 1 
 
 OROLND PLAN — SANT' ANTONIO, VADUA. 
 
 I like any of the churches of Pisa, which would hardly have 
 jbeen the case had it really been designed by Nicola Pisano. 
 One great flat gable with an arcaded eaves-cornice finishes 
 the whole, and out of its apex rises a tall polygonal turret, 
 almost as high as the dome in front of which it stands. 
 The lower part of the west front has a central entrance of 
 mean character, and on either side two unequal arches of
 
 146 PADUA. [Chap. VII. 
 
 construction, the walls within which are pierced with windows. 
 Above these, and just beneath the great pediment-like gable, 
 is a long arcade of simj^le j)ointed arches, behind which are a 
 passage and three windows opening into the church. This 
 front is a sham front, and not excusable on account of its 
 grandeur or its beauty. Indeed, had it followed the outline 
 of the fabric, it would have been neither ungainly nor heavy, 
 both of which it most assuredly is now. 
 
 The interior is striking from its height, but cold in the 
 extreme in effect ; the domes are all whitewashed in the 
 brightest and freshest manner. The plan gives three domes 
 to the nave, one and an apse of seven bays to the choir, and 
 one to the transept. The aisles open into the nave with 
 pointed arches— two to each dome. The choir aisle is 
 continued all round the choir, and a chapel is thrown out to 
 the east of this, which is again crowned with a dome. 
 
 The north transept contains the chapel of the patron 
 saint, full of gorgeous ornaments of all kinds, but not very 
 ancient. Opposite it, in the south transept, is a curious 
 groined chapel, divided from the church by five pointed and 
 trefoiled arches of yellow marble, resting upon Classical-look- 
 ing columns, and all very richly joainted and inlaid. Above 
 the arches are five statues in niches, and the intermediate 
 wall-surface is inlaid with white and red marble in a regular 
 pattern, such as we have seen in the pavement of Sta. 
 Anastasia at Yerona, with very good efi'ect. 
 
 The cloister on the south side of the church is very large 
 and good, and some fine arches occur in it, composed of 
 black and yellow marble with bricks of varied colour intro- 
 duced. On its east side three open arches, filled in with a 
 double iron grille, open into what was, no doubt, the chapter- 
 house. Going from this into a second cloister to the east of 
 it, no one can fail to be struck by the extreme picturesqueness 
 and novelty of the view. In the foreground is the simple
 
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 147 
 
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 Chap. A^ri.] SANT' ANTONIO. 147 
 
 pointed-arclied and open arcade of the cloister ; above this 
 rise the gahle of the south transept and the eastern apse 
 with its surrounding aisle, and two lofty octagonal brick 
 turrets, on each side of the apse, which look like minarets 
 from Cairo, and combined with the collections of domes on 
 the roof give a completely Eastern eft'ect to the whole view. 
 If, however, the detail of this striking building is examined, 
 one can hardly be satisfied. There is throughout, as there so 
 often is in Italy^ a sad want of skill and neatness in the 
 adjustment of details as compared to what is common in 
 northern Gothic l)uildings. This indeed is a feature of all 
 the works of the Pisani, and gives them the character — so 
 common and so fatal in modern works — of being to a great 
 ' extent the work of assistants and not of the master. 
 - Nothing can be much more clumsy than the provision for the 
 steps leading to the turrets, nor weaker than the rectangular 
 tracery inserted in the circular window of the transept. This, 
 however, is a work of the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 and Nicola Pisano, even if he were the first architect of the 
 church, Avould not be responsible for it. I cannot say that 
 I was at all satisfied either with the internal or external 
 ' effect of the church — though it must be confessed that, 
 I when seen from a distance, there is excessive grandeur in 
 I the grouping of the multitude of domes, with the steep cone 
 ! rising in the centre, and giving point and emphasis to the 
 Iwhole.^ The arrangement of the windows and arches round 
 i the apse, for instance, is confused and weak to a degree ; and 
 jl do not feel that Nicola Pisano has fairly settled the question 
 'of the adaptation of the dome to pointed buildings by his 
 treatment of the domes here. The question is still, I think, 
 an open one; and though it may be doubted whether with 
 
 ' The eastern chapul and dome are comparatively modern, and tho cover- 
 jings of the other domes appear to be also modern ; but I suppose they follow 
 'the old outline. 
 
 i L 2
 
 148 PADUA. [Chap. VIT. 
 
 our present opportunities it will soon bo satisfactorily an- 
 swered, I still feel that it would not be difficult to answer it 
 far more successfully than has been done here. 
 
 In the evening we heard some very fine music of ancient 
 character in Sant' Antonio, after which there was a sermon ; 
 and though it was a week-day, there was a large congre- 
 gation, very attentive and quiet. 
 
 The Duomo is a cold, unattractive church — said, how- 
 ever, to have been designed by Michael Angelo — and rather 
 bold in the treatment of the pendentives under its dome. 
 By its side staiids a Lombard baptistery, the interior of 
 which I did not succeed in getting a sight of; and I believe 
 that I missed some valuable examples of fresco-painting with 
 which its walls and domed roof are covered. 
 
 We wandered about the melancholy streets of Padua, 
 searching in vain for objects of any interest to our anti- 
 quarian eyes. It is true that the columns and arcades which 
 support the houses are, many of them, ancient ; but they are 
 of a character very common throughout the north of Italy, 
 and were not sufficiently novel or striking to draw off our 
 attention from the melancholy and dilapidated look of the 
 houses and shops which they half concealed and half sup- 
 ported. We saw also one or two old monuments at the 
 corners of streets — one of them called the tomb of Antenor 
 — similar in their idea to those which are so frequent in 
 Yerona. 
 
 The next morning, therefore, saw us making our way to 
 the railway station for Venice, sad only in leaving Padua 
 that we could not spend more time there for the study, more 
 quietly and carefully, of the lovely little Arena Chapel and 
 the paintings of Giotto.
 
 Chap. VJ II.] VENICE. 149 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ' Break, break, break. 
 
 On tliy cold gray stones, O sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 Will never come back to me." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Padua and Venice Kailway — Venice: Piazza and Church of S. Mark — 
 Torcello — The Lagoon — Murano — Sta. Maria dei Frari — SS. Giovanni 
 e Paolo — Sta. Maria dell' Orto — Other Churches — Domestic Architec- 
 ture — Fondaeo de' Turchi — Other Byzantine Palaces — The Ducal Palace 
 — Foscari Palace — Ca' d'Oro — Other Gothic Palaces — Balconies — Ve- 
 netian Architecture — A Festival — Paintings. 
 
 Little is to be seen as one leaves Padua to distinguish the 
 city at all vividly, save the oriental-looking cuj^olas of Sant' 
 Antonio, and the great roof of the Sala della liagione, looking 
 like the inverted hull of some great ship, with its convex 
 sides towering up above the otherwise not remarkable-looking 
 city. 
 
 And now our destination was Venice, and anxiously we 
 looked out ever and anon, impatient, long before the time, to 
 see the tall outline of S. Mark's campanile against the horizon. 
 i The view was too contracted to be really beautiful ; on each 
 iside of the railway rank and luxuriant hedges of acacia 
 sprouted their tall branches above the carriages, and beyond 
 jthem might be seen plantations of maize, flax, and other 
 '.crops, all remarkable for their prodigious growth and size, and 
 watered by countless small canals, and here and there with
 
 150 VENICE. [Chap. VIIT. 
 
 turgid, muddy-looking streams rushing on from the moun- 
 tains to discharge themselves into the Adriatic, and gliding 
 between great artificial banks which gave them the appear- 
 ance rather of large canals than rivers. Nothing breaks the 
 dead monotony of the scene, for it is misty, and the Tyrolese 
 Alps, which ought to show their jagged peaks to the north, 
 are invisible. The stations follow each other in quick suc- 
 cession, and at each stands some diligence or carriage whose 
 ingrained j)anoply of white dust, added to that which rises 
 here and there white and cloud-like in the dry glare of the 
 Italian sun which beams overhead, makes one feel grateful 
 that — however unpoetical such a mode of apj)roach may be — 
 a railroad carries us to Venice. Nor is such a country as 
 this along which one passes from Padua to Venice without 
 its moral. I suppose there is nothing more certain than that, 
 ordinarily, the appreciation of high art, and success in its 
 jDractice, have never been so marked in countries whose natural 
 features are lovely as in those in which the devoutest student 
 of nature's beauties can see nothing to admire or love. So 
 Venice, surrounded by waters, and then by a country which 
 would be entirely tame and uninteresting, were it not for the 
 exquisite distant views of the Friulan Alps, fell back on her 
 own resources, and provided herself with that substitute for 
 tlie loveliness of nature which — alone of man's works — the 
 loveliness of beautiful art can be. And perhaps, it is better 
 for the traveller, that no interest should be felt save in 
 the end of the journey, where the journey has so brave an 
 end ! 
 
 At last, however, the broad watery level of the Lagoon 
 is reached ; Venice rises out of the water at a distance of 
 some two miles ; and then across an almost endless bridge 
 the railway takes us into the outskirts of the city ; a confused 
 idea of steeples and domes is all that is obtained, and one 
 finds oneself going through that most painful of processes to
 
 Chap. Vlir.] APPROACH TO VENICE. 151 
 
 au excitable man, the usual examination of luggage ; at last, 
 however, we are outside the station, the Grand Canal lies 
 before us, and we are vehemently urged to get at once into 
 an omnibus-gondola. But no, this is too absurd a bathos for 
 our first act on entering Venice, and we step therefore into 
 a private gondola, and, propelled rapidly and lightly over 
 the still, unruffled w^ater, sink at once into that dreamy kind 
 of happiness which of all conveyances in the world the 
 gondola is best calculated to encourage. A short reach of 
 the Grrand Canal is soon passed, and then, with the pictu- 
 resque cry of warning, " Ah, stall !" we turn sharply into a 
 ; narrow canal to the right, and, shooting down the tortuous 
 \ street of water, presently cross the Grand Canal again mid- 
 ! way between the Eialto and the Foscari palace, dive into 
 * another canal still narrower than the former, and at last, 
 [ after frequent glimpses of mediaeval houses ancl palaces, find 
 I ourselves safely housed at our hotel close to the Grand Canal, 
 and within two or three minutes' walk of the Piazza San 
 j Marco. 
 
 We stopped but a short time here, so impatient w^ere 
 I we to obtain our first glimpse of the church and palace of 
 j S. Mark, to which Venice owes so much of her fame. We 
 I passed along some narrow winding alleys, lined on either side 
 1 with open shops, on the counters of which lie exposed for sale 
 j not over dainty-looking edibles, and in whose dim interiors 
 j little light of day seems ever to enter to help the busy work- 
 men who may always be seen there plying their trade ; and 
 then, going under an archway crowded with busy folk in 
 rather noisy consultation, we found ourselves, in four or five 
 minutes, standing under the arcade at the upper end of the 
 great Piazza San Marco, Long lines of regular architecture, 
 arcaded below, heavy with cornices and elaborated window^s 
 above, carry the eye not unpleasantly down to the lower end of 
 the piazza, at the right-hand angle of which towers up into
 
 152 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 the air a vast campanile, simple and unbroken in its outline, 
 without visible window or any buttress-like projection, until 
 its up2)er stage, where it has a very simple open arcaded bel- 
 fry, capped with a pyramidal roof ; and then across nearly the 
 whole width of the piazza, and partly concealed by the cu- 
 riously irregular position of its campanile, stretches the low 
 singular and Eastern-looking church of S. Mark. Before it rise 
 the masts from which of yore hung waving in the wind the 
 banners of the old Venetian state, and crowds of pigeons, fed 
 here by civic liberality, cover the pavement with their plea- 
 sant fluttering presence. The charm of the west front is 
 certainly most indescribable ; and I confess to feeling a 
 doubt, as I looked at it, whether it was not more akin to some 
 fairy-like vision, such as one might see in dreams, than to 
 any real and substantial erection of stone and mortar ; for, 
 indeed, to a mind educated in and accustomed to the tradi- 
 tions of northern Gothic, there is something so very outre 
 in the whole idea, something so startling in its novelty, that 
 it is hard at first to know whether to admire or not. It is 
 far from imposing in size, but yet, as it is looked at more and 
 more carefully, it grows much and rapidly on one's love, and 
 at last imprints itself on the mind as a real work of art of a 
 very beautiful and unusual kind, wrought out with an abun- 
 dance of beautiful detail, but in such a way as to prevent its 
 being possible that it could ever be absolutely reproduced or 
 taken as a model. 
 
 As you pace down the broad level space of the Piazza, 
 the feeling of the strangeness of the whole scene increases. 
 There are of course no horses, and no vehicles of any kind ; 
 it is a large square in which all the space is footpath, and on 
 which, in addition to the many men who jjace it rapidly with 
 busy brow, or idly lounge whilst enjoying the weather and 
 the place, hundreds of pigeons are constantly fluttering or 
 walking about in quiet confidence, sure that they will not be
 
 THAI'. VIIJ.] S. MARK. 153 
 
 molested by any oue. Aud then, as one draws near to the 
 
 church, it is easy to understand rather better than at first in 
 
 what its real charm lies ; this is no doubt before anything else 
 
 in its beautiful colour ; the whole front is shafted to a greater 
 
 extent than almost any building I know, the shafts all rather 
 
 heavy, but of marble of the richest kind ; the groining of the 
 
 seven entrance arches is filled with mosaics, and the walls 
 
 are encrusted everywhere with marble. Instead of ordinary 
 
 gables masking the roof, the front is finished with great ogee 
 
 gables most extravagantly crocketed, and obviously a modern 
 
 alteration of the original Eomanesque finish ; behind these a 
 
 ; cluster of fourteenth-century cupolas completes the view. 
 
 \ Of the seven arches which compose the fagade, four have 
 
 ! doorways ; the outer arches on either side are very narrow, 
 
 ' and answer in width to the kind of cloister which masks the 
 
 ' church on the south, west, and north sides ; and the central 
 
 arch is much wider and loftier than the others, rising indeed 
 
 so high as to break through the line of balustrading which 
 
 ' runs across the front just above the other arches. 
 
 ; Within this central arch is a grand doorway, the stilted 
 
 I semicircular arch of which is of three orders, the central 
 
 I plain, the others covered with carvings. The piers support- 
 
 j ing the main arches have tiers of shafts in two heights ; the 
 
 '■ lower tier corresponding in height with those of the doors 
 
 i pierced within the arches, and the others, which are smaller 
 
 I in diameter, and more numerous than those which support 
 
 ■ them, rising to the springing-line of the main arches. The 
 
 I side doorways have very Eastern-looking arches, the semi- 
 
 j circular line being carried on nearly to the centre, and then 
 
 I turned up into an ogee. These and some other portions as, 
 
 I e.g., the windows over two of the doors, and the pinnacles 
 
 between the gables, belong to the fourteenth century, whilst 
 
 the finish of the gables themselves — great ogee crocketed 
 
 gables with figures at the apex of each — is probably of the
 
 154 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 fifteenth century. All these archways open into the cloister, 
 or narthex already mentioned. Here, where the roofs still 
 glow with the most jDrecious early mosaics, and the walls 
 with marble, either used as inlays or for shafts, one gets a 
 first and not unworthy hint of the beauty which awaits one 
 in the interior. 
 
 And then, on entering the nave, the deep tones of an 
 organ are heard reverberating through the old building; 
 many peo]3le kneel devoutly at their prayers around us ; the 
 hot glare of the sun has gone, and in its place a cool, quiet, 
 dim light reveals the whole magnificence of the design. It 
 is quite in vain to describe this in formal architectural terms. 
 The colour is so magnificent that one troubles oneself but little 
 about the architecture, and thinks only of gazing upon the 
 expanse of gold and deep richly- tinted mosaic all harmonized 
 together into one glorious whole. The mosaics commence 
 throughout the church at the level of the crown of the main 
 arches dividing the nave from the aisles, and are continued 
 up the remainder of the wall and into the domes ; even the 
 angles or arrises of the walls and arches are covered with 
 gold mosaic ; so that all architectural lines of moulding are 
 entirely lost, and nothing but a soft swelling and undulating 
 sea of colour is perceived. There is nothing violent or garish 
 in all this profuse decoration. The gold mosaic, used as it 
 always is in early works, set irregularly in, and surrounded 
 by a white line or joint of plaster, is never conspicuously 
 bright ; the drawing of the figures and subjects may be 
 criticized, but at any rate it is always direct, simple, and 
 intelligible, and the colours of the draperies bright and 
 harmonious, whilst the arcading and Avall-lining which fills 
 the lower part of the walls is all of marble, which has now a 
 rich, warm, but quiet tint, singularly suitable as a base to 
 the more gorgeous colouring of the upper part of the walls 
 and domes.
 
 Chai'. VIII.] S. MARK. 155 
 
 Altogether this is a church beyond most others suggestive 
 ofworsliip. Other churches sometimes suggest the same feel- 
 ing either by enormous size or vast height. At Koln or Mihxn 
 man feels so small and so contemptible in comparison with 
 the vastness of his own work that he is subdued in spite of 
 liimself. In countless other great Gothic minsters the same 
 feeling is produced. But at S. Mark's it is produced in an in- 
 tensified degree, and by a building the scale of which is in every 
 way small, if not almost insignificant. There is no long vista 
 of arches, no complicated perspective, and no vast height to 
 awe the beholder, yet the mystery of colour does for it even 
 more than the mystery of size does for Koln or Beauvais, 
 Milan, Toledo, or Bourges. It is, therefore, emphatically a 
 church for worship, one in which even the most careless treads 
 with hushed footstep and bated breath, and where, in spite 
 of crowds, an aweful silence seems always to reign supreme 
 save when it is broken by the religious sound of the services 
 of the church. 
 
 The ground plan is no doubt known to most of my 
 readers. It is a typical example of the Greek or Eastern 
 church as distinguished from the Komanesque, a cross whose 
 arms are not far from equal, covered by a series of cupolas, 
 one in the centre, one to each of the three eastern arms, and 
 two to the western — with aisles to the nave and choir, and a 
 cloister round the north, west, and south sides of the nave, of 
 which the two former are the porches, and the latter the 
 baptistery of the church.^ 
 
 Under the eastern limb of the cross is a crypt, which has 
 in recent years been opened and drained, and is now always 
 open to inspection. This is divided under the choir into 
 
 ' The dimensions are worth giving to show liow little this church owes to 
 mere size. It is 245 feet long, 201 feet across tlu' triinsept, and 170 feet across 
 the west front. Tiic height of tlie central eiiiiula is 90 feet, ami that of the 
 west front 72 feet.
 
 156 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 [Chap. VIII. 
 
 five aisles in width by a multitude of small shafts carrying 
 qiladripartite vaults, and in the centre of which just under 
 the choir altar, is the shrine of S. Mark. Another apse is 
 
 GROUND PLAN — S. MARK, VENICE. 
 
 formed under the south aisle of the choir, and under the 
 north aisle is a corresponding crypt save that there is no 
 apse to it. Much modernized as this has been in the course of 
 rej)air, and entirely devoid of all colour or decoration as it is, 
 it is still full of character, and adds largely to the interest 
 of the church. 
 
 If we return to the nave, we shall find that it is not 
 only in general effect it is so very worthy of admiration ; it 
 still retains much of its old furniture, and in spite of a few 
 modern mosaics, and one or two more modern altars, is less 
 altered in its general eflfect since the fourteenth century
 
 Chap. VIII.] S. MARK. 157 
 
 tlian any great church that I have ever seen. The screen 
 between the nave and choir with the ambons on either side 
 of it first deserve notice. The screen is mainly a work of 
 A. D. 1394.^ It consists of a series of columns carrying a 
 flat lintel or cornice on the top of which is a row of 
 extremely good statues of the apostles. They have that 
 grand sweep of the figure which one knows so well in early 
 fourteenth century work in France, and are free from the 
 somewhat heavy and clumsy treatment which marks so much 
 of the work of the Pisani. The screen has been raised on the 
 base of the older Byzantine screen, which consisted of a simple 
 continuous arcade now nearly hidden by the more modern 
 steps to the choir. The ambons are probably of the same age 
 as this older screen ; the gospel ambon being of two stages in 
 height, with a good staircase to it from the choir aisle, that 
 for the epistle being comparatively low and simple, but still 
 large enough to contain two or three modern pulpits. The 
 screens to the choir aisles are of the same sort as the main 
 screen, but are placed one bay to the east of it. They are 
 all three interesting as showing that a Gothic architect could 
 use with good effect a common Classic arrangement, and 
 indeed lend fresh grace to it by the detail of the sculpture 
 and inlaying with which he adorned it. 
 
 Dimly seen from the nave through the Eood-screen, but 
 far more interesting than even it, is the great baldacchin 
 or canopy over the altar in the choir. Here we have the 
 simplest form — four columns carrying round arches and the 
 wall above them finished with a plain horizontal capping. 
 The arches may be modern ; though if they are so, they are 
 copied from the old, as is evidenced by the painting at the 
 back of the Pala d'Oro, which shows the placing of the shrine 
 of S. Mark under a similar baldacchin ; but the groining is 
 
 ' The iiiscripti(m on the bcreeii, which pive^ the date and the name of the 
 Doge Antonio Vencrio, gives also the names of llie sculptors.
 
 158 VENICE. [Chap. YIIT. 
 
 old, and the alabaster columns are of extreme interest, being 
 covered all over with most elaborate sculptures of Scripture 
 subjects. The subjects in the north-east column give the 
 history of Joachim and Anna, and the birth of the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary ; the north-west has the nativity of Our Lord, 
 the marriage in Cana, &c. ; the south-west subjects from the 
 Passion ; and the south-east the miracles of Our Lord. Few 
 modes of decorating an altar are altogether so fitting and 
 beautiful as this, and I hope the day is not far distant when 
 we shall see many of our English altars standing under 
 canopies of the same sort. St, Paul's cathedral may well pre- 
 pare the way for us in this, by reviving what was usually 
 accepted as the best kind of reredos by our English church- 
 builders in the eighteenth century. 
 
 Here, too, is a brass eagle so like one of our own, that 
 one might almost give it credit for coming from an English 
 smith or founder. 
 
 Returning to the nave, one finds nothing more worthy of 
 admiration than another smaller baldachin over an altar 
 between it and the north aisle. This is hexagonal, carried 
 on shafts with stilted arches and roofed with a steep roof. 
 Its dimensions render a small altar a necessity — a matter of 
 common occurrence in old examples. Another reredos and 
 altar in a chapel at the north end of the north transept, 
 dating from 1430, may also be noticed. Here the altar is 
 panelled in front and carved with two angels censing a cross, 
 and low open screens with arcades carried on shafts are 
 placed a few inches from the ends of the altar. The foot- 
 pace is not carried round the altar, so that it can only be 
 approached from the front. 
 
 Of another sort of furniture — monuments of the dead — 
 S. Mark's has, as might be expected, a good many examples. 
 The earliest are the probably Pioman sarcophagi,^ which lie 
 ' Tlio tomb of Vitale Faliero aiul anotlier.
 
 Chap. VIII.] S. INFAUK. 159 
 
 in the outer aisle or cloister right and loft of the entrance ; 
 the next, near them/ where the sarcophagus is still retained, 
 hut adorned with Christian emblems and sculpture ; and of 
 considerably later date, and much more artistic interest, are 
 the tombs of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, and of Sant' Isidoro. 
 Here the sarcophagus is surmounted by a canopy, reverent 
 angels stand on either side drawing back partially the curtains 
 from the front of the effigy, and in the centre of the tomb 
 is a bas-relief of the Madonna, and at the ends the Annuncia- 
 tion, S. Gabriel on one side, the B. V. Mary at the other. 
 This is the type of monumental memorial on which so much 
 of the time of Venetian sculptors seems to have been spent. 
 Here, indeed, and on the very similar figures of the Yirgin 
 on so many of the tympana of doorways throughout the 
 city, we have to study the sculptor's art from the time of the 
 Byzantine carvers who wrought the still numerous early 
 capitals, until the artist of the Ducal Palace came to revive 
 the art with his original and splendid series of capitals. 
 
 But of all the features of this grand church, that which 
 next to the gorgeous colour of the walls most attracted me 
 was the wild beauty of the pavement. I know not what 
 other word to use which quite describes the effect it pro- 
 duces. It is throughout arranged in the patterns common 
 in most Opus Alexandrinum, but instead of being laid level 
 and even, it swells up and down as though its surface were 
 the petrified waves of the sea, on which those who embark 
 in the ship of the church may kneel in prayer with safety, 
 the undulating surface serving only to remind them of the 
 stormy sea of life, and of the sea actually washing the walls 
 of the streets and houses throughout their city. It cannot 
 be supposed that this undulation is accidental, for had it been 
 the consequence of a settlement of the ground we should see 
 some marks of it in the crypt and in the walls, and some 
 ' The tomb of the Do^e Marino Morosini.
 
 IGO VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 tokens of disruption in the pavement itself. And the 
 corresponding example of Sta. Sofia, Constantinople, where 
 we have it on record that there was an intentional symbolism 
 in just such a floor, is conclusive as to the intention of its 
 imitators here. 
 
 Of the mosaics with which the church is richly adorned 
 I cannot pretend to give a complete account. They deserve 
 a volume to themselves. As regards choice of subjects, it 
 is noticeable that the most prominent figure is that of Our 
 Lord, who is seated and surrounded by prophets. Below 
 are the emblems of the four Evangelists, and the four 
 rivers of Paradise. Whilst again in the west dome He is 
 surrounded by the apostles and the Evangelists, and every- 
 where the general scheme is a lesson to those who now-a-days 
 too often forget the relative importance or the proper order 
 and arrangement of the divine story in the schemes they 
 adopt for stained glass and mural decoration. As regards 
 colour, I need not repeat what I have already said ; but it 
 may be observed that wherever modern mosaics have taken 
 the place of old ones there at once we see a complete collapse, 
 and a loss of all good efi'ect. This is mainly owing, beyond 
 doubt, to the attempt which their designers made to produce 
 the efi'ect of pictures, instead of thinking first and mainly of 
 the decorative efi'ect of their work on the building. But 
 at the same time it is obvious that their eyes had lost all 
 feeling for good colour, and that in attempting to draw with 
 a certain amount of academical accuracy, they had equally 
 lost all sense of the prime necessity in such works of sim- 
 plicity of arrangement, and directness in the telling of their 
 story. There is no part of the church in which some of the 
 best of this sort of decoration can be studied with more ease and 
 advantage than in the cloister on the north side of the nave. 
 Here the mosaics are so near the eye, and the details of design 
 and colour so fine that one is never tired of admiring them.
 
 Chai'. VIII.] S. MAT^K. 161 
 
 I never leave S. Mark's ■without taking one look at least 
 at the four bronze horses, which, placed as they are on 
 columns high above the ground, add so much to the strange 
 character of the west front, and are in themselves such 
 exquisite examples of their kind. Strange ornaments these 
 for the faf ade of the chief church of a city where horses' feet 
 liave hardly ever trod ! Equally strange, if you are to have 
 horses in such a position at all, is the way in w^hich these are 
 supported. They stand balancing themselves nicely on the 
 caps of small columns. Extremes meet ; and I am not so 
 sure but that this extraordinary arrangement is not better 
 than that which is usually adopted. If horses are to be 
 supported above the ground, they may almost as well be 
 so in this way as on the ordinary pedestal, which looks 
 equally unsafe if the bronze is instinct with life. These 
 horses were brought from Constantinople after the fourth 
 Crusade, circa 1203. They are of admirable character, and 
 are probably of Greek workmanship. AVith every other 
 moveable thing worth moving, they were taken to Paris, and 
 returned after the Peace in 1815. 
 
 There is a picture in the Accademia by Gentile Bellini, 
 which ought to be looked at after a visit to S. Mark's. 
 In it we see the church much as it is at present ; but an 
 enormous procession which winds its tortuous way about the 
 piazza, defiles before houses every one of which seems to be 
 ancient, and I never look at the now uninteresting lines of 
 houses which surround it without wishing for the resuscita- 
 tion of the buildings which G. Bellini saw and drew. 
 
 We went into the treasury to see the treasures and plate 
 belonging to the church, but I was much disappointed to find 
 that, in an artistic point of view, there was really very little 
 to admire, or else what was admirable was not shewn. The 
 treasury is a dark room lighted up by a few wax candles, but 
 so badly that it was diflicult to see at all satisfactorily. 
 
 M
 
 162 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 I was unable to obtain a sight of the Pala cl'Oro, as the 
 altar-piece behind the high altar is called; it is only un- 
 covered on feast days, and I have never happened to be in 
 Venice when it was visible. I was very anxious to have seen 
 it, as it is a most magnificent piece of workmanship in gold 
 and enamel. It was executed in Constantinople, and brought 
 to Yenice in 1102. Some Italian writers have claimed it for 
 their forefathers as an Italian work ; but the documentary 
 evidence of its Eastern origin is supported by the details of 
 the design and execution of the earliest portions of the work. 
 M. Durand has published a very careful description of it in 
 the 'Annales Archeologiques,' vol. xx. He gives a list of 
 no less than one hundred and sixty-nine panels or figures, 
 in a considerable number of which the accompanying in- 
 scriptions are in Grreek characters. The Pala was " restored " 
 in the thirteenth century and again in the fourteenth, when 
 no doubt considerable additions were made to it. The 
 painting at the back has fourteen subjects on a gold ground, 
 and is dated 1345. 
 
 Over and over again when at Venice must one go into 
 S. Mark's, not to criticize but to admire ; and if ever in 
 any building in which the main object is the study of art, 
 assuredly here one must go for worship also. I think I never 
 saw an interior so thoroughly religious and religion-inspiring 
 as this, and it is well, therefore, not lightly to pass it by as 
 useless for our general purposes. It seems to shew, as strongly 
 as any one example can, how much awefulness and grandeur 
 of character even a small building may attain to by the lavish 
 expenditure of art and precious materials throughout its 
 fabric ; for it is to this that S. Mark's owes its grandeur, and 
 to this only. There is nothing imposing either in its size or 
 in its architecture ; on the contrary, they appear to me to be 
 both moderate, and the former rather mean ; and yet this 
 grand display of mosaics upon a gold ground makes the
 
 (JiiAP. VIII.] S. MARK. 163 
 
 building appear to be both larger and better than it is, and 
 fully atones for all other defects. Could we but place one of 
 our cold, bare places of worship by the side of S. Mark's, 
 and let the development of Christian art in the construction 
 of the fabric be ten times as great in our Northern church as 
 in the Venetian, we may yet rest assured that every religious 
 mind would turn at once to the latter, and scarce deign to 
 think of the former as a place of worship at all. If this is 
 so, does it not point most forcibly to the absolute necessity 
 for the introduction of more colour in the interior of our 
 buildings, either in their construction, or afterwards by the 
 hand of the painter ? And architects must remember that 
 this ought all to be within their province as directors or 
 designers, and therefore that they must not, as now, ven- 
 ture to design cold shells which may or may not afterwards 
 receive these necessary and indispensable decorations, but 
 from the very first must view them as part and parcel of 
 the work in which they are personally concerned ; and then, 
 but not till then, shall we see a satisfactory school of archi- 
 tects in England. 
 
 The interest of S. Mark's is not, however, only religious 
 and artistic ; on other grounds it is certainly one of the 
 buildings most worthy of study in all Europe. Its architec- 
 ture is purely Byzantine ; and whether its design was derived 
 from Constantinople or from Alexandria, it presents us with 
 an almost unique example of the architecture of the Eastern 
 church transplanted almost without alteration to the domains 
 of the Western. Nor is this all. It played no small part in 
 modifying the distinctly lioman influence by which other- 
 wise the whole of Northern Europe would have been afi'ected. 
 When we see a church so far from S. Mark's as that of S. 
 Front at Perigueux modelled after it, and in its turn influ- 
 encing a vast number of churches in that and the neighbour- 
 ing districts, we may realize what S. Mark's did towards the 
 
 M 2
 
 164 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 development of EomanesqiTe into new forms and combinations, 
 and may then value properly every portion of its fabric. 
 Byzantine architecture was the development of Greek art in 
 the hands of the then vigorous and active Easterij Church. 
 It is not a direct reproduction therefore of Classic art which 
 is to he seen in S. Mark's, but one stage of a development 
 the influence of which — partly owing to the effect of com- 
 merce, jiartly to her isolation — was largely felt, down to the 
 very last days of active Venetian artistic life. This has 
 been well condensed in a short sentence by Mr. Kuskin. 
 " All European architecture," he says, " good and bad, old 
 and new, is derived from Greece through Eome, and coloured 
 and perfected from the East. The Doric and Corinthian orders 
 are the roots, the one of all Komanesque buildings — Norman, 
 Lombard, Byzantine; the other of all Gothic — -Early English, 
 French, German, and Tuscan. The old Greeks gave the 
 shaft, Eome gave the arch. The Arabs pointed and foliated 
 the arch." But in the colouring and perfecting the church 
 of S. Mark had the lion's share, just as in the ground-plan it 
 is to Venice and the East that we owe the cruciform arrange- 
 ment of so many of our buildings, instead of the basilican 
 form to which we might otherwise have been condemned. 
 
 There is another respect in which S. Mark's is extremely 
 Eastern. This is in the almost entire absence of figure- 
 sculpture in its original construction. The subjects and 
 figures on the columns of the baldachin arc too delicate to 
 be noticed from a distance, and it was not until a.d. 1394 
 that the choir- screen was introduced, with figures of the 
 Apostles on either side of the rood, erected no doubt to 
 supply a want which had been long felt before it was grati- 
 fied. At the same time figures were added in niches between 
 the gables of the exterior, but even now they forin a small 
 and inconsiderable part of the decoration of the church. 
 
 I have lingered on paper as I did in reality about S.
 
 Chai'. Vlll.] THE PIAZZKTTA. 165 
 
 Mark's ; but if we wish to see Venice we must tear ourselves 
 away from it. We will go out by the baptistery, ami here 
 we are at once on the Piazzetta, the noble facade of the 
 Ducal Palace on one side, and a great work of Sansovino's 
 — the library of S. Mark — on the other ; at the end of the 
 Piazzetta are two monolithic granite columns, one of which 
 bears the lion of S. Mark, the other the figure of the ancient 
 patron saint of Venice, S. Theodore ; between them is seen 
 the dark-blue line of the sea rippled into a thousand twinkling 
 waves, and beyond this the Isola San Giorgio, remarkable for 
 one of Palladio's churches — a building, as I think, irredeem- 
 ably ugly, but, nevertheless, much admired by many. If you 
 walk down to the strand, where a hundred gondolas wait for 
 hire — some black and funereal-like, others dressed up with 
 gay awnings, and all of them proud and swan-like with their 
 bright steel prows rising lightly and high out of the water — 
 and then, turning round, look first down the Eiva dei Schiavoni, 
 towards the sea, taking in the long sea-front of the Ducal 
 Palace, then the narrow gap bridged by the famous Bridge 
 of Sighs, and on again, noting bridge after bridge, and the 
 Gothic palace now turned into the Hotel Danieli, and then 
 on to the promontory running out towards the Adriatic, 
 occupied by the Public Gardens and planted with the only 
 trees that Venice boasts — how lovely is the scene ! or if, 
 looking back up the Piazzetta to S. Mark's, noting the tall 
 campanile and the quaint clock and clock-tower beyond, and 
 the domes and turrets, niches and figures, which crown the 
 church, liow much more vividly docs it not impress the mind ! 
 Venice is full to excess of striking pictures, and it would 
 be endless to say in how very many respects it has a character 
 of its own which can never be forgotten. The strange silence 
 of its watery streets, broken only by the cry of the gondolier 
 or the delicate plash of his oar in the water, is not the least 
 impressive thing to tlie stranger ; and when, after trying
 
 166 VENICE. [Chap. VIII 
 
 in vain to thread on foot the hxbyrinth of passages which 
 confuse him irrecoverably in a few minutes, he commits 
 himself to the dark recesses of a gondola, how delightful is 
 the quiet, smooth, and yet rapid way in which, without more 
 labour than is necessary in looking about, he finds himself 
 now following the narrow winding of some small canal, 
 awakening the echoes between the high walls of j^alaces or 
 warehouses on either side of the way, or anon, upon turning 
 with a graceful sweep into the smooth broad reach of the 
 Grand Canal, making his gondolier move gently and slowly, as 
 one by one the great palaces which grace its banks and form 
 its retaining walls are carefully scanned, whilst the various 
 and ever-changing perspective of the whole is dwelt upon, to 
 be remembered afterwards with such intense pleasure ! 
 
 From S. Mark's I remember trying to find my way to San 
 Stefano ; and, taking a map of Venice, and calculating upon 
 the orientation of the churches being fairly correct, I flattered 
 myself that I might without difficulty make my way : the 
 result was simj)ly that for half an hour I was threading the 
 mazes of all the passages around the church, and at last 
 reached it only by chance ; and I found afterwards that it 
 would not at all do to take the churches as marking the car- 
 dinal points of the compass, for, as may be seen from the 
 campanile of S. Mark, there are scarcely two churches in the 
 city exactly alike in their orientation. 
 
 But pleasant as it is to recall one's recollections of 
 highways and byways in Venice, I think, if we wish to 
 understand her architecture thoroughly, we shall do well 
 first of all to make a pilgrimage to Torcello, that sad and 
 weird cathedral, standing forlorn and deserted on a wretched 
 island in the lagoon, wherein we see the handiwork of the 
 earliest Venetians, and the prototype of much of the later 
 work in Venice itself. The story of Torcello has been told 
 often — by no one with more feeling or more pathos than by
 
 CiiAi'. Vlll,] TORCELLO. 167 
 
 Mr. Euskin, and I need not attempt to repeat it. SuflSce it 
 to say that about a.u. G-11 the church was first built, whilst 
 in 864 it was restored, and being nearly decayed by age, was 
 again most studiously repaired in 1008;^ whilst in 1361, 
 according to the testimony of Cornaro,^ there were still 
 standing on the same island divers churches (forty-two in 
 number) adorned with columns of pietra dura, and with 
 mosaics. Strange indeed is the difference here between 
 then and now ! 
 
 My first visit to Torcello was sad and sombre enough to 
 begin with. "We started early from Venice in a thick mist, 
 making our way first to the cemetery, where there is a good 
 tall campanile, then to Murano, and through its shabby 
 water streets, passing the end of San Donato (which shall 
 be described later), and then on through long canals edged 
 on either side by miles of green mud, and thronged with 
 market boats and noisy boatmen. Here and there across 
 the lagoon we saw a tall campanile marking the position 
 of each settlement or island in this waste of sea and mud, 
 and, last of all, that of the cathedral of Torcello, some five 
 minutes' walk among decaying walls and unmown grass from 
 the half-ruined landing-place to which our gondolier tied his 
 boat. All that remains of the city is before us in small 
 compass. On the left a fourteenth-century building, said to 
 have been the Palazzo Publico ; in front a stone seat or throne 
 in the centre of what was once the market-place ; on the right, 
 the Byzantine church of Sta. Fosca ; and beyond, and con- 
 nected with Sta. Fosca by a cloister, the modernized-looking 
 cathedral, plain, bare, and uninteresting on the outside, with 
 a detached campanile near the east end. This is all Torcello 
 has to shew ; but, forlorn and decayed as everything in the 
 place is, it is precious in the highest degree to the architect 
 
 ' ' 8af:;()iniiio Clironicon,' p. 119. 
 
 -' ' 11 I'tiliizzo Ducak' di Veiifzia,' ptr Frauccsco Zanotto, i. p. [).
 
 168 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 wlio cares about the giowtli of his art. The cathedral is full 
 of interest, though much damaged by extensive repairs, 
 carried on in a reckless mood by the Austrians, not long 
 before they lost Yenetia, when new roofs were put on, and the 
 mosaics were so much damaged that I remember collecting a 
 handful of fragments from a barrow of rubbish before it was 
 shot into the canal ; at the same time a scaffold was erected 
 for a proposed restoration of the great western mosaic which, 
 though threatened and indeed commenced in 1857, had not 
 in 1872 been proceeded with. The exterior has been com- 
 pletely modernized. In j^lan the cathedral consists of three 
 parallel naves of ten bays, all finished with aj)ses. The 
 columns dividing the nave from the aisles are of veined 
 marble, with capitals of exquisite workmanship, founded, 
 indeed, on Corinthian examples, but modified by Byzantine 
 influence and by study of nature. The arches are stilted 
 and high ; above them is a small clerestory of very simple 
 windows. The central apse retains its raised rows of seats, 
 though their brickwork alone is left ; the throne for the 
 bishoj) is placed in the centre, and retains some of its marble 
 inlay. Under this raised east end a descending passage is 
 formed, connecting the two smaller apses, and with a small 
 apse formed in the thickness of the east wall opening into 
 it. Three bays of tfie church are given to the choir, which 
 is fenced round with richly sculptured marble screens. On 
 the west the screen has marble columns carrying a flat 
 entablature, and below them is a solid portion some four feet 
 high covered with panels of flat sciilpture, one having two 
 peacocks drinking out of the same vase, another two lions 
 at the foot of a branching tree, and another a complicated 
 interlacing pattern of foliage. Such a screen is the obvious 
 prototype of that in S. Mark's, and the sculptures with 
 which it is adorned are evidently the work of some early 
 Byzantine workman —whether brought from Aquileja from
 
 22. X)U0]VI0. TOr^CELLO. 
 
 168.
 
 Chap. VIII.] TOROELLO. 1G9 
 
 the ruins created by Attila's invasion, or wrought on the 
 spot, I cannot say, but of a character which we still see 
 in some of the nearly corresponding screens in the existing 
 cathedral of Aquileja. North-west of this rood-screen stands 
 the marble ambon — a pulpit of two divisions, one (circular) 
 facing south, the other (square) facing west. This and the 
 staircase leading to it are full of delicate and good carved 
 work. The arrangement has an absurd likeness to many a 
 modern English scheme of pulpit and reading pew, and 
 there is certainly force in an observation which Mr. Webb 
 makes, ^ that such an arrangement would never have been 
 thought of, unless the Gospel was to be understood by the 
 people. Now they do not understand it, it is no longer said 
 from an ambon, and ambons seem to be much less useful to 
 Romans than rood-screens are to us ! 
 
 The screens north and south of the choir do not seem to 
 be so old as the other, and are simple low screens. 
 
 In the mosaics of the apse and western wall we have, 
 perhaps, the finest examples of Venetian mosaics. The apse 
 is lined with slabs of veined marble below, and has above a 
 mosaic of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Our Lord and the 
 twelve Apostles, and the patron of the church, S. Heliodorus. 
 The whole west wall is covered with a grand mosaic of the 
 Crucifixion at the top, the Descent into Hell under it, and a 
 Last Judgment at the base, which is carried down on each side 
 of the west door, in the tympanum of which is a half figure 
 of Our Lady, A mosaic at the end of the south aisle has 
 Our Lord with SS. Michael and Gabriel, and below them S. 
 Gregory, S. Martin, S. Ambrose, and S. Austin.'- Save where 
 
 ' 'Coiitiucutal Ecclesiology,' p. 306. 
 
 - Tlie inosiiics here, as iu Venice, are wholly of glass. The gold is covered 
 with a thin lilm of glass, and the other colours used arc dtad white, black, 
 dark and light blue, green and red. The very siuallucss uf the palette was 
 here, just at it was with the old painters on glass, a discinct ailvant.ige, saving 
 them from the bizarre and confused cli'eet produceil iu su<'h works l>y the use 
 of too many colours or shades of colours.
 
 170 VENICE. [Chap. Vlll. 
 
 these mosaics occur, tlie walls have been persistently white- 
 washed, so that the appearance of the church is now far from 
 attractive. It is not the less of great interest, as an example 
 of a very early church founded on a Eoman basilica,, but with 
 Byzantine influence most conspicuous in the sculpture of its 
 ornaments. Here, as in S. Mark's, the floor is paved with 
 Opus Alexandrinum, of which, in spite of damage done during I 
 the late repairs, it is a fine example. There is nothing 
 to admire on the exterior, though the large stone shutters 
 to the windows — single slabs of stone about four inches 
 thick, working on stone pivots— have a most primitive air. 
 The campanile has not much to distinguish it from others, ; 
 but the top aff'ords an interesting view of the lagoon and . 
 the sea with Venice in the distance, and the Alps of Friuli • 
 far away to the north. 
 
 A few yards through the cloister bring us to the church 
 of Sta. Fosca. Here by the side of the Romanesque we have 
 a capital example of a Byzantine plan, which seems to me to 
 be of the greatest value in connection with the whole of the 
 round-arched palaces of Venice of which so many remains 
 still exist. Sta. Fosca is a square church with small pro- 
 jections on the north, south, and west sides, and a deeper 
 projection for the altar on the east. There are three eastern 
 apses, and the western side is screened by an open cloister, 
 which is octagonal in jjlan. The square centre is domed on 
 very simple pendentives, and the capitals are similar in 
 character to those in the cathedral. The best detail is to be 
 seen outside the east end, where there is some good arcading 
 and an enriched band of chevron ornament, formed by recess- 
 ing the brickwork, and a mixture of red and buff brick- 
 work, which is very effective. 
 
 The last time I was here, I found myself, in the middle of 
 making a sketch of the west front of Sta, Fosca, suddenly 
 struck by the strange likeness of its octagonal cloister to the
 
 Chai>. VIII.] 
 
 THE LAGOON. 
 
 171 
 
 most typical elevations of the Byzantine palaces in Venice. 
 These always have a centre and wings divided by piers ; and 
 whilst the arches in the centre are of ordinary proportions, 
 
 EAST ESD — tTA. FOSCA, TORCELLO. 
 
 those in the wings are narrow and considerably stilted. In 
 Sta. Fosca precisely the same effect is produced by the 
 elevation of the three sides of the octagonal cloister, two of 
 them being reduced in width and seeming to have narrow 
 stilted arches, owing to their being canted and not seen in 
 true elevation. I confess I could hardly help thinking that 
 here I saw the accidental germ of an arrangement which, 
 commenced in Romanesque or Byzantine buildings, was 
 imitated in many of the finest of the Gothic palaces, and was 
 revived with invariable persistency in the Eenaissance. 
 
 The return to Venice was more pleasant than the journey 
 out had been. The water had risen enough to cover the
 
 172 VENICE. [CuAi'. YJII. 
 
 iimd everywhere, and now a vast expanse of apparent sea 
 was lighted v.]) by the hot sun, and in the far-off distance 
 the horizon was lined with the hjng pictnresqiie range of the 
 Alps, tender and transparent in hue, and sweet reminders to 
 the dwellers on this monotonous lagoon of the world which 
 lay outside their boundaries in the far north. On the road 
 we stopped at Mazzorbo, where there is a dated examjDle of 
 a Gothic doorway. This has a square-headed opening, and 
 above this an ogee canopy or label over a figure of Our Lord, 
 and some kneeling figures. The date inscribed on it is 
 A.D. 1368. 
 
 Farther on Murano is passed, and a halt made for a visit 
 to the church of San Donate — once a building of the highest 
 interest and well known to all readers of Mr. Kuskin's books. 
 Unfortunately my first visit to this church was after it had 
 been in part " restored," in the largest and worst sense of 
 the word. The old brickwork was being renewed, plastered, 
 and painted up, till most of its interest had vanished ; and 
 now, I fear, only those who saw San Donate some ten years 
 ago can have any idea of its architectural value and interest. 
 This was chiefly centred in the east front, where there is 
 a central apse with a lean-to end to the aisle on either side. 
 The wall is divided into two stages, by a bold string-course 
 and double line of chevrons formed by recessing the brickwork 
 and inserting panels of coloured and carved white marble. 
 The lower stage is arcaded mainly in red brick, whilst the 
 upper has a wall deeply recessed behind arcades under the 
 eaves, wath delicate balustrades between the columns which 
 carry the arcades. This uj)per part of the building is mainly 
 of bufi'-coloured bricks, with thin lines of red to mark the 
 pattern of arches, and it is curious that the light bricks are 
 much larger than the red.' The pavements here are very 
 
 ' The red bricku *e '2; thick x !M in. loiiy, wliilst the yellow brickcj arc 
 O.T thick X 12 ill. long.
 
 CrrAP. VIII.] MUHAXO. 173 
 
 fine cxaiuplos i)i' Opus Aloxandrinuni, with u more tluin usual 
 proportion of black marble, and there is a grand mosaic in 
 tlie apse, of tlie P). Y. Mary and Our Lord on a gold ground. 
 
 One or two Gothic houses in semi-ruinous condition, and 
 a very fine fragment of late Byzantine work quite in ruins — • 
 the Palazzo da Mula — remain in Murano, but of these there 
 is such good store in Venice itself that we may pass them by. 
 
 Most visitors, I suppose, go to Murano in order to visit 
 Dr. Salviati's glass and mosaic manufactory. He has suc- 
 ceeded in reproducing a material quite equal to that used 
 in the old mosaics. Still more difficult feat — he has suc- 
 ceeded also in making glass so like the old Venetian glass 
 in colour, texture, and design, as to puzzle all ordinary 
 judges. I cannot sufficiently admire or praise the singular 
 power which Dr. Salviati has shewn in the education of his 
 men. A party of six or eight made for me before my eyes, 
 in a few minutes, a tall, delicate, and richly adorned goblet, 
 in which every part was done by eye and fancy ; no modern 
 accuracy was attempted, and the result was a thoroughly 
 Ijeautiful and artistic work. All artists know how difficult 
 it is to get a workman nowadays out of the hard mechanical 
 groove of dull uniformity, and Dr. Salviati's success is an 
 encouragement to all of us when we are tempted to des23air 
 of making the attempt. 
 
 From Murano a few minutes take us again into the 
 watery streets of Venice. We have now seen the two build- 
 ings which ought first of all to be studied — Torcello and 
 S. Mark's, and in them we have the key to everything that 
 follows. The Venetians commenced in their earliest buildinc-s 
 with works which shewed but little original invention or 
 power. It was their fortune to have, by reason of their situ- 
 ation and their commerce, a great connection with the East. 
 They received, therefore, a great impetus at the first from 
 Byzantine art. Nowhere in Europe was so great an influence
 
 174 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 of the kind exerted ; and to ns, whose early architecture was 
 almost entirely Eomanesque in its origin, it has a special 
 interest and novelty. But if the early Venetians copied 
 Byzantine models, employed Byzantine workmen, and 
 thought rather more of the beautiful colours for which 
 their Eastern acquaintances gave them a taste than did their 
 neighbours on the mainland, it must be frankly conceded 
 that in later times they developed a very original form 
 of Gothic out of these very materials, and owed compara- 
 tively little to any external aid in their great works of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 
 The first business of a tourist in Venice is to secure a 
 gondolier with intelligence enough to understand his pro- 
 clivities, and patience enough to humour them. I have more 
 than once or twice had to thank my gondolier for shewing 
 me old work which otherwise I should never have seen, and 
 I am grateful accordingly. I am grateful, too, whenever I 
 think of a gondola, for the most luxurious machine for 
 sketching from which has ever been constructed; and the 
 more so, when I recollect how for an hour at a time I have 
 been persecuted in most Italian towns by all the idlest, 
 dirtiest, and worst-behaved people of the place whilst I have 
 made my sketches of their buildings. In a gondola in Venice 
 one knows no such troubles, and the sketcher's life, as long 
 as he can work in it, is as happy and undisturbedly serene 
 as is possible. But no artist must suppose that everything 
 worth seeing can be seen from the water : a few walks will 
 convince him that, in the narrow colli as well as on the 
 water-side, much that is interesting is to be found ; and when 
 he has studied Venice both by boat and by pavement, he 
 will find, as I do, that the subject is too large for a chapter, 
 and requires rather a volume for its thorough elucidation. 
 
 The buildings of Venice divide themselves into two great 
 classes — the churclies and the civil buildings ; of these the
 
 Chap. VI II.] CHURCH OF THK FHAItl. 175 
 
 former is the smaller and the less interesting class. But as 
 we have already seen at S. Mark's and Torcello the earliest 
 examples of the churches, it will be best to say all that has 
 to be said about them here, and to take the palaces and 
 houses by themselves afterwards. 
 
 "We have seen that S. Mark's was built in the eleventh 
 and twelfth, and largely altered in the fourteenth century. 
 Between these two periods little if anything was done in 
 church-building in Venice ; or if it was, it has disappeared. 
 Just as in Grermany, the thirteenth century seems hardly to 
 have existed for Venice, and we go at a bound from the simple 
 nervous round-arched work of S. Mark's to the here some- 
 what poor and tasteless churches of the fourteenth century. 
 One or two small campanili — San Polo, San Samuele, and 
 San Barnaba are the best — remain to show what the size and 
 character of the earlier work were. They have plain arcades 
 in the walls, rising from the ground to the belfry, and this 
 has generally windows of two or three lights carried on 
 shafts. At San Barnaba ^ a spire with parapets and pinnacles 
 was added to such a steeple in the fourteenth century, the spire 
 being circular in plan and built of round-ended bricks. San 
 Paterniano has an hexagonal brick tower with two light belfrj 
 windows, also of Eomanesque character. The whole of these 
 works are of brick, and usually the walls batter outward 
 towards the base. In this respect, as in the general design, 
 the great tower of S. Mark's follows those early examples, as 
 also in its means of access to the top, which is a continuous 
 slope in the thickness of the wall in place of the newel stair- 
 case in use all over the North of Europe. Finally, all these 
 older works are very small and modest in scale and design. 
 
 Let us now give up all thought of early works, and see 
 
 ' The twclfih-century bricks hero inoasure seven inclies by two inclios, 
 and are built with a half inch mortar joint ; they arc of red and yeUow colour, 
 used indisciinuuately, and, tliough good and lasting, extremely rough in their 
 make.
 
 170 VENICE. [Chap. Vlll. 
 
 what the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries did for Venice 
 in the way of churches. Taking them in their order of 
 merit, we will go first to the Frari, the church of the Fran- 
 ciscans, thence to SS. Giovanni e Paolo, that of the Domini- 
 cans, to the j^Fadonna dell' Orto, San Stefano, the desecrated 
 church of the Convent of La Carita, now forming part of the 
 Accademia, San Gregorio, Santa Zaccaria, San Giacomo del 
 Rialto, and some smaller fragments. 
 
 I must confess that on the whole, in s|)ite of the grand 
 size of some of them, I was rather disappointed on first 
 seeing these buildings. One cannot but be impressed 
 with the magnificent size of such a church as the Frari, 
 with its many interesting details, and its monuments and 
 woodwork. But in spite of all this, there is something 
 wanting. I had not expected larger churches, but I had 
 imagined that their style would be more pure, and at the 
 same time more unlike what I was accustomed to elsewhere. 
 The impression they left on my mind was decidedly that 
 they were very inferior in almost every respect to churches 
 of the same size and degree of ornament in the North of 
 Europe, whilst in scarcely any point did they seem to me 
 to have features which could with any advantage be imitated 
 by us. I had allowed myself to expect a very different 
 result, and was proportionately disappointed. There is no 
 church in Venice — (in what I am now saying I mean always 
 to except S. Mark's) — comparable either to Sta. Anastasis 
 or to the cathedral at Verona in the interior ; and th( 
 exteriors, though fine as examples of the bold use of lu'ickJ 
 are nevertheless not first-rate, nor at all sujDcrior to what 
 one sees elsewhere. 
 
 Sta. Maria Gloriosa dci Frari ought first to be described] 
 as being certainly the finest of its class. The first stone is 
 said to have been laid on April 3rd, 1250, Nicola Pisam 
 being the architect. The cam]3anile was begun in 13G1|
 
 23.— TNTERIOR OP 3TA. MARIA GLORIOSA DEI FRARI, VENICE. Page 177.
 
 Chap. VI IT.] CHURCH OF THE FRART. 177 
 
 under Jacopo Collega, and completed in 1396 by Pietro 
 Paolo his son. 
 
 The first impression of the church on landing from the 
 gondola on the desolate-looking piece of pavement which here, 
 as in many of the Venetian churches, forms a court between 
 tlie canal and the west front, is not pleasing. The design 
 of the west front is nothing short of being positively ugly ; 
 it is finished with a great sham gable, with a curved outline, 
 somewhat akin to the degraded taste of our worst Jacobaean 
 art, and entirely without any beauty or even picturesqueness 
 of appearance ; the doorways, too, are particularly poor, con- 
 sisting of a succession of twisted and reedy mouldings, thin 
 and shadowless, like so many cords stretched from cap to 
 base and round the arch, without any proper distinction of 
 jamb and archivolt. 
 
 The internal efi'ect of the church is much finer than 
 its west front would lead one to expect. The plan is simple ; 
 a nave and aisles of six bays, transepts with three eastern 
 chapels to each, and a choir of one bay with an apse of four 
 bays projecting beyond the others. The tower is in the 
 angle between the north transept and the nave, and a large 
 sacristy with an eastern apse is built against the south 
 transept. The nave and aisles measure about 230 feet by 
 104, and the transept 160 feet by 48, — magnificent dimen- 
 sions undoubtedly. The columns are simple, cylindrical, 
 and very lofty, their capitals carved with foliage, which 
 looks late and poor in its execution, though grouped in the 
 old way in regular tufts or balls of foliage. The arrange- 
 ; ment of the wall above the main arcade is very similar to 
 I that of the Veronese, and, indeed, to that of most Italian 
 • Gothic churches ; a plain wall being carried up to the groining, 
 1 relieved only by a small clerestory window at the highest 
 I point. One is apt to compare this arrangement with the 
 i artistic arrangement of clerestory and triforium in our own 
 
 i N
 
 178 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 churches ; but herein we do not act quite fairly to Nicola 
 Pisano, who is said to have designed the Frari, and his 
 brethren. They had to work in a country where light must 
 be admitted very sparingly, and where therefore it is im- 
 possible for architects to revel in the rich traceries which fill 
 the bays of the churches of the North ; they lived among 
 a nation of painters, and deemed, perhaps, that these plain 
 surfaces of wall would one day glow with colour and with 
 Scripture story. For these reasons, then, I defend them for 
 the bareness and over-great plainness which are certainly at 
 first felt to be so remarkable in their work. The real beauty 
 of these interiors is owing, more than to anything else, 
 I believe, to the simplicity and purity of the quadripartite 
 groining which covers them in, and which, even where other 
 features would seem to tell of debasement and absence of pure 
 feeling, invariably recalls us to a proper recollection of the 
 infinite value of simplicity in this important feature— a j)oint 
 lost sight of in England after the thirteenth century, to 
 the incalculable detriment of the beauty of some of our 
 greatest churches. It is not difiicult to prove that this must 
 be the case, for I take it for granted that we all feel that 
 ornament for its own sake is valueless ; and equally, that 
 doing in a troublesome, and therefore costly way, that which 
 may be done as well and as strongly in a simpler manner, 
 is unpleasant and distasteful as an exhibition of the wasteful 
 expenditure of human skill and energy ; and therefore, as 
 simple quadripartite groining with diagonal and transverse 
 ribs, and no lierne or intermediate ribs, is quite sufficient for 
 the construction, and as the vaults are in no degree whatever 
 strengthened by the multiplication and ramification of per- 
 plexing ribs, such as we see in later days in fan tracery and 
 other contemporary modes of vaulting, that it is the truest 
 and most agreeable system of roofing in stone. 
 
 Tlie simple groining of the Frari is entirely executed in
 
 Chap. VIII.] CHURCH OF THE FRARI. 179 
 
 brick, and springs in the aisles from pilasters corbelled out 
 of the walls midway iu height, just as in Sta. Anastasia at 
 Verona, and in the nave and choir from clusters of shafts 
 rising from the caps of the columns. 
 
 The apse is the noblest feature of the whole church ; its 
 windows, with their singular and not quite pleasing transome 
 of tracery, are refreshing because they have tracery, though 
 indeed it is of a rude and heavy kind. 
 
 There is something impressive about the arrangement of 
 the church. The choir is prolonged by the length of about 
 one bay and a half into the nave, and fenced oif to the west 
 by a great screen, surmounted by figures of the Apostles, 
 with a crucifix rising in the centre. The nave is, of course, 
 quite free from any fixed seats ; and this, with the great area 
 of the transept and the fine perspective of the long range 
 of seven apsidal chapels on its east side, gives a grand air 
 of spaciousness to the whole interior. There are some fine 
 monuments bere, quite worth notice as very characteristic 
 of Italian art. They are generally high tombs corbelled out 
 from the walls, witli arched canoi)ies over them, inclosing 
 paintings. Here the south transept wall over the door to 
 the vestry contains a group of such monuments, which is 
 extremely picturesque. The monument of "Beatus Paci- 
 ficus " (a.d. 1437) has a graceful painting of the Annunciation 
 I over its arch, and sculptures under it of the Baptism, and, 
 on the tomb, of the Eesurrection and the Descent into Hell.^ 
 Another monument has a life-size figure on horseback, and 
 all have so much freshness to an English eye, and yet so 
 much identity in principle with our own old monuments, 
 that they are well worthy of study. Last, but not least, are 
 two immense monuments facing each other, near the west 
 
 ' The crockets on the inomim(;nt of a.d. 14:57 are exactly simihir to those 
 on the western gables of S. Mark's, and prove that tlicse are of about (he same 
 date. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 VENICE. [Chap. Vlll. 
 
 end of the nave, to Canova and Titian, preposterous in size, 
 heavy, ngly, and eokl in character, quite unsuitable to a 
 church, and, so far at least as I could judge, entirely devoid 
 of merit as works of religious art. There is, too, a painting 
 by Giovanni Bellini of the Madonna and Saints, which oughi 
 to be visited, in the grand and well-used sacristy — a room 
 such as one never seems to see save in Italy. It is still 
 in its old frame over the sacristy altar. Both in artistic 
 interest and in religious effect it is perfectly fine ; the sub- 
 ject — a Madonna and Child, such as Gian Bellini alone could 
 paint. Angels playing instruments, sweet and pretty in 
 character, and saints full of reverence and awe for Our 
 Lord, all treated with a colour of exquisite depth and rich- 
 ness throughout, make this as worshipful a picture as I know. 
 There is also in the north transept a most elaborately framed 
 Gothic triptych, with figures well drawn and rich in colour. 
 
 The stalls in the Frari are all placed in the nave 
 west of the transept, as in Westminster Abbey. They are 
 of very rich Kenaissance character, but with some late 
 Gothic features. In the north transept is some elaborate 
 Gothic panelling — very German in character — which looks 
 as if it had come from the back of the old choir stalls. 
 Here, too, is a crucifix, probably the original rood. Some 
 fragments of stained glass are still visible ; they are coarse 
 and rude in detail, but extremely fine in colour ; and one 
 must picture the church full of rich glass in order to do 
 justice to the scheme of the mediaeval architect. 
 
 To the south of the nave are large uninteresting cloisters, 
 and it is only at the east end that the exterior at all repays 
 the ecclesiologist for the f)ains he must take to get all round 
 it. The view which I give will best illustrate its general 
 character. The windows are all transomed, the tracery and 
 portions of the arches being executed in stone, the rest of 
 the wall being entirely of brick or terra-cotta with some
 
 
 24 — STA, MARIA GLOEIOSA DEI FRAKI, VEMICB. 
 
 Page 180.
 
 I
 
 ('[TAP. VHI.] CHURCH OF SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO. 181 
 
 red marble in the eaves-arcading ; the bricks are not par- 
 ticularly good, and the terra-cotta borders, cornices, and 
 ornaments are poor and meagre in their design. The most 
 observable point about the detail is the great and ugly splay 
 on the exterior of the windows, and the facts that the window 
 mouldings are returned round the sills and that all the 
 apsidal terminations in the church finish with an angle in 
 the centre — a peculiarity which is very seldom met with, but 
 very much to be commended as a variety. 
 
 There is a degree of clumsiness about the way in which 
 the arches of the windows are set upon the jambs which is 
 very characteristic of Italian Gothic ; but this, and other 
 points open to criticism, do not prevent the east end of this 
 church from being a very noble conception, broad and grand, 
 unbroken with the lines of buttresses which generally too 
 much confuse apsidal terminations, and yet very vertical in 
 its effect. There is no petty attempt at relieving or orna- 
 menting plain wall where it oeciirs, but it is left in the 
 native rudeness of the rather rough-looking red brick, 
 which is in no respect better than the bricks one may get 
 anywhere in England. The cornices are very marked, and 
 those in the clerestory have the common and ungraceful cor- 
 belled arcading in brick, to which I have a special antipathy. 
 The clerestory windows of the transepts and choir are, I 
 need hardly say, quite modern, and of a kind, unfortunately, 
 most pof>ular throughout the north of Italy. North of the 
 choir is a tall brick campanile, leaning rather dangerously 
 to the North, finished with an octagonal upper stage, and, 
 though not very remarkable, making a conspicuous feature 
 in most of the views of this part of Venice, and at any 
 rate to be admired for its simplicity and the absence of effort 
 in its design. 
 
 Next in order of merit to this church are those of SS. 
 Giovanni e Paolo and of the Madonna dell' Orto, both of
 
 182 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 them savouring most strongly of the influence of the Pisani, 
 and in very many points remarkably like the church of the 
 Frari. 
 
 We will take SS. Giovanni e Paolo first. The plan is of 
 the same sort as that of the Frari— nave with aisles, and 
 transepts with two chapels opening on each side of them. 
 These are all apsidal, but planned in the usual way and not 
 as at the Frari. The east end is a fine composition, having 
 an apse of seven sides, and is the only part of the exterior 
 to which much praise can be given. It is divided into two 
 stages by an elaborate brick cornice and a good balustraded 
 passage in front of the upper windows. The traceries are all 
 unskilfully designed, and set back from the face of the wall 
 with a bald plain splay of brickwork round them ; the lower 
 windows here have two transoms, and the upper a single 
 band of heavy tracery which performs the part of a transom 
 in an ungainly fashion, though not so badly as in the great 
 south-transept window in the same church. Here, just as at 
 the Frari, it is obvious that the absence of buttresses to these 
 many-sided apses is the secret of the largeness and breadth 
 which mark them ; and, to say the truth, not only are large 
 buttresses to an apse often detrimental to its eff'ect, but at 
 the same time they are very often not wanted for strength. 
 The interior is remarkable on account of the fine scale on 
 which it is built, and for the large number of interesting 
 monuments corbelled out from its walls. Many of them 
 arc mediaeval and rich in sculpture of figures, not only on 
 the tombs themselves, but again in the face of the wall, 
 around their canopies. The effigy of the deceased is almost 
 always placed on the top of the high tomb or sarcophagus, 
 which, in order that it may be visible from below, is made 
 with a slope towards the spectator, the effect of which is 
 most distressing. Much more beautiful generally is tlie cur- 
 tained tester often put above the figure, on either side of
 
 Chap. VIII.] CHURCH OF SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO. 183 
 
 which guardian angels, hokling hack the folds of the draperies, 
 allow us to join them in looking at the figure on the tomh. 
 There is here a very fine lectern — a douhle-headed eagle 
 standing on a scorpion — with a rich mediteval stand and base. 
 
 There are small two-light windows just over the arches 
 in the nave which take the place of a triforium, and which 
 look almost as if they were the clerestory windows of an 
 earlier church whose arches were much less lofty than those 
 which now exist. 
 
 In the small piazza in front of the church stands one of 
 the glories of Venice — the monument of Bartolomeo Colleoni. 
 As is the case with too many equestrian statues the base 
 seems dangerously small for the steed, slow and stately as 
 his movement is. What a grand air of valiant determina- 
 tion this old warrior wears ! what a serious purpose the 
 artist had in his work, and how carefully he has rendered 
 every detail of trapping and armour on both man and horse ! 
 We have already heard of this famous condottiere in his 
 chapel at Bergamo and in his castle of Malpaga. His statue 
 was the work of Andrea Verocchio, but was completed by 
 Alessandro Leopardi, between 1479 and 1488. Colleoni had 
 left his whole fortune to the republic of Venice on condition 
 that his statue should be placed in the Piazza of S. Mark. 
 This being contrary to the laws, an ingenious loophole for 
 escape was discovered ; the bequest was secured by the erec- 
 tion of the statue in front of the Scuola di San Marco, whose 
 strange llenaissance front (built with coloured marble in a 
 horrible sort of perspective, which is the lowest depth to 
 which architecture ever reached) stands at right angles to 
 the front of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. For any one who wished 
 to be remembered near S. Mark's cJiurch, the catastrophe 
 would be as great, if he cared about art, to find himself 
 connected, instead, with such an abortion as the Scuola of that 
 ilk, as it would be to Bartolomeo Colleoni to find himself
 
 184 VENICE. [Chap. VIIT. 
 
 here in the suhurhs when he stipulated so carefully for a 
 place in the very centre of the city ! I 
 
 Next in order of merit to SS. Griovanni e Paolo I should 
 place the church of Sta. Maria dell' Orto. This church is in 
 a very bad state, and so far ruinous as to require to he 
 supported in its interior by a forest of shores and scaffold- 
 poles, which makes it quite impossible to get a good idea of 
 the general effect. It has fair pointed arcades resting upon 
 very Classic-looking columns, with capitals of poorly grouped 
 and executed foliage. It is decidedly inferior to the two 
 churches just described, in every respect save the treatment 
 of its west front, which, poor as it is, sins less against all ; 
 acknowledged rules than do theirs ; its character is of a kind ; 
 of pseudo-pointed, very flat, hard, and awkward. The cor- ! 
 nice, with the open Italian pinnacles above it, over the central ' 
 portion, is better in its effect than the singular row of niches 
 which stands in lieu of cornice for the ends of the aisles ; but 
 it is worth while, nevertheless, to observe how simple is the 
 design of these niches, taken separately, and how far this 
 simplicity and the genuine beauty of their cusping and arch- 
 ing go towards redeeming the want of taste which is shown 
 in the choice of their location. The doorway and rose win- 
 dow in the west front are of red and white marble, and in , J 
 the side windows the tracery and menials are of white marble, * 
 and the jambs alternately red and white. The rest of the 
 wall is brick, but has been plastered and washed with 
 pink. The windows at the end of the aisles are remarkable 
 for transoms of tracery supported upon two heights of deli- 
 cate marble shafts, and entirely independent of the glazing 
 which is fixed in frames within them. This kind of arrange- 
 ment, incongruous and unsatisfactory as it is here, is worth 
 recollecting, as being suggestive of an obvious opening for 
 the use of traceried windows in domestic work ; and it is a 
 plan of most frequent occurrence in the best Italian eccle-
 
 Chap. VIII.] MADONNA DELL' ORTO— SAN STEFANO. 185 
 
 siastical architecture. ]\[any of the windows of Sta. Anas- 
 tasia at Verona are constructed in this way, showing on the 
 outside elaborately cusped and pierced plates of stone, against 
 which on the inside the glazing is fixed, surrounded only 
 with a plain circle of stone. 
 
 San Stefano is another really striking Gothic church. 
 Its interior, notwithstanding the gaudy red damask with 
 which the Venetians here and elsewhere delight to clothe 
 the columns of their churches, is very fine and unlike what is 
 common in the North of Europe. The dimensions are very 
 large. The nave is about forty-eight feet wide, and the 
 whole length about one hundred and seventy feet. There are 
 a cloister and a chapter-house north of the nave, and a 
 campanile detached at some distance to the east. The ar- 
 cades of six pointed arches dividing the nave from either 
 aisle are very light, and sujjported on delicate marble columns, 
 whose capitals, with square abaci and foliage of Classical 
 character, hardly look like Gothic work. The masonry and 
 mouldings of the arches are not arranged in a succession of 
 orders, as is the case in almost all good pointed work, but 
 have a broad, plain soffeit, with a small and shallow moulding 
 at the edge, finished with a dentil or billet ornament, which, 
 originally used by the architect of S. Mark's in order to 
 form the lines of constructional stonework within which 
 his encrusted marbles were held, was afterwards, down to 
 the very decline of pointed architecture, used everywhere in 
 Venice — not only in its original position, but, as at San 
 Stefano, in place of a label round the arch. Its eff'ect is 
 much like that of the English dog-tooth ornament — a suc- 
 cession of sharp hard lights and shades, useful as giving 
 value and force to a very small piece of stonework, and 
 therefore exceedingly valuable when used as it is at S. Mark's, 
 and equally contemptible, I am bound to say, when used, as 
 it is in later work at Venice, simply as an ornament ; for tliis
 
 186 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 [Chap. VIII. 
 
 it is not and cannot be, as it is the result of no skill or 
 taste on the part of the workman, but just such an enrich- 
 ment as might be rather better done by machine than by 
 hand. The roof of the nave is a painted timber roo^, boarded 
 in a series of cusped lines on the under side of the con- 
 structional framework, so as to hide it. I must not forget 
 to add that the interior of San Stefano requires to be held 
 together by iron ties in every direction — -a sin to which, in 
 Italy, the eye soon has to become accustomed. 
 
 The whole of the exterior is very carefully executed in 
 brick, the moulded work being well done, though very late 
 in date and not good in effect. The western doorway is of a 
 favourite Venetian type. It is square-headed, enriched with 
 mouldings and carving, and above it is an arched canopy 
 with j)innacles on each side and with an ogee arched label 
 carrying enormous crockets. The finial is a three-quarter 
 
 figure, and an angel occupies 
 the spandrel between the arch 
 and the label. Above the 
 door is a large circular win- 
 dow, unadorned with tracery 
 or filling-in of any kind. Thej 
 window from the east end ol 
 the church, of which I give ai 
 engraving, is a very character^ 
 istic example, of great widthJ 
 and utterly unlike any ex- 
 ample out of Venice. 
 Perhaps the very worst traceries in Venice— which is^ 
 saying a good deal — are in the windows of the apse here, 
 where the traceried arches of the head are repeated over the 
 transom, but inverted and standing on their points. More 
 worthy of admiration is a fine tomb corbelled out from the 
 cloister wall to Andreas Contarina, " mccclvii. Dux creatus 
 
 WINDOW — SAN STEFANO.
 
 ^= 
 
 p 
 
 25. S:ft"[^ qii^COj^O DEL I-^ISLTO. VEj^ICE . 
 
 p. 187.
 
 Chap. Vlll.] SAN GIACOMO— LA CARITA. 187 
 
 MCCCLXXXii. in coeluin sublatus ;" the arched bridge uuder 
 the choir (which is carried over a canal) shoukl also be noted, 
 as well as the very fine campanile, which, though not boasting 
 of any Gothic detail, is full of the spirit which made the 
 earlier campanili so effective. But if we wish to see the best 
 campanile in Venice, I think we must go back to the Itialto, 
 and there, not far from the Grrand Canal, we shall see in tliat 
 of San Griacomo a perfectly fine example/ It is almost en- 
 tirely of brick, and the fine long lines of its arcades give a 
 great effect of height, whilst the details are all good and 
 quite Gothic in their character. 
 
 The other churches in Venice are of less importance than 
 tliose which I have described, but the number of remains, of 
 wliich only too many are desecrated, is very large. The 
 Accademia has attached to it the desecrated church of the 
 convent of La Carita. This has three parallel aisles ended 
 with apses, the usual traceries and cornices, and the unusual 
 (I am glad to say) feature of three western gables with 
 arched outlines " filled in with much small tracery in brick 
 and terra-cotta. Another desecrated church near this — that 
 of San Gregorio — is more interesting. It is of the same 
 general design as La Carita. and, like it, is built of yellowish 
 bricks. The window traceries are of white marble. The 
 most interesting feature here is the cloister, entered by a 
 remarkable doorway from the Grand Canal. The doorway is 
 square-headed, with an ogee trefoiled archway or window on 
 either side, and a sitting figure of a bishop under a slight 
 canopy over the doorway. The cloister has five bays on each 
 side, divided by columns which rest on a marble and brick 
 base, and carry a wooden framework enriched -with very good 
 mouldings. 
 
 ' I refer here to San Giaconio dv\ Kialto. Its noighbi)ur, San Giaennio del 
 Olio, has also a brick canqianile, bnt of inferior merit. 
 
 * A view in the 'Nuremberg Chronicle' sliews these three gables just as 
 they now are.
 
 188 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 Another desecrated church is that •' dei Servi," which has 
 a fine lofty brick front with a large rose window. 
 
 In the Campo Sta. Zaccaria is a portal much like that of 
 San Stefano, save that it has in the tympanum a good figure 
 of the Blessed Virgin with Our Lord Avith a saint on each 
 side — the two Saints John, I think. The Virgin is seated on 
 a Gothic throne carved in very low relief, and the whole 
 composition is decidedly fine ; comparing it with the door- 
 way at Mazzorbo, I should say this must be a work of j 
 A.D. 1380. The church of Sta. Zaccaria is an early Kenais- § 
 sance building, with many of its arches pointed. It has an 
 aisle and chapels round the choir, an unusual plan in Venice, 
 but otherwise it has no interest. 
 
 The church of I'Abbazia has some fair detail in its cornices, 
 with pinnacles at its west end of the same type as those in , 
 the Madonna dell' Orto, and has poor ogee-headed pointed 
 windows ; near it is another of the canopied doorways — the - 
 gate of the Corte Vecchia — with an outer arched canopy, \ 
 within which under an ogee-shaped label stands the Blessed 
 Virgin with Our Lord in an aureole on her breast. Two 
 saints stand at her side, and groups of little figures kneel 
 at her feet, whilst from the upper finial Our Lord gives His 
 blessing. This bears the date of 1505. I 
 
 I think I have now said enough about these late Gothic 
 churches. I have never been able to interest myself much 
 about them. The work of which they are specimens is so 
 exceedingly poor, cold, and distasteful to me, that I feel much 
 inclined when I attempt to sketch them to give up eccle- 
 siology in despair. The truth is that, S. Mark's excepted — 
 and of course it is a very wonderful exception — the churches 
 in Venice do not come up to the expectations of any one 
 who has ever experienced the delight of visiting the churches 
 of much smaller cities in France, Germany, and England. 
 True, indeed, there are much interest and a great breadth and
 
 Chap. VIII.] OLD DOMESTIC BUILDINGS. 189 
 
 dignity about the general effect of sucli a cliureh as that of 
 the Frari ; but for all those lovely points of detail which in 
 every direction amaze ns by the art they display and the rich 
 array of beauty with which they clothe the walls of Northern 
 cathedrals, there is here no kind of equivalent. 
 
 Wlien I had thoroughly come to this conclusion, and 
 settled in my own mind by repeated inspection that my 
 judgment was not harsh or unfair, I confess I felt a weight 
 off my mind. I was now free to indulge myself to the full in 
 the search for Avhat Venice really has in greater abundance, 
 perhaps, than any other city in Christendon — remains, 
 namely, of mediaeval domestic work. Nothing can be con- 
 ceived more delightful than such a search. You seldom go a 
 hundred yards — often it is much less — without coming upon 
 some remains, or perhaps some nearly perfect example, of an 
 old Venetian palace ; and then, with the gondola fastened to 
 one of the great posts which line all the canals, the well- 
 satisfied gondolier lying stretched on his back behind the 
 awning, your friends laughing and talking within its dark 
 recess, you sit most luxuriously, and make your notes and 
 sketches with a degree of quiet comfort which is not a little 
 conducive to accurate and careful sketching, and to diligence 
 in its pursuit. 
 
 Venetian palaces divide themselves naturally into two 
 great classes — the Byzantine and the Gothic ; and it surj)rized 
 me very much to find remains so perfect and so extensive of 
 the former class even on the banks of the Grand Canal itself, 
 where change has been ever so frequent and so rife. Indeed, 
 it is singular that nearly all the Byzantine palaces are 
 situated on its banks. 
 
 Of these palaces, certainly the most striking by far are 
 the Ca' Loredan, the Ca' Farsetti, and the Fondaco de' 
 Turchi. They all agree singularly in the general idea of 
 their design, and consist of a grand scheme of arcading over
 
 100 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 the entire front. Divided generally into two stories in 
 height, they are again divided in a marked manner in width 
 into a centre and wings. This division is effected solely hy 
 a great difference in the spans of the arches forming the 
 arcades, which in the wings are much narrower than in the 
 central division. In the upper arcade the spaces between the 
 columns, and indeed the whole arrangement, are often studi- 
 ously unlike those in the lower range ; but, at the same time, 
 there is so very much similarity in the detail of the whole, 
 that this variety, far from being perceived as an irregularity 
 or a fault, does in truth just suffice to give force and vitality 
 to what might otherwise appear to be monotonous and too 
 often repeated, and recalls to mind not a little the very 
 similar kind of difference between the upper and lower order 
 of shafts already described in the west front of S. Mark's. 
 
 We cannot do better than take, as an example of the 
 finest type of a Byzantine palace, the magnificent, though 
 now desolate, decaying, and ruined facade of the Fondaco de' 
 Turchi, once the palace of the Dukes of Ferrara. The whole 
 front of this was originally cased with a thin facing of marble, 
 like the coeval works at S. Mark's — a kind of decoration 
 which, neglected as this fine relic has been for years, we 
 cannot be surprized to find almost altogether destroyed; 
 small fragments do, however, still here and there remain to 
 tell of the original magnificence of the work. The lower 
 stage of the Fondaco consists of a continuous arcade of ten 
 open arches, with three narrower arches at either end, 
 forming the wings, so to speak ; the upper stage has eighteen 
 arches in the centre, and four in each wing. In the wings 
 the piers supporting the arches are, I think, all moulded 1 
 pilasters ; in the centre all the arches rest upon columns ; 
 and throughout the whole building the arches, Avhicli are 
 all semicircular, are considerably stilted. The entire build- 
 ing is constructed in brick, which was originally, as I have 
 
 i
 
 CuAP. VIJl.] FONDACO DE' TUKCHI. 11)1 
 
 before said, covered all over ^vitl: a tliin veneer of marble ; 
 in tlie spandrels of all the arches this is relieved by small 
 circidar medallions delicately carved, and over the upper 
 sta^e is a string-course, above which there -would seem to 
 have been a long series of slightly sunk panels with roimd- 
 arched heads, filled in witli delicately arranged and beauti- 
 fully sculptured patterns in marble. These panels are 
 immediately below the eaves of the roof. Many of the abaci 
 and string-courses, and all the thin pieces of marble which 
 form the soffeits of the arches, have their projections finished 
 either with a nail-head or dentil moulding, and between the 
 shafts of the upper stage there are traces of balconies.^ 
 
 A very noticeable point in the general effect of the faf ade 
 of the Fondaco de' Turchi is that, from the peculiar shape 
 and great projection of the capitals of the shafts and the 
 narrow span of the arches, the whole of the arcading has, at 
 a small distance, almost the efi'ect of a series of trefoils, and 
 so seems to pave the way for the continuous traceries of the 
 Ducal Palace and other later buildings. 
 
 There is a ruined fragment of a house of the same age 
 as the Fondaco de' Turchi in a canal behind the Foscari 
 Palace. Here the centre arch is very wide, has four stilted 
 arches on the sides, the archivolts are all delicately carved, 
 and small sculjjtured medallions are introduced in the span- 
 drels. Here, I think, the red brick of the walls was always 
 intended to be seen. Of very similar character is a much 
 hirger fragment on the right of the Grand Canal after passing 
 under the liialto. Here there are two stories still remaininir. 
 The round-arched doorway has two open and stilted arches 
 on eacli side, and then a space of blank wall ; and tlie upper 
 stage has a group of seven arches in the centre, and a single 
 
 ' I leave this di'si-riptioii as it stood in 1855. Since tlun the wbulo of 
 lliis interestiiif; biiililiu^- lias lioeii sn flal>oratcly nvstored, that I dmibt wlicthcr 
 ;ni old stiinc iciuaiiis. It has lusl all its ciiaiiii. and tins was oniv iiitousc.
 
 192 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 arch at each end over the blank wall below. The labels of 
 these upper arches are turned up at the point into an ogee 
 shape, which, strange as it may seem, must be original, as 
 the detail is early, and they are surmounted by a collection 
 of carved medallions and a carved string-course of early 
 style.^ . 
 
 The Ca' Loredan has two stages in height, above which all 
 is modern — but all the Byzantine arrangements of these two 
 stages are perfect. There are five open arches in the centre, 
 and an arcaded pier on each side ; and in the next stage, 
 though the division of centre and wings is preserved, the 
 arches are increased in number, and consequently the 
 columns of this stage do not come above those of the lower 
 stage. The string-courses are formed with a billet mould ; 
 the capitals are some of them genuine Byzantine, and some 
 copies of Corinthian. The wall- faces were all inlaid, but 
 they were in part altered in the fourteenth century, when 
 some coats-of-arms and figures were added. Those at the 
 extreme angles are of David and Goliath, and on each side 
 of the centre sitting figures of Justice and Force. 
 
 Next to the Ca' Loredan is the Ca' Farsetti (now the 
 Municipio), which is, I think, slightly the older building of 
 the two. Here there are three arches resting on shafts in 
 the centre, and an equal number resting on piers on each 
 side, and a continuous arcade of fifteen arches on the upper 
 stage resting on coupled shafts. 
 
 The Palazzo Businetto on the Grand Canal opposite the 
 Ca' Grimani, has remains of Byzantine work in its two lower 
 stages. Here the caps are Byzantine in character, the 
 archivolts flat inlays, with a billet mould on each side, and 
 a carved string-course of running foliage inclosed between 
 two lines of notched or billet mould. 
 
 This short notice of some of the more important lioman- 
 
 ' Tliis liouyu i.s in tlic Scsticrc di Caiinarec;i(), I'iirrocliia Sun C'am'iiiiio.
 
 a 
 
 M 
 
 26 BYZ;fi]^TIJ^E WELL . VE|=tICE . 
 
 p. 193
 
 Chap. VIIL] BYZANTINE PALACES. 193 
 
 esque aud Byzantine remains enables me to make a few 
 general deductions : (1.) These buildings were always of 
 two stages in height. (2.) They had the entrance in the 
 centre, and had generally a distinction between the centre 
 and the wings. (3.) The capitals were generally Byzantine 
 in character, but often copied from Corinthian. (4.) They 
 were of brick, but generally veneered with thin slabs of 
 marble. (5.) They were enriched with circular, square, and 
 arched medallions inclosing carving of foliage and animals, 
 and frequently of coupled birds or animals regarding each 
 other, — a device always indicative of an early date and an 
 Eastern origin ; and (6.) The string-courses were generally 
 carved either with continuous running foliage, or with leaves 
 arranged in threes ; the centre turning ove-r, the side leaves 
 extended flatwise, and uj)ward. This last string-course is 
 exactly coj)ied from Sta. Fosca, Torcello, and is carved all 
 round S. Mark's inside ; whilst the former, though it is 
 Byzantine in origin, is carried round the wall of the Ducal 
 Palace between the south-east angle and the Bridge of Sighs. 
 The illustration of a Byzantine cistern from the centre of 
 a courtyard which I give, is useful as shewing very clearly 
 the character of the carved foliage which adorns the string- 
 courses and panels of these Byzantine buildings. This is 
 always effectively carved with deep cuttings, which produce 
 bright and sparkling effects of light and shade. 
 
 One especial fault of the Venetians seems to have been 
 their proneness to repeat the same architectural idea an 
 infinite number of times ; and there is something in this so 
 cliaracteristic of the j)lace and the people, that the reason for 
 it is worthy of some consideration. Venice, surrounded by 
 water, and cut off from that kind of emulation which in 
 other places always has the effect of producing life and 
 change very rapidly in the phases of art, seems to have 
 contented herself, when once she had well done, with the 
 
 o
 
 194 VENICE. [OriAr. VTIT. 
 
 conviction that improvement was either impossible or 
 unnecessary, and so, whilst changes were going on in the 
 mainland, to have rested satisfied with a slight alteration 
 only, and that one of detail always, for centuries ; and it 
 is thus that I account for the singular sameness which 
 characterized all the efforts of her Gothic artists. The 
 facade of the Ducal Palace is really precisely the same in its 
 idea as that of the Fondaco de' Turclii or the Ca' Loredan, 
 altered only in detail — its very beautiful traceries taking 
 the place of, but doing the same work as, the simple en- 
 crusted arcades of its predecessors. And again, in the 
 fronts of other and much smaller palaces — indeed, in all the 
 fronts of the Gothic period — it is singular how exactly the 
 --v^ same idea in the general arrangement is always preserved. 
 
 Let me describe an ordinary palace. It is divided into three 
 or four stories in height, the several stages being generally 
 separated by string-courses. The lower story opens, by an 
 arched doorway in the centre, to the water ; and on either 
 side of this doorway a few small windows serve to light the 
 basement. The second stage has a grand window of some 
 five or six lights, divided by shafts of marble, and rich with 
 tracery, in the centre ; and on either side, one or two single 
 lights, with tracery corresponding with — and often, as it 
 were, cut out in a slice from — the traceries of the central 
 window. The third stage is nearly a rei^roduction of the 
 second, though sometimes slightly less important ; and the 
 upper stage is either again a repetition of the others, or else 
 consists of a few small windows placed over the others, and 
 very unimportant and unpretending. The whole is crowned 
 by a slightly projecting eaves-cornice, generally very meagre 
 in its character, and with a line of genuine dog-tooth orna- 
 ment on its lower edge. Above this, probably — for only one 
 or two examples remain at all in their original state— was a 
 parapet like those which still in part remain on the Ca' d'Oro,
 
 Chap. VIU.] GOTHIC PALACES. 195 
 
 at the back of the Ca' Foscari, and on the Dneal Pahico, 
 light and fantastic to a degree, and almost masking the flat 
 roof behind. 
 
 Such, as will be seen by the views with which, I doubt 
 not, almost all my readers must be familiar, is the general 
 idea of the Gothic palaces in Venice, and it admits of very 
 slight modification. Occasionally, as in the Ca' d'Oro, the 
 windows are inclosed within a square line of delicate 
 moulding, the space within which is encrusted w^ith marble, 
 and entirely distinct from the string-courses, so as to give 
 I very much the impression of a plain wall veneered here and 
 ^ there with a window; or, again, sometimes the whole central 
 [division of the first and second stories is veneered on to a 
 'facade in which the other windows are treated construction- 
 ally; but in all cases from first to last (except, as we shall 
 see, in the Ducal Palace, and for this exception there is some 
 [explanation in its vast size and other reasons), the distinc- 
 tion between the centre and the wings w^as never lost sight 
 of, and never forgotten. This was the great idea of all 
 i these buildings, and most perseveringly was it reproduced 
 jdown to the last, when, gradually losing even the life which 
 
 ibeautifiil detail had once lent, it sank throuo;h successive 
 
 ^ . . . . 
 
 Istages, until at last, easily and well-nigh imperceptibly, it 
 
 jsuccumbed, without a struggle, to the rise of the Renaissance 
 
 feeling, giving only in revenge to its STiccessor, .the curse 
 
 p an obligation still to go on building to the last, for 
 
 whatever want or on whatever occasion, with the conviction 
 
 that a centre and two wings must ever be necessary to a 
 
 grand facade. It so happens that, in addition to the large 
 
 and purely Byzantine palaces in which this arrangement is 
 
 preserved, — in a delicate manner, it is true, — there still 
 
 !"emains one remarkable example of the period of transition 
 "rom Byzantine to Gothic, in a house which forms one side 
 pf the Corto del Eemer (facing the Grand Canal just above 
 I o 2
 
 196 VENICE. [Chap. VlII. 
 
 the spot where it is spanned by the Kialto), which serves to 
 shew clearly the first attempt at translation of this Byzantine 
 idea into Gothic. 
 
 In the principal story of this house the central feature 
 is the entrance doorway, whose finely ornamented arch of 
 markedly horseshoe outline is very conspicuous. On either 
 side of this, and connected with it in one group, are two 
 windows divided by shafts and with arches of very singular 
 shape ; it is as though a stilted semicircular arch had 
 been suddenly turned up in the centre, not with the graceful 
 ogee curve of later days, but with simple, hard, straight 
 lines. Beyond these windows, one of later date, but probably 
 inserted in the j)lfice of the original window, completes the 
 similarity which the arrangement of the ojoenings in this 
 house bears to that common in all the later Gothic palaces. 
 Tlie arches which support the staircase in front of this 
 house are entirely executed in brick, and are probably later 
 in date than the house itself, though it is noticeable that 
 they are of a very early and pure type, and that here, as 
 generally throughout the North of Italy, the pointed arch 
 was first used in construction, and then, some time after its 
 first introduction, and very generally in some modified form, 
 for ornamentation also. 
 
 And now, having so far cleared the way, let me ask my 
 readers to go with me to the Ducal Palace, and there under- 
 take a somewhat careful examination of its very famous design. 
 
 I shall not enter into a general description of the entire 
 building, because, as this has undergone prodigious altera- 
 tions since its first erection, it is unnecessary to do much 
 more than refer to the two fronts, which still retain, nearly 
 without alteration, their mediaeval design, and to those 
 portions only of the interior and courtyard which have not 
 been altered. 
 
 The whole building forms three sides of a hollow square :
 
 27.— CORTE DEL REUER, VENICE. 
 
 Pdje 196.
 
 Chap. VIII.] THE DUCAL PALACE. 197 
 
 one side rises out of the deep recesses of the Kio del Palazzo, 
 spanned near its outlet by the famous Bridge of Sighs, and 
 is entirely of Eenaissanee work ; the next side, rising from 
 the Piiva dei Schiavoni, faces the Giudecca, and is of the 
 purest Venetian Grothic ; and the third, facing the Piazzetta 
 di San Marco — the small square which connects S. Mark's 
 with the water — is also Gothic, and of the same type. The 
 back or north side of the palace abuts upon S. Mark's. 
 
 I cannot pretend to decide at all absolutely wpon the 
 vexed question of the dates of the mediaeval portions, 
 because, as the reader will find in an interesting discussion 
 on the subject in the second volume of Mr. Buskin's 
 ' Stones of Venice,' it is a source of hot disputes. But the 
 following ap2)ear to me to be the main points. 
 
 The Ducal Palace was burnt in 1105, restored in 1116, 
 and rebuilt in 1173 — 1177. The two columns on the 
 Piazzetta were brought to Venice in 1172, about which 
 time the two Piazze were formed. Between this date and 
 1301, nothing is recorded to have been done to the palace. 
 But even at this date it was a grand building, and is 
 described in 1275 by Maestro Martino da Canale as 
 "Grande e bellissimo a maraviglia."^ He was equally en- 
 thusiastic about the church of "Monsignore San Marco," 
 and of his campanile, " so great and so high that one cannot 
 find its equal." Sivos in his chronicle (a.d. 1621) says that 
 the Sala Grande was commenced in 1301, and completed in 
 1310, at which date the Grand Council consisted of nine 
 hundred members ; and one Pietro Baseggio is said to have 
 been the architect between 1309 and 1361 ; he was succeeded 
 or assisted by Filippo Calandario, and both of them, accord- 
 ing to Zanotto, were described as being architects, sculptors, 
 and navigators!" Calandario had raised himself from the 
 
 ' Zanotto, ' II Palazzo Ducale di Venezia,' i. 39. 
 - Ibkl., i. 52-GO.
 
 198 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 humble post of shipbuilder at Murano, to that of Capo 
 Maestro of the Ducal Palace, a man of great weight in the 
 city, but finally finished his career only too much in accord- 
 ance with custom, being convicted as one of Marino Falieri's 
 fellow-conspirators, and hung from the balcony of the 
 Ducal Palace in a.d. 1355. 
 
 On the 28th of December, 1340, a decree was issued 
 ordering the construction of a staircase on the east side of the 
 palace to lead to the new rooms, which seems to establish the 
 fact that at this date a considerable portion at any rate of 
 the second stage was built. The plague visited Venice in 
 1359 and 1361, and stopped all work. In 1362, because the \ 
 uufinished work was going to ruin, the Council determined ; 
 tj complete the new hall; and in 1365, this being done, ' 
 Guariento of Padua began to paint it, in the time of the t 
 Doge Mario Cornaro.^ 
 
 The capital next the south-west angle of the lower 
 stage bears a date which appears to some'^ to be 1344 (as to 
 which I have never been able to satisfy myself), and long 
 afterwards we find the date, 1404, on the large window 
 of the highest story of the sea-front. Finally, in 1419, 
 there was a great fire which damaged the old portion of 
 the building, so much that a decree was passed to rebuild it 
 in conformity with the rest, and this work was completed iu 
 1423, when the council sat in their great council chamber for 
 the first time ; and in 1439-41 the last Gothic work was added 
 to the palace by the Doge Foscari, viz. the Porta della Carta, 
 built (as appears by their contract) by Giovanni and Barto- 
 
 ' " 1362, die iv. Dec. Quia est luaguus honor civitatis providere quod sida 
 uiagua majoris coiisilii nova non vadat in tantam desolatiouem in quantam | 
 vadit cum notahilidamno nostri communis: et sicnt clare compreheiidi potest, | 
 leviter potest compleii, et rcdiici ail terminum, quod satis bene stabit cum non 
 magna quantitate pecuniae ; vadit pars quod dicta sala nova compleri debeat," | 
 &c. &c. — Decree in Zaiiotto, i. 72. ' 
 
 - Mr. Bulges, in his account of the capitals, ' Annalcs Archcologiquc.'',' 
 vol. xvii. pp. 7i-88.
 
 CiiAi'. VIII.] THE DUCAL PALACE. 199 
 
 lomeo Boiis, between the years 1438 and 1443, in the small 
 space wliicli intervenes between the north-west angle of the 
 Ducal Palace and the south side of S. Mark's. All these dates 
 are important, and I believe undisputed, the only question 
 l)eing as to which parts of the building they refer to. 
 
 And now, before I say more about dates, let me describe 
 these two Gothic fronts — the sea-front and the Piazzetta- 
 front — and then we may perhaps see our way to some sort of 
 comprehension of the relative ages of the various portions of 
 the fabric. 
 
 The whole design is divided into three stages in height, 
 the upper nearly equal to the united height of the two 
 lower stages, and faced entirely with a delicate diaper of 
 marble cut in small oblong pieces, which look, save in their 
 texture and colour, only too much like bricks. In this 
 marble-faced wall are pierced a number of windows with 
 pointed arches — the tracery of which has been taken out 
 — and in or near the centre of each facade a much larger 
 Avindow and balcony, which look as though they had been 
 subsequently inserted. The lowest stage consists of a long 
 and uniform arcade of very simjile pointed arches resting 
 uj^on circular columns with elaborately carved caps ; these 
 have been shortened by some twenty inches of their old 
 height, by the rise of the water, and the consequent eleva- 
 tion of the pavement of the liiva, to the great damage of 
 their effect. The intermediate stage is a magnilicent arcade, 
 supporting very vigorous tracery, too well known to every- 
 body to require much description, and divided from the 
 stages above and below it by large and pronounced lines of 
 carved and moulded string-courses. 
 
 It is important to observe that up to the top of 
 the second string-course the whole of tlie architecture 
 is of the very best kind of Venetian pointed ; the arches 
 of the lowest stage are well jiroportioned, and, thongli
 
 200 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 very simply, still well moulded ; and the detail of the 
 whole of the second stage is, to say the least, not at all 
 inferior. They form together, without exception, I believe, 
 from all I have either seen myself or heard, the very 
 best and truest specimen of Gothic architecture south of 
 the Alps. 
 
 Above this noble work the third stage comes, and I 
 confess, to my eye, with patent marks in every stone of 
 which it is composed, that it was designed by some other 
 hand than that which had been so successful below. There 
 is something quite chilling in the great w^aste of plain 
 unbroken wall coming above the extreme richness of the 
 arcades which support it ; and moreover, this placing of the 
 richer work below and the plainer above is so contrary not 
 only to all ordinary canons of architecture, but just as much 
 to the ordinary practice of the Venetians, that I feel sure 
 that the impression which I have had from my first acquaint- 
 ance with drawings of it is substantially correct, viz. that 
 the line at which alterations and additions have been made 
 is to be looked for rather in a horizontal than in a vertical 
 direction ; that in all probability, consequently, the builder 
 of A.I). 1301 commenced with some portion of the sea-fafade 
 and gradually carried on the greater part of the building to 
 the height of the two stages as we now see them, leaving his 
 building finished in precisely the same way as the cor- 
 responding halls at Padua and Vicenza — two stories in height, 
 with arcades covering the outer walls of the upper as well as 
 of the lower stage ; and that when the Council Chamber 
 was found to be too small, and larger rooms were required, 
 another architect suggested the advantage of obtaining 
 them by raising an immense story above the others, and, 
 without destroying much of his predecessor's work, pro- 
 viding rooms on the most magnificent scale for the Doge 
 and his Council.
 
 Chap. VIIL] THE DUCAL PALACE. 201 
 
 The assumption tliat the Piazzetta-front has been copied 
 from the sea-front involves a belief in a veneration for and 
 exact imitation of older work which is (to say the least) 
 extraordinarily rare, if not nnique, in mediaeval works. It 
 involves a belief also in the possibility of a spirited and 
 successful copy being made of an old capital by a mediaeval 
 sculptor without fresh thought or any fresh invention of any 
 kind. This will be seen if we examine the capitals of the 
 lower stage of the palace. Here at first sight one is struck 
 by what appears to be the astonishing variety of the capitals. 
 They are nearly all adorned with figures or subjects as well 
 as with foliage, and are certainly in both fronts of various 
 degrees of merit ; but on closer acquaintance it is perceived 
 that the variety of capitals is not so great as it seems, for 
 that several of those in each front are merely replicas of those 
 in the other. If any portion of the two lower stages had been 
 built before the rest, it would have been the whole of the sea- 
 front and six arches of the Piazzetta-front, for at the end of 
 these there is a column equal in size to those at the angles, 
 and which might therefore by possibility itself have been 
 an angle column for a time. But its larger size may also 
 fairly be accounted for by the fact that it comes under the 
 side wall of the large building above, and was in any case 
 therefore a convenient arrangement if not quite a necessity ; 
 but the real difficulty seems to me to be, that if there were 
 any considerable difference in the date of these works, all 
 experience would lead one to expect that the earlier works 
 would be the most uniform and the best, whereas in point of 
 fact this is far from being the case. For instance, in the sea- 
 front there are various capitals which are of poor execu- 
 tion. These are, counting from the south-east angle, the 
 third (large and coarse heads), the eighth (also coarse heads), 
 the thirteenth (lions' heads), the fourteenth (beasts), and 
 the fifteenth, which is certainly not so fine as the replica
 
 202 VENICE. [Chap. VUL 
 
 ill the Piazzetta-fi'ont (the twenty-sixth capital, counting as 
 before).^ 
 
 The case for the contemporaneous erection of these two 
 fronts becomes even stronger if we ascend to the open 
 gallery on the first floor and examine the capitals there. 
 They are all similar in general character ; and though they 
 become gradually better as one goes from the south-east to 
 the north-west, they give the impression of all being of nearly 
 one date, and moreover they all appear to be later in date 
 than the whole of those in the lower stage. 
 
 On the other hand, there seem to be at least two points 
 which make strongly in favour of the later date which has 
 been given to the twelve northern arches of the Piazzetta- 
 front. These are, first, that all the eight capitals which are 
 replicas are in this northern part of the front, and none of 
 them in the first six arches from the south-west angle ; and, 
 secondly, that the plate armour in the sculpture above the 
 capital of the north-east angle (Judgment of Solomon) is 
 later in date than the period which I assume for this work, 
 and later than the chain mail shown in the third and eighth 
 capitals of the sea-front. To the first objection a sufiicient 
 answer is that some of the best of the capitals to these 
 twelve arches are of original design — not rej)licas ; and 
 in rejily to the last objection (which is of much force) 
 the only, but at the same time obvious reply is, that 
 the Trajan capital, just under this late armour, is one of 
 the most beautiful of the entire series, and that on the 
 whole it is much more likely that some of the sculpture 
 was left in block and finished later, than that no difference 
 should be made in any of the mouldings or details of the 
 
 ' Thu capitdld wliicli are replicas of each other arc the 4th and SStli, the 
 7th and 28th, the 8th and 31st, the J)th and 29th, the lOtli and 30th, the 11th 
 and 34tli, the 12th and 33rd, the ISth and 2(Jth. The 25th, 27th, 32nd, and 
 3tjth (nortli-east angle) are original, thongh they are in the iiortliern jiortion 
 of the Piazzetta-l'rout. See Appendix, with key-plan.
 
 Chap. VUI.] THE DUCAL PALACE. 203 
 
 work of two periods. There is indeed some, tliougli not 
 very strong, evidence that the sculpture of this capital 
 is not earlier than about 1423. There is, according to 
 Zrtuotto, an inscription on it, "-f Duo Soci Florentini incise," 
 and he argues from the use of this last word, that the two 
 men were the same who made the monument to the Doge 
 Tommaso Mocenigo in 1423, in w^hich, according to Sanso- 
 vino, they used the same unusual term " inciserunt ;" this 
 interpretation of the inscription is the more allowable in 
 that, as I have said, the details of armour in themselves 
 suggest a date not much earlier than this for the sculpture 
 connected with it on the angle just above the cap. This 
 date of course brings this work to very nearly the same period 
 as that of the execution of the Porta della Carta, and it has 
 been assumed by some that these capitals were the work of 
 the Bons who built it. Such an assertion is as wild as that 
 of M. Didron, who says something as to their belonging to 
 the thirteenth century, for the very shortest inspection of the 
 Porta della Carta would convince the most scej)tical that no 
 part of the capitals could have been executed by any of the 
 men who wrought at it. In comparing the merits of the 
 carvers of the earliest and the latest capitals, it is due to the 
 latter to say that one of the finest of the w'hole series is this 
 Trajan capital at the north-w^est angle, and there is no 
 internal evidence in it wdiich could lead one to suppose it to 
 be the work of a man who would ever condescend to copy 
 another's work. 
 
 No one can examine the building without seeing that 
 there is not only in the detail, but equally in the general 
 design, a marked difference between the two lower stages 
 and the upper stage. In place of the extreme boldness 
 which marks every part of the former, we see mouldings 
 reduced in the latter to the smallest and meanest section 
 possible ; the windows of the upper stage are badly designed,
 
 204 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 whilst the traceries of the second stage are as fine as they 
 can i^ossibly be ; the angle-shafts of the upper stage are of 
 the latest type, elaborately twisted and violently defined, 
 instead of being merely delicate roundings ofi" of the hard 
 line of wall, as all the early Venetian angle- shafts are ; the 
 parapet, too, is not equal in its design to any of the lower 
 work, and crowns with an insignificant grotesqueness the 
 noble symmetry of the two lower arcades ; and finally, 
 the chequer- work of marble which forms the whole of the 
 upper wall is a mode of construction which I have not seen 
 in any early work, though it is seen in the Porta della 
 Carta (a.d. 1429), and in one other late work, the Palazzo 
 in the Campo Sta. Maria Mater Domini.^ 
 
 Looking at all the circumstances of the case, I think the 
 fairest explanation of them is, that the whole sea-front and 
 the six arches of the Piazzetta (columns 1 to 24 on the 
 plan) were first built, that the extension to the north 
 (columns 25 to 36 on plan) was then immediately undertaken 
 by the same artists, and finally that the whole uj)per story 
 was built and the sculpture of its capitals completed before 
 1423. The caj)itals of the lower arcade were probably 
 sculptured by degrees, and certainly not by one hand, 
 between the years 1310 and 1361. 
 
 There is a confirmation to some extent of this view in 
 a MS. in the Bodleian Library of the fourteenth century 
 (the Eomance of Alexander), which contains a curious 
 contemporary view of Venice. This drawing has been en- 
 graved at p. 26 of the second volume of the ' Domestic Archi- 
 tecture of the Middle Ages ;' ^ here it will be seen, with the 
 usual amount of licence which characterizes most mediaeval 
 
 ' The similar marble facing at Vicenza was executed between 1400 ami 
 1444. See p. 130. 
 
 2 Published by Mr. Parker, of Oxford, to whose courtesy I owe tlie use of 
 this illustration.
 
 28.— VENICE IN THE FOORTEENTH CENTDRY. 
 From the Romance of Alexander.
 
 Chap. VIII.] THE DUCAL PALACE. ^Of) 
 
 iei)i-esentatioiis of places or towns, that it has neverthe- 
 less been intended as an absolute representation of what it? 
 draughtsman had seen. The columns with S. Theodore and 
 the lion of S. Mark on their capitals, the bronze horses and 
 the domes of S. Mark's, the position by the waterside, and 
 the representation of the Ponte di Paglia, are all proofs of 
 tliis; but the important point for my present purpose is, that 
 he drew the Ducal Palace as a huilding of tico stories in 
 height — the first a simple arcade, the second an arcade with 
 tracery. In the distance behind this, his drawing shews a 
 picturesque assemblage of buildings, whilst figures are re- 
 presented behind the upper arcade as though it were only a 
 kind of immense balcony. There can be no doubt whatever 
 that this old drawing tells in favour of the view that the 
 upper stage was not built until after a considerable interval ; 
 for it is almost impossible — looking at the way in which the 
 rest of the drawing is made — to believe that all reference to 
 it would have been omitted, had it been in existence at the 
 time the artist saw it. 
 
 It will be seen that my supposition that the original 
 design of the Ducal Palace was of considerably less elevation 
 than the present building, would tend to make it very much 
 more like the Byzantine type than it is ; but even now 
 no one can dispute the family likeness. The amount of 
 constructive art is as nearly as possible the same. The 
 weight is supported by a succession of shafts placed at very 
 sliort intervals from each other, and in neither is there any 
 approach to the system of pier, arch, and buttress, so distinc- 
 tive of Gothic art in the North of Europe. The pointed arch 
 is used, it is true, in the palace; but, after all, the mere 
 use of the pointed arch does not make thorough pointed 
 architecture, and therefore, interesting as it is as a variety 
 of the style, the Ducal Palace is, I think, not properly 
 to be placed in the first class of Gothic ])uildings. Indeed^
 
 206 VENICE. [Chap. VIIT. 
 
 the second stage, whose exquisite beauty is the charm of the 
 whole building, does not exhibit the pointed arch at all in 
 a properly developed form, and is strong enough to support 
 the great weight of wall above, only by reason of the massy 
 character of its tracery, and not by the proper application 
 of constructional arches. I have already said that there 
 is no approach to buttressing ; but the angles require 
 some help, and this is given partly by increasing consider- 
 ably the size of the shafts, and partly by iron ties at the 
 springing of the arches running for some distance in each 
 direction from the angles. 
 
 All the mouldings are very simple ; they are generally 
 composed of three-quarter beads, small fillets, and large flat 
 hollows, constantly arranged in the same order. The label 
 of the main arcade is a plain bead. In the string-courses 
 l)oldly-carved flowers are repeated with a slight interval 
 between each, and the upper string-course has a row of 
 nail-heads in one of its members. The cusping of the 
 tracery is quite square in its section, and the cusps finish 
 with a square end, to which is attached — and with good 
 effect — a small circular ball of red marble. The parapet 
 is of the somewhat peculiar kind I have already mentioned, 
 and I confess I have never been long enough in Venice to 
 accustom myself to, or to admire, its extreme peculiarity of 
 both outline and design. 
 
 And now before we leave this subject let me offer a 
 remark, as every one who writes on it must, on the admirable 
 story of these sculptures. I have never sat in front of one of 
 them for any space of time without seeing some wayfarer 
 stop to study the story of some one of the capitals. They are 
 a book at which more thousands have looked with pleasure 
 for some five hundred years than at any other single book 
 in the world, with the one exception of the Bible. And the 
 lesson to architects is obvious. Concentrate your labour and
 
 Chap. VIII.] THE DUOAL PALACE. 207 
 
 your story on some one j'iirt of yoiii' building where uU men 
 may read it ; tell some simple story and yon will interest 
 your readers, if you will hut tell it so simply that hy good 
 chance they may he ahle to read it. Lay out a scheme so 
 well that if you die your successor may carry it on. Here, 
 as I believe, the architect completed his two stages of^ 
 arcades, whilst the sculptor was changed, but kept generally 
 to the scheme of subjects first of all laid down. At the three 
 (ixposed angles are the three archangels, below them the 
 moral lesson — as much wanted now as then — of the Drunken- 
 ness of Noah, and the Story of Tobit (with S. Raphael) ; at 
 another angle The Fall (under S. Michael) ; and at the last 
 the Judgment of Solomon (under S. Gabriel). In the lower 
 range of capitals the stories and catalogues of virtues and 
 vices ; the illustrations of fruits, animals, every-day life ; the 
 labours of the months, trades, sciences, and arts — are all 
 illustrated, and complete a cycle of subjects which, ill-treated, 
 would always have a certain value, and wdiich, well treated 
 as most of them are here, have the very highest charm. 
 
 For a building which owes its general impressiveness 
 entirely to the uniform character of its architecture, it is 
 especially fortunate that there should be so much also in 
 the detail to attract and reward constant and minute ex- 
 amination. It is for this reason that the range of great 
 capitals to the columns of the lower arcade is of so much 
 importance. They are so large, so close to the eye, so 
 interesting in their story, and on the whole so carefully and 
 artistically executed, as to afford the greater pleasure the 
 more the building is known. The key-plan to these capitals 
 which I give ' will be useful to shew what the general ar- 
 rangement of the subjects is. I have already shewn that 
 there are repetitions of many of the subjects, but it is equally 
 worth notice that the foliage which forms the framework for 
 
 ' See Appendix at llie vm\ of the volume.
 
 208 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 the subjects is also repeated. There are, I think, only four 
 varieties in its arrangement. In the first the capitals are 
 arranged very simply — in some cases rudely — with tufts of 
 foliage or heads. The capitals numbered 2, 3, 6, 13, 16, 20, 
 23, 27, and 34, are examples of this. In the next the foliage 
 of the lower part grows up vertically, bending slightly out to 
 support the sculptured subjects. These are generally the 
 most graceful of all, and infinitely richer in eff'ect than the 
 first class. The capitals numbered 1, 7, 9, 12, 18, 24, 26, 28, 
 33, and 36, are examples of these. In the third class the 
 foliage is generally marked by the same feeling, but it rises 
 vertically to the angles, and curls over under the subject ; 
 the 19th and 25th capitals are examples of this class. In 
 the fourth class the foliage curves over downwards, both at 
 the angles and under the subject. The neckings below the 
 capitals are wrought on the shaft itself. They are sometimes 
 moulded, sometimes corded, and sometimes delicately carved 
 with foliage ; these last are by very much the more beautiful, 
 and generally accompany the best wrought of the capitals, 
 whilst the inferior capitals have, in all cases, the plainer 
 necking. 
 
 The capitals in the upper arcade have not so much story 
 as those below. They have generally a head on each side in 
 the midst of foliage, and are sq^uare in plan, though the 
 lower caps are octagonal — a few only have their names 
 written over them ; but on the ground- story most of the 
 capitals have, or have had, exj)lanatory inscriptions. Some 
 of the upper capitals close to the northwest angle are among 
 the best. The curves of the foliage in the angles of the 
 capitals are admirably wrought, and may be compared, to 
 the damage of the latter, with some of the lower capitals in 
 the sea-front. The upper range of capitals gradually de- 
 teriorates from the north-west angle as you go to the south- 
 east. These last are really very bad, having rude gross carving
 
 r;iAi-. VIII.] THE DrCAL PALACE. 209 
 
 of tlie liniiian figure, and foliage feebly massed and treated; 
 lint tlie upper capital of the south-west angle with the 
 tigures of the four winds, and the two or three capitals near 
 it, must be excepted from this remark, being superb in design 
 and execution. 
 
 The remains of original work in the quadrangle are mncli 
 less important. The arcade on the first floor remains, but 
 none of its details are good, and on the east side it is a poor 
 Renaissance copy of the other sides. The whole of the lower 
 arcade has been destroyed or altered. But in the upper 
 walls, which are faced with brick, some of the original 
 windows remain ; they are small, but of the same sort of 
 detail and character as the larger windows in the outer walls. 
 
 The building has lost much by the gradual raising of the 
 pavement. This is now about twenty inches above the old 
 base of the columns, and their proportions are so far altered 
 for the worse. And it has lost immensely also by the de- 
 struction of the inlaid marble which once filled all the 
 spandrels of the main arcade. Two panels only of these 
 remain, and both in the sea-front. They are charmingly 
 designed, inclosing circles which exactly touch the labels 
 and strings. 
 
 Of the modern additions to this grand building I shall 
 not say anything. They are not beautiful in themselves nor 
 interesting by reason of their decorations, if I except those 
 walls on which Tintoretto has lavished so much of his skill. 
 The architects of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were 
 artists in very deed, and it is with their work only that I 
 can feel any real sympathy. 
 
 Such, then, is the Ducal Palace : a building certainly in 
 some respects of almost unequalled beauty, but at the same 
 time of unequal merit ; its first and second stages quite 
 perfect in their bold nervous character, and in the almost 
 interminable succession of tlie same l)eautiful features in
 
 210 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 shaft and arch and tracery, forming perhaps one of the 
 grandest proofs in the world of the exceeding vahie of perfect 
 regularity and of a repetition of good features in architecture, 
 when it is possible to obtain it on a very large scale. 
 
 Leaving the Piazzetta, and stepping into the gondola 
 which has been waiting for us hard by, let us now go 
 in search of other palaces ; but let us not imagine that we 
 are to see anything equal to the Ducal Palace. There is, it 
 appears to me, a great gap between it and all other Venetian 
 buildings ; and yet all others seem to have been founded on 
 it, or on the buildings out of which it grew. Their traceries, 
 seldom absolutely alike, have still so much general similarity 
 that at first one may well fancy that there is no variety at 
 all ; and, as I have before said, the general arrangement of 
 their windows and doors is so nearly identical, that this 
 impression is the more likely to grow upon the mind. 
 
 We will not attempt to take the buildings as they come ; 
 but rather as we think of them, and to some extent in the 
 order of their merit, let us note down a few of the glories of 
 the domestic work of Venice. And first let us stop in this 
 narrow canal, for we have by our side one of the most 
 exquisite little pieces of detail in the whole city. It is 
 an archway, simple and delicate in its proportions, lovely as 
 it is simple, and appropriately j)laced hard by the bridge 
 called " del Paradiso." I trust that my sketch is clear 
 enough to shew how pure and good the work is. The main 
 points to be noted are the characteristic flatness of the 
 details, and the line of dentil-moulding, which defines all 
 the leading architectural features, originally invented for 
 borders of incrustations at S. Mark's, and here, as every- 
 where in Venice, used for decoration afterwards. The 
 incrusted circles of marble on each side of the figure give 
 great life to the spandrel beneath the arch, and the windows 
 seen behind shew us a late example of tlie not unfrequent
 
 I'ONTE DKL PAUiiDISO. Vt'.NlCE.
 
 CiiAi'. Vill.] OOTHKJ PALACK8. 211 
 
 use of the semicircular and ogee arches together in the same 
 window. 
 
 Another precious fragment — the Palazzo San Giorgio, 
 I helieve — is reached from the land side by passing under 
 an arch somewhat similar to that on the Ponte del Paradiso. 
 This arch is turned between the upper stories of two houses 
 at the end of a caJIe properly yclept " dell' arco detto bon," 
 and is finished with a steep gable. Beyond it is seen a 
 fragment of wall veneered with marble, with the upper part 
 of an early two-light window, and two circular medallions ; 
 and above this a piece of w-all veneered in diamonds of red 
 and white marble — so far as I know, a unique example of 
 such a treatment. The window-head is of that earliest form 
 of ogee, a circle just turned up to a point in the cenire, 
 which has so manifestly an Eastern origin, and which must 
 not be confounded in date wdth our English ogee arches. 
 
 In another, and rather desolate, canal in the outskirts of 
 the city, wider than usual, and with a footpath at the side 
 of the water, instead of having the walls of the houses 
 running down into it, and forming its boundary, is the 
 Palazzo Cicogna, which I remember gratefully because it 
 is one of the few exceptions to the general rule of regu- 
 larity. The whole design of this building is very irregular : 
 a detached shaft at one angle supports a portion of the 
 house which overhangs and forms a sort of open passage- 
 way ; to the right of this opening is a four-light shafted 
 window, and then a plain wall pierced with two windows, 
 each of a single ogee trefoiled light. The upper story has 
 two single windows over the others, whilst over the larger 
 windows and the passage-way is a large window conspicuous 
 from its size and the peculiarity of its tracery. It is of six 
 lights divided by very good shafts, and properly arched with 
 I pure and good trefoiled arches ; above these, and inclosed 
 within the perpetual indented or l^illcted string-course, is a 
 
 p 2
 
 212 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 complicated system of intersecting circles pierced at regular 
 intervals with quatrefoils. The section of this upper part 
 is very much thinner than that of the arches beneath. 
 This window is in a most shaken and decayed state, and not 
 likely, I fear, to be long preserved. The whole elevation is 
 finished with a shallow cornice supported on corbels. 
 
 A doorway on the Ponte San Toma is quite worthy of a 
 visit. It has the usual square opening of reddish marble, 
 and above this is a pointed arch of moulded brick ; the 
 tympanum is filled in with a square carved centre panel, 
 and the ground beyond this with quatrefoils of brick or tile ; 
 very prettily disposed, and quite deserving of illustration. 
 
 And now let us go back to the Grand Canal ; we •. 
 shall enter it by the side of the Palazzo Foscari, which, ' 
 with two other contiguous palaces, occupies quite the post ^ 
 of honour at the bottom of the principal reach of the 
 canal, and commands the whole view of its noble and 
 ever-busy way to where the arch of the Eialto and another 
 bend in the canal close in the view. We will go a few 
 strokes only towards the Eialto, and then turn round to 
 look at the palaces we have just passed. They certainly 
 form a most magnificent group, and are in every way 
 worthy of their conspicuous position. The palace at the 
 junction of the two waters is that of the Foscari ; the 
 others belonged, I believe, to two of the Giustiniani family ; 
 and but a few yards up the canal, which runs by the side of 
 the former, is one of the smaller remnants of Byzantine 
 work already referred to. This grouj) is so well known as 
 scarcely to need any description — sufiice it to say, there- 
 fore, that throughout these palaces the windows are shafted, 
 and the glass is fixed in wooden frames behind the stone- 
 work. This is beyond all doubt what we ought to do ; it is 
 the only sensible and rational mode of adapting the system 
 of traceried and shafted windows for domestic purposes, and
 
 30 lOOORWftY. POJNITE S. TOJ^H . YEJMIC E 
 
 212.
 
 OiAP. Vni.] GOTHIC PALACES. 213 
 
 lias liere, as elsewhere, the prestige of ancient authority to 
 recommend it to the consideration of those amongst us who 
 will do nothing without it. I have enlarged on this point 
 elsewhere, and will, therefore, say no more upon it now, 
 save that in Venice such a thing as an English nionial 
 ordinarily is, was never known. Windows were invariahly 
 shafted from the earliest period to the latest, and so far 
 invariably of the highest order, inasmuch as they admitted 
 of the definite expression of the point at which the monial 
 terminated and the arch commenced, and inasmuch, too, 
 as the coloured surface of the detached marble shaft must 
 ever be far more lovely than the lines of tracery mouldings 
 carried down even to the sill. 
 
 The angle-shafts of the Palazzo Foscari have caps and 
 bases in each stage of the building ; those of the other 
 palaces continue up without interruption. 
 
 The date of the smaller palaces, and probably of the 
 large one also, is very early in the fifteenth century ; and 
 the latter had, in 1574, the honour of being the grandest 
 palace that the Venetians could find in which to lodge 
 Henry III. of France. They are all three very similar in 
 their design. Their water-gates are pointed, and the windows 
 in the water-stage small and unimportant. The second stage 
 is more important, and has cusped ogee window-heads and 
 balconies. The third stage is, however, the piano nohile, all 
 the windows having deep traceried heads and large balconies. 
 The fourth stage is very nearly like the first, save that 
 instead of balconies there is a delicate balustrading between 
 the shafts of the windows, which is very frequent in good 
 Venetian work, and always very pretty in its effect. All the 
 windows in these three palaces have ogee-heads generally 
 finished with carved finials, and inclosed within a square 
 outline formed by the small dentilled moulding, and giving 
 what I have l)efore had to refer to— to some extent the
 
 214 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 [Chap. VIII. 
 
 effect of a panel with a window pierced in it, veneered 
 on the front. The Foscari Palace is the only one of these 
 three that has any string-courses. The arrangement of the 
 windows — large in the centre and smaller at the sides — is so 
 nearly regular and of a sort of two-and-two kind of uni- 
 formity, that one scarcely notices that nevertheless, when 
 internal arrangements make it necessary, a departure from 
 this strict rule is allowed. 
 
 The back entrance to the Foscari Palace is on the side 
 canal. It is of some interest as retaining, in a very perfect 
 state, an example of a very picturesque treatment in brick • 
 of the Venetian battlement. This consists of a series of f 
 piers finished with a steep gabled outline, and pierced with j 
 trefoiled openings. A good example of this sort of battle- ' 
 ment remained near the Fondaco de' Turchi, and deserves « 
 illustration. It is quite a Venetian invention, and errs on 
 the side of quaintness. 
 
 liRICK BATTLEMENT — VENICE. 
 
 In a small courtyard, desolate and dreary, reached 
 after crossing the Ponte di Paglia and one or two other 
 bridges on the Eiva dei Schiavoui, is the Palazzo Badoer, a 
 fourteenth-century palace, the ogeed arches of the windows 
 in which are more than usually good; whilst the beauty 
 of the central window, inclosed within a square line of
 
 Chap. Yin.] GOTHIC PALACES. 215 
 
 luouldiiig, withiu which the \Yall is iiicrusted with iuia'l)le 
 relieved by medallions, is very great. The structure of 
 this, as of most Venetian palaces, is brick which has 
 been frescoed ; but it is now in a very lamentable state of 
 decay. The balconies of the lower windows are clearly 
 modern, but there is a trace of the original balustrade 
 between the shafts of the windows in the second stage ; and 
 in front of the side-lights to the upper window is a grille 
 of iron-work taking the place of a balcony, and composed 
 of a combination of quatrefoils. The arrangement of the 
 windows in this front is not absolutely regular, but still 
 the centre is very marked ; and though it is of early date, 
 the true use of the arch nowhere appears. The usuaP dog- 
 tooth cornice finishes the walls under the eaves. In the 
 courtyard of this house are two of the wells which give so 
 much character to all the courts in Venice. They appear 
 generally to be of early date, and look, frequently, like the 
 capitals of large columns, taken down and placed upon the 
 ground. Those in front of the Palazzo Badoer are perhaps 
 more like fonts. 
 
 Another palace, also said to belong to one of the Badoer 
 family, placed at the junction of two canals very near the 
 Scuola di San Giorgio and the Greek Church, is remarkable 
 as being now one of the very few houses in which the red 
 brick walls are still in their original state, and not defiled 
 by compo, paint, or whitewash. This house has three fronts, 
 with one old doorway on the canal, and two on the land. 
 The back facing the Campo San Severo has an unusually fine 
 and lofty entrance, a square doorway with a pointed arch 
 above (which I suppose once held tracery), and a group of five 
 windows with circles or disks of marble in their spandrels 
 
 ' I say •• usual," because it is rtally quite curious to sdi how repeatedly 
 either the dog-tooth or the nail-head is u.^ed in this position. The couimonest. 
 eaves-cornice consists of a simple chiimfered stone -the chamfer covered with 
 do^-tooth — supported ou moulded cornels at short intervals.
 
 216 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 above. Amongst other things it is remarkable as an instance 
 of the way in which windows were sometimes placed abso- 
 lutely at the very angles of the building. Judging by the 
 similarity of its tracery to that above the Porta della Carta 
 in the Ducal Palace, this angle window must date from about 
 1400 to 1430. It has a very bold shaft at the angle, whilst the 
 jambs have pilasters ornamented at their angles by a twisted 
 cord-like moulding, which is frequently met with in the 
 later work. There is a small angle-shaft elaborately twisted 
 just above this window, and very much like the angle-shafts 
 of the Ducal Palace. 
 
 The composition of the main window in the front of this 
 house is, I think, very striking. The lower window of four 
 lights (one of which is larger and loftier than the others — a 
 curious instance of the junction of regularity with irregu- 
 larity), and whose arches are ogee trefoils, is surmounted by 
 another window of four lights, with delicate balustrading 
 between the shafts ; and on each side of this upper window, 
 and forming part of the composition, is a single light, with 
 projecting balcony. The effect of the whole arrangement is 
 pleasing, and is frequently repeated in other palaces. The 
 marble incrustation over this window is very much like that 
 in the other Palazzo Badoer ; and from the centre of the 
 medallions of marble small balls of marble project, fixed with 
 metal, and giving great life and beauty to the medallions, 
 and I think without any sacrifice of truth. The main fabric 
 of this building must be of the latter part of the fourteenth 
 century — the arches of the princijml window being of a very 
 excellent though simple type. Venetian balconies, of which 
 this palace afi'ords such good examples, are very beautiful 
 and very characteristic. Nowhere else are they seen in 
 such perfection ; nowhere else, i)erhaj)s, were they ever so 
 absolutely necessary. The palaces rose out of the dark 
 water whicli washed against their foundations, and no ground
 
 31.— ANGLE WINDOW, VENICK. 
 
 Page 216.
 
 Cjiap. VIII.] 
 
 BALCONIES. 
 
 217 
 
 could be giveu up fur shady arcades as iu other Italian cities, 
 nor were there any paths to be strolled along ; the only 
 resource was, therefore, to gain from the air that which the 
 land could not aftbrd, and by projections in front of the 
 windows to obtain that power of enjoying the delicious 
 evening atmosphere, so cool and pleasant after the fatigues 
 of the too sultry day. These balconies are almost always 
 very similar, consisting of a number of delicate shafts with 
 
 BALCONY — VENICE. 
 
 carved capitals, supporting a piece of stone whose under side 
 is notched up in a series of trefoils (generally ogee), resting 
 upon the capitals of the shafts. These are divided occa- 
 sionally by pilasters, under which are corbels jutting out 
 lioldly to support their weight ; and above which sit, generally, 
 (juietly and placidly eyeing the gondolas as they shoot 
 silently by, small lions, dogs, or other animals — a quaint 
 finish which one soon learns to like ; their angles are often 
 marked bv corded luouldiiiiis, and the edffes of their tioors
 
 218 VENICE. [Chap. VITT. 
 
 and copings are almost always moulded and specked with the 
 perpetual notchings of the nail-head, and their under sides 
 or soffeits are frequently carved or panelled. 
 
 There was great variety in the planning of these 
 balconies. In the Palazzo Persico, for instance, in which 
 the central windows of the second and third stages form one 
 great panel, the lower balcony is continuous across all four 
 lights of the window, whilst the outer lights only of the 
 upper window have balconies, the two middle lights having 
 instead a balustrade between their shafts. In other cases the 
 balconies extend to four lights only of a six-light wdndow, 
 whilst in most they are confined to the central window's, to 
 which they give much additional dignity. The Ca' Fasan 
 affords an almost solitary example ^ of tracery in a balcony ; 
 and the effect of this is so vastly inferior to the usual shafted i 
 balconies, that it seems scarcely necessary to pause to 
 consider why it should be so. Obviously, however, it is not 
 very convenient to have the fretful points of cusps and 
 traceries set, as it were, to catch every projection or point 
 of your dress whenever you lean over the edge of the 
 balcony to inhale the fresh air or scan the busy scene 
 below. 
 
 In the Casa Persico, to wdiich reference has already been 
 made, the central window is an elaborate composition of the 
 same kind ; but the lower one is of more importance, and 
 has a continuous balcony ; and here I may notice the finials 
 with which the ogee arches of Venetian windows are so often 
 finished. They appeared to me to be invariably tasteless and 
 poor in execution, and very mean in their outline. I did not 
 see one finial in Venice which was satisfying, even when found 
 in conjunction with otherwise fine work ; and I used to wish 
 heartily, when I reached some palace not before seen, that 
 
 ' Tlicrc is a'lotlier tractiritd balcony in tlic canal near tlic Uritlgc of Sighs. 
 It is the oulj- other example I know in Venice.
 
 CiiAi'. VI IT.] THE CA' D'OIJO. 219 
 
 I might fiud its arches finished -without them. There was 
 some reason for the wish, too, in the fact that it is in the 
 Liter work that these tasteless ornaments are commonest. 
 I saw them first at Verona, and lamented over them there, 
 but at Venice I was positively annoyed by the persevering 
 and endless thrusting of their poverty and badness upon 
 my wearied eyes. 
 
 And now let us go again into the Grand Canal, and we 
 shall not have gone very far up the broad water above the 
 Rialto before we shall find, on our right hand, one of the most 
 striking groups of mediaeval palaces and houses which can 
 be seen anywhere, even in Venice; this is where the famous 
 Ca' d'Oro unites with some three or four other houses, of 
 rather earlier date, and gives a very fair idea of what the 
 water-scenery of the ancient city once was. There is some 
 difliculty in criticizing the Ca' d'Oro, because, in the first 
 place, it has been restored to render it fit for the occupation 
 of Mdlle. Taglioni ; and, in the next place, much of the elabo- 
 rate decoration from which it derived its name, has perished 
 or been destroyed. As it is, however, it is still a very 
 sumptuous example of the later fourteenth-century Gothic. 
 Its whole face is inlaid with squares of red and white 
 marble, and a great amount of carving is spread over the 
 entire surface, round and between the windows. This is 
 very flat, but good in its effect. The arcade on the water- 
 story, and the traceried arcades above, all open into recessed 
 courts — an arrangement peculiar, I think, among Gothic 
 houses, and similar in its purpose to the arcades in the 
 Byzantine palaces. Some of the balconies are good, and 
 the carving of the capitals and moulding of the window- 
 truceries are very characteristic of Venetian pointed. The 
 whole design is one-sided, and gives the impression of a 
 house to which an additional wing has been added. The 
 water-stage consists of an. open arcade of five arches, the
 
 220 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 [Chap. VIII. 
 
 ceutral arch round, the remainder j)ointed, and on one side 
 of these are two windows with a continuous halcony. The 
 second and third stages have, above the five open arches, 
 elaborately traceried windows, of no less than eight lights 
 in width, filling almost the entire front, the outside lights 
 having balconies, whilst the others have balustrading. Over 
 the two windows of the water-stage are single-light windows 
 in each stage. There are throughout this front many 
 medallions of dark marble, which, let into a field of light 
 marble, are most brilliant in their eff'ect. 
 
 The most remarkable features in 
 the Ca' d'Oro are, however, the 
 triple and elaborately carved and 
 chevroned angle-shafts, which I have 
 nowhere else seen,^ and the very 
 singular parapet. The height of 
 this is greater about the centre and 
 at the two ends than elsewhere ; 
 but this appears to have been done 
 rather with the intention of carry- 
 ing up to the very top the notice- 
 able division in the building itself 
 than for any other reason. A very 
 small portion only of the parapet is 
 perfect, and this it is rather difficult 
 to get at. The small balls of marble afiixed to the outer edge 
 of the trefoils are like those in the tracery of the Ducal Palace, 
 and in the centre of the medallions of marble everywhere 
 throughout the city. Their effect is certainly very piquant. 
 By the side of the Ca' d'Oro there are three ancient houses 
 of considerable interest, and the second from the Ca' d'Oro, 
 
 CAl'ITAL OF WIMKIW-SHAFT — VliNICK. 
 
 ' They may Ijc coinparcd witli tin; cliuvroncd and spiiiil columns in the 
 iiivliway, leading from tlic iiuith aiak; into the baptistery of tlie Frari, crcettd 
 between lotil and lo'M, wliieh is proliubly alxmt tlie date of the Ca' d'Oro.
 
 32. PALRS^IO $E<^f^EDO. VEj^ICE, 
 
 p. 221.
 
 CiiAi". VIII.] GOTHIC PALACES. 221 
 
 the Palazzo Segredo, was a very good example indeed ; it has 
 unhappily, I believe, all been restored and painted, so that 
 now few would believe that it could ever have been (as it 
 was) one of the very best works in Venice of its age. It 
 quite deserves illustration, on account of the extreme vigour 
 and beauty of its great window, which has more of the 
 flavour of the arcade in the Doge's Palace, than anything 
 else in Venice. These three houses are all more than usually 
 irregular in the arrangement of their windows. 
 
 Lower down the Grand Canal, and nearly opposite the 
 Post-office, is the Palazzo Pisani-Moretta — a very late 
 building, in which all the balconies are Eenaissance, with 
 ordinary balustrading ; but this occurs so often in connection 
 with the latest examples of Gothic work, that I am disposed 
 to believe that they were possibly, after all, contemporary 
 in their erection. This palace, too, is remarkable for its 
 double entrance-doors, with ogee arches, and for the manner 
 in which the central window is carried up in an uninter- 
 rupted way to the very cornice ; the lower traceries being 
 very fair, those in the upper story very weak and bad. 
 
 The Palazzo Falcanon (alia Piiva Tonda) is another fine 
 house. It has two water-gates ; is four stories in height, 
 the third being the principal floor ; the angle shafts are all 
 spiral, and the string-courses all ornamented with cable 
 mouldings, which, as is usual, are twisted in reverse ways 
 from the centre of the front. 
 
 The Palazzo Celsi, near the Frari, is, like the Badoer 
 Palace, an example of a fine regularly designed house with 
 its brickwork left in its natural state ; and the Palazzo 
 Orfei is an instance of the finest (and a very fine) front 
 being turned towards a campo and not towards a canal. 
 The long group of mediaeval houses which formed one side 
 of the Campo Sta. Maria Formosa was equally worthy of 
 admiration, but has lately been modernized — a fate which is
 
 222 VENICE. [Chap. VII F. 
 
 only too rapidly overtaking most of what one used to admire 
 in this once fortunately neglected city ! 
 
 The window of which I give an illustration, on the Ponte 
 del Fornaro, is a rare but extremely good example of the 
 combination of sculpture and tracery. Here the carvings 
 are good examples of the emblems of the four Evangelists 
 very ingeniously treated, and the whole window has more 
 force than most of the traceried windows. 
 
 With notices of two more buildings, the Palazzi Cavalli 
 and Barbaro, I shall conclude my remarks upon the existing 
 examples of Venetian domestic work. Neither of them calls 
 for much remark. The traceries of the Cavalli Palace are 
 heavy and unsatisfactory, and contrast unfavourably with 
 the greater simplicity of the windows in the Palazzo Barbaro. 
 The two palaces stand, however, in a very fine position on 
 the Grand Canal, commanding the view from the Foscari 
 Palace in one direction to the church of the Salute and the 
 mouth of the canal in the other. Nearly opposite them is 
 a very striking house, the Ca' Dario, built, I imagine, about 
 the commencement of the sixteenth century, before the 
 revived Classic feeling had fully possessed the Venetians, 
 and displaying some efi'ective and beautiful arrangements of 
 constructional decoration with coloured marbles. It is, 
 in fact, an attempt to revive, to some extent, the art of 
 incrustation, as practised at S. Mark's ; and so successful 
 is it, that I wonder much that more examples are not 
 met with. 
 
 In the Grand Canal, and near this spot, are many other 
 buildings, all worthy of illustration, but adding, I think, 
 nothing to what we already know. The Ca' Fasan is the 
 most unlike the other mediaeval houses of any ; but it 
 pleased me so little that I could not bring myself to waste 
 time by sketching it. It is only fair to say that in its 
 traceried balconies it approaches more nearly to the latest
 
 .VLn.rnilliaiuaH./R^) 
 
 :4. im'^h <\ObDO'^l. VK'^ICE. 
 
 p. 223.
 
 Chap. VIII.] VKXETIAX ARCHITKCTURE. 228 
 
 northern pointed than any other buihling in Venice, and 
 tliat it has perhaps at the same time less breadth and dignity 
 tlian any. 
 
 Two fine palaces ^ are now turned into hotels, and that 
 at which I stopped was full of remains of pointed windows ; 
 indeed traces of pointed work are singularly plentiful, and 
 I might go on to an interminable length were I to attempt 
 to describe them all. The Arsenal is old, I believe, but has 
 been modernized. It may be visited now for the sake of the 
 grand and quaint old lions which sit before its entrance. 
 
 Of the interiors of these houses I cannot say very much. 
 They usually have a great hall in the centre of each floor, 
 into which the various rooms open ; and the windows of 
 these halls are generally the most important in the eleva- 
 tion. The frames of the windows were of wood, placed 
 behind the traceries, and the original ceilings were the 
 moulded beams of the floors. I have only seen one good 
 Gothic staircase in Venice. This is in the Casa Groldoni, 
 and has for its balustrade a series of shafts with piers at 
 intervals. Its detail in short is that of the balcony, but 
 sloped up to suit the rise of the steps. Pointed arches of 
 brick carry the steps. This house may well be visited by 
 other than architectural pilgrims, and will be found near the 
 Ponte San Toma. A fine early lienaissauce staircase remains 
 in the Palazzo Minelli, near San Paterniano. This is circular, 
 with continuous open arcades following the rise of the steps, 
 the usual shafted balustrade filling the lower part of the 
 openings between the columns. The chimneys of these 
 palaces are very singular. Not many old examples remain, 
 but they are still copied, and that some of them are really 
 old is proved by the extent to which they are shown in early 
 Venetian paintings, as e.g. in the works of Gentile Bellini 
 and Carpaccio. In my illustration the examples Figs. 2 and 3 
 
 ' The Knropa and D.mieli's.
 
 224 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 [Chap. VII 1. 
 
 are copied from paintings, and Fig. 1 is from a palace near 
 the Ponte Bernardo. 
 
 f''3f I 
 
 fig.S 
 
 CHIMKEVS — VENICE. 
 
 J-iff.3, 
 
 And now that we have so far passed in review a series of the 
 finest remains of media3val architecture in Venice, it is time 
 to inquire how much is to be learnt by what we have seen, 
 and in what degree it differs from the developments of pointed 
 architecture with which we are familiar in Northern Europe. 
 
 I think the very first point to be observed is that in 
 Yenice architecture was never essentially constructional in 
 the sense in which it was in our own land. The pointed 
 arch is rarely used except in churches, and in its place 
 traceries, increased in size and scale to do their work, are 
 made to carry the entire weight of walling above them, as 
 is the case, to take the foremost example, in the second 
 stage of the Ducal Palace. And it is remarkable that, when 
 the arch was used, from a very early date it was the ogee 
 arch, and not the arch formed by two simple curves ; indeed 
 it may almost be said that the pure pointed arch was never 
 used, save where it would have been quite impossible with 
 any other contrivance to bridge the necessary gap, or 
 provide sufficiently for the weight to be supported. How 
 striking a contrast this is to the way in which in England 
 men worked with and exhibited the pointed arch, evidently 
 as if, and because, they loved it ! — using it not only as a
 
 Chap. VIII.] NKXHTIAX AlU'HlTI'C'I'n^K. 225 
 
 sturdy servant to do heavy work, but as the friend of whose 
 friendship they were ever the most anxious to boast. I do 
 not comphiin of the flatness and lack of l)reaks or recesses 
 in the masses of the great Venetian buiklings, because this no 
 doubt arose in part from the value of every foot of ground so 
 hardly gathered from the sea, and the difiiculty of throwing 
 out buttresses into the narrow depths of the canals out of 
 which they rise. And the same conditions which enforced 
 this flatness are grateful because they involved the charming 
 balconies vrhich are so peculiarly Venetian, and gave a 
 breadtli and simplicity to the outline which has its own 
 artistic charm. 
 
 In the science of moulding I cannot but think that it is 
 quite useless to compare works executed for the sunny skies 
 of Venice with those fitted for the gloomy sunlessness of a 
 northern climate. The one kind are as properly soft, gentle 
 in their alternations of light and shade, and delicate, as the 
 other are piquant and sharp, rejoicing in the dark shade of 
 deep hollows and endless intricacy of outline and arrange- 
 ment. But I feel no doubt whatever that, unfair as it may 
 be to compare one school with the other, seeing that each 
 worked for its own wants, it is yet most clear that the 
 Xorthern architects were developing a much deeper art, and 
 working with much more consummate skill, than were the 
 1 Venetian. The endless variety of the arrangement of 
 j capitals, and the necessary grouping of mouldings to fit 
 1 their varying outlines, was carried to the extreme point of 
 j perfection l)y the one school, whilst in the other not only 
 [was there much less depth and relief, but also very much 
 less variety. The abacus of the Italian capital was almost 
 [always square in plan, and, as an almost necessary con- 
 jsequence of this, mouldings retained very much the same 
 larrangement and shape ibr the whole period of the prevalence 
 of the pointed style, and generally rather leaned to tlie side
 
 22(3 VENICE. [Chap. VII I. 
 
 of heaviness than of delicacy. Venetian mouklings are com- 
 posed of the constant combination of a three-quarter bead and 
 a shallow hollow, divided by small fillets, and so invariably 
 arranged in almost exactly the same order, that it requires 
 very great care to decide upon the date of buildings by 
 their mouldings with any sort of approach to certainty. 
 
 In addition to simple mouldings, there are also the 
 ever-recurring ornamented mouldings which are so peculiarly 
 characteristic of Venetian works of all dates. These consist 
 generally of sections which in England we should consider 
 Eomanesque, but which in Venice appear to be much 
 more common in the latest works than in the earliest ; | 
 chevrons, cable-mouldings, billets, and the like, are seen | 
 everywhere, and suggest the question whether this class of ' 
 ornamented mouldings, so largely used in the early days of j 
 architecture in England and so little afterwards, might not 
 with some advantage be rescued from the contempt into 
 which it has fallen with modern builders. They have the 
 advantage of being within the power of any ordinary work- 
 man to execute, and do not, therefore, require the handiwork, 
 which is so rare and so precious, of thoroughly good carvers. 
 Add to this, that some features originally invented for use 
 in the way of holding together marble incrustations, were 
 afterwards used universally for their own sakes as ornamental 
 mouldings, for which office they were in no way fitted, and 
 I think nearly as much has been said as can be of Venetian 
 mouldings in stone. Those in brick are even less satisfac- 
 tory ; but they occur mainly about the churches, and, as I 
 do not recognize anything at all distinctively Venetian in 
 their design or arrangement, it will be better to say more 
 about them after we have seen the brickwork in other cities 
 in the North of Italy, compared with which that at Venice is 
 not of the first order. 
 
 In the practice of carving, as in that of moulding, I see
 
 CiiAi'. VIII.] VENETIAN ARCHITECTURE. 227 
 
 no reason for yielding- the palm to tlie Venetian. It is true 
 indeetl, that the Byzantine capitals — of which such magnifi- 
 cent examples exist at S. Mark's — are some of the most ex- 
 quisite I have ever seen, true and precise in their sculpture, 
 revelling in the utmost delicacy of intricate work, and always 
 refined and elaborated with great evidence of care and 
 thoughtfulness ; but after the earliest school, <and those later 
 examples in which they were copied and regarded as models, 
 there appears to me to be much less to admire. There is a 
 confusion and want of fixed purpose about many of those 
 which are commonly referred to as the best types of Gothic 
 sculpture, which is at best not satisfactory ; and I confess 
 that I came away much more pleased with some of the 
 Byzantine capitals than with any others. They have some 
 notable points of difference from those to which we are used. 
 They are generally much larger in proportion to the shaft 
 than ours ; and instead of having a regular neck-moulding, 
 they rise out of the shaft with a kind of swell, which, as 
 being less definite, is to me less satisfactory than our neck- 
 moulding. The capitals of all dates are very generally 
 similar in their outlines — this in part arising from the con- 
 stant occurrence of circular columns with capitals whose 
 abaci are square, and in part from the imitation, more or less 
 closely, of Byzantine models. Indeed, it is impossible not 
 to see how great an influence the earliest remaining work — 
 that of the eleventh century — had in Venice until the end of 
 the fourteenth and far into the fifteenth century ; the most 
 beautiful and striking arrangements of the former age are 
 reproduced and only slightly modified in the finest work of 
 the latter to a very remarkable extent : and so much more 
 decidedly and frequently than are the traces, in northern 
 pointed, of any hankering after the features of Eomanesque 
 buildings, that I think but one conclusion can fairly be drawn 
 from the sculpture of Venice as well as from its architecture, 
 
 a 2
 
 228 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 viz. that pointed architecture was never developed as purely 
 and thoroughly in Venice as in the North of Europe ; and 
 that, though it retained its sway there nearly as long as it 
 did elsewhere, it never thoroughly understood or felt its own 
 strength, and worked and toiled tied down and encumbered 
 by Byzantine fetters and Classic sympathies. There is much, 
 notwithstanding this, to admire — and, above all else, the 
 greatest beauty of the style^ wherein it so far left us behind, 
 the thorough appreciation and unsparing use of the shaft. 
 It is quite astonishing how very little this was ever used in 
 England. Occasionally, indeed, it was freely used in grand ' 
 buildings, and in some individual features it was frequently ; 
 seen in thirteenth-century buildings ; but at the very period \ 
 when, if ever, architecture was in its perfection — in the early ^ 
 part of the fourteenth century — it was almost entirely 
 forgotten and thrown a-ide. All honour, therefore, to the 
 men who so perseveringly and determinedly used it as did 
 the builders at Venice for three centuries ! And all shame 
 to us if we do not attempt for the fiiture so far at any rate 
 to follow in their stejjs ! So rare are any but shafted windows 
 in Venice, that at present I hardly remember a single 
 ins-tauce of a window with monials formed by the continuous 
 mouldings of the tracery ; and it is obvious that this gave 
 occasion, not only to the use of beautiful marbles — never so 
 well used as in shafts — but also to the constant use of carved 
 capitals. In domestic building-s, as I have before remarked, 
 this arrangement of shafted windows is very valuable, 
 because it suggests one obvious way in which we may unite 
 traceried windows with the very newest arrangement of 
 window-frames or sashes in the most comfortable nineteenth- 
 century houses ; for in these Venetian palaces the glass was 
 always contained in a separate wooden frame set within 
 the marble shafts and tracery.^ 
 
 ' 'J'liis arraiii^oiiifiit i.s not ])V tiiiv incinis unknown in Northern Europe,
 
 CnAi-. VIILJ VENETIAN ARCHITECTLIKK. 2:^9 
 
 Besides the use of the shaft in the ordinary way, I 
 must not forget to say that parapets frequently (or perhaps 
 it were better to say balustrades) — as, e.g., at S. Mark's — 
 and balconies everywhere, are composed of a vast number 
 of very delicate shafts, set very close to each other, and 
 surmounted by long pieces of stone cut out in imitation of 
 arching, and not really to be regarded as a succession of 
 arch-stones, but rather as coping-stones to hold the shafts 
 together. And, again, they are used very beautifully for the 
 support of open pinnacles, one at each angle, inclosing a 
 figure, just as in the monuments of the Scaligers at Verona. 
 Examples of this are to be seen in the pinnacles which have 
 been added between the gables of S. Mark's, which are 
 exceedingly good in their efi'ect ; and again in the pinnacles 
 which terminate the church of the Madonna dell' Orto. 
 
 One more point is worthy of remark — the treatment, 
 namely, of the angles of buildings. These were almost 
 always marked either by a roll-moulding or by a succession 
 of nook- shafts, sometimes extravagantly chevroued or other- 
 wise ornamented. This, when done simply, was always 
 satisfactory, but, in its later and more elaborate form, was, 
 I think, as unsatisfactory. The delicate rounding off of the 
 angles of walls was a point not unthought of in England, 
 In the thirteenth century a nook-shaft was the common 
 contrivance ; in the fourteenth, a chamfer ; and in the 
 fifteenth men reverted entirely to the square form. Here, 
 however, there is a great and very interesting variety in 
 this apparently simple feature. The most satisfactory plan 
 
 though cL-ituinly uncoiuiuoii as conijiaied with Italy, where it was ahuost 
 universiil. There is an example of the thirteenth century at Easby Abbey, 
 Yorkshire, and another at Oakham Castle ; whilst in France the ancient 
 houses at Cluny all have it; and at Katisbon, one of the most interesting 
 cities in (lermauy, a great number of houses of the twelfth iiiid thirtci nth 
 centuries, of j)rodigious architectural interest, have it.
 
 230 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 of all is where a quarter-circle forms the angle, and is 
 finished with a small incision in the form of a V on either 
 side, as it unites simplicity with strength of construction 
 and softness of contour, and does not force itself too \n'o- 
 minently upon our observation ; and, next to this, the most 
 satisfactory form is where, instead of the moulding heing 
 round, it is pointed at the angle. The twisted shafts of the 
 upper stage of the Ducal Palace, and the triple and 
 chevroned shafts of the Ca' d'Oro, are not improvements upon 
 the refinement of the earlier mode. 
 
 I have already spoken of the exquisite beauty of the 
 inlaid marbles in S. Mark's; nothing can be better than 
 their effect, and nothing seems more wonderful than that 
 they should not have been used more frequently in later 
 buildings. I was, perhaps, a little disappointed in not 
 finding, as I had expected, the marble arranged generally in 
 geometrical patterns ; but this is quite the exception ; and 
 one sees only, in a medallion here and there, the exquisite 
 beauty which their arrangement in this way may produce. 
 As a rule the walls are faced with thin slabs of marble, each 
 of the size in which it came to hand, sawn into as many 
 slices as its substance would allow, and then riveted to the 
 walls and held in place securely by projecting thin lines of 
 stonework built into the wall, and cut with indented or billet 
 ornaments along their edges. There is, however, a degree 
 of real as well as apparent weakness which is not at all 
 satisfactory in this system of incrustation, and I thought 
 how much more noble such work might well become, were it 
 to be inlaid only where no strong work was required to be 
 done— as, e.g., in spandrels of arches,^ or within arches— and 
 not as here to the concealment of every one of the necessary 
 constructional features. It is to bo observed, however, that 
 the slabs of marble are generally higher than they are wide, 
 
 ' [t \v;i- iMilv ftii u>ii| ill the Uiirjil rabice.
 
 CiiAP. VIII] INLAID MARBLES. 231 
 
 so as at once to destroy any thought of their being really 
 constructional. 
 
 The south side of S. Mark's is, perhaps, the place above 
 all others in Venice where this inlaid work may be seen to 
 the greatest advantage. Some of the great arches which 
 stand in place of gables are divided into four or five square- 
 headed lights by shafts supporting semicircular arches, the 
 tympana of which are filled in with delicate and perpetually 
 varied filigree-work in marble, whilst above them a succes- 
 sion of panels or medallions shews all the resources of the 
 rich materials which were to be exhibited. In another case, 
 just over the entrance from the Piazzetta to the church, 
 the tympanum of the arch is filled in with large medallions, 
 one exquisitely carved, the others plain ; whilst the arch of 
 the window below the tympanum has its beautiful marble 
 spandrels adorned on either side with medallions which, for 
 exquisite arrangement of vari-coloured marbles in geometrical 
 patterns, are perfectly admirable. There is enough, there- 
 fore, in the Venetian system of incrustation, though much 
 unhappily be lost, to give ample food for our study and 
 admiration ; and its only weak point is, as I have said, 
 its too frequent neglect or concealment of the constructional 
 features of the buildings it adorns. 
 
 It is easy, however, to cavil at particular details, and 
 scan with a critical eye the architectural beauties of Venice ; 
 l)ut let it not be thought for an instant that all the wonder- 
 ful pictures which every new turn or new point of view 
 l)iings before the eyes are unappreciated. A few days spent 
 lliore suffice almost to fill a lifetime with reminiscences of 
 all that is novel, beautiful, and strange ; and days such as I 
 have spent, year after year, rejoicing in the daytime in the 
 full brilliancy of a September sun, and at night in the calm 
 loveliness of a Venetian night, have been just the most 
 (Icliglitrul ill cvciy way that fonld be; passed.
 
 232 VENICE. [Chai>. VIII. 
 
 We were at Venice on the festival of the Nativity of the 
 Blessed Virgin— a great feast-day, which it had been my 
 fortune to spend some two or three times before in Koman 
 Catholic countries. I confess that here we were not edified. 
 We came in, as we went from church to church, for rather 
 more than the usual number of the desagremens which 
 always seem to attend the decoration of the churches, and 
 especially the altars, for such festivities abroad. The 
 strongest impression left on my mind was one of wonder at 
 the 2)altry character of the long array of what by courtesy 
 are called, I suppose, wreaths of flowers, manufactured of 
 pink gauze, or some equally unnatural material. These, 
 with vulgar draperies hung outside the chureh doors, and in 
 additional quantity about the altars, with the most noisy 
 and gladsome ringing of bells, completed the external 
 demonstrations ; all the shops were most studiously closed, 
 and the churches and open places were thronged with 
 people. At S. Mark's we heard ^ some abominably light 
 opera-music, which sounded, as may be imagined, very 
 discordant within its solemn walls. 
 
 One morning we devoted partly to the ascent of the 
 campanile in the Piazza. The ascent is entirely by inclined 
 planes ; the outer walls of the tower are in fact double, and 
 in the space between them these inclined planes are formed ; 
 and it is worth notice that to this day, in all buildings 
 which Ave have seen in progress in this part of the world, 
 inclined boards are used instead of ladders for obtaining 
 access to scaffolding ; and in one of the mosaics in the 
 entrance-porch of S. Mark's, where the building of the 
 Tower of Babel is depicted, precisely the same kind of 
 arrangement is shewn. This is interesting, as shewing the 
 tenacity with which old customs are adhered to. The view, 
 when the top is reached, quite repays the labour of the 
 
 ' I have liCtinl ;i polka played \>\ the orgu'iitit in tS. Mark's !
 
 CiiAi'. VII!.] LAST UAV IN VENICE. 233 
 
 Hseeiit, as it gives tlie best possible idea of what A^euice 
 really is. We get an impression of a very densely populated 
 town, hemmed in on all sides by water, and looking very 
 flat and low ; in the distance small islands pave the way to 
 the mainland, or shelter us from the sea ; these, where they 
 are more distant, look like mere l)lack spots on the smooth, 
 unrippled expanse of water : and in the far horizon we see 
 to the west the purple outline of the mountains about 
 A'icenza ; and to the north of these, and rising grandly into 
 the sky, the snowy peaks of the southern range of the 
 Friulan Alps. Below and around are countless churches, 
 all placed confusedly without respect to orientation — a 
 neglect, if anywhere excusable, surely so here, where land is 
 the exception and water the rule. 
 
 The last day we spent in Venice was most enjoyable. 
 We had been all day in our gondola, now stopping to sketch 
 some Gothic palace, anon shooting into some narrow canal 
 to escape the bright heat of the sun, winding our way now 
 here, now there, just as the fancy of the moment seized us, 
 and realizing more than ever that " the longest summer's 
 day was all too short " for a last day in so fair a place. In 
 the evening, just before sunset, we went out into the 
 Lagoon, and, rowing round the small island of Giudecca, 
 watched the gradually waning light reflected on the smooth, 
 calm water, which seemed too silent and too soft to be 
 disturbed by a word from any of us ; and then at last, 
 turning back and coming suddenly through a short canal 
 into the main stream just opposite the Dogana, we moved 
 on gently till we came abreast of the Ducal Palace. It was 
 just dark ; the moon was rising behind us in all her beauty, 
 and in front, lamp after lamp was suddenly lit along the 
 Piazzetta, then along the palace-front, all along the liiva 
 dei Schiavoni, until at last, before we landed, as far as we 
 cDuld see. the bright lights, reflected in a hundred gleaming,
 
 234 VENICE. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 flashing lines, were fitfully dancing in long streams of light 
 upon the bosom of the waters. 
 
 We stepped on shore to find ourselves led on by the 
 sound of military music, and to be tempted by the luxury 
 of ices eaten al fresco in the Piazza ; and then, when the 
 crowd gradually dispersed, we too, among the last, found 
 our way to our hotel, charmed so much with our last night 
 in Venice that it is impossible not to recollect that evening 
 with the deepest pleasure. 
 
 It is not without purpose that I have held silence with 
 regard to the churches and buildings generally of the 
 Renaissance school in Venice, These have had in their 
 time many more admirers than have the examples of 
 architecture which it was alike my business and my delight 
 particularly to examine ; and to the present day I doubt 
 not that nine people out of ten, led by their valets-de-place, 
 go to see what is worst in point of taste, and so reap the 
 reward of allowing themselves to be made to see with 
 another's eyes, instead of enjoying the intense pleasure of 
 working out and exploring for themselves all the treasures 
 of this mine and storehouse of ancient art. It is partly 
 because I feel the greatest repugnance to the buildings 
 themselves, and partly because I fear to make my notes, 
 already lengthy, far too long for the patience of my readers, 
 that I do not venture upon this additional field of study ; 
 but not in the least degree because I doubt the result, for I 
 believe firmly that, tried by the fair rules which must regu- 
 late merit in a constructive art, the Eenaissance buildings 
 of Venice would be no nearer perfection than those of any 
 other city. Something perhaps there is in the gloomy 
 grandeur of their vast masses rearing their rusticated walls 
 and deeply recessed windows darkly above the com- 
 paratively cheerful and bright-looking walls of the neigh- 
 bouring (iothic palaces, which may impress th(^ minds
 
 Chap. VIII.] I'AINTINGS IN CHURCHES. 235 
 
 of some, but they muat be of a sombre temperament who 
 really love them. Still more must they be of a tasteless 
 temperament who can endure with patience the succession 
 of eccentricities with which Palladio and his disciples have 
 loaded their churches. I pretend not, however, to discuss 
 the point. I had not time for everything, and preferred 
 giving up the attempt to like what from my heart I have 
 ever disliked, and what nothing that I saw in Yenice would 
 make me dislike at all less heartily. 
 
 Neither do I pretend to say anything about Venetian 
 pictures ; guides without number may be found of more 
 service and more knowledge, and to their hands I leave their 
 proper charge. A word only upon one point — their adapta- 
 tion, namely, to the sacred edifices of which they are the 
 most notable ornaments. 
 
 Now I must at once say that there is no church, so far as 
 I saw, in Yenice, with the single exception of S. Mark's, 
 which is to be compared in this respect (in its effect, that is, 
 as heightened by colour) with such buildings as the Arena 
 Chapel at Padua or the church of Sta. Anastasia at Yerona 
 — the one an example of the very noblest art working under 
 strict architectural limitations ; the other, of simple decora- 
 tive painting. The fact is, that the Yenetian pictures give 
 the impression that they might do elsewhere as well as in a 
 church, and therefore entirely fail in identifying themselves 
 with the walls on which they hang ; whilst no one can ever 
 think of the noble works of Giotto at Padua, without 
 recalling to mind the religious order of his works and their 
 identification with the building which contains them ; and 
 at Yerona the result of the system adopted in the painting 
 is marvellously to enhance the effect of the architecture 
 without in any way concealing or damaging it. In Yenice 
 the case is quite diff'erent. The church of San Sebastiano. 
 in wliich Paul Veronese is buried, and which internally is
 
 236 VENICE. [Chai-. VIII. 
 
 almost entirely covered with his paintings, is an example of 
 what I suppose I must call the best Venetian treatment. 
 This consists, however, of immense oil-paintings covering 
 entire walls, and absolutely requiring, in order that they 
 may be at all properly appreciated, that the spectator should 
 stand in a particular spot — in some cases by the side of the 
 altar — and that the windows should first have blinds drawn 
 down, and then, when he goes to look at another painting, 
 have them drawn up again. This is all very unpleasant. 
 But besides this, there is no very sensible advantage to the 
 colour of the buildings from these decorations ; certainly 
 they are far behind mere decorative paintings as vehicles for 
 bringing out the architectural features ; and so they are 
 visited very much as pictures in a gallery, and without in 
 any case being identified with the churches in w^hich they 
 are preserved. The mosaics at S. Mark's are, on the other 
 hand, some of the very grandest examples of the j)roper 
 mode of decorating interiors with representations of reli- 
 gious subjects, all conceived and arranged with some order and 
 relation to each other. But of the other Venetian churches 
 there does not seem to me to be any one whose artists at 
 all succeeded in equalling the example so early set them. 
 
 I do not pretend in these pages to speak at all of 
 paintings irrespective of architecture, or I might find much 
 to say upon the store of works, of a very noble school, in 
 which this great city is so rich. The immense rooms of the 
 Ducal Palace, covered as their walls and ceilings are with 
 the works of Tintoretto, Titian, and Paul Veronese, cannot 
 be forgotten ; still less can the many works of Cliovanni 
 Bellini, and of other painters in the churches, and in the col- 
 lection in the Accademia — rich among others in the works 
 of that great and interesting painter Oarjiaccio — be passed 
 over ; whilst the decorated walls of the various Scuole are in 
 mauY cases of liardly iiiCcrior interest. I am sorry that I
 
 Chap. Vlll.] PAINTINGS. 237 
 
 was obliged to take the great merits of some of the grandest 
 Avorks somewhat on faith ; it was in vain to think of actnally 
 studying them in a short time, and, educated as I have been 
 to love the works of an (earlier date and another school more 
 heartily than these, I must confess, barbarous as the con- 
 fession may appear to be, that I was not thoroughly pleased 
 with what I saw. The magnificence of the chiaroscuro and 
 colouring of these great pictures scarcely atoned to me for 
 the degree to which— owing generally to the immense array 
 of figures and confusion of subject — I failed to carry away 
 distinct conceptions of the story intended to be told. It 
 may b.^ said that this is the result of want of taste or educa- 
 tion, but still the feeling is so different when for the first 
 time pictures by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Eafiaelle, Perugino, 
 or Francia are looked at, that it is hard to avoid believing 
 that, though their power over colour may have been some- 
 what less, their power of attaining to the highest point of 
 tlie true painter's art — that of leaving indelible impressions 
 0)n the minds of all beholders — was immeasurably higher. 
 Thus much only by way of excuse for not saying more about 
 what the world in general rightly conceives to be one of the 
 great glories of A^enice. 
 
 And now I must say farewell, and, d(mbtful though I 
 may be as to the claims of Venetian art in the Middle Ages 
 to be considered as at all equal to that of the same period in 
 Northern Europe, I am very grateful for many new ideas 
 gathered and much intense pleasure enjoyed in the exami- 
 nation of its treasures ; and so, rather sadly laying myself 
 down to sleep for the last time in Venice, I began to deem 
 that my journey henceforward must be rather less interesting 
 than it had been ; with Venice a thing of the past, instead 
 of, as it was on my outward course, full of all the beauties 
 with which the liveliest fancy could crowd its walls and 
 palaces by anticipation.
 
 238 NEW ROADS TO VENICE. [Chap. IX. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 " A sea 
 Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
 Of blue Friuli's mouutains." 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 New Roads to Venice — The Pustertlml — Inuichen — Dolomite Moimlains — 
 Heiiigenblut - KotscLach^ Kirclibacli — Gail Thai — Hermagor — Ober 
 Tarvis — Predil Pass — fiorizia — Aquileja — Grado — Udine — Pordenoiiu. 
 
 To tliose who wish to find new roads to old haunts let me 
 recommend the road to Yenice described in this chapter. 
 A more interesting way for any one who has already travelled 
 through Lombardy to Venice cannot be desired. It affords 
 a sight not only of charming scenery,. primitive people, and 
 churches of some interest, but gives an opportunity for a 
 visit to Aquileja, Clrado, and Udine, all of them places well 
 worthy to be known by all lovers of architecture. Leaving 
 the Brenner railway at Franzensfeste, we made our way first 
 of all to Innichen. Here I found a very fine Eomanesque 
 church which, placed as it is not very far to the north of 
 the distant mountains which one sees from Yenice, and 
 full as it is of Italian influence in its general design, may 
 well be included in my notes. It is a cruciform church with 
 a central raised lantern, three eastern apses, a lofty south- 
 western tower, and a fifteenth-century narthex in front of 
 the rest of the west end. The nave is divided from the 
 aisles by columns which are, (1) ten-sided, (2) four half
 
 Chai-. IX.] INNICHEN. 239 
 
 columns uttaclied to a square, and (3) octagonal. The first 
 and third are massive columns decreasing rapidly in size 
 from tlic base to the capital. The central lantern has an 
 octagonal vault upon very simjile pendentives, and the apses 
 Lave semi-domo roofs. A fine south doorway has the em- 
 blems of the four Evangelists, sculptured around Our Lord 
 in the tympanum. Innichen is a small and unimportant 
 village, but boasts, I think, of no less than five churches ; 
 and fine as is the mother-church, I suppose most travellers 
 would agree with me in thinking the background of moun- 
 tains to the south of it, the most delightful feature of the 
 place. Truly I know few things more lovely than the 
 evening view of the churc]] and village, with the tall 
 fantastic peaks of the Dolomite Drei Schuster behind, lighted 
 up with the glowing brilliancy which is so characteristic 
 a result of the Dolomite formation, by the last rays of the 
 setting sun. Below all was gloomy, dark, and shaded ; 
 above the whole series of towering peaks seemed to be on 
 fire, and most unearthly did they look. The attraction of 
 such sights as I had seen before compelled me to give a day 
 to an excursion southwards to the Kreuzberg pass, to have 
 a glimpse, at any rate, of the Auronzo Dolomites, and I had 
 no reason to repent the day so spent. 
 
 Leaving Lmichen and going eastward, we w^ent first to 
 Lienz ; then, after a detour to Heiligenblut, we crossed 
 from the Pusterthal to the Gail Thai, and from thence across 
 the Predil pass to the Adriatic at Gorizia. From Innichen 
 till we reached the Italian sea-board, we saw and -were much 
 interested in a series of churches, generally of the fifteenth 
 century, and all built apparently by the same school of 
 German architects. They arc small mountain churches, and 
 are mainly remarkable for the comj)lieated and ingenious 
 character of their groined roofs. They have usually aisles, 
 columns without capitals, and no distinct arches between
 
 240 HEILIGENBLUT. [Chap. ]X. 
 
 tliem, but only vaulting-ribs. The panels between the ribs 
 are often ornamented with slightly sunk quatrefoils, or in 
 some cases regularly filled with tracery. 
 
 One of the best of these churches is that at Heiligen- 
 blut, in Carinthia. Here, where the main object of every, 
 one is the exploration of the mountains grouped around the 
 beautiful snow-peak of the Gross-Glockner, it is not a little 
 pleasant to find again, as at Innichen, a remarkable church 
 just opposite the inn-door. This was built as a pilgrimage 
 church to contain a phial of the sacred blood, and is ex- 
 tremely interesting architecturally as a church, built with a 
 regular system of stone constructional galleries round the 
 north, south, and west sides of the nave. The aisles are 
 narrow and divided into two stages in height — both groined 
 — and the upper no doubt intended for a throng of people to 
 stand in, and see the functions below. Now, however, just 
 as in most modern galleries, raised tiers of seats are formed 
 in them, and their effect is destroyed. A pretty Eetable at 
 the end of the north gallery suggests that originally perhaps 
 they were built in part to make room for side altars, but 
 this was clearly not the primary object. The fronts of the 
 galleries are covered with paintings of no merit, which illus- 
 trate the beautiful legend of S. Briccius, who is said to have 
 brought the phial of blood from the East, and to have 
 perished with it in the snow just above Heiligenblut. There 
 is a crypt under the choir, entered by a flight of stejDS de- 
 scending from the nave ; a grand Sakramentshaus north of 
 the chancel where the holy blood is kept (not over the altar) ; 
 and there is a lofty gabled tower and spire on the north 
 side of the chancel, whose pretty outline adds not a little to 
 the picturesqueness of the village. 
 
 From Heiligenblut, looking at churches by the same 
 hands on the way at S. Martin Pockhorn and Winklern, we 
 made our way back to Lienz, and thence, crossing the
 
 CiiAi'. IX.] HERMAGOK AND (mVAl TARVIS. 241 
 
 moimtaius, descended on Kotschacli in the Gail Thai, passinf^; 
 a good church on the road at S. Daniel. 
 
 Kotschach is in one of the most charming situations for 
 any one who can enjoy mountains of extreme beauty of 
 outline, even though they are not covered with snow to their 
 hase, nor are more than some nine thousand feet in height. 
 To me this pastoral Gail Thai, with its green fields, green 
 mountain sides, wholesome air, and occasional grand views of 
 Dolomite crags, among which the Polinik and Kollin Kofel are 
 the finest peaks, is one of the most delightful bits of country 
 I have ever seen. At Kotschach the architectural feature is a 
 fine lofty gabled steeple with an octagonal spire. It is very 
 remarkable how German these Germans are ! Here, close 
 to the Italian Alps, we have a design identical with those 
 of the fine steeples of Liibeck, and as vigorously Teutonic 
 and unlike Italian work as anything can possibly be. 
 
 Frt)m Kotschach a pleasant road runs down the valley to 
 Hermagor, another charming little town beautifully placed, 
 and with — no small attraction — a capital hostelry. On the 
 road, at Kirchbach, the drivers of the country waggons in 
 which we were travelling pulled up their horses, to my no 
 small delight, in front of a most interesting mediaeval 
 churchyard-gate ; this is a simple archway overshadowed 
 by a shingled pent-house roof, to whose kindly guardianship 
 we owe it that a fifteenth-century painting of S. Martin 
 dividing his cloak with the beggar, and several saints under 
 craftily-painted canopies, are still in fair preservation on the 
 wayside gate, making one of the most lovely pictures possible 
 on the road. 
 
 At Hermagor, where the grand and massive mountain 
 range of the Dobratsch to the east, and the Gartner Kogel to 
 the west, give never-failing pleasure to the eyes whichever 
 way they turn, there is another fine church, very much of the 
 same character as that at Heiligenblut, but without galleries. 
 
 K
 
 242 AQUILEJA. [Chap. IX. 
 
 Between Hermagor and Ober Tarvis the churches are 
 not important, but one in the village of S. Paul has the 
 unusual feature of a cornice under the external eaves effec- 
 tively painted in the fifteenth century, with elaborate and 
 very German traceries in red and buff, which are still fairly 
 perfect. 
 
 At Ober Tarvis the Predil Pass is reached ; and starting 
 from thence in the morning, passing on the ascent the pretty 
 Eaibl See, and on the descent some of the most stupendous 
 and aweful rocky precipices I have ever seen, we reached 
 Flitsch to sleej), and on the following afternoon emerged 
 from the mountains at Gorizia, not far from the head of the 
 Adriatic, after a long and beautiful drive down the valley of 
 the Isonzo. 
 
 I found absolutely nothing old to see here. It is a 
 smart town, in which the hand of the improver has been 
 particularly busy in the work of destruction ; but it is the 
 most convenient starting-place for a visit to Aquileja and 
 Grado, and provides good horses and vehicles. 
 
 It is a drive of about a couple of hours from Gorizia to 
 Aquileja. The country is perfectly flat, but teeming with 
 vegetation, and it is not until the end of the journey is 
 reached that one realizes under what baleful conditions life 
 or existence is endured here. A Eoman capital and a 
 fragment or two of Roman columns or mouldings are all that 
 one sees at first to show that one is driving into one of the 
 greatest of the old Eoman seaports. Here, where l)efore its 
 destruction l)y Attila in a.d. 452 the population is said to have 
 been al)out a liundred thousand in number, there are now 
 only a few poor houses, and a sparse population, pauperized 
 and invalided by fever and swam2)s on every side, whilst the 
 sea has retreated some three miles, and left the 2)lace to its 
 misery without any of the compensating gains of commerce. 
 Certainly Torcello is a degree more wretched and deserted.
 
 ClIAI'. IX.] 
 
 'J HE DUOMO. 
 
 243 
 
 l)ut these two old cities have few comjjeers iu misery, uiilI i 
 advise no one hut an antiquary to make the pilgrimage to 
 Aquileja, who is not quite prepared to tolerate dirt, misery, 
 and wretchedness with nothing to redeem them. 
 
 The one great interest in the city now is the cathedral. 
 This is a great cruciform 1)asilica, with a central and two small 
 
 -^^/f" <«*5c- 
 
 PATUIAKCH'S THRONE — AQUlr.EJA. 
 
 apses east of the transept, and eleven arches l)etween the nave 
 and aisles. The arrangements of the apse are interesting ; 
 two flights of steps lead up to it from the nave, and in the 
 centre of the east wall is the patriarch's throne of white 
 niarhle, well raised on a platform above the seat which goes 
 round the apse. The whole arrangement is singularly well 
 preserved, and looks very well iu sj)ite of the destruction of 
 
 K 2
 
 244 AQUJLEJA. [Chap. IX. 
 
 most of the mosaic pavement with which originally no doubt 
 the floor was laid, of which only a few tesserae now remain, and 
 in spite also of the modernization of the rest of the apse. This 
 throne appeared to me to he not earlier than circa 1150, though 
 the church is said to have been built between 1019 and 1042. 
 These dates must, I think, be taken with large allowance for 
 alterations. With the exception of the apse and the crypt 
 under it, I believe the greater part of the church was 
 rebuilt in the fourteenth century ; for though the Eoman 
 capitals (which were everywhere ready to the hand) were 
 used on the ancient columns, the arches carried by them are 
 pointed, and the clerestory is evidently of the same age. This 
 combination of Classic columns and sculpture with pointed 
 arches is so very unusual, that it is quite worth while to 
 give an illustration of the interior. The columns, capitals, 
 and bases are of varied shapes and sizes, and evidently a 
 mere collection of old materials which happened to be handy 
 for the builder's use ; the arches are rudely moulded, and the 
 clerestory of cinquefoiled windows, each of a single light, is 
 as insignificant as possible, and yet withal there is so grand 
 an area inclosed that the effect is good and imj)ressive. The 
 nave is divided from its aisles by eleven arches on each side, 
 and measures about one hundred and fifty feet in length, by 
 one hundred and five in width. The aisle roofs are modern, 
 but the nave still retains its old roof, a fine example of a 
 cusped ceiling, boarded and panelled in small square panels. 
 The whole of this ceiling is painted, and with extremely 
 good eff'ect, though the only colours used are black, white, and 
 brownish yellow. Each panel is filled with a small painted 
 hexagon filled with tracery painted in black and white, and 
 all the ribs and leading lines are yellow and black. The 
 purlines, which are arranged so as to form the points of the 
 cusps, are very decidedly marked with black. Simple as the j 
 treatment is, the effect is admirable, and it ap})eared to me
 
 
 to
 
 Chap. IX.] THE DUOMO. 245 
 
 to be owing to the large amount of white in the panels. 
 Near the west end of the north aisle is a singular circular 
 erection, which is said by the cicerone to be the receptacle 
 for the holy oil, but which without this information I should 
 have taken for the baptistery. It is a perfectly plain circular 
 mass of stonework about fifteen feet across, with a doorway 
 on the west side, a moulded base and cornice, and above the 
 latter a series of detached shafts carrying a second cornice of 
 marble. A square projection on the north side abuts against 
 the aisle wall, and seems to have been the special receptacle 
 for the vessel which held the oil. At present it seems to 
 be as little used and understood by the people of Aqivileja as 
 it would probably be if it were in some country beyond the 
 Eoman pale ; a remark by the way on old church arrange- 
 ments which one finds oneself making almost everywhere, 
 when one contrasts the intentions of the old builders with 
 the uses to which more modern ideas — reformed or deformed, 
 whichever they may be — are in the habit of applying them. 
 
 At Aquileja the appropriation of jjagan fragments was 
 carried so far that we found Classic capitals doing service as 
 holy-water stoups. 
 
 The interior of the eastern part of the church is more 
 interesting than that of the nave. It is all probably of the 
 original foundation, and retains most of the old arrangements. 
 The floor of the choir is raised some ten or twelve steps, with 
 two flights of steps on each side of the centre. At the top 
 of these steps, projecting sideways into the transepts, are 
 tribunes with open balustrades which seem to have served as 
 ambons. The apse has two rows of seats, with the patriarch's 
 seat raised in the centre, and the altar stands in front of 
 this on the chord of the apse. It is curious that this, which 
 is an apse internally, is a square projection from the transept 
 externally. 
 
 A descent on each side under the trilaincs leads to the
 
 246 AQUILBJA. [Chap. IX. 
 
 crypt under the raised choir. This is very small, but is 
 divided into three aisles in width, and four bays in length. 
 The central space is screened round jealously with close grilles 
 reaching from floor to vault, so as to protect the shrine of 
 S. Hermacora, which occupies the centre. But little light 
 steals into this crypt, and that little has to find its way 
 between rank weeds which grow up round the windows ; but 
 there is quite enough to reveal vaults covered with paintings 
 of subjects, and to show as picturesque and beautiful an 
 ensemhie as one need wish to see. Kneeling desks were 
 placed round the shrine, but the cultus of S. Hermacora 
 seems to be no longer popular, and the only pilgrims are 
 curious visitors like ourselves. The paintings on the 
 groining ajopeared to me to be of not earlier date than 
 the fourteenth century, and are very cleverly contrived to 
 suit the early vaults. 
 
 The transepts remain to be mentioned. Each has a small 
 eastern apse near the extreme end, and a tomb or shrine 
 between this apse and the choir -tribune. These are of the 
 thirteenth century, and are enormous blocks of stone, panelled 
 and carved in front, and supported on four detached sliafts. 
 In the south transept there are fragments of a Byzantine 
 screen round the altar in the small apse, which are of rare 
 l)eauty and intricacy. The screen consisted of a solid base, 
 ])reast-high, covered with carving, and upon which columns 
 stood originally at intervals of six feet, just as in the screen 
 at Torcello, of which I have given a view. 
 
 There is an early painting of Our Lord, seated on a throne 
 in the semi dome of this apse, and there are remains of an 
 early wall-painting in the choir-apse, partly covered by a 
 fifteenth-century picture in a good frame. The choir stalls 
 are of elaborate intarsiatura work, and date from the end 
 (if the sixteenth century. 
 
 A little way to the noitli of the ehureJi stands its (•am}»a-
 
 Chap. IX.] OUADO. 247 
 
 uile, a tall plaiu mass of masoury, with the date MDXLViin. 
 oil the iii)per stage, and the inscription " Tadeus Luramis hoc 
 o.feeif" It is worth the climb to the top to get the view 
 over the flat surrounding country, which reveals what one 
 fails to see from the dead level of the road, that the Adriatic 
 is not far off — far enough, it is true, to have ruined the port 
 of Aquileja — hut so near as to he a very important element 
 in the fine prospect. From here we saw through the haze 
 the island of Grrado, on which I cast longing eyes in vain. 
 My information as to the distance had been all at fault, and 
 I thought that in a long day from Gorizia, I might see both 
 Aquileja and Grado. This is, however, quite impossible, as 
 the boatmen required, they said, three hours for the trajet 
 each way. It was a misfortune to miss the church at 
 Grado, which contains much that is worth seeing, and has 
 considerable historical interest, as the seat of a patriarch, 
 wliose jurisdiction included Malamocco, Venice, Torcello, and 
 Chioggia — and whose importance is vouched for by its old 
 titles, " Venetse orae Istriaeque Ecclesiarum caput et mater," 
 and " Aquileja nova." 
 
 The patriarch's throne and the anibon or pulpit, which 
 still remain in the church at Grado, are evidently extremely 
 fine examples of Byzantine furniture. The former cor- 
 responds with that of Aquileja, but has the rare addition of 
 a flat canopy or tester supported in front by two columns, 
 which rest on the side walls of the steps leading up to the 
 scat. Probably there was a similar canopy at Aquileja. 
 The dignity of the patriarchal throne is not a little increased 
 by the addition, simple as it is in its decorative features. 
 The pulpit is even more striking; it is six-sided, all the 
 sides being arranged in a «eries of bold circular projections, 
 with sculptures of the Evangelistic emblems on their face. 
 The pulpit is supported by a central shaft, and six smaller 
 columns alternately plain and spiral, and above the pulpit a
 
 248 UDKXE. [Chap. IX. 
 
 series of octagonal shafts are provided to support a canopy 
 or dome over the head of the preacher. These columns 
 carry arches which are of the common Venetian ogee trefoil 
 outline, and, there can be little doubt, are later than the 
 pulpit. The combination is, however, very picturesque, and 
 not the less interesting in that it has a most strangely 
 Eastern look.^ 
 
 The rest of my party went, whilst I was sketching in the 
 cathedral at Aquileja, to look at the baptistery. They 
 reported it to be as completely modernized inside as it 
 certainly is outside, and so I failed to enter it. I believe I 
 lost nothing, though at one time it was well worthy of a 
 visit. 
 
 A rapid drive back to Gorizia was made with the advan- 
 tage of a view of the mountains before us all the way ; and 
 we arrived in time to avail ourselves of the last train to Udine, 
 which we did not reach until after dark. 
 
 I arrived here in entire ignorance of what might be in 
 store for me in the way of my art. I had seen no drawings of 
 any of its buildings, and I suspect that most of my readers 
 are in the same state of ignorance. It was with no little 
 pleasure, therefore, that my earliest stroll in the morning 
 brought me to a Palazzo Publico, which if not exactly magni- 
 ficent in scale is at least very imj^ortant, and has the 
 special merit in my eyes of being all Gotliic, and almost 
 unaltered on the outside since its erection. It stands in a 
 piazza which some sixteenth or seventeenth century scenic 
 architect has treated with considerable skill. One or two 
 public buildings and a steep hill behind them have been 
 dealt with in such a way as to call to mind such a disposition 
 of buildings as one sees, e.g., on the Capitol at Piome, and no 
 doubt so as to increase very much the apjiurent importance 
 
 ' I take thf.-3e uotes of (irado from ' Miltolalterliclie Kuiibttlcnkmale des 
 Oostorreichibchen Kaitcrstaatcf^.' J^tuttKait, 1858.
 
 37. ?hhnZ20 PUBLICO. l/r>I]VE. 
 
 249.
 
 Cjiap. IX.] PALAZZO PUBLICO AND DUOMO. 249 
 
 of tliis little city. The Palazzo Publico is a building of two 
 stages in height, the lower entirely open with pointed arches 
 resting on columns, and the upper presenting on its prin- 
 cipal front a large balconied window, or Ringhiera, in the 
 centre, and smaller windows on each side of it, and at the 
 ends. The cornice and roof are modern, otherwise the whole 
 design is intact, and exactly in the state in which its architect 
 left it. The character of the design is clearly Yenetian, and 
 the date about the beginning of the fifteenth century, but 
 still it is not slavishly Venetian as the houses of Vicenza are, 
 but on the face of it the work of a local architect who knew 
 enough of what was being done in Venice to profit by it 
 without absolutely copying. 
 
 The lower or ground story is open on three sides, and 
 has ten arches in front, and five at each end. The sj)ace 
 inclosed is irregularly divided by a longitudinal line of 
 columns, carrying semicircular arches, which suj)port the 
 walls of the rooms above, the access to which is by a modern- 
 ized staircase in the rear. The materials of the walls are 
 generally red and white marble. The balustrades between 
 the columns and the staircases leading to them are so good 
 and complete as well to deserve illustration. The upper 
 part of these, including the cusped heads to the openings, is 
 of white marble, whilst the shafts are alternately of the same 
 material and of serpentine. The upper story is modernized 
 within ; but one learns to be grateful for small mercies, and 
 it was certainly with every feeling of gratitude to later 
 architects that I sketched this really beautiful building, 
 which they have been good enough to leave so nearly un- 
 altered on the outside. 
 
 The state of the cathedral is less a subject for thankfulness ! 
 The whole building has been completely modernized within 
 and without, with the exception of the west front and the 
 tower. The former was the farade to a nave with two aisles
 
 250 
 
 UDINE. 
 
 [Chap. IX. 
 
 on either side, or perhaps with one aisle and chapels beyond. 
 All the roofs are of the same flat pitch, and stepped regu- 
 larly so as to give a broken and bad outline to the mass. 
 The work is mainly of brick, with some good detail in the 
 windows of the outer aisles, of which I give an illustration. 
 The west doorway is of the fourteenth century, with a 
 very steep crocketed gable between pinnacles, and a badly 
 
 AISLE WJNDOWS— DUOMO, UDINK. 
 
 sculptured tympanum with a curious assortment of subjects ; 
 in the centre the Crucilixion, right and left of this the 
 Resurrection and an Agnus Dei, and above it the Nativity. 
 Three circular windows light the three centre divisions of 
 the front, and the two lower are connected by a broad band 
 of brick arches which crosses the entire front just below the 
 central circuLu' window. There is not a word to be said in 
 favour of such a design. It is old, and that is its only virtue !
 
 3$. jyii^fiO. ITDIjXfE. 
 
 p. 250.
 
 \
 
 CiiAi'. IX.] DUUMO. 251 
 
 The tower is more interesting, though it is only an incom- 
 plete fragment. The lower stage is of stone built in dark and 
 liglit courses, with a large sunk recess on each side. On the 
 west side is a fine doorway built of alternate courses of white 
 marble and serpentine, and there are small circular windows 
 in tlio cardinal sides just above the lowest stage. Above these 
 tlie whole is a plain mass of brickw'Ork, of which a very small 
 portion only seems to be original. This tower is no less than 
 dfty.-twt) feet in outside diameter, and its lowest stage is 
 finely groined, with no provision for the passage of bells. 
 It might almost as well have been intended for a baptistery 
 as for a tower ! It stands close to the north side of the choir, 
 and by its side is a rather fine doorway leading into the 
 transept, with a good deal of late Gothic sculpture and archi- 
 tectural detail. There are niches and figures in the jambs and 
 round the arch, the Coronation of the Virgin under the latter, 
 and figures of the Annunciation stuck against the wall on 
 cither side in a very haphazard fashion. The strange con- 
 trast in style between these two doorways will be seen in the 
 illustration which I give. Here we have, side by side, ex- 
 amples of the most pronounced kind of two national styles 
 of Gothic; the door into the tower being as clearly Italian 
 in its beautiful colour and refined simplicity, as that into the 
 church is German in its cleverness, want of repose, and hard 
 angularity of detail. 
 
 The only other old churches I could find in Udine were 
 San Giacomo and that of the Ospidale. The former is 
 modernized, but retains an early square brick belfry, arcaded 
 below, and with simple pointed windows of two lights above. 
 The church of the Ospidale is also modernized. The facade 
 has a gable with an old brick eaves-arcade, and the only too 
 I'ommon feature of a large circular window inclosed within 
 a s(|iiarc border. 
 
 A picturesque lienaissance well -canopy (dated 1487) over
 
 252 PORDBNONE. [Chap. IX. 
 
 the Fonte di San Giovanni was tlie only other feature I 
 coukl find worth sketching or making a note of; and having 
 seen everything, I took the railway on again to Venice, 
 
 The views of the Friulan Alps, under which one travels 
 for some distance, are very exquisite. We passed Conegliano, 
 where I once left the railway for a journey through the heart 
 of the Dolomite country to Cortina d'Ampezzo, and, to my 
 regret, hurried past Pordenone, having forgotten that at 
 any rate a tall hrick campanile was there, which seemed 
 to promise some reward to the visitor. It is of plain arcaded 
 brickwork below, and the upper stage is slightly battered 
 out with very tall machicoulis, from within the parapet of 
 which a smaller octagonal stage rises, covered with a low 
 sjjire. The whole composition as one sees it from the railway 
 is unusual and very good, and recalls just a little the cam- 
 panile of the Palazzo Publico at Siena.
 
 Chai'. X.] DEPAirrUKE FROM VENICE. 253 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " With all its sinful doings, I must saj- 
 Tiiat Italy's a pleasant place to me, 
 
 Who love to see the sun shine every day. 
 
 And vines (not nail'd to walls) from tree to tree 
 
 Festoon'd." Bcppo. 
 
 Veuice to Verona — Verona to Mantua^ Villa Franca — Mautua : Wa 
 Churches and Palaces — The Theatre — Montenara — Campitello — Casal- 
 niaggiore — Longadore — Cremona: the Cathedral — Churches and Public 
 Buildings — Lodi — Pavia : its Churches — Castle of the Visconti — The 
 Certosa — Drive to Milan. 
 
 Our gondolier, anxious not to be too late for ns in the 
 morning, slept in his gondola beneath our windows, and did 
 his best, when the sun rose, to rouse the sleepy porter of our 
 hotel, but ill vain ; and at last, when I awoke, I found we 
 should have a very narrow escajie, if indeed we did not 
 absolutely lose our train. The thing was, however, to be 
 done, and was done. "We shot rapidly — only too rapidly for 
 the last time — along the smooth waters on which we had 
 been so pleasantly loitering before, and soon found ourselves 
 at the railway station. Our journey was much like what 
 such journeys usually are : as far as Verona we were only 
 retracing our steps, l)ut now the hot sun had quite cleared 
 away the clouds which, when we passed before, hid the 
 Tyrolese Alps from our sight, and these, whenever the high 
 acacia hedges which line the railway allowed us a sight of 
 them, made the journey so far beautiful.
 
 254 YEliONA TO MANTUA. [Ciiai. X. 
 
 The names of the engines on this railway are very unlike 
 the kind of nomenclature indulged in at home ; we were 
 drawn to Yerona, I helieve, by the Titian, and saw, as we 
 rushed along, engines named after Dante, Sansovino, and 
 other artistic and literary celebrities. 
 
 We reached Verona at ten o'clock ; the station, hoAvever, 
 is so much out of the town, and the day was so intensely 
 hot, that we gave up the idea of again going into it, and, 
 contenting ourselves with the general view of its quaint and 
 picturesque walls rising over the rugged hills which girt the 
 city on its northern side, we sat down to a breakfast of iced 
 lemonade and some of those deliciously light cakes which are 
 never had in such perfection as in Italy, and amused our- 
 selves by watching the way in which the guards and drivers 
 of the train by which we had travelled proceeded to solace 
 themselves with a game at l)illiards, upon a table provided, 
 I suppose, by the very considerate directors of the railway 
 company. 
 
 The railway from Yerona to Mantua crosses a country 
 which is thoroughly uninteresting in point of scenery ; it 
 carried us on well into the great plain of Lombardy, rich, 
 teemingly rich, in its produce, but flat, arid, and sultry to a 
 degree. This was altogether one of our hottest days, and 
 took us fairly into a kind of district in which the heat is 
 most oppressively felt. 
 
 On the road we passed Yilla Franca, a small town which 
 has a rather striking castle, with battlemented walls and a 
 good many square towers, still very fairly perfect ; the whole 
 built in brick, and with battlements finished square at the 
 top, and not forked lik(; those at Yerona. 
 
 We reached the station at Mantua by twelve o'clock, but, 
 as this was very far from the city, it was nearly an hour 
 later before we were fairly landed at one — I forget which — 
 of the abominably dirty and bad inns to which sojourners
 
 Chai'. X.] MANTUA. 255 
 
 within its walls have to submit with the host grace that 
 they call. 
 
 ]\[antna is nearly surrounded by water ; two large shallow 
 and unwholesome-looking lakes giving it this far from 
 pleasant kind of isolation. Over a long mediaeval bridge 
 between these waters the way into the city from the terminus 
 lies. One of the lakes is higher than the other, and accord- 
 ingly twelve mills, each adorned wath a statue of an apostle, 
 are formed upon the bridge, and give it its name of Ponte 
 Mulina. 
 
 The general aspect of Mantua is very dreary and un- 
 pleasing, not less forlorn in its appearance than Padua, and 
 possessing but little attraction for an architect. The chief 
 architectural feature of the city is the Ducal Palace, which 
 contains, in the midst of a mass of Kenaissance. work of the 
 poorest and most unsatisfactory kind, some very good remains 
 of pointed architecture. 
 
 The finest portion is a long building of vast height, and 
 retaining more or less of Gothic work throughout, but 
 especially remarkable for the range of windows in its upper 
 stage. Its front faces on one side towards the Piazza di San 
 Pietro, and on the other with a very nearly similar elevation 
 towards the Piazza del Pallone, one of the courts in the vast 
 palace of the Gonzagas, of which it forms a part. This build- 
 ing is said to have been commenced about a.d. 1302 by Guido 
 ])Uonacolsi, surnamed Bottigella, third sovereign of Mantua, 
 and this date quite agrees with the character of all the 
 detail. The interior has been completely modernized, mainly 
 by (liulio Pomano, who carried out very extensive works in 
 i)tlier parts of the palace. The windows in the upper stage 
 of this portion of the palace deserve notice as being about the 
 most exquisite examples of their class that I anywhere met 
 with, though those in the campanile of Sant' Andioa, hard 
 by, are only second to them. The main arch is of ])ure
 
 256 MANTUA. [Chap. X. 
 
 pointed form, and executed in brick with occasional voussoirs 
 of stone — one of which forms a key-stone — and over it there 
 is a label of brick effectively notched into a kind of nail-head. 
 The same kind of label is carried round the arches of the 
 window-openings, and down the jamb as a portion of the 
 jamb-mould, and again round a pierced and cusped circle of 
 brick in the tympanum. In the sub-arches the key-stones 
 and cusps are formed of stone. The whole of the jambs are 
 of brick, but instead of a monial there is a circular stone 
 shaft, with square capital and band and base. The whole is 
 so exceedingly simple as to be constructed with ease of 
 ordinary materials, and it is quite equal in effect to any stone 
 window of the same size that I have ever seen. 
 
 The accompanying drawings will, I trust, sufficiently 
 explain the merit of this magnificent piece of brickwork. 
 The arcading upon which it rests, and the perfectly unbroken 
 face of the whole, are very characteristic of Italian work. 
 
 On the opposite side of the Piazza di San Pietro is the 
 cathedral, the only ancient portion of which is a small part 
 of the south aisle. It is of very elaborate character, entirely 
 built in brick, and so far as it remains appears to have been 
 part of an aisle finished with a succession of gables, one to 
 each bay, a common arrangement in German and French 
 churches, where additional aisles are so frequently met with, 
 but uncommon in Italy, where, as in England, churches 
 have seldom more than one aisle on either side of the nave.^ 
 The brickwork in this small fragment of the cathedral, 
 though elaborate, was not pleasing, being of rather late date. 
 
 On the same side of the Piazza as the cathedral is the 
 Yescovato, a large pile of ancient l)uilding, but very much 
 modernized. There still remain, however, some good three- 
 light windows in the upper stage, inclosed within a circular 
 arch, without tracery, and divided by marble shafts. Some 
 
 * It is to be seen, liowovci', in the clmri'li of 8an Petronio, Bologna.
 
 \^suii-Jli«bi&f£S«bii 
 
 Vtndc-v m Ducal Pal arc.
 
 Thap. X.] SA^T' ANDREA. 257 
 
 old ai'clies remain also in the lo^Yest stage, which, though 
 now l)uilt up, are still valuable as examples of the test mode 
 of treating brickwork. They consist of three orders — the 
 two inner formed of alternate voussoirs of brick and stone, 
 carefully and regularly counterchanged, and the outer of a 
 moulded tcrra-cotta ornament. Between each of these lines 
 a ]»rick of deep red colour is set edgeways, shewing a dark 
 line of little more than an inch and a half in width, and 
 vahuible as very clearly defining the lines of the arch. All 
 these courses are on the same plane ; and probably another 
 rim of the arch is concealed by the w^alling which has been 
 filled in underneath.^ 
 
 Going on from the Piazza San Pietro, and passing under 
 an archway, we came upon the Castello di Corte, also a part 
 of the ancient palace of the Gonzaga family, who were for a 
 long time lords of Mantua. It is certainly a very remarkable 
 piece of mediaeval fortification, but its efi'ect is much damaged 
 by the erection of walls between the battlements, which in 
 my view I have thought it much better to shew in their 
 original state, which is evident enough upon careful inspec- 
 tion. The heavy machicolations w'hich run round the main 
 Iniilding have a peculiar and rather grand efi'ect, j)articularly 
 in the flanking towers. This portion of the palace is said to 
 have been erected just at the close of the fourteenth century. 
 
 Close to the Castello di Corte is the Ponte di San Giorgio, 
 one of the entrances to the city, and built between the Lago 
 di Mezzo and the Lago Inferiore. 
 
 Pietracing our steps, w^e soon found ourselves at the 
 great Palazzo della Eagione, or town-hall. It has been very 
 much altered, but one gateway remains in a very perfect 
 state, and is quite worthy of illustration. The marble 
 shafts in the upper stage of the building are coupled one 
 behind the other with very beautiful eftect. Brick and stone 
 
 ' See for im ongraving of tin's nrchivolt, Cliapter XIV. ji. .39.^. 
 
 S
 
 258 
 
 MANTUA. 
 
 [Chap. X. 
 
 are used alternately in the main arcli of tins gateway, with 
 thin dividing lines of brick, as in the Vescovato. In a wall 
 close to the gate is a sitting figure, intended, it is said, to 
 represent Yirgil, of whom the Mantnans are still, as in duty 
 bound, very proud. I cannot say much for the figure or its 
 canopy, both of which are, however, medigeval. 
 
 We found nothing else worthy of notice in this building ; 
 
 liKICK WINDOW — SANT' AKDltEA, MANTUA. 
 
 but close to it stands the church of Sant' Andrea, a hideous 
 Renaissance edifice tacked on to a most beautiful brick 
 campanile. 
 
 The detail of this is throughout very fine. The tracery
 
 42.— GATEWAY, PALAZZO BELLA RAGIONE, MANTUA. 
 
 Pa^e 258.
 
 43. — CAMPANILE. S. ANDREA, MANTUA.
 
 Chap. X.] 
 
 SANT' ANDREA. 
 
 259 
 
 is all of a kind of plate-tracery, consistini^, that is to say, of 
 cusped circles pierced in a tympanum within an inclosing 
 arch ; the shafts between the lights are of j)olished marble, 
 and coupled one behind the other. The relative proportion 
 of the cusps in this and in most other Italian buildings is 
 very good. In trefoils, for instance, the upper cusj) is usually 
 smaller than the lower ; and in all good cusping it must be 
 so. Modern men generally reverse the order, and, at the 
 present day, so little is the subject really understood that at 
 least ninety-nine out of every hundred cusped window- 
 openings are designed without feeling, and quite unlike the 
 best old examples ; and this, though apparently a point of 
 very small importance, is really of great consequence to the 
 perfection of any pointed work. 
 
 The faulty portions of this campanile are the elaborate 
 arcadings in brick beneath 
 the string-courses, and the 
 awkward and abrupt manner 
 in which the octagonal stage 
 and the round tile spire are 
 set upon the square tower. 
 The present appreciation of 
 the building by the good 
 people of Mantua is shewn 
 by the opening jiierced in 
 its lower stage, in front of 
 which the modestly with- 
 drawn folds of a green cur- ,„^,,^ ^v,m,ow-s.vkt' .kbuk., makxua. 
 tain disclose the interior 
 
 devoted to a barber's shop, and in which the patient, seated 
 in the middle of the shop, and looking into the Piazza, 
 submits to the painful operation of shaving — a common 
 picture in almost every street of an Italian town, but not 
 pleasant when the place is a portion of a church. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 MANTUA. [Chap. X. 
 
 The guide-books sj^eak of tlie clmrch of Saiit' Andrea as 
 " among the finest existing specimens of an interior in the 
 revived Koman style." If it really is so, I advise all 
 architects interested in the failure of the said- style to 
 venture, notwithstanding the forbidding west front, into 
 the nave, when they will perhaps find comfort in seeing how 
 miserable a building " one of the finest " of its class may 
 nevertheless be ! 
 
 The people at Mantua seemed to be excessively disturbed 
 by my attempts at sketching, and at Sant' Andrea they mobbed 
 me so thoroughly that I was really beginning to think of 
 giving up the attempt in despair, when a kindly-disposed 
 hatmaker, seeing my distress, came down to the rescue, and 
 gave me and my party seats in a balcony on the first floor of 
 his house, in which, sitting at my ease above my persecutors 
 and listening to the good man's wife and daughters, I finished 
 my sketch with great comfort. 
 
 In Mantua there are two or three other churches with 
 brick campanili, but they are very inferior in their cha- 
 racter to that of Sant' Andrea, and hardly worth special 
 notice. We owe it to the French that there are not more 
 interesting churches, for, having succeeded in capturing the 
 city after a very prolonged siege, they sacked it, and are 
 said to have destroyed no less than about fifty of them. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere in this part of Italy, most of the 
 streets are arcaded on either side, afi"ording pleasant shelter 
 from the hot sun, but every twenty yards we come upon one 
 of an unpleasant class of shops, in which cheese, oil, and the 
 like comestibles are sold, with most objectionable efi'ects on 
 all people blessed with noses. 
 
 In the evening we found an Italian performance going 
 on at the theatre, and so thither we went, anxious to see 
 how far Italian comedy might be amusing. I fear our 
 inquiry was not much to our edification, for the favourite
 
 Chap. X.] MONTENARA. CAMPITELLO. 261 
 
 performers were mainly remarkable for the prodigious 
 rapidity with which they uttered their facetious sayings, 
 and so we lost more than half the dialogue. The theatre 
 was almost entirely filled with Austrians, hut still there was 
 a sprinkling of Italians among them, which did away with 
 the absurdly martial apj)earance of the only other theatre 
 we had been into — that at Verona. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, but we were obliged to push 
 on ; and so, resigning ourselves to the diligence which left 
 Mantua at about nine, we booked ourselves for Cremona, 
 under the promise that we should be delivered there 
 punctually by five o'clock. 
 
 We lost sight of Mantua almost immediately, for, 
 travelling along a dead flat and by roads whose sides are 
 lined witli high hedges of acacia or orchards thickly planted, 
 you never see any j)lace or building until you have absolutely 
 arrived at it. There was not much to interest me on the 
 road, and the weather, at first cloudy only and sultry, 
 gradually became w^orse, and, before we had gone far, settled 
 into a steady pouring rain ; so we read, wrote, and occupied 
 the many hours in the rumbling diligence as best we might. 
 
 At Montenara, which we passed on our road, the church 
 has a brick campanile, with pilasters at the angles, and in 
 -the belfry two-light windows, with marble central shafts 
 and round arches. It has one of the usual brick conical 
 spires, with small angle-pinnacles — a finish to these cam- 
 panili which certainly does not improve upon acquaint- 
 ance. Tliey are constructed of bricks with semicircular 
 ends laid side by side, the joints being broken in each 
 course, and so making a very jagged kind of cone. 
 
 The only noticeable point about the church at Montenara 
 is that it has been lately rebuilt in the very worst taste, and 
 at an angle of forty-five degrees with the old steeple ! 
 
 At Oaiiipitello there are several remains of interest.
 
 262 
 
 OAMPITELLO. CASALMAGGIORE. 
 
 [Chap. X. 
 
 JilUC'K 'VVIJiDOW — CAMI'lTELLO. 
 
 There is a small domestic building, with four pointed 
 windows of two lights at the side ; the windows have 
 
 central shafts of stone, but are 
 otherwise entirely of rough 
 brickwork. The church has a 
 kind of double belfry-stage, 
 arcaded similarly in each stage 
 with round arches. There are 
 also here the remains of a 
 castle by the river, with a fine 
 tower of the same type as the 
 angle-towers of the Castello di 
 Corte at Mantua, and covered 
 with a very flat-pitched roof. 
 iVt Casalmaggiore, a town of some importance on the 
 Po, we stopped for dinner ; but it was too wet to attempt to 
 look at the river, and the only note I made was of a large 
 new church now in course of erection, Kenaissance in style, 
 and with a large dome, and a choir and transepts, all 
 
 terminated with circular ends. 
 The redeeming feature about 
 it was that it was entirely 
 constructed in brick with con- 
 siderable care, though pro- 
 bably ere long this will be 
 covered with a coat of plaster, 
 of which modern Italians are 
 not one whit less enamoured 
 than are modern Englishmen. 
 At a village, the name of 
 wliich I did not learn, between 
 Casalmao'ciore and Cremona, 
 
 mticK wmijow — xkar casalmaggiore. 
 
 the church had a remarkably 
 good simple brick camj)unil(.'. The belfry windows were
 
 CiiAi>. X.] L(,)X(IAD01!E. CREMONA. 263 
 
 pointed, of two lights, with n small pierced circle in the 
 head, the shafts heiug of stone of course. Beneath the 
 string-courses there was arcading, and the tower was finished 
 with three forked hattlements of the Veronese type on 
 each face, and hehind these rose a circular brick spire. 
 This tower was to the south-east of the church. 
 
 At Longadore we saw another church with a good early 
 campanile, of which I made a sketch. This was Komanesque, 
 with angle pilasters, and a central pilaster carried up as 
 high as the belfry- stage. The belfry windows were of three 
 lights and shafted. The battlement was most peculiar — a 
 cpiarter circle at each angle and a half circle in the centre of 
 each side, with a narrow space between them ; the whole 
 executed in brick and covered in with a flat modern roof. 
 The angle pilasters finished under arcaded string-courses. 
 Generally speaking, in these churches the only ancient 
 features seem to be the campanili, and these are always of 
 brick and nearly similar in their general design, with pilas- 
 ters at the angles, a succession of string-courses — generally 
 arcaded underneath — and windows in the belfry-stage only. 
 
 It was quite six by the time we reached Cremona, and. 
 depositing our passports at the gate, we trotted on along 
 the smooth granite (which in these towns is always laid in 
 strips between the rough ordinary paving for the wheels to 
 travel on), and after traversing a long tortuous street, and 
 getting a glimpse only of the cathedral as we passed near its 
 east end, we were soon deposited at the Albergo del Capello. a 
 comfortable hostelry, which we enjoyed the more by contrast 
 with the miserable quarters with which we had to put up at 
 ]\Iantua. 
 
 Cremona is a city full of interest. The piazza in front 
 of the cathedral is equal in effect to almost any small piazza 
 I know of. On one side is the great marble west front of 
 the Duomo, l)acked by its immense brick campanile, whose
 
 264 CREMONA. [Chap. X. 
 
 wide fame is proved by the old rhyme, of which the 
 Cremonese are still so proud— 
 
 " Unus Petrus est in Roma, 
 Una turris ia Cremona." 
 
 On another side is the Lombard baptistery, a grand poly- 
 gonal building; on the third, a most interesting domestic 
 building — the palace of the Jurisconsults — -and the Grothic 
 Palazzo Publico ; whilst on the fourth, a narrow, busy 
 street makes up, by the diversity of colour and costume 
 of the crowd which is always passing along it, for what it 
 wants in architectural beauty. 
 
 The cathedral must be first described, and it is rather 
 difficult to do this clearly ; but so far as can now be made 
 out it seems much as though it had at first been built upon 
 a simple plan, with nave, north and south aisles, and three 
 semicircular eastern apses ; and that then to this, in the 
 fourteenth century, had been added, with hardly any dis- 
 turbance of the original fabric, immense transepts, loftier 
 even than the nave, and so long and large as to give the 
 impression now that two naves have been placed by some 
 mistake across each other. The groining of the nave is 
 original in its outline, but barbarously painted in sham 
 panelling so as entirely to spoil its effect, but otherwise 
 there is little to notice in the interior, the whole of tlie 
 church having been converted with the plasterers' help into 
 lienaissance in the most approved manner. The walls are 
 covered with painting, and round the columns, when we 
 were there, were hung great tapestries, all of which gave 
 the building a rich though rather gloomy colour. 
 
 The west front (if you can forget that it is a great mask 
 only to the real structure) is rather grand from its large 
 plain surface of arcadod wall ; it has been grievously 
 damaged by alterations, but the old design is still not 
 difficult to trace. The doorway is very noble, and the open
 
 Chap. X.] THK DUOMO. 265 
 
 porch iu front of it is carried up with a second stage, in 
 which, under open arches, stand a very fine figure of the 
 Blessed Virgin, and figures of other saints of more modern 
 character on either side of her ; above this is a great 
 circuLar window, whilst the wall on either side of the porch 
 and window is nearly covered with small arcadiug. The 
 marbles in the wall, where the arcading does not occur, are 
 arranged very regularly in horizontal lines alternately of 
 red and white, each course being about ten inches or a foot 
 high, and divided from the next by a strip of white marble 
 about two or three inches in height. The great rose window 
 is all of red marble, with the exception of one line of 
 moulding which looks like green serpentine. There are 
 some round windows in the lower stage on each side of the 
 entrance, but they are quite modern. 
 
 On the north side of the nave rises the Torrazzo, as the 
 campanile is called here —the " una turris in Cremona " — 
 rising about four hundred feet from the pa.vement of the 
 piazza. Its design is much like that of all the other brick 
 campanili in this district— a succession of stages of nearly 
 equal height, divided by arcaded string-courses, and marked 
 with perpendicular lines by small pilasters, and almost 
 without windows until near the summit. The dark red 
 outline of this magnificent tower tells well against the deep 
 blue Italian sky, which shone brightly behind it when we 
 saw it ; and the eff'ect of its immense and almost unbroken 
 outline, rising to such an extraordinary height, is so uttsrly 
 unlike that of any of our Northern steeples that we need not 
 trouble ourselves to compare them. Both are fine in their 
 way; l)ut the Italian campanili are made up of the reiteration 
 of features so simple and so generally similar that we cannot 
 fairly class their builders with the men who raised in 
 England such a multitude of steeples, all varying one from 
 another, and yet all so lovely.
 
 266 CREMONA. [Chap. X. 
 
 A door in the east wall of the north transept leads into 
 a small courtyard, sacred now to the cathedral clergy, from 
 which the original scheme of the eastern part of the church 
 may he fairly well seen. It appears to have been a stone 
 building treated in the common fashion of Lombard churches, 
 but with buttresses and a passage through them round the 
 apse in front of the windows. There is a modernized crypt 
 under the choir. The side walls of the north transept are 
 seen very well from the same courtyard ; they are well 
 arcaded in brick, and entirely concealed from sight else- 
 where by the enormous false transept-fronts, the backs of 
 which as seen from here are certainly among the most 
 ungainly works ever erected for the mere sake of being ' 
 beautiful. 
 
 The rest of the exterior of the Duomo is almost all of { 
 brick. The most remarkable features are the two transept ' 
 fronts, which are certainly magnificent in their detail, 
 though most unreal and preposterous as wholes ; they are, 
 both of them, vast sham fronts, like the west front, in that 
 they entirely conceal the structure of the church behind 
 them, and pierced with numbers of windows which from 
 the very first must have been built but to be blocked up. 
 They have in fact absolutely nothing to do with the build- 
 ing against which they are jjlaced, and in themselves, 
 irrespective of this very grave fault, are, I think, posi- 
 tively ugly in their outline and mass. And yet there is a 
 breadth and grandeur of scale about them which does 
 somewhat to redeem their faults, and a beauty about much 
 of their detail which I cannot but admire extremely. Both 
 transepts are almost entirely built of brick and very similar , 
 in their general idea ; but, whilst only the round arch is 
 used in the south transept, nothing but the j^ointed arch is 
 used in the northern, and it is quite curious to notice how 
 verv much more l)eautiful the latter looks than does the
 
 14.— NOKTH TEANSEPT, CATHEDRAL, CREMONA,
 
 Chap. X.] 
 
 THE DUOMO. 
 
 267 
 
 former. The filliug-iu of stilted round-arched windows with 
 ogee pointed tracery and much delicate cusping gives the 
 south transept a singularly Eastern look, and it is impossible 
 not to feel that some such influence has been exercized 
 throughout its design. It would indeed be most interesting 
 to find out -^vhat this was, but I am not aware that there is 
 likely to be any clue to it. The date of the work is in all 
 probability somewhere about the latter part of the four- 
 teenth century. The detail and management of the whole 
 of the brickwork are exceedingly delicate and effective, sur- 
 passing in their way anything I have yet seen. 
 
 The putlog-holes are left unfilled, as they almost always 
 are in Italy. The only stone used is in the doorway and 
 the window-shafts, and these last are almost always coupled 
 in depth. The windows are elaborately moulded, and courses 
 of chevrons, quatrefoils, and 
 oilier ornaments are intro- 
 duced occasionally as a relief 
 to what might otherwise be 
 the tedious succession of 
 mouldings which are neces- 
 sarily rather similar. The 
 cusping of brick arches is 
 always managed in the sam(^ 
 way ; the bricks all radiate 
 with the arch (not from the 
 centre of the cusp), and look 
 as though they might have 
 been built, allowing plenty of length of brick for the cusps, 
 and then cut to the proper outline, the edges of the 
 cusi)s being almost invariably left square. Some of the 
 terra-cotta arch ornaments and diapers are exceedingly good 
 of their kind. The most remarkable feature, however, 
 about these transepts is the prodigiously heavy open arcade 
 
 BRICK WINDOW — CUKMONA CATHIiDBAL.
 
 268 
 
 CREMONA. 
 
 [Chap. X. 
 
 which runs up the gables under the eaves-cornice — so heavy 
 and so rude-looking, that, taken by itself, it would probably 
 be put down as being of much earlier date than it really is. 
 The facade finishes with three heavy pinnacles arcaded all 
 round, and finished with conical caps. 
 
 To the north transept very nearly the same description 
 would apjily, save that the doorway is much finer, and 
 entirely of marble.^ It is part of the original Lombard 
 church, and has no doubt been taken down and rebuilt where 
 we now see it. The tracery of the rose windows is all 
 
 KOSR WINDOW — CUEMONA CATHEDRAL. 
 
 finished in brick, and the detail generally is better and more 
 delicate in its character than that ©f the south transept. In 
 both the bricks are all of a pale red colour, and no dark 
 bricks are anywhere used. 
 
 The baptistery — which, as has been said, stands south- 
 west of the Duomo — is entered by a doorway with a project- 
 ing porch, whose shafts rest on the backs of animals. It is 
 
 ' 'I'lu; Iwo transepts arc so very similar, tiiat it seemed uuuecessary to 
 cnR'rave inv sketches of botli.
 
 45.— PALACE OP THF, JDRISTCONSDLTS, CREMONA.
 
 Chap. X.] 
 
 PALACE OF JURISCONSULTS. 
 
 269 
 
 octagonal in its plan, built of brick \Yith the exception of the 
 side in which the door is placed, this being of mar1)le, and is 
 very simple in all its detail. There are three altars in it, 
 and an immense erection of masonry in the centre, which, 
 though not open, is evidently a font, amply large for im- 
 mersion. Each side has three recessed arches on marble 
 columns, above which the whole is of red brick with stone 
 string-courses between the stages. These have corbel-tables 
 under them, which are the only enrichments in the building. 
 All the brickwork is left to view inside, and the light is 
 admitted by a pierced arcade very high up in the walls. 
 The whole is domed over with an octagonal vault of brick, 
 in the centre of which is a small lantern, and the effect is 
 exceedingly fine and solemn, and enhanced very much by 
 the grave sombre colour of the bricks. 
 
 Close to the baptistery is a building, called in Murray's 
 Handbook the Palace of the Jurisconsults, turned when I 
 
 wixiMjw-jAMu — 1'alacl; of jurisconsults, cubmu.na. 
 
 first saw it into a school for a not very polite set of children 
 and teachers, who all apparently felt the most lively interest
 
 270 
 
 CREMONA. 
 
 [Chap. X. 
 
 in my architectural pursuits. It was originally open 
 below, but the arches on which it stood are now filled up. 
 This upper stage is very simple and beautiful, and the whole 
 is finished at the top with a cornice and parapet, with 
 battlements pointed at the top like those in the Torrazzo, 
 and not forked as we have been lately so accustomed to see 
 them. At one end of this parapet a chimney rises above 
 
 CaiMNEi AND BATTLEMEKT — CREMOKA. 
 
 the battlement, which is, so far as I have seen, a unique 
 example of the ancient Italian contrivance for this very 
 necessary apjiendage.^ It is exceedingly good in its detail, 
 and coeval with the rest of the work. There is a simplicity 
 and truthfulness of construction about this little building 
 
 ' I'lic oliimneys no cominoii in Venice are ancient, l)ut yet lianlly 
 redeeiued from uglinci-s. They arc cylindrical, with heads slojiing out in a 
 strange fashion, and in the form of inverted truncated cones. See ji. 224.
 
 Chap. X.] CHURCHES. 271 
 
 \vliich make it esjjecially pleasing after tlic unreal treatment 
 of the great transept-fronts of the Dnomo.^ By its side 
 stands the Palazzo Publico, out of one side of which rises 
 one of those singular and very tall brick towers, without 
 any openings whatever in its walls, which give such peculiar 
 character to some Italian cities, and of which we afterwards 
 saw Kood store at Pavia. The whole of the buildinc: shews 
 either traces of arcades or perfect arcades upon which the 
 upper walls are supported ; they are, however, so much 
 modernized as to be comparatively uninteresting, though 
 enough remains to shew that their detail was once very 
 good. The building incloses a quadrangle, which is rather 
 small, but arcaded on three sides, and opens from the piazza 
 by open arches under the principal fapade, and probably 
 dates from the middle of the thirteenth century, the date 
 1245 being given in an inscription in the courtyard. 
 
 There are many churches in Cremona, all more or less 
 appearing to be founded upon the work in the transepts 
 of the cathedral, Init generally very inferior to them in 
 merit. 
 
 San Domenico has a west front singularly like theirs, but 
 del)ased in its detail. It has, however, a very fine campanile, 
 lofty, very simple, and pierced with pointed windows in each 
 stage, one above the other. The interior is completely 
 modernized, and not worth notice. 
 
 SS. Agostino and Giacomo in Breda is another church 
 of the same class, with a west front which is again a very 
 bad second edition of the cathedral, and which has been 
 horribly mutilated and modernized inside. It is, however, 
 to be remembered gratefully for a most lovely picture by 
 Perugino, representing the Blessed Virgin with Our Lord 
 
 ' Tliis buililiiip: lias recently (1872) been restored, and with not nuicli 
 gain, though the barber's shop whioli usrd to orciiiiy the grfiund-tloor has 
 been niuoveJ.
 
 272 CKEMONA. [Chap. X. 
 
 seated, with SS. Augustine and James on either side. The 
 Virgin is very calm, dignified, unearthly, and very simple 
 and stately. Our Blessed Lord, in her arms, has perhaps 
 rather too much the character of an ordinary infant ; and 
 the two saints have more than is quite pleasant of the 
 bend in their figures of which he was so fond ; the heads 
 stooping forward, and the knees considerably bent, are a 
 little too evidently straining towards a reverential posture. 
 Such a criticism is a bold one to venture upon with the 
 recollection of so glorious a jjicture fresh in my mind — one 
 from which I really derived intense pleasure. The date of 
 this very fine work is a.d. 1494. 
 
 Sta. Agata is another church which still has its old 
 campanile intact, with round-arched windows, very simple 
 and not large. The church which has been built against it 
 tells its story so well, that at first we all mistook it for a 
 theatre ! So much for Classic symbolism. 
 
 Another church, dedicated in honour of Sta. Margherita, 
 is a very poor erection of brick, with a simple campanile. 
 One or two other churches we saw with fair brick cam- 
 panili, which were not otherwise remarkable ; and one 
 there was, San Luca, close to the Milan gate, which seemed 
 to be very singular in its arrangements. It had a pro- 
 jecting western porch, with its columns supported on 
 beasts ; and at the north-west angle an octagonal building 
 of brick, of exceedingly late date, which appeared to be a 
 baptistery. 
 
 I enjoyed the architectural remains in Cremona very 
 much indeed : its rich array of buildings in elaborate brick- 
 work is very striking ; and the campanile of the cathedral, 
 towering up high above the many other steeples, combines 
 well with them in the general views, and helps to convert 
 into a fine-looking city what is, perhaps, in its streets 
 and houses generally, very far from being anything of the
 
 Chap. X.] CEP:M0NA TO LODI. 273 
 
 kind. The way in wliicli the old walls and towers of the 
 Palazzo Publico combine with the steeple of the cathedral is 
 extremely fine, a large piazza a short distance to the west 
 of the palazzo afi'ording perhaps the best point of view. 
 
 From Cremona we went to Lodi, on our way to Pavia, 
 and had a very pleasant drive. The heat was intense when 
 we started, and the drivers of all the carts we passed were 
 prudently ensconcing themselves in tlie baskets swung be- 
 neath their carts, to escape its effects. Throughout the 
 Lombardo-Yenetian territory there is a great traffic always 
 going on, and there is a much nearer approach to English 
 arrangements, in the way of harness and tackle, than it 
 is at all usual to see on the Continent ; though, indeed, 
 it ought in fairness to be said, that their carts are much 
 more scientific than ours generally are. Any vehicle with 
 more than two wheels is rarely if ever seen ; and these two 
 wheels are sometimes of prodigious size — I should say quite 
 ten feet in diameter — whilst the length of the cart from end 
 to end is immense. The extent to which they are loaded 
 is almost incredible, and of course it requires great care in 
 order to make the trim exact ; but when loaded, the draught 
 must be light for the weight. It is impossible to talk about 
 horses and carts without thinking of the magnificent cream- 
 coloured oxen which are everywhere doing hard work on 
 the roads and in the fields. They have most magnificent, 
 large, calm eyes ; and this, with their great size and slow 
 and rather dignified motion, makes them look very grand. 
 They are always yoked to a pole, which rises up above 
 their heads at the end, and has a carved crosspiece attached 
 to it, against which they press their foreheads. 
 
 At Pizzighettone we crossed the Adda, here a very 
 fine and full stream, and then, changing horses, went on 
 rapidly towards Lodi. Leaving the main road, we travelled 
 along a less frequented byroad, infinitely more pleasant.
 
 274 LODI. [Chap. X. 
 
 and in many places very pretty indeed. We followed the 
 course of a small river, which was turned to good account 
 for irrigation ; its stream being at times divided into no less 
 than three channels, in order to water the pasture-land on 
 which are fed the cows whose milk is to produce the far- 
 famed Parmesan cheese. Some part of the road reminded 
 us pleasantly of English lanes and English scenery, but liert 
 and there a distant glimpse of the Apennines far behind us, 
 and of the Alps beyond Milan before us, made us aware that 
 we were indeed in Italy. 
 
 There is little to be seen in Lodi. It has a large 
 and rather shabby -looking piazza, at one corner of which 
 is the cathedral, whose only good feature is its doorway, 
 which is, however, very inferior to the western doorway 
 of the cathedral at Cremona, to which it bears some little 
 resemblance. 
 
 Another church has a Grothic brick front. The real roof 
 is one of flat pitch, spanning nave and aisles ; but in the 
 faqade the central portion is considerably higher than the 
 sides, so as to give the idea of a clerestory. This is a foolish 
 sham, and unhappily only too common in late Gothic ATork 
 in Italy. The centre division of the front is- divided into 
 three by pilasters, which are semicircular in plan. In the 
 central division are a door and a circular window, in each 
 side division is a pointed window, and a brick cornice finishes 
 the gable, crowned with five circular brick pinnacles. 
 
 Another church in Lodi has a very beautifully painted 
 ceiling ; this has been engraved by Mr. Griiner, but un- 
 luckily I did not know of its existence until I returned 
 liome ; it seems to be an admirable piece of colour, and to be 
 well worth careful study. 
 
 There seemed to be nothing else worthy of notice in 
 Lodi ; but, as in duty, bound we walked down to the bridge, 
 — a rough, unstable-looking wooden erection over the broad
 
 Chap. X.] TAVIA. 275 
 
 rapid Adda, with nothing about it to recall to mind the 
 great event in its history, its passage by Napoleon in 1796. 
 
 We left very early in the morning for Pavia : our way 
 led us through a country most elaborately cultivated, and 
 irrigated with a great display of science and labour ; every 
 field seemed to have some two or three streams running 
 rapidly in different directions, and the grass everywhere 
 was most luxuriant. No view, however, was to be had on 
 either side, as the road found its way through a very flat 
 line of country, and all the hedges were lined with intermi- 
 nable rows of Lombardy poplars. It was a country which 
 would have done more good to the heart of a Lincolnshire 
 farmer than to that of an architect ! 
 
 The only remarkable building passed on the road was 
 a castle at Sant' Angelo ; a great brick building, with square 
 towers set diagonally at the angles. The walls were finished 
 with a battlement of the Veronese kind, and there were 
 several very good early pointed brick windows with brick 
 monials in place of shafts. A campanile, detached near 
 one angle, has fine machicolations in stone, now, however, 
 partly destroyed. The effect of the whole building was 
 very grand. 
 
 We soon reached Pavia, and were, as we expected to 
 be, well rewarded by its churches. The general aspect of 
 the city is singular, owing to the number of tall slender 
 brick towers which seem to have formed a necessary appen- 
 dage to almost every house in the Middle Ages. They are 
 entirely without openings or ornaments of any kind beyond 
 the scaffold-holes, and one can compare them to nothing 
 that I know so well as to the great shot-tower at Waterloo 
 Bridge, save that they are always square and not circular. 
 
 We did our best to see the cathedral, but were unsuc- 
 cessful ; it was being repaired, and was so full of scaffolding 
 that we could see nothing. It contains a shrine said to 
 
 T 2
 
 276 PAVIA. [Chap. X. 
 
 contain the body of S. Augustine, which I much wanted to 
 see, but seemed in most respects to be an unprepossessing 
 church. 
 
 From the cathedral we found our way to San Michele, 
 a very celebrated church, and as interesting to an antiquary 
 in search of curiosities as to an architect in search of the 
 beautiful. The west end is very curious, and has a succes- 
 sion of sculptures, introduced in the most eccentric manner, 
 and with but little method in their arrangement. There are 
 three western doorways, and all of them are elaborately 
 ornamented with carvings, the central door having above it 
 a very singular figure of S. Michael. 
 
 San Michele, together with San Teodoro and San Pietro, 
 seem all to be of about the same date, and are of the same 
 character ; the most remarkable feature being in each case 
 the octagonal cupola, which rises above the crossing of the 
 nave, choir, and transepts : externally these cupolas are 
 arcaded all round under the eaves, and roofed with flat- 
 pitched roofs, and are far from being graceful ; open arcades 
 are introduced under the eaves and up the gables, and 
 everywhere there is a profusion of carving. It is likely 
 enough that this Lombard-Eomanesque style, as we see it at 
 Pavia and elsewhere, did, as has been supposed, set the 
 example which was very soon after followed in the great 
 churches at Koln and elsewhere along the borders of the 
 Rhine. In size, however, the children far exceeded their 
 parents, for San Michele is not remarkable for its dimen- 
 sions, except in the width of the transept. 
 
 The church consists of a nave and aisles of four bays, a 
 transept of great length, a central lantern, and a short 
 choir with circular eastern apse ; small apses are also built 
 in the east walls of the transepts. A fine crypt is formed 
 under the whole of the eastern arm of the cross, and is entered 
 by steps on each side of the thirteen steps which lead up to
 
 4-^. CRf[ }i\cnzhz, PRvm 
 
 p. 276.
 
 Chap. X.] SAN MICHELE. 277 
 
 tlie clioir. The nave aisles have a second stage or trilbrium, 
 groined throughout ; and the whole of the church is vaulted, 
 the transepts having barrel vaults and the three apses semi- 
 domes. The internal eifect of the lantern is extremely 
 good ; the pendentives under the angles are very simple, and 
 low windows are introduced in a stage between them and 
 the octagonal cupola or vault. The wdiole church is still 
 left in its original state with red brick walls and stone piers 
 and arches, save where, as in the eastern apse, the vault is 
 painted with a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, executed in 
 the fifteenth century. It is very seldom, consequently, that 
 a church of. this age is seen to so much advantage; and 
 undoubtedly the fine, simple, but w^ell-ordered arrangement 
 of the plan, and the dignified character of the raised choir 
 and the central lantern, would, even if the colour were not 
 as picturesque and agreeable as it is, make this interior 
 one of extreme interest. One of the best portions of the 
 exterior is the east end. Its extreme loftiness is enhanced 
 by the groups of shafts wdiich divide it into bays, and rise 
 from the plinth to the cornice. This part of the building is 
 mainly of stone, except in the fine gallery below the eaves- 
 cornice, where brick and stone are used together. In 
 addition to the west door already mentioned, there are two 
 very elaborate doorways north and south of the nave in the 
 bay next to the transepts. 
 
 San Michele is, on the whole, the most interesting building 
 in the town, but is hardly superior to the grand remains of 
 the old fortified castle of the Visconti, which stands just on 
 the outskirts of the city, close to the Milan gate. This is 
 only a portion of the original erection, only three sides of a 
 great (quadrangle which is inclosed by the building now 
 remaining. The plan originally w^as a vast square with lofty 
 square towers projecting at the angles, and of these only 
 two remain. The whole front is still very nearly perfect, and
 
 278 PAVIA. [Chap. X. 
 
 is not far from five liuudred feet in length, tlie main building 
 of two stories in height and the towers of four, and all the old 
 windows more or less intact. The whole is crowned with a 
 forked battlement, and the old bridge still remains opposite 
 the entrance with its outer gate, though the drawbridge has 
 given way to a fixture. This grand pile is now used as a 
 barrack ; its most valuable architectural features are all 
 towards the internal quadrangle, which is of grand dimen- 
 sions, more than three hundred feet in the clear. Towards 
 this court there is the same sort of arrangement throughout 
 (though many modifications of detail) — an open arcade of 
 pointed arches below, and a series of fine windows lighting 
 a corridor above. The lower arches are of stone, everything 
 else of brick, and the details everywhere are refined and 
 delicate almost beyond those of any brickwork that I know 
 elsewhere. The original scheme is best seen on the south 
 side of the quadrangle, of which I give an illustration. This 
 work dates, I suppose, from about a.d. 1300, but it was soon 
 found to be inconvenient to have open traceries for the upper 
 corridor, and the arches on the other two sides were filled in 
 before the middle of the fourteenth century with very gootl 
 two-light windows. Fortunately the whole of this work is 
 still in very excellent preservation, and deserves much more 
 notice and study than it has ever, I believe, received.^ The 
 ordinary bricks used here measure 10;^ in. x 5 in. and are 3 in. 
 high, whilst in San Pantaleone they are 3| in. high and as 
 much as 15 in. long. Here (as generally in the centre of Italy) 
 the bricks have all been dressed with a chisel, with which 
 diagonal lines have been marked all over the face. I can 
 only assume that this has been done to improve the texture 
 
 1 Mr. Griiner has published some very careful drawings of these det.dls, iu 
 which he has rest ircd the painted decorations witli which the coloured con- 
 struction of the walls was enriched. The style of decoiation was mucli like 
 that of Sta. Auastusia. Verona.
 
 
 'Wlut.caaaA^Ma. 7^f> 3&£4<-'
 
 •in. — WF.fiT FRONT. S. I'ANTAI,EO>JE, I'AVIA.
 
 Chap. X.] SANTA MARIA DEL CARMINE. 279 
 
 of the bricks in ap2)earaiice, and, perhaps where two hrieks 
 are side by side on the same plane, to make a little dis- 
 tinction between them by tooling the bricks in opposite 
 directions. Two other features of Pavian brickwork may 
 also here be mentioned : one, that the depth of the arch- 
 bricks is almost always increased from the springing line to 
 the centre — the intrados and extrados not being concentric ; 
 the other, that the arch-bricks do not radiate from a centre, 
 bnt are arranged so as to obtain a vertical joint in the centre. 
 The first is a very defensible practice, the second seems to 
 me to be the contrary. 
 
 There are several other clmrches to be noticed here. 
 The most interesting to me after San Michele is that of 
 Sta. Maria del Carmine, or San Pantaleone (for it seems 
 to rejoice in a double dedication), which, in some respects, 
 is more akin to our northern Gothic work than any other 
 Italian church I have as yet described. The plan and all 
 the details of the interior are exceedingly simple. The 
 nave is divided into four groining bays, each of which has 
 two arches into the aisles ; the transept takes one bay and 
 the choir one, and there are an aisle and a row of chapels 
 on either side of the nave, and chapels on the east side 
 of the transept. The only openings between the arches 
 and the groining are small circles by way of clerestory, 
 ludicrously small as com2:)ared with the immense sj^ace of 
 blank wall below them, which seems to call loudly for 
 decorative painting, Tlie whole of the interior is executed 
 in red brick, which has, however, been much daubed with a 
 coloured wash ; its efiect is, notwithstanding, very fine and 
 well worthy of imitation. As in Italian churches generally, 
 the choir is very short as compared to the length of the 
 nave. The exterior is even better worth examination than 
 the interior ; the design of the west end is an exaggerated 
 examjjle of the mode of finishing west fronts not uncommon
 
 280 PAVIA. [Chap. X. 
 
 in Italian Gothic ; it is to some extent a sham, and therefore 
 bad, hut there is much which is of value in its detail, as 
 it is even more than usually elaborate ; and apart from the 
 general outline of the mass, which pinnacles and pilasters 
 cannot redeem from ugliness, there is considerable beauty 
 in the group of windows and doors arranged so as to rise 
 gradually to the centre. The cornices are very heavy and 
 elaborate, and the whole front may be looked at as a master- 
 piece of terra-cotta and brick architecture. It is purely 
 Italian in its great breadth and general arrangement, and, 
 I confess, very far from being to my taste, though I could 
 wish that we had more often some of the same breadth and 
 simplicity in our own elevations. 
 
 It is very curious that this west end is the only elevation 
 in this church which is at all distinctly Italian in its design ; 
 for those of the transepts and choir might much more 
 reasonably be put down as imitations of Northern work ; 
 they are very similar, and a description of the latter will 
 therefore suffice. It is flanked- by massive buttresses, and 
 has two large and lofty trefoiled lancets, surmounted by a 
 circular window of great size ; the whole is very richly 
 moulded and executed entirely in brick. The buttresses 
 and roof finish at the top in a rude temporary-looking 
 manner, and it is therefore impossible to solve the interest- 
 ing question of their original terminations, which must, I 
 imagine, have been pinnacles. The ordinary bricks used 
 here are about 10 in. x 3 in. in size, and laid with very wide 
 joints of mortar ; those used for window-jambs and arches 
 are of much deeper colour and finer clay than the others. 
 There is something quite refreshing in coming suddenly 
 and unexpectedly upon such a simple and English-looking 
 elevation, after the multitude of thoroughly Italian fronts it 
 has been our fate to see lately. 
 
 On the north side of the nave there seems to have been a
 
 60.— WEST END, S. FRANCESCO, PAVIA. 
 
 I'age Cfcl.
 
 Chap. X.] SANTA MA !tl A DEL CARMINE. 281 
 
 fine row of pointed windows, but tliey have been all de- 
 stroyed to make way for Eenaissance improvements. There 
 are very large buttresses dividing the bays in this aisle — a 
 feature which is unusual in Italy, and which, in addition to 
 the design of the choir and transepts, would seem to show 
 that this church was not entirely the work of an Italian. 
 In the plan, too, it is remarkable that, though the general 
 arrangement is quite that of the large Italian churches, 
 such as the Frari at Yenice and Sta. Anastasia at Yerona, in 
 one particular it is unlike them. The groining bays of the 
 aisles are square, and not oblong ; and as two of the aisle 
 arches make one bay of the nave, the groining compartments 
 in both are as nearly as possible square. This is an 
 arrangement which occurs often in German Romanesque, 
 but is not seen so often in Italy. 
 
 There is a fine campanile between the south transept and 
 the choir ; it has four stages above the roof of the church, 
 and scarcely any opening below the belfry windows : these are 
 exceedingly good, of three trefoiled lights under an inclosing 
 arch, with two plain circles pierced in the tympanum, the 
 monials being shafts of white marble. A low spire of 
 circular bricks finishes, but does not improve, this very 
 beautiful belfry. 
 
 There is another brick pointed church at Pa via— San 
 Francesco — which has a fine west front redeemed from the 
 common Italian character by the grand window-arch in its 
 central division ; and though this has been filled in with 
 later and barbarous work, to the entire concealment of the 
 tracery, its effect upon the whole front is astonishingly 
 good. The detail is very elaborate, and in the arch a great 
 number of terra-cotta ornaments are introduced. The 
 front is divided by large pilasters into a centre and wings 
 corresponding with the nave and aisles, but these are again 
 subdivided by smaller pilasters, each of which is composed of
 
 282 , THE CERTOSA OF PAVIA. [Chap. X. 
 
 three circles on plan, and finislied rather nicely with a kind 
 of finial at the top. 
 
 San Francesco is lighted by a succession of small 
 clerestory windows, and the aisles have large buttresses, 
 the greater part of the upper portion of the west front 
 Ijcing a mere mask to make out the desired outline. I 
 begin really to wonder whether I shall see a west front 
 before I leave Italy which is not a purely unnecessary and 
 unprepossessing sham ! 
 
 Pavia is a busy and a pleasant city, and one that 
 improves on acquaintance ; it is true that it was very 
 hot and sultry, but to this I have been fairly acclimatized, 
 and so rather enjoyed it, except when a piazza had to be 
 crossed in the sun, or a walk to be taken along a street 
 unprotected by arcading, which by the way is much rarer 
 here than in Padua, Mantua, and other cities which I have 
 been describing. The main street of the city is very 
 picturesque, with somewhat of a fall towards the south, so 
 that just a glimpse is obtained between the houses of the 
 distant Apennines. 
 
 From Pavia we went, on our road to Milan, to pay a 
 visit to the renowned Certosa. The road thither, which is 
 also that to Milan, pursues a monotonously straight course 
 by the side of a canal, or canalized river, and between rows 
 of stiff trees, until, about four miles from Pavia, a turning at 
 right angles out of the main road soon leads to the gate- 
 way of the monastery, and through this — which stands 
 open apparently rather through carelessness than out of 
 hospitality — we drove into the courtyard in front of the 
 church. This, grown all over with weeds, looked certainly 
 very desolate and wretched, and but a jwor preface to the 
 polished marbles of the west front, and the riches and 
 paintings of the interior of the church. 
 
 The Avest front is of great magnificence of material,
 
 Chap. X.] THK CERTOSA OF PAVIA. 283 
 
 tliougli of a kind of design which seems to have proceeded 
 upon the principle of setting all estahlished architectural 
 styles and customs entirely at defiance. This indeed may 
 he said of the whole church, which is a kind of mixture of 
 Lomhard-Eomanesque features with some Gothic, and no 
 slight dash of the Eenaissance spirit ; altogether a most 
 magnificent hybrid, hut certainly a hybrid. The doors 
 stand wide open, and from the decaying and desolate court 
 in front of the church we enter into the nave, full of every- 
 thing that is magnificent in material, and all preserved 
 with jealous care and in admirable order ; we look up to the 
 lofty vault which spans the grand width of the nave, and 
 find the groining ribs arched overhead in pure pointed 
 form, and cannot help marvelling how far this one pointed 
 feature harmonizes — I had almost said sanctifies — the whole 
 interior, though in fact, save this one point, there is scarcely 
 a single detail throughout the church which would ever pass 
 muster as really being of Gothic character. 
 
 I think it is hardly possible to scan or criticize the 
 architecture of such a building ; it is better to follow the 
 guidance of the cicerone, and look at the pictures behind the 
 many altars set around with precious stones, and inclosed 
 within reredoses made of such an infinite variety of marbles, 
 that, with some degree of envy, one thinks how precious 
 such an array would be on this side of the Alps, even if 
 spread through fifty churches. 
 
 The nave and aisles are divided from the side chapels 
 and from the transepts by high metal grilles, and the 
 transept is again divided by another screen from the choir: 
 this i)roduces a very singular and unusual efiect, and makes 
 the transept appear somewhat like a nave placed at right 
 angles to the choir. All the chapels on either side of 
 the nave communicate with one another, so that the monks 
 are able, without entering the nave, to obtain access to all
 
 284 THE CERTOSA OF PA VIA. [Chap. X. 
 
 of them, whilst females are carefully excluded both from 
 the chapels and from the transepts and choir. Except a 
 Perugino in one of the chapels on the north side of the 
 nave, and one picture in the sacristy, there seemed to be no 
 pictures of any very great value ; in fact, travellers are 
 asked rather to admire the value of the stones which are 
 used in the altars, and the marbles in the reredoses behind 
 them, than the paintings which they inclose. The groining 
 of the church, enhanced as it is in efiect by the way in 
 which it is painted — with a blue ground, powdered very 
 richly with gold stars — conduces more than anything else 
 to the very fine effect of colour which the nave produces ; 
 and the beautiful pavements, composed mainly of red and 
 white marbles, laid in elaborate geometrical patterns, in- 
 crease not a little the general effect. This is an instance 
 of the superiority of decorative painting over pictures as 
 far as improvement of architectural efiect is concerned. 
 
 South of the church are two cloisters ; that nearest to the 
 church of ordinary size, but the other, to which it leads, 
 prodigious in its dimensions, and very singular in its effect, 
 being surrounded at regular intervals by the houses of the 
 monks rising out of and above the regular line of the cloister 
 roof. I went into one of these houses, and found its accom- 
 modation exceedingly ample ; three rooms, closets, and a gar- 
 den being provided for each monk. The arches of the cloisters 
 are exceedingly rich in terra-cotta ornaments, and throughout 
 the exterior of the church and other buildings it is remarkable 
 how very elaborate these ornamental mouldings are ; they 
 are left in the natural reddish colour, and, as the walls are 
 whitewashed, they have a very singular effect. We found 
 here, as at other places, men busily engaged in making casts 
 for the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, whose managers certainly 
 seemed to have ordered c^sts of everything that could be 
 modelled throughout Europe !
 
 Chap. X.] ^r[LAN. 285 
 
 Tliere are now^ twenty-five monks at the Certosa, and the 
 unmher appears to have been gradually on the increase 
 since the reconstitiition of the monastery in 1844 ; it was 
 certainly very gratifying to see that, whilst all the rest of 
 the buildings looked forlorn and dila^^idated. the church 
 itself was most scruj)ulously well preserved, presenting in 
 this respect a great contrast to the fate of monastic churches 
 generally in the Xorth of Italy. 
 
 A tedious drive by the side of a long straight canal, 
 passing on our way large well-managed farms and other 
 signs of uncommon agricultural activity, took us from the 
 Certosa to ]\[ilan ; and long before we arrived there the 
 white pinnacles of the Duomo, with the Alps in the far 
 distance, came in sight ; certainly, seen thus, the Duomo is 
 one of the least satisfactory or imposing great churches I 
 have ever seen, and does but little in the way of imparting 
 character — as most cathedrals do — to the city which lies at 
 its foot. At last we reached Milan, and entering through a 
 triumphal arch — the Ticinese Gate — and passing the front 
 of Sant' Eustorgio, we threaded our way down a very long 
 narrow street, by the side in one j)lace of a row of Eoman 
 columns, still standing tolerably perfect in the midst of the 
 crowded highway, until at last we found ourselves housed in 
 a more luxurious hotel than it has been our fortune to meet 
 witli for some days. 
 
 ' This was written in 1855.
 
 286 PADUA TO FEREARA. [Chap. XI. 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 " In the elder days of art, 
 
 Builders wrought with greatest care 
 Each minute and vmseen part, 
 For the gods are everywhere." 
 
 Lonrifellow. 
 
 Drive from Padua to Ferrara — Monsolice — Rovigo — Ferrara : Cathedral — ' 
 Castle — Gallery — Road to Bologna — Altedo — Bologna: Cathedral — ' 
 San Petronio — San Domenico — Sau Giacomo — Sta. Maria jMaggiore — * 
 San Francesco — San Stefano — Leaning Towers — Cai^a dei Mercanti — 
 Domestic Remains — Academy — Modena : Cathedral — Parma: Cathedral 
 — Correggio — The Baptistery — Piacenza : Tlie Palazzo Publico — Cathe- 
 dral — Sau Francesco — Sant' Antonino — San Giovanni in Canale — Asti : 
 Cathedral — San Secoudo — Campanili. 
 
 Any one who has followed the route from Venice to Milan 
 described in the last chapter will do well, instead of follow- 
 ing it on a subsequent visit, to make a detour from Padua i 
 to Ferrara and Bologna and thence by Parma, Modena, and 
 Piacenza to Milan. I shall give some notes of such a journey 
 in this chapter, the towns visited on the road comj)leting 
 the subject which I have set before me in this volume, and 
 leaving no imjiortant city north of the Apennines, save 
 Ravenna, undescribed. This exception is serious; but the 
 omission will be remedied naturally when, as I hope I soon 
 shall, I ask my readers to go with me to the towns on the 
 east coast of Italy. 
 
 The journey from Padua to Bologna is now, and I suppose 
 always was, extremely uninteresting. The only objects on 
 the road which possess much attraction for the artist are the
 
 CiiAP. XF.] FERRAllA. 287 
 
 towns I have mentioned, and these certainly mncli more 
 repay a visit than do those on the parallel line of road which 
 we have just travelled. Scenery there is none to speak of, 
 and fortunately a railway makes the journey a quick one 
 now ; but when I first travelled it I retained no recollection 
 at the end of the route save of long straight and dusty roads 
 lined on either side with tall poplars, and wearisome to the 
 last degree. At Monselice we found a picturesque town 
 domineered over by the ruins of a large castle, whose walls 
 climb the steep sides of the hill on which it stands. Here 
 I saw a good and little altered Romanesque church, with 
 pilasters in place of buttresses, and walls crowned with the 
 usual eaves-arcade. At Rovigo, further on, there is one of 
 the tall brick towers so common here, with its Ghibelline 
 battlement perfect. Just before reaching Ferrara we crossed 
 the Po — here a large, unbridged, and dreary-looking river, 
 flowing rapidly between high artificial banks to the sea. 
 Its bed is, I suppose, now quite above the level of the plain, 
 and year by year the question becomes more urgent and yet 
 more difficult of answer, what is to be done with it? Certainly 
 there are rivers and rivers ; and this great stream left none 
 but painful and disagreeable impressions on my mind. At 
 length, after ten hours and a half of the slowest of drivers 
 and worst of vehicles, we reached Ferrara— a irajet now 
 performed by railway in about an hour and a half, with 
 advantage to every one's time and temper, and. no counter- 
 balancing loss. 
 
 The entrance to the city through a dirty suburb of tumble- 
 down houses was not prepossessing. I knew nothing of what 
 I had to see, and my delight was therefore all the greater 
 when we drove into the piazza in front of the Duomo, and 
 I found myself gazing at a building which at first sight 
 looked as though it had been brought straight from the Nortli 
 of Europe, and planted here in the thirteenth century as a
 
 288 FEREAEA. [Chap. XI. 
 
 warning against Italian fashions ! Further examination 
 jiroved that I was not far wrong in my first estimate of the 
 west front ; but it revealed also, I am sorry to say, that this 
 and jjart of the south side were the only parts of the old 
 cathedral which had been spared, when in the seventeenth 
 century the whole of the church was gutted and converted 
 into about as bad a Kenaissance building as one could wish 
 not to see. 
 
 The west front is a great screen, and does not and never 
 did follow the line of the roofs. It has three gables of about 
 equal height covered with arcading, which increases in depth 
 and richness of moulding and shadow to the top, where there 
 are very fine open arched galleries, stepped up to suit the 
 raking lines of the gables. I know no Italian work which 
 imitates so closely as this does the extreme richness which 
 some of the Norman and English churches of the same 
 period exhibit. The arches of the arcades are carried upon 
 clusters of columns which are set with extraordinary pro- 
 fusion one behind the other. The centre of the three 
 divisions of the west front is almost wholly filled with a very 
 fine porch of three stages in height, and finished with gables 
 on its front and sides. The lower stage of this porch, as 
 indeed of the whole church, is round-arched, and belongs 
 probably to the church consecrated here in 1135. The 
 knotted shafts which carry the front wall rest on figures 
 sitting on lions. The doorway is deeply recessed, and has 
 figures of saints with scrolls.' The tympanum of the arch 
 has a sculpture of S. George and the Dragon, and the lintel 
 Ix'low it eight subjects, beginning with the Salutation, and 
 ending with the Baptism, of Our Lord. At the top of this 
 stage is an inscription which contains the date given above. 
 
 ' Said to liiivc been carvoil by Nicolo, who is supposed to be the same man 
 wlio wrought on the west dooi- of San Zenone, Verona. This does not appear to 
 mo to be likely ; the work at Verona being, 1 tliink, earlier than that at Ferrara.
 
 m 
 
 
 Ph 
 
 or 
 
 AT' 
 W 
 
 <>
 
 Chap. XI.] THE CATHEDL'AL. 280 
 
 Tlio next stage is later, and lias throe arches with traceries 
 carried upon chevroned and twisted shafts, with a statue of 
 the Virgin and ChikI in the centre. This stage forms a sort 
 of balcony. The upper stages are covered with sculpture. 
 In the gable is Our Lord as Judge in a vesica-shaped aureole ; 
 around and above Him are saints and angels, and below a 
 group of angels dividing the good from the bad. The subject 
 is continued on to the wall on each side of the porch, where 
 on one side are represented the souls of the just in the lap of 
 God, and on the other the descent of the wicked into the jaws 
 I of Hell. The whole scheme is a picturesque and unusually 
 ' disposed treatment of the Last Judgment. There is, how- 
 
 • ever, not much merit in the sculpture as a work of art, 
 ; though as an enrichment of the buildings it is most effective. 
 
 • The statue in the centre is said to be by Nicola Pisano. 
 The south front of the cathedral has a long range of arcading 
 carried on engaged columns, each arch inclosing a small 
 arcade of three divisions. Above this, below the eaves, is a 
 very fine arcade of later date all carried on groups of shafts, 
 and treated in the Venetian manner with ogee-arched labels 
 above round arches. This stage is built of red marble ; the 
 lower part of the wall, of brick and stone. 
 
 A large font of white marble is the only relic of the 
 original church which is still to be seen inside. 
 
 There is not much more to see here. The castle is 
 remarkable as standing surrounded by its moat in the very 
 midst of the city. The old portions of it are much like the 
 castle at Mantua, and present the same boldly battered base, 
 and the same heavy machicoulis and battlements. I saw 
 also two or three old churches here, but of no interest ; they 
 were of the latest phase of Gothic — bordering on Kenaissance 
 — and very poor in their detail. 
 
 The picture-gallery is in a rather magnificent palace of 
 the D'Este family. Garofalo— the best of Fcrrarese painters 
 
 u
 
 290 BOLOGNA. [Chap. XL 
 
 — is represented by a fine Adoration of the Magi, and other 
 works. But the collection generally is not interesting. 
 There are also in the churches a great nnmher of works of 
 other Ferrarese painters, and most travellers go also to see 
 the house of Ariosto and the prison of Tasso. But on the 
 whole the attractions of the city are not great. The streets 
 are grass-grown and deserted, lined with palaces of coarse 
 and bold but uninteresting design, and I was in no way 
 sorry to leave it for Bologna, expecting to find there much 
 more to interest and occupy me. 
 
 The drive from one city to the other was very wearisome. 
 The land was rich with vines, mulberry-trees, and rice-fields. 
 The grapes were being gathered, and everywhere along the 
 road we met vast casks borne in grand waggons drawn by 
 white oxen, carrying home the grapes to the wine-press. 
 These waggons have an elaborately carved tree from back to 
 front, and the wheels and casks are also similarly adorned. 
 They are really very handsome, and quite carry one back 
 to those old times when even in utilitarian England the 
 adornment of a carriage was not thought beneath the 
 notice of an artist. 
 
 On the road we changed horses at Altedo, where I 
 sketched the good brick campanile of the church, Avhich has 
 windows much like the example figured at page 262. 
 
 Bologna is, I fear, only known to many Englishmen at 
 the present day as the one station in Italy at which yoi 
 may alw^ays depend on getting some food, and not less as 
 station which seems to be on the road to and from ever] 
 part of the peninsula. There is no excuse, therefore, for not 
 visiting it ; and if the general feeling is not one of enthusiasi 
 for what one sees, there is still very much that is worth! 
 seeing, and in San Petronio a fragment of a church which, hac 
 it been completed on the scale intended, would have been onej 
 of the finest and, I supjiose, almost the largest in Italy.
 
 
 "^^isTS^r— 
 
 
 53. Sft|^ pETi-^oi^io. Boi.o<:;p^>i 
 
 p. 291i
 
 CiiAi'. XI.] SAN PETRONIO. 291 
 
 The streets are not of tlie best. They are very narrow, 
 and often arcaded with pointed arclies snpported on circuLar 
 columns, but contain few houses of any interest, whilst the 
 churches have been a good deal altered and damaged in 
 modern times. 
 
 The cathedral is a recent building of no beauty. Two 
 lions which once supported the columns of a Lombard 
 doorway now carry the holy-water stoups ; and in a passage 
 near the sacristy is a carved, painted, and gilded rood of the 
 twelfth century— a piece of furniture which is rarely found 
 remaining in Italian churches. The grandest church in 
 Bologna is undoubtedly San Petronio, which is well placed 
 on one side of the Piazza Maggiore. It was not commenced 
 until 1390, so that we must not be surprized to find the 
 faults in detail which mark the period. But the general 
 scheme of the church is so magnificent that these faults 
 do not strike the eye at all offensively. As it stands even 
 now, with only its nave and aisles finished, it gives a vast 
 idea of size and space, though this is hardly appreciated at 
 first, owing to the enormous dimensions, the fewness of the 
 parts, and the extreme simjDlicity of all the details. The 
 west front is of immense size and width, but its only 
 finished parts are the plinth and doorways, the whole of 
 the rest being left in rough brick. The detail of this 
 finished part is of poor character, and later than the fabric. 
 It is rather richly carved with figures, which are sometimes 
 much praised, but which seemed to me (with the exception 
 of a Pieta over the south-west doorw^ay) to be of poor style 
 and character. Going round to the side of the building, 
 the design is of earlier date and much more interesting. 
 The aisle-windows are noble designs of four-lights in each 
 bay, separated by buttresses and surmounted by steep-pitched 
 gables. The detail is an extremely good combination of 
 l>rick and stone, whilst a magnificent plinth of stone and 
 
 u 2
 
 292 
 
 BOLOGNA. 
 
 [Chap. XI. 
 
 marble gives great force to the work. The transept was 
 never built ; but at the point where it was intended to be 
 connected with the aisle, there is a curious conceit— a window 
 at a projecting corner with half its arch and tracery facing 
 south, and the other half facing west. It is, so far as I 
 
 X]L^'' Mi,-''' i^'xil/^iiXs 
 
 z^5^.:::r-©;--;jy:.--.T-;@.-.-:-:^^^l 
 
 PLAN — SAN PETEONIO, BOLOGNA. 
 
 remember, a unique example in a church, but is just a little 
 like the angle -windows in some of the Venetian palaces, 
 though these never indulge in such an absurdity as is the 
 construction of two halves of pointed arches over such an 
 opening.
 
 Chap. XL] 
 
 SAN PETRONIO. 
 
 293 
 
 The interior is very magnificent. The columns, arches, 
 and walls generally are of l^rick, now coloured and wliite- 
 Iwashed (but originally intended to be seen, as is evident 
 ifrom parts of the incomplete work where the internal 
 .brickwork is still exposed and is executed with the greatest 
 icare), the capitals and bases being all of stone. The columns 
 ,of the nave are bold clusters ; they are about sixty feet from 
 
 SECTION — SAN PETUONIO, UOLOGNA. 
 
 
 centre to centre, rather short in proportion to the height of 
 their capitals, which are carved with stiff foliage. Above 
 these is a large pier running up to carry the groining, and 
 there are pointed arches opening to the aisles of very lofty 
 pitch, but which, owing to their great size, certainly look very 
 attenuaiod. Two cliapols open into each bay of the aisles:
 
 294 BOLOGNA, [Chap. XI. 
 
 these are lighted by the large four-light windows already 
 mentioned, whilst both nave and aisles have no windows 
 except ciisped circular ones of no great size, placed as 
 near as possible to the groining, which is very simple 
 throughout the church. There is scarcely a horizontal string- 
 course or a label to be seen, and the mouldings are few and 
 simple ; yet, nevertheless, the efiect is grand. Such a church 
 may well trouble the mind of the English student who thinks 
 that no building is complete which has not its arcade, its 
 triforium, and its clerestory. One of our puny churches would 
 stand — nave, aisles, chancel, tower, and spire and all — within 
 one of the bays of the nave and aisles here ; and there is a 
 grand sense of restraint and simplicity about this work which 
 impresses me more each time I see it. At the same time the 
 interest is of this grand kind — there is a sense of the im- 
 mense and infinite, but no condescension to the love of detail 
 and delight in dainty variety which undoubtedly strikes us 
 in most good Gothic works, and makes them so enjoyable. 
 
 The church which inspired the design of this was, no 
 doubt, the cathedral at Florence. But of the two the design 
 of San Petronio seems to me to be the more beautiful. 
 The addition of chapels beyond the aisles and the traceries 
 in their windows make the design a little less bald and in- 
 sipid, and also give a somewhfit truer impression of the real 
 scale than one has at Florence, But at the best such work 
 does not create enthusiasm. The principal eflbrt of the 
 architect was to build something very big, and he succeeded ; 
 unfortunately he so contrived as very nearly to prevent one 
 from quite realizing how vast his work is, and I hardly know 
 a more serious charge that can be made against an architect 
 than this.^ 
 
 ' The complete oIiiirc]i was to have been 800 foet long, and 525 feet across 
 tlie transepts, witli a central dome I'M) I'l^ct in dianieter. — Fergusson's 'History 
 of Architectnre,' ii. 210.
 
 54-. SJi]^ PETFjvKIv. BOLO^pj^ 
 
 294.
 
 Chap. XI.] SAN DOMENICO. 295 
 
 From tliis clinrch T went to San Domenico, famous for a 
 very elaborate tomb or shrine of the saint by Nicohi Pisano. 
 This is not a work that entirely pleases me. It is a high 
 coped tomb covered with sculptiire on the sides, erected 
 behind the altar. The history of its erection by Nicola 
 Pisano in 1*265 gives it value as a dated work by a great 
 artist. He seems to have been a good deal assisted by his 
 scholar, Fra Guglielmo Agnelli, whose work is by no means 
 equal to his master's. The tomb alone is the work of these 
 artists, the rest of the work about the altar having been fre- 
 quently added to and altered in later days, and each sculptor 
 employed having done his best to glorify his own skill and 
 dexterity instead of thinking, as Nicola Pisano evidently did, 
 simply of telling his story in the most straightforward way. 
 
 The stories represented in the bas-reliefs had more than 
 common value for a sculptor of original power. In the 
 centre is the Madonna ; on one side the resuscitation by 
 S. Dominic of a youth who had been thrown from his horse, 
 and on the other the saint disputing with heretics and 
 burning their books. At the angles are the four Doctors, 
 and at the back two more subjects from the Life of S. 
 Dominic, probably designed but certainly not executed by 
 Nicola Pisano. 
 
 The church which contains this tomb has been ruthlessly 
 modernized ; but in the open piazza on the north side of it 
 are two monuments of much interest. One of these has a 
 square basement of brick, supporting detached shafts, above 
 which are round arches, the whole being finished with a brick 
 pyramid. Under the canopy thus formed is placed the 
 sarcophagus, marked with a cross at the end, and finished at 
 the top with a steep gabled covering. The detail of this is all 
 of late Komanesque style. The other monument is of later 
 date and much finer design, though keeping to the same 
 general outline. In place of the brick basement of the first
 
 296 BOLOGNA. [Chap. XI. 
 
 this has three rows of three shafts, which support a large 
 skb. On this are arcades of pointed arches, three at the sides 
 and two at the ends, carried on coupled shafts, and within 
 this upper arcade is seen the stone coffin carved at the top, 
 and with a stiff effigy of the deceased carved as if lying on 
 one of the perpendicular sides. This monument is also 
 finished with a brick pyramid. The whole design is certainly 
 striking ; it has none of the exquisite skill that marks the 
 best Veronese monuments, but it is a very good example of 
 the considerable success which may be achieved by an archi- 
 tectural design without any help from the sculptor, without 
 the use of any costly materials, and with only moderate 
 dimensions. The upper tier of arches is kept in position by 
 an iron tie, and, in spite of its slender look, still stands after 
 five hundred years' exposure, in perfect condition. 
 
 San Griacomo is another example of a modernized church, 
 which has, however, some interesting features. On the 
 exterior there is a rather good treatment of the polygonal 
 apse, with steep gables and pinnacles over the windows on 
 each side. This is somewhat like the apse of San Fermo, 
 at Verona. The campanile on the south-east of the nave 
 is a very lofty late Grothic erection, finished with an incom- 
 plete Eenaissance belfry-stage. The old portion is divided 
 into a succession of stages of equal height, and is mainly 
 striking on account of its good colour — being all of red 
 brick — and simple outline. The west front is, as is usual 
 here, a great gable divided into three parts by pilasters and 
 half columns ; the doorway is of the thirteenth century, and 
 its columns rest on lions' backs. The detail of the windows 
 at the ends of the aisles is extremely good, and seemed to me 
 to be of the same date. The windows are of two-lights, 
 with shafts for menials, and a Ijroad transome of plate tracery ; 
 the tympanum of the arch at the top is similarly filled : here, 
 though the jambs are of l)rick, the whole of the rest of the
 
 5 5. ;v5.o|Tlf]^E|^T. BOLO<^]M?t 
 
 ». 296.
 
 Chap. XI.] SAN FRANCESCO. 297 
 
 design is executed in stone, and tlie likeness to some of the 
 later Venetian clnircli windows in the Madonna dell' ( )rto and 
 SS. Griovanni e Paolo is too great not to be observed. The 
 cornices here are very good. I noticed not only bricks of 
 unusual shapes, very well arranged for effect, but also disks 
 of earthenware, set with the convex side in view, and of bril- 
 liant glazed colour, generally blue or green. Their effect 
 is extremely good. 
 
 The church of Sta. Maria Maggiore is less altered inter- 
 nally than the rest. It is of great length, groined through- 
 out, and in general effect and proportions seemed to me to 
 have a somewhat less Italian air than the other churches. 
 The apse has an aisle and chapels round it of which the brick 
 detail externally is effective. Here there are large tiles cut 
 to a trefoil shape placed flat against the wall-face as an 
 ornament. They are good-looking, but have not stood well. 
 
 In front of this church there is a court or atrium, sur- 
 rounded with a jDerfectly open arcade, which is continued all 
 along the north side of the church next the road and over 
 the public footpath. The columns are very slender and of 
 marble ; and though the arches which they carry are seg- 
 ments of circles (not an agreeable form), the whole effect is 
 extremely light and graceful. 
 
 San Francesco was one of the finest churches in the city. 
 It is now so shabby and decayed outside, and so covered with 
 painters' and decorators' work inside, that all its good effect 
 is ruined. Its interior was the victim of what was, I daresay, 
 a very well-meant restoration some years ago, and little of it 
 has been left in its original condition. It has a chevet with 
 aisles and chapels, and externally the rare feature (in Italy) 
 of flying buttresses to support the choir vault. They were 
 built by men who had never seen one before, I suppose, 
 and are as crude and misshapen as they well could be. 
 
 Two campanili close to each other, south of the choir,
 
 298 
 
 BOLOGNA. 
 
 [Chap. XI. 
 
 group strangely with it in the perspective view. They are 
 unlike in size and design, and illustrate the perfect indiffer- 
 ence with which all mediseval architects viewed the gravest 
 departures from laws of symmetry. The larger of the two 
 has rather rich Gothic details, the belfry-stage having 
 traceried windows of three lights with spiral shafts for 
 
 CLOISTER — SAN STEFANO, BOI.OGNA. 
 
 menials. The gables in this church have large white marble 
 crosses let into them ; these are rounded at the ends, and 
 each end has a bright green tile disk inserted. The west 
 front is of the usual description — a great sham front of
 
 Chap. XI.] SAN STEFANO. 299 
 
 hideous outline. Most of its windows are lancets, new, but 
 probably copied from old examples, and the doorway under a 
 canopy is of good character. 
 
 I have left to the last what, I suppose, is in fact the 
 oldest of the Bologuese churches — San Stefano. It is a col- 
 lection of seven churches, rather than one church, and, in 
 spite of modernization without end, it is still a most curious 
 and interesting jumble of old buildings. The churches are 
 dedicated to — 1, San Stefano ; 2, San Lorenzo ; 3, San 
 Sepolcro (a circular church) ; 4, The Corte di Pilato (a 
 cloister) ; 5, Sta. Trinita ; 6, SS. Pietro e Paolo (with three 
 liomanesque apses) ; and 7, San Giovanni. No. 3 has an 
 aisle round the circular portion, and was probably a bap- 
 tistery, and there is still an old ambon in it. One gets fairly 
 puzzled in this nest of queer little churches or parts of 
 churches, and I found but little of architectural — as dis- 
 tinguished from antiquarian — interest in them. The brick- 
 work in the cloister and in some of the external walls is 
 extremely good. Some of the latter are diapered or re- 
 ticulated on the face with square yellow tiles with dividing 
 lines of red brick, and the cornices are of the same two colours 
 also. In the cloister the columns and inner order of the 
 arches are of stone, the rest of the walls and cornices being 
 of red and yellow bricks, and in one part there is a course 
 of red, green, and yellow tiles alternated. The effect of this 
 work is extremely pretty. 
 
 Probably travellers remember Bologna more by its two 
 leaning towers than by any other feature. One comes here 
 however, from either side, after rather a surfeit of this sort 
 of thing. On the one side is Pisa, with its leaning tower, and 
 on the other we may see them at Eovigo, Ferrara, and else- 
 where. The soil here is generally bad for foundations, I 
 suppose, and these plain brick towers without any projection 
 at the base are the most ill-contrived constructions for such
 
 300 BOLOGNA. [Chap. XI. 
 
 foundations that one can conceive. In this case it is possible 
 to get views of the two towers which shew an apparently- 
 impossible amount of overhanging on the part of the smaller 
 one, and I confess to a strong preference for walking to what 
 one may call the windward side of such an erection ! There is 
 no beauty in these towers, their only features being the vast 
 array of putlog holes in their walls, and the machicolated 
 battlement of the higher of the two. 
 
 Of domestic buildings of the Middle Ages there are not 
 many remains. The Casa dei Mercanti, though it dates 
 from the end of the fourteenth century, is not pleasing. 
 The front has two lofty pointed arches on the ground story, 
 and a canopied Kinghiera of very poor design above. But as 
 the whole front has been restored, the bricks painted bright 
 red, and the stonework cleaned and repaired, I am disposed 
 to believe very little in the antiquity of any of the details. 
 Certainly I found it not worth sketching, which was the more 
 disappointing as I had heard of it always as a fine building. 
 The Pepoli Palace has some old brickwork and a Ghibelline 
 battlement of unusually picturesque outline. The Piazza 
 Maggiore in front of San Petronio is certainly the best 
 feature in this not very striking city. As always in Italian 
 towns, it must be visited early in the day if it is to be seen to 
 advantage. In the morning it is crowded with fruit and 
 vegetable dealers, sitting under bright-coloured umbrellas; 
 in the afternoon it is triate and deserted, save by the cabmen, 
 who pursue the stranger with their importunities. One side 
 of this piazza is occupied by the Palazzo Publico— a large pile 
 of building altogether Gothic in its inclosing walls, I fancy, 
 but they have been so much altered from time to time that 
 not much detail remains. It seems, however, to have been 
 much like the Castle at Mantua in its character, with bold 
 macliictmlis at the top of the walls, and a well l)attered- 
 out base to the whole biiildinij-. Tii n tower here there is a
 
 Chap. XI.] 
 
 PALAZZO PUBLICO. 
 
 301 
 
 window wliich I engrave, because it shews well liow good an 
 effect may be produced by the skilful use of the very simplest 
 materials. The combination of stone with brick adds much 
 to the effect ; and though this is in itself a very small and 
 unimportant work, it appears to me to be exceedingly 
 suggestive. 
 
 BEIC'K ■WINDOW — PALAZZO PUBLICO, BOLOGKA. 
 
 The Academy of the Fine Arts will be visited by every one 
 who cares for Franeia, and by many who fancy they care for 
 the Caracci. As one of the former class, I recommend it very 
 heartily. It contains a large collection, gathered in papal 
 times from convents and churches, and mainly by painters of 
 the Bolognese school. This school has the redeeming virtue 
 of counting Franeia on its list of painters, which may atone 
 for much. He is seen here to advantage ; and one trio, con- 
 sisting of two of his pictures on either side of one of Peru- 
 gino's, forms the noblest group in the gallery. Here one
 
 302 MODENA. [Chap. XI. 
 
 sees Low much in common the two men had in spite of 
 Francia's more forcible character. The same love of pure 
 and rich colour, the same well-defined grouping, the same 
 religious feeling mark them both. And never, I think, has 
 the Madonna — pensive, lowly, and simple — been more 
 beautifully represented than here by Francia. It is a face 
 that one hopes to remember. Here, too, is Eaffaelle's S. 
 Cecilia, no doubt a very great work, but not great quite in 
 the sense one wishes to understand the word at his hand. 
 S. Cecilia and S. John are very fine, but S. Paul is a sort 
 of burly ruffian. The heavenly choir is very mundane, and the 
 whole work somewhat academical in its design and treatment. 
 The earlier pictures here are very disappointing. The early 
 Bolognese painters seem to have painted coarsely and 
 heavily, and to have drawn badly, and there is no com- 
 parison for a moment between their work and that of the 
 early Sienese and Florentine painters on the one hand, and 
 those of Padua and Yerona on the other. One has indeed 
 in their works a sort of foretaste of what one has from their 
 followers — the Caracci, Domenichino, Bagna-Cavallo, and to 
 some extent Guido. Dismal colour, great striving after 
 chiaroscuro, violent and distorted attitudes, and a purely 
 conventional and academical style, are not great recom- 
 mendations of any school, but they are things which must be 
 accepted if one is to enjoy these works at all heartily. 
 
 A very short railway journey takes one from Bologna to 
 Modena. The one object of interest here is the cathedral, 
 but this is a building of extreme historical and architectural 
 value, and has fortunately been left with so few alterations 
 that we can make out its history with fair certainty. At 
 Bologna everything was built of brick — here at a short 
 distance we find our eyes rejoicing again in the sight of 
 stone and marble. 
 
 The ground-plan of the cathedral consists of a nave with
 
 Chap. XI.] THE CATHEDRAL. 308 
 
 aisles termiiiatecl at the east end by three semicircular 
 apses. There are a sacristy on the north of the choir-aisle, 
 and a tower to the north of this. There are two doorways 
 on the south side, three at the west end, and one on the 
 north side. A grand crypt with arches on slender shafts 
 occupies the w'hole space under the eastern part of the 
 church. The access to the choir from the nave is by stairs 
 against the aisle walls in the same position as at San Zenone, 
 Verona. Here the stairs and their handrails are not later 
 than the thirteenth century, and the choir is divided from 
 the aisles by screens of the same age ; solid below, and wuth 
 a continuous cornice carried on coupled shafts above. The 
 cathedral is said to have been founded in 1099, but an 
 inscription on the south wall gives the date of the consecration 
 of the building by Pope Lucius III. in July 1184. I believe 
 that the former date represents the age of the plan, and of 
 most of the interior columns and arches still remaining, but 
 that before the later date the whole exterior of the cathedral 
 had been modified, and the groining added inside. The 
 work of both periods is extremely good and characteristic. 
 The columns of the nave are alternately great piers and 
 smaller circular columns of red marble. The great piers 
 carry cross arches between the groining bays, and each of 
 these in the nave is equal to two of those in the aisles. The 
 capitals here are very close imitations of Classical work, with 
 the abaci frequently concave on plan. The main arches 
 and the triforium openings of three lights above them are 
 seen both in the nave and aisle, the vaulting of the latter 
 being unusually raised. There is also a plain clerestory, 
 and the vaults are now everywhere quadripartite. The 
 outside elevation of the side walls is very interesting. Here 
 we seem to have the old aisle wall with its eaves-arcade 
 added to and raised in the twelfth century, and adorned with 
 a fine deep arcade in each bay, inclosed under round arches,
 
 304 MODENA. [Chap. XI. 
 
 wiiich are carried on half columns in front of tlie buttresses 
 or pilasters. These arches shew exactly what the original 
 intention was at Ferrara, where it will be recollected they 
 still in part remain. Certainly they would have made the 
 side walls very rich in their effect, even if there had not also 
 been two porches, a projecting pulpit, and various bas-reliefs 
 inserted in them. 
 
 All the doorways deserve special mention. The eastern 
 of the two on the south side, with the porch of two stages 
 in front of it, is remarkable for the extreme skill and delicacy 
 of its enrichment. The shafts are of white marble, and the 
 mouldings which separate them of red, while the former are 
 all carved in the most delicate manner. The i^orch is 
 mainly biiilt of red marble, and is carried on detached 
 shafts, cut out of one block knotted together and resting on 
 lions. The whole of this work is evidently an addition to 
 the aisle, and dates from about a.d. 1180. The other door- 
 way on the same side may probably be a work of the original 
 foundation in 1099. It has the twelve Apostles on the jambs, 
 and rude shafts carrying a canopy in front of it. The west 
 doorway has also a porch, and sculptures of the twelve 
 months on its jambs. It is covered with carving of foliage 
 and figures executed by the same Wiligelmus who was 
 employed on the western doorway of San Zenone, Verona. 
 Among other figures are those of King Arthur and his 
 knights, inscribed with his name,^ " Artus de Bretania," 
 above his head. The west front is very remarkable. The 
 ends of the aisles have two arches inclosing small arcades 
 similar to those in the bays of the side walls, and the end of 
 the nave has the same arcade on each side of a porch of two 
 stages in height, the lower of which is carried on detached 
 
 ' Ml". Forkiiiy, 'Italian Sculptois,' p. 251, says that tlie nationality of 
 Wilit^clmus has been much disputeil. Kreuscr says tliat he came from 
 Niiinberg ; and the re|)resentation of King Arthur's victoiies over the 
 Visigotlis is adduced as a i>ro()f tliat he was not an Italian.
 
 o 
 
 i^ 

 
 Chap. XI.] THE CATHEDRAL. 305 
 
 shafts resting on lions' backs. Tlie upper part of the porch 
 was altered in order that a great wheel window might be 
 inserted, sometime in the foiirteentli century. 
 
 This rose window fills the whole upper part of the 
 western gable, and is, like many Italian examples, very 
 unskilful in its design. The vast number of divisions or 
 spokes, and the very slight prominence of the arcuated part 
 of the filling-in, make it look in very truth a wheel window 
 and nothing better. Above it are an insignificant figure of 
 Our Lord and the Emblems of the four Evangelists sculptured 
 in low relief. The lower portion of the walls is covered in 
 ■ the most promiscuous manner with bas-reliefs, and a medley 
 of mural tablets, the number of which would delight the 
 eyes of an English parish clerk ; but nevertheless the rich 
 character given to the work by the fine shadows of the 
 arcades in the lower half of the front, is worthy of special 
 notice and recollection. The tower and spire are very lofty. 
 The former has six stages of nearly equal height, all round- 
 arched, and on the top of this two octagonal stages crowned 
 with a modern spire. The lower stage of the octagon is old, 
 and was finished in 1317 by Enrico da Campione, one of the 
 family of architects of whom I have before spoken. The 
 tower has pilasters at the angles, and two intermediate on 
 each face, so that there is a triple division in elevation, and 
 all the horizontal string-courses are marked by arched corbel- 
 : tables. The repetition of these very simple features, and 
 :the absence of all openings in the lower part of the steeple, 
 jshew how simple the elements of a good work may be. 
 I I found nothing else of any interest in Modena, and 
 made my way from thence to Parma, impatient to see not 
 'anly the cathedral and the l)aptistery, but also Corrego-io's 
 {treatment of the decoration of the former. In spite of the 
 ;.:,'reat fame of these works, I fear I must at once confess that 
 |:hey took away most of the pleasure which I had anticipated 
 
 X
 
 306 PAEM.A. [Chap. XI 
 
 from my visit to tlie catlieclral at Parma. This is a grand 
 Lombard cliiircli, fairly perfect in its arcliitectural details 
 and arrangements, but entirely ruined in its architectural 
 effect by the frescoes with which most of its walls and roof 
 have been covered. These have been j)ainted without the 
 slightest thought of the requirements of the building, and 
 as a matter of course they have entirely ruined its effect. 
 The frescoes in the dome are by Correggio, and are amongst 
 his most celebrated works. Like all the rest of the paintings 
 here, they present, when regarded from below without the 
 assistance of a glass, a confused mass of distorted figures 
 and limbs, not at all relieved by the dark and dismal colour- 
 ing in which they are executed, and which doubtless is not 
 what it once was. It is true that when examined in detail, \ 
 and still more when examined in Toschi's careful engravings, 
 they are full of beautiful drawing and skilful chiaroscuro, 
 but the impression they have left on my mind is mainly one 
 of the extreme risk of attempting to decorate a building 
 without previous training in and knowledge of the require- 
 ments of architecture. As an example of Lombard archi- 
 tecture the cathedral at Parma is almost ruined, whilst it 
 would be difficult to conceive a worse-fitted building for the 
 display of Correggio's fancy and skill. The ill-assorted 
 union, m itself ruinous to both, has been aggravated by the 
 bad state of repair wliicli has damaged and no doubt altered 
 the colour of the frescoes ; and the impression now produced 
 is that of simply the gloomiest interior in Italy, 
 
 The church is cruciform, with a central cupola and apses 
 to the three eastern arms of the cross. The nave and aisles 
 of seven bays are vaulted, and there is a large and striking 
 crypt under the whole eastern part of the church which goes 
 far to redeem its otherwise barren character. The effect here 
 is remarkable, owing to tlio complex perspective and great 
 number of single sleiuh'r marbh* shafts c-irrying the vault(>(l
 
 CiiAr. XL] 
 
 THE BAP'J'LSTEIIY. 
 
 307 
 
 I'LAN OF BAPTISTERY. 
 
 roofs, and in jjart also to its unusual height. The capitals 
 are all carved— frequently with coarse volutes ; the church 
 was founded in 1058, and no doubt this 
 crypt is of about that age. 
 
 Very near to the cathedral on the 
 south-west is the now much more in- 
 teresting baptistery. This is on the 
 exterior a large and lofty octangular 
 building, adorned in a succession of stages by small de- 
 tached shafts carrying the cornices and strings which divide 
 the elevation. Internally the scheme is very, different. 
 The eight-sided interior is subdivided, so that sixteen shal- 
 low apses are set around 
 the inside face of the walls. 
 These are separated by co- 
 lumns, and above them on 
 each side are two stages in 
 height, each subdivided into 
 three divisions, which are 
 again subdivided by smaller 
 columns. A great vault or 
 cupola covers the whole, and 
 from its height gives an air 
 of solemnity to the interior. 
 It seems never to have been 
 treated as a real dome, being 
 covered with a flat roof, 
 
 resting on tlie external walls, section of baptistery. 
 
 which are carried up far above the vault. The paintings 
 with which the walls are covered are arranged without any 
 order or general scheme of design. They seem to have been 
 given by various donors, and each gave what best pleased his 
 fancy; but owing to the early date of most of the work, there 
 is iu parts -especially in the vault -a fine effect of colour. 
 
 X 2
 
 308 PIACP]NZA. [Chap. XT. 
 
 This baptistery is said to have been commenced by the 
 architect Benedetto di Antelamo in a.d. 1196/ who is also 
 credited with many other works here, and specially with 
 much of the early sculpture in the Duomo and baptistery ; 
 it was not completed until 1260. 
 
 There are three great doors to the baptistery. On the 
 northern is sculptured the Tree of Life, and over this twelve 
 prophets carrying medallions with half figures of the Apostles. 
 Below are subjects from the lives of Our Lord and S. John 
 Baptist. The western door has a sculpture of the Last 
 Judgment, and the southern a not very intelligible, though 
 no doubt symbolical, figure of a man seated in a tree and 
 gathering honey. Inside there are various sculptures, and ; 
 among them a series of illustrations of the labours of the ^ 
 months. 
 
 My day in Parma was pleasantly concluded with a visit 
 to the Gallery, and then, finding no more mediaeval remains, 
 I pushed on to Piacenza. 
 
 This is a city of no small interest, and remarkable above 
 everything else in the possession of a Palazzo Publico of 
 unusual and striking design — a building of special value and 
 interest to me, since it is a capital example of the use of 
 brick and marble together. Before looking at any of the 
 churches I devoted myself to this building with the more 
 satisfaction when I found that it was really, in some respects, 
 one of the very best works of the sort that I had ever seen. 
 
 An inscription carved under a banner on a square stone, 
 in the front, records the commencement of the work in 
 1281, and I think we may assume that no part of it is of 
 much later date than this. It consists, as do most of these 
 buildings, of a lofty open ground story, and a principal story 
 
 ' The inscription on the north door is as follows : — 
 
 " Bis binis dcmptis. Annis de inille duccutis 
 Incepit dictus, opus hoc sculptor Beiiedictus."'
 
 57. P^URZZO PUBLICO. PMCE^JZ^. 
 
 p. 308.
 
 Chap. XL] THE PALAZZO PUBLICO. 309 
 
 above this. The I'afade is very dignified in effect. On the 
 ground level are five lofty arches, very slightly moulded, and 
 resting on square piers just rounded at the corners. The 
 material of this stage is marble, mainly white, but with just 
 a line of red and another of grey near the string-course 
 which divides this from the next stage. From this point up 
 almost the whole work is executed in brickwork of very 
 elaborate and delicate detail. The two stages have no kind 
 of uniformity or connection with each other, six windows 
 being arranged above the five arches. In the centre of the 
 first floor is the old doorway to the Einghiera (which was 
 altered in the seventeenth century) ; the windows on each 
 side are of three lights, inclosed under a round arch with a 
 deep archivolt very slightly recessed — all the enrichments 
 being on very nearly the same face as the wall. These 
 windows agree in size, but vary very much in all their 
 details. Some of the subordinate arches are pointed, some 
 round, and the tympana are everywhere filled with fine 
 brick diapers. Above this stage the walls finish with a 
 good marble cornice of intersecting arches, and then with a 
 forked battlement. At the four angles of this are raised 
 turrets, and the ends are finished with battlemented gables, 
 very quaint and picturesque, as will be seen by the illus- 
 tration which I give. The niches between the two arches in 
 the principal story seem to have been intended for paintings. 
 The marbles used here are red and white. Eed is used for 
 the arcades under the cornices, for the middle order of the 
 rose window, and the inner order of the main arches. 
 Elsewhere the marble is white, except the one grey course 
 below the principal string. The whole of the lower stage is 
 open below on all sides and groined — in brick, I think — 
 though it is now plastered ; indeed, save the parts already 
 described as being of marble in the principal fronts, the 
 whole of this buildin^;- is built of red brick. Behind the
 
 310 
 
 PIACENZA. 
 
 [Chap. XI. 
 
 open grouud story there remains a portion of an internal 
 quadrangle, which, incomplete as it is, sIicays, nevertheless, 
 the same delicate attention to detail which is conspicuous on 
 the fapades. I know hardly any detail of Italian brickwork 
 which is so refined and good as that in the arches and some 
 cusped circles between them in this quadrangle. 
 
 I have seen this building, full as it is of eccentric 
 departures from ordinary rules and customs — piers being 
 
 BItlCKWORK — I'ALAZZO PUBLICO, TIACENZA. 
 
 placed over openings, and round and pointed arches used 
 indifferently — quoted for our benefit as a remarkable example 
 of a public building erected in the Middle Ages in the most 
 regular and formal fashion ! It is, on the contrary, if the 
 plain truth is to be spoken, an example of a very bold 
 disregard of -such fashions indulged in without any detri- 
 mental effect. 
 
 Piacenza cannot l>oast of any very fine churches. They 
 liHVC been much ]'uiii''(l iiitciinilK^ hy ukkIci']! alterations, and
 
 CiiAi'. XI.] THE CATHEDRAL. 811 
 
 externally tlioy do not seem ever to have been very attractive. 
 The cathedral is a Lombard church of fine size, and with 
 some good points. There are three western porches of two 
 stages in height, according to the usual Lombard fashion. 
 The doors are rudely sculptured ; that in the centre with the 
 signs of the Zodiac, and the northern door with the Annun- 
 ciation, Salutation, and other subjects on its lintel. The 
 columns rest on monsters, griffins, and men. The whole 
 front is now finished with one large low-pitched gable, 
 which has an arcade stepped up to suit its cornice. This is, 
 however, a fourteenth-century alteration of the older church, 
 as is also a rose window in the centre. A brick tower of 
 late date rises at the north-west angle of the church, and 
 is finished with a circular spire built of round-ended bricks. 
 The external walls of the Lombard church were all built of 
 stone or marble with shallow buttresses ; the windows were 
 very simple, and the effect was mainly due to the fine open 
 arcade below the eaves, carried now on shafts, now on 
 figures. The north-east view is very picturesque, owing to 
 the number of angles and apsidal terminations which are 
 seen together. These are j)i"oduced by a plan of most 
 unusual character, the transepts as well as the choir being 
 finished with three apses, and an octagonal brick lantern 
 rising out of the centre. Liternally the cathedral, in spite 
 of alterations, is still very interesting. The nave opens 
 with eight arches to the aisles and transepts ; but the three 
 arches which open to the hitter are much loftier than the 
 five western arches, so as to allow of the transej)ts opening 
 to the nave to nearly its full height. The groining of the 
 nave is divided into three bays of sexpartite vaults — each 
 bay being equal to two bays of the aisles, and there is a 
 lantern over the two eastern bays. The transepts and aisles 
 liavc quadripartite vaulting. 
 
 Under the choir is a crypt of great interest and beauty,
 
 312 
 
 PIACENZA. 
 
 [Chap. XL 
 
 owing to the vast number of delicate columns which carry 
 the vault. It is planned on a cruciform arrangement, with 
 the principal altar in an octagonal central compartment. 
 Here the priest celebrates on the eastern side with his back 
 to the choir stalls in the apse, and his face toward the west. 
 The access to this crypt is by two staircases at its south- 
 west and north-west angles. 
 
 The large brick church of San Francesco is of the four- 
 teenth century ; it is very simple, but not striking in effect. 
 The east end has been planned irregularly — to suit the site, 
 
 no doubt — with an apse and aisle 
 round it, and irregularly shaped 
 chapels beyond the apse. The 
 effect is bad, owing to the un- 
 skilful way in which the work 
 has been done. The Avest front 
 has the favourite sham gable 
 adorned with circular windows, 
 some of which are absolutely 
 above the roofs of the aisles ! 
 San Giovanni in Canale is an- 
 other church which has nothing 
 of interest, save a few remnants 
 of old brickwork. 
 Sant' Antonino is a remarkable church, hopelessly modern- 
 ized with plaster enrichments. Like the cathedral, it has 
 a lantern in the centre crossing, carried on eight columns 
 from the ground, which produce internally a very new and 
 really striking effect. The lantern is finished above the roof 
 with three stages, each of which is lighted with a two-light 
 window in each face. There is a fine early marble doorway 
 to the north transept, with men and monsters supporting 
 the shafts, and some delicate carving. I]i front of this, at 
 the end of the fourteenth century, was built a lofty porch 
 
 PLAN — SANT AM'ONINO.
 
 Chap. XI.] 
 
 SANT' ANTONINO. 
 
 313 
 
 with a great open archway to the north. It is finislicd w-ith 
 brick pinnacles and cornices, and is higher than the transept. 
 Tlio hinges on the west door here are very good, and the 
 windows in the aisles — lancets with seven cusps in the head 
 — are quite worth notice. Piacenza struck me, both in its 
 churches and Palazzo Publico, as a town wdiich had pos- 
 sessed a very distinctly developed school of architecture of 
 its own. The churches are peculiar, not to say eccentric, 
 in their planning, and the Palazzo Publico is quite unique 
 in its design and general treatment. 
 
 5 10 2(, 
 
 ZoFett 
 
 SECTION— SANT' AKTONIXO, ITACENZA. 
 
 The only other old work I noticed here was a house in 
 
 the Strada San Marco. This is all of brick, and has arches 
 
 jof slightly horse-shoe shape. The bricks are all axed on 
 
 I the face, and are of large size —11. j inches long by about 
 
 |2| inches high.
 
 314 ASTl. [Chap. XT. 
 
 Not very far to the east of Piacenza is Asti, a dull city, 
 distinguished, however, by some remarkable features in its 
 churches. The most important of these are the Cathedral 
 and San Secondo. They are extremely similar in general 
 design : they have naves v/ith short choirs, transepts, low 
 octagonal vaulted lanterns over the crossing, and apsidal 
 chapels in front of the transept gables, and at San Secondo 
 to the several bays of the aisle. Their towers are on the 
 east side of the transepts. The peculiar feature of their 
 detail is the very elaborate way in which brick and stone are 
 counterchanged in the jambs and arches of windows and ; 
 doorways. The moulded members of a jamb are alternately \ 
 of brick and stone, and in each course stone comes above the 3 
 brick of the courses below. San Secondo cannot, I think, be 
 earlier than circa 1400, but at first sight looks like a building 
 of 1200. The cathedral is probably somewhat though not 
 very much earlier. Its plan was evidently derived from that 
 of the cathedral at Piacenza. Its j)ro2)ortions are bad, and 
 it is only redeemed by the picturesqueness of some of its 
 details. Another church has an octagonal campanile ; and 
 another, one of sixteen sides. This is of brick, except the 
 upper stage, which is coursed in brick and stone. Its six- 
 teen sides have alternately a window and a shaft run- 
 ning up to the cornice, and in the stage below it there are 
 eight windows below the shafted sides of the belfry. The 
 composition of this tow^er is certainly very good. Another 
 tine lofty tower with bold cornice and Ghibelline parapet 
 recalls the Veronese towers to mind, and there are besides 
 not a few remains of mediaeval domestic w^ork, so that a day 
 may be well spent at Asti by an ai'chitect.
 
 (JiiAi-. XII.] ^11 LAN. 315 
 
 CHA*PTER XII. 
 
 Launce ! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan." 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, act ii, 
 
 l\lilaii: the Cathc'dial — Saut' Aiiibrogio — Sant' Eustorgio — Sta. Maria dulle 
 Grazie — Certosa of Chiaravalle — Novara — Veicelli — Mouza : tlie Ca- 
 tlicilral — Tlie Broletto — Sta. Maria in Strada — Como: the Brolctto — 
 The Cathedral. 
 
 Milan is better known to the generality of English travellers 
 than, perhaps, any other city south of the Alps ; and its 
 older portions afford a fair idea of some of the most salient 
 points of Italian manners and customs, whilst its new and 
 much-vaunted arcades and streets seem to be not only so 
 cosmopolitan as to be un-Italian, but so bald and poor in 
 design as to be repulsive wherever they are ! Its narrow 
 busy streets, though they are wanting indeed in the arcading 
 so characteristic of very many other towns we had passed 
 through, have that peculiar charm which life and bustle 
 always give to strange j)laces ; the crowds of foot-passengers 
 threading the narrow ways, with no protection from the 
 I omnibuses and carts which jostle against them, are full of 
 I animation, and lively and picturesque in their costumes, 
 j Elbowing our way between them, we soon found ourselves 
 in a piazza, with the Duomo rising before us in all the 
 magniticence of its white marble walls. If it be indeed true
 
 316 MILAN. [Chap. XII. 
 
 that it was designed by a Grerman/ there is on the outside 
 even more cause for astonishment at his work than if it had 
 been the work of an Italian. The west front is quite modern, 
 but the rest of the exterior, all in its original state, is as 
 little German in its character as any building I have ever 
 seen, and — shall I add it ? — as little really grand as a work 
 of art. I had just caught a glimpse of its general outline 
 and effect by the bright moonlight, on the evening of my 
 arrival, with the music of an Austrian band sounding plea- 
 santly in my ears, and, thus seen, there was certainly 
 something wild and striking in its effect. I saw the 
 brilliantly light colour of the white marble in the full 
 brightness of the moon, and little of the poverty of mould- 
 ing, or the heaviness of traceries, or the preposterous 
 tenuity of pinnacles, which daylight revealed, to the de- 
 struction of any belief I might still have in its beauty ; and 
 the more I examined it in detail the less satisfactory did it 
 appear; for neither in its general mass, nor in its detail, 
 does it bear examination. Its walls are panelled all over, 
 the panelling having a peculiarly painful kind of pendulous, 
 unsupported, and unconstructional character, and the string- 
 courses are marked by a continuous trefoil arcading on their 
 under side, which recalls the frequent Italian string-courses 
 
 ' It is commonly said to have been designed by Heinrich von riniiinden 
 in 1387; but in a most interesting note at p. 116 of 'Italian Sculptors,' 
 Mr. Perkins gives the evidence for and against the claim of a Genuaii to be 
 the architect of this cathedral. He believes that there is no longer any 
 reasonable doubt that the first architect was Marco Frisone da Campioac. 
 Heiurioh Adler von Gmiinden, who has commonly been stated to be the 
 arciiitect, did not come to Milan until five years after tlie foundation of the 
 ciiureh. Marco da Campione dieil in i:390 ; ami the ciiurch was ready for 
 divine service in I'.VJa. The criticisms I have made in the text appear to me 
 to b^ equally applicable to an Italian architect trained in Germany, or lo a 
 German working in Italy ; and if Marco da Campione was the arciiitoct, one 
 is compelled, by tlic logic of the building itself, to say that eitiier he had 
 studied north of the Alps with a view to perfecting his design, or that he 
 depended very largely on the ludp given him by sucli men as Henry of 
 (iiniinden, whom be had called in to his assistance.
 
 Chap. XIL] 
 
 THE CATriEDRAL. 
 
 317 
 
 in l)rick. The buttresses are bold in their formation and 
 scale, but poor and weak-looking in their design, and finish 
 
 GROUND-PLAN — MILAN CATHEDRAL. 
 
 at the top with pinnacles, whose thin outline, seen against 
 the deep blue sky, is painfully bad and unsatisfying. The
 
 318 MILAN. [Chap. XIT. 
 
 panelling of the walls is continued up to their whole height 
 without any decided line of parapet or cornice, and finishes 
 in a rough serrated line of small gables, which is particu- 
 larly restless and wanting in repose. Great flying but- 
 tresses span the aisles, and then in the clerestory is repeated 
 exactly what we have already seen below, the same panelling, 
 the same parapet, and the same light pinnacles ; the 
 windows, however, are here very small and insignificant, 
 whilst those in the aisles are remarkable for their large size 
 and for the singular traceries with which they are filled. 
 All the lower windows are transomed with a line of tracery, 
 surmounted in each light by a crocketed canopy running 
 up into the light above. In the apse this tracery fills 
 the four outer lights only on each side of the two centre 
 lights, the others being continued without interruption to 
 the sill ; and in these windows it is remarkable that each 
 light is subdivided with a small monial below this band of 
 tracery. 
 
 Altogether, an efiect of a prodigious number and repeti- 
 tion of vertical lines is produced, and yet, notwithstanding 
 this, the efi'ect of the entire building is decidedly rather 
 horizontal and depressing than the contrary ; this is not 
 more owing to the absence of all visible roofing than to the 
 way in which the parapets, with their irregular gabled 
 outline, attract the eye to a markedly horizontal feature. 
 
 Upon the whole, therefore, the exterior is in no respect 
 more Italian than it is German in its style ; it belongs to 
 no school, and has no fellows : from the beginning it has 
 been an exotic, and to the end of time will probably remain 
 so, without a follower or an imitator in the singular develop- 
 ment of which it is the only example ; and there does 
 appear, if we consider the matter, to be some intrinsic 
 probability that such a luiilding must have been designed 
 1)V a foicioner ratlicr titan bv a native. It has, in fact, all
 
 Chap. XII.] THE CATIIi:i)i!AL. 319 
 
 the appearance of Laving been the work of a stranger who 
 was but imperfectly acquainted with the wants or customs 
 of Italian architecture, working to some extent with the 
 traditions of his national school before him, but, at the 
 same time, impressed with a strong sense of the necessity 
 under which he lay, of doing something quite unlike what he 
 had l»een taught to consider necessary for buildings in his 
 native land. It will be found upon examination that there 
 is absolutely hardly one point in which this vast building 
 follows the traditions of Italian pointed work. Its plan 
 has not any Italian characteristics in its arrangement or 
 proportions. Its windows have moulded monials instead of 
 shafts ; its walls are buttressed instead of being marked with 
 pilasters here and there ; its pinnacles are Northern in their 
 idea, for strength rather than (as Italian pinnacles were) 
 only for ornament ; its walls have no cornices, and there are 
 no sham fronts or attempts at concealing the necessary 
 features of construction ; the walls are panelled instead of 
 l)eing arcaded, and there is a constant endeavour to break up 
 plain surfaces of wall, unlike the predilection for smooth 
 broad surfaces so usual in thoroughly Italian work, and de- 
 structive of the kind of breadth and dignity which this last 
 generally has ; fiually, if rest and life may be taken — as by 
 some they are — to be respectively the distinguishing features 
 of Italian and Northern pointed work, then, assuredly, the 
 lack of repose in Milan Cathedral — caused mainly by the 
 degree to which the system of panelling is carried over the 
 whole building, and the extent to which the use of the 
 simple horizontal line is carefully excluded— goes far to 
 consign its exterior to some school of life and restlessness of 
 the most unsatisfactory character. The one point in Avhicli 
 an Italian model has been at all followed is the section, 
 , whore the jiroportions of the aisles to the nave and the 
 I pitch of their roofs certainly shew a knowledge of San
 
 320 MILAN. [Chap. XIT. 
 
 Petronio, Bologna. But its architect appears to me to have 
 been shocked at the necessity under which he lay of sacrific- 
 ing the steep lines of roof so dear to him in his native land, 
 and to have striven with all his might to provide a substitute 
 for their effect by the vertical lines of his panelled buttresses 
 and walls, by the gabled outline of his jjarapets, and by 
 the removal even of such a slight horizontal mark as the 
 commencement of the traceries of his windows on one line. 
 And his work is a most remarkable standing proof of the 
 failure of such an attempt ; for, despite all these precautions, 
 and I incline to believe in consequence of them, the general 
 efi'ect is, after all, entirely horizontal. Extremes meet, and 
 so the attempt to avoid absolute horizontal lines has com- 
 pletely failed, because in their place we have a succession \ 
 of vertical members placed side by side in such endless 
 numbers that we really think more of the horizontal ar- 
 rangement of these members, slight though they are, than 
 we should of the simjilest defined horizontal line. 
 
 And the same consequence followed the same kind of 
 work in England. I know no building in which the hori- 
 zontal line is more painfully predominant than in Henry the 
 Seventh's Chapel at Westminster, where, nevertheless, it is 
 broken endlessly by vertical lines of pinnacles, and where 
 the walls are covered in all parts with perpendicular lines of 
 panelling. 
 
 Indeed, I should have but little respect for such a 
 building as this exterior of Milan were it not for its rare 
 material (used though it is in a prodigal manner, and 
 without particular reference to its nature) and its immense 
 size- though this is far less in appearance than in reality. 
 But my detraction and harsh criticisms must end here ; for 
 if, having first made the circuit of the entire church, the 
 flight of steps which loads up to the west door is last of all 
 mounted, the first feeling must be one of perfect amazement
 
 CiiAi'. XII.] THE CATHEDEAL. 321 
 
 aiul (Icliglit- amazement that the same mind which con- 
 ceived the exterior should have been able also to achieve 
 anything so diverse from it as is the interior, and delight 
 that anything so magnificent and so perfect should ever 
 have been reared on the southern slope of the Alps, to 
 exhibit, to the eyes as it were of enemies, the full majesty 
 and power of the pointed architecture of the North. And 
 mark, upon consideration, how very natural this was. Its 
 architect had been tied down in his exterior by the wants, 
 or supposed wants, of a climate unlike his own, and a 
 material to which he was unused ; his genius had thus been 
 fettered and kept under ; but here all shackles were undone, 
 and he was free to carry out to its very greatest perfection 
 what he had learnt or dreamt of in his Northern home. 
 And what a result has he not achieved !— absolutely and 
 without doubt one of the grandest interiors in the world is, 
 I do believe, this noble work of his ; its grandeur amazes one 
 at first, and delights all the more afterwards as one becomes 
 on more intimate terms with it, and can look at it with less 
 emotion than at first. And how shall I describe it ?— for to 
 say that it has so many bays in length or in width is not 
 sufficient ; all this, and even the detail of its design, were 
 familiar enough to me before I saw it, but still the reality 
 was so very far beyond any description, that I felt, and feel 
 still, averse from attempting it. 
 
 A few only of the most noticeable points, therefore, shall 
 be touched ; and, as it seems to me to teach less of Italian 
 art or architecture than of Northern, I shall feel myself 
 acquitted of neglect, inasmuch as the main, if not the sole, 
 I object of my Italian notes is as to the development of 
 I really Italian work. I was struck at first by the prodigious 
 j width and height of the building. The nave is enormously 
 I wide, and has two aisles on either side^ those next to it 
 Ibeing also of great size and height, and having clerestories 
 
 Y
 
 322 MILAN. [Chap. XII. 
 
 in tlieir outer walls. The outer aisles are lighted with large 
 traceried windows, filled with stained glass, which gives the 
 church a character very unlike that of the generality of 
 Italian Gothic churches, in which coloured glass is so rarely 
 seen in large masses. 
 
 There is, therefore, a regular gradation in the heights 
 of the five main divisions of the church, which are well 
 proportioned to their respective widths ; and, resting as 
 these divisions do upon four rows of clustered columns of 
 immense size and height, a more magnificent internal effect 
 is jH-oduced than I can recollect even any approach to in any 
 other church ; for not even in Koln or in Amiens is there 
 any eftect so magnificent as that of this forest of prodigious 
 piers. They are finished at the top with capitals peculiar 
 to this huilding, and quite unlike anything I have hefore 
 seen — I suppose at least twelve feet deep, with a kind of 
 arcade of tracery surmounted by a crocketed gable on each 
 side, and finished above and below with courses of foliage, and 
 with figures standing in the niche-like panels of the arcade. 
 
 Such a contrivance would be clumsy and absurd if 
 attempted on a small scale, but here, at the summit of these 
 immense columns, it is thoroughly successful, and, I believe, 
 the only contrivance which could have been successfully 
 adopted. The capitals vary very much in detail and in 
 merit ; but one of the finest is seen close to the west entrance, 
 and recalls forcibly the best Northern pointed work, having 
 indeed, neither in detail nor in design, one single trace of an 
 Italian influence. 
 
 So grand are the columns that the excessive poverty and 
 lightness of the arches which divide the nave from the aisles, 
 which is perhaps the greatest defect of the interior of the 
 church, is not for a long time noticed; they have, however, 
 but little apparent work to do, and so their lightness may 
 perhaps be a virtue.
 
 CiiAi'. Xll.] THE CATHEDRAL. 323 
 
 Throughout the interior there is a very remarkable love 
 shewn everywhere for a moulding which was never used by 
 Italians, but was so much used among ourselves — the wave- 
 mould. Then, again, all the shafts are filleted, and the 
 lillet turning off gradually into the round line of the shaft, 
 })roduccs the same moulding ; a fulness and richness are con- 
 sequently very noticeable in all the interior, very different 
 indeed from anything else that I saw in Italy. The solitary 
 blot upon this otherwise noble work is one for which its 
 architect is in no way responsible — the cells of the groining 
 arc all filled in with painted imitations of elaborate traceries 
 in brown colour, an abominable device, which never ceases to 
 ofiend and annoy the eye more and more every time it is 
 observed.^ The window tracery throughout is meagre, con- 
 fused, and unmeaning, and the traceries introduced at mid- 
 height most unsatisfactory ; but the glass with which it is 
 filled, though poor and late in its character, contains much 
 rich colour, and gives the entire building a very grand and 
 warm tone. 
 
 Compared with other foreign churches, there is in this — 
 the largest of them all — a singular absence of side altars 
 There are indeed some three or four ; but so great is the 
 })rominence given to the high altar in the choir, that one 
 scarcely thinks of the possibility of the existence of any 
 others, and has to look about a good deal before discovering 
 where they are to be found. 
 
 In common with so many of the Italian churches the 
 pavements here are very fine, and impart no small degree of 
 additional magnificence to the interior. 
 
 Many are the works which might bo catalogued in this 
 
 ' Wlieu I first saw this I tlioiij^ht it was au entirely modern device. In 
 1S7I, bowever, in passing through Franc.', I found at La Fere a churcli of 
 flamboyant character, with all the cells of its groining covered with sunk 
 traceries; and at Chumbe'ry the painting on the roof of the Sainte Chapello 
 is said to be old. 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 MILAN. [Chap. XII. 
 
 great clinrcli, but I must content myself with noticing one 
 only — the great bronze candelabrum. This is, I suppose, the 
 most precious work of its kind in Europe. It was placed in 
 the cathedral in 1557, a date too late for its execution by 
 some three hundred years. The supports are four winged 
 dragons, heads downwards, and with tails intertwined. The 
 shaft has bosses in the centre, and branches out above into 
 a profusion of branches full of exquisite leafage. This is all 
 conventional in character, and entirely like thirteenth-century 
 work. In spaces formed for the purpose and on the bosses 
 are various figures and subjects all wrought with singular 
 skill, and a lavish profusion of ingenuity which cannot be 
 too much admired. Among these are the Temptation and j 
 the Expulsion from Paradise, the signs of the zodiac, figures 
 illustrating architecture and music, and a variety of others. 
 
 After I had seen the cathedral I had, by way of enjoying 
 the pleasures of a contrast, to devote myself patiently to all the 
 troubles attendant upon personally procuring my passport. 
 At Milan personal application was absolutely enforced ; and 
 there, in a small room crowded by vetturini and other 
 Italians of the lower order, relieved by one or two unfor- 
 tunate travellers like myself, I had for nearly two hours to 
 endure heat, noise, and all the other annoyances of such a 
 work, before I succeeded in getting my passport vise, with 
 permission to abide three days only within the walls. This 
 system is certainly most vexatious to an Englishman ; but at 
 the same time, if people will make a point of keeping the 
 rulers of a city constantly on the qui vive with plots, or 
 rumours of plots, I do not see what other resource their rulers 
 can have. Some idea of the state of the population may be 
 drawn from the w^ay in which the soldiers patrol the streets, 
 in companies of three or four, during the whole day, giving 
 an impression of a place where men keeping guard singly 
 would be in danger ; and tlien again the great number of
 
 Chap. XII.] SANT' AMBROGIO. 325 
 
 the troops at the prates find elsewliere throiif^hout the city 
 certainly presents very much the impression of a pLace whose 
 normal condition is one perpetual state of siege.^ 
 
 Next to the cathedral the great architectural attraction 
 of Milan is the famous church of Sant' Arabrogio, which has 
 equally as great claims upon the antiquary and upon the 
 ecclesiologist as upon the architect. 
 
 Entering from the west, it presented a most striking 
 and, to me, most novel effect. In advance of the church is an 
 open atrium, surrounded by a cloister of Lombard-Piomanesque 
 character, the columns having quaintly and stiffly carved 
 capitals of stone, and the wall and arches being built of 
 mixed bricks and stone.^ Three arches, open from the atrium 
 to the west end of the church, and above them three other 
 archesof similar plan, and arranged in triplet fashion, that in 
 the centre being the highest and widest, nearly till up the 
 great flat pediment of the church, on either side of which rise 
 towers — that on the north divided into stages by means of 
 arcaded strings, like most Lombard belfries ; that on the soutli 
 perfectly plain and rude, and perhaps therefore of the very 
 early date at which some antiquaries appear to place the build- 
 ing of the main structure of this portion of the existing church.^ 
 This arrangement, borrowed though it may be from 
 heathen days and civil buildings, is nevertheless uncommonly 
 satisfactory ; it serves to prepare the mind for the entrance 
 to the church itself, and, instead of the abrupt transition 
 commonly made from the world to the holy places, here the 
 intermediate atrium gives time and space to throw off all 
 worldly thoughts, and to enter entirely into the religious 
 feelings proper in such a j^lace. 
 
 ' I leave this passage as it was written in IS.'iS. Sueli troubles are now- 
 nil passed and Rone ; but we run some risk of forgetting how niiicli we have 
 gained in this way by flie political ehangcs that liave occurred since then. 
 
 -' See plate IS, p. rJ2, for an illustration of tho cornice of this atrium. 
 
 ' The atrium w as added, it is said, in the ninth century.
 
 326 MILAN. [Chap. XII. 
 
 The entrance by tlie west doorway is of great interest, for 
 in its very ancient doors are inserted some still more ancient 
 fragments, said by tradition — and there is every reason to 
 believe it to be true — to be portions of the gates which 
 S. Ambrose shut against the Emperor Theodosius. 
 
 The interior has suffered much at various times, either 
 by repairs or alterations ; and as most of the groining is of 
 pointed character, the first impression is that of a very low, 
 simple, and solemn-looking pointed church of early date. 
 Upon more close examination, however, it is found that the 
 main walls throughout are Eomanesque, and that this 
 groining was subsequently inserted, and again in later times 
 strengthened and supported by great piers and arches of 
 Classic character. 
 
 The j)lan, after passing the atrium, is a nave of three 
 bays, each fjubdivided into two by arches into the aisles, a 
 lantern over the altar, and three eastern apses. There are 
 no transepts. The most striking object in the interior is 
 the magnificent Eomanesque baldachin above the high altar. 
 This is supported on four marble shafts, and has a semi- 
 circular arch on each face, with figures and foliage in the 
 four flat pediments or gables which finish it above. Three 
 flights of five stej)s lead up to the altar from the north, 
 south, and west, and the whole is protected both on the east 
 and the west by high metal screens. Here is a splendid 
 shrine for the relics of the tutelar saint, of the same age as 
 the early church, which is however so jealously concealed 
 that I have never seen it.^ The front of the altar itself is 
 very magnificent, executed entirely in metal, and containing 
 subjects from the life of Our Blessed Lord and from that of 
 S. Ambrose. A modernized dome rises above the baldachin ; 
 and behind this an apse decorated in mosaic upon a gold ground 
 very grandly finishes the interior of tliis interesting churcli. 
 ' Sec, for description of it. Hcmans" ' i\I(ili;cval Cliristianity,' &c., p. J?05.
 
 5$. BftLD^CHIJ^. S.;^y^BI\0<^IO. ]^nLi^]C. 
 
 p. 326.
 
 Chap. XI].] STA. MARIA DELLE GRAZIE. 327 
 
 Oil tlio north side of the nave is a very curious pulpit, 
 coeval with the church and remarkable for its carvincs, and 
 for a Eoman sarcophagus which occupies the space between 
 tlie columns which support it. 
 
 From Sant' Ambrogio I made my way under a burning 
 sun to what I expected to find a very interesting church, 
 that of Sant' Eustorgio. I was, howevei', very much disap- 
 pointed ; the interior is abominably modernized, though still 
 retaining enough of its old Romanesque features to be 
 intelligible if carefully studied, and remarkable for many 
 ancient monuments on its walls. It has nave, aisles, and 
 chapels beyond the aisles, the whole groined, and there is a 
 prodigious ascent to the choir, which is raised upon a crypt. 
 
 That for which it ought to be visited is the. exquisite 
 monument to S. Peter Martyr, executed by G. Balduccio da 
 Pisa, in 1339. It consists of a sarcophagus supported on 
 pilasters, in front of which are statues representing virtues. 
 Few works of the kind have ever been executed, in which 
 the skill of the sculptor has been more happily united with 
 that of the architect than in this. It deserves all praise. 
 
 Sta. Maria delle Grazie, which I next visited, is a church 
 known generally as that in the refectory attached to which 
 is to be seen all that remains of L. da Yiiici's painting of the 
 Last Supper. I know not how much this may have suffered 
 within the last few years, Imt really, when I read the kind of 
 remarks which I so frequently see about it, I cannot help 
 fancying, rather strongly, that they have perhaps been 
 written before instead of after seeing the veritable picture. 
 It is in fact in the last stage of decay, with scarcely any of 
 its colouring or drawing intelligible ; and has probably been 
 entirely repainted since Leonardo's death. Visitors who go 
 to admire and do admire the Leonardo, might do worse than 
 in examining and admiring the extremely fine and fairly well- 
 preserved earlier fresco or distemper painting by Montorfano
 
 328 MILAN. [Chap. XII. 
 
 which covers the opposite wall of the refectory, find con- 
 tains a good and busy painting of the Crucifixion, painted 
 in 1495. The church is of very late pointed date, entirely 
 of briclf, with a large and ugly dome added by Bramante. 
 The nave arcades are pretty good — pointed arches spring- 
 ing from the square Classical-looking capitals of equally 
 Classical-looking columns ; very much as in the church of 
 San Francesco at Venice. Elaborate brick cornices and the 
 usual sham front leave the same kind of impression on my 
 mind in respect to this church that it has of all late Italian 
 pointed work in brick — one of a tasteless, unreal, and 
 unsatisfactory school of art. 
 
 South of the cathedral there is a fine late brick cam- 
 panile attached to the church of San Gottardo, which rises 
 from behind some of the great public buildings in which 
 the city abounds. This is a very elaborate work, octagonal 
 in plan and covered with arcades one above the other, and 
 finished with a low spire. It is a fourteenth-century build- 
 ing at the earliest, but in spite of this most of its arches are 
 semicircular. It is certainly a rich and picturesque tower, 
 and well deserves inspection. 
 
 The remaining churches in Milan seemed to be ail 
 Classical, of different grades of merit and size. There were 
 indeed some very late examples of brickwork of some value, 
 but really, save the cathedral, there is not much architec- 
 tural art to be studied or dwelt upon in Milan. The 
 cathedral, too, teaches little ; its main office is, rather, to 
 prove tlie consummate beauty and magnificence attainable 
 by the pointed style, carried out severely and simply on the 
 very grandest scale, and this its interior does triumphantly 
 beyond all cavil. 
 
 A visit to Milan had always been looked forward to by me 
 with great interest : first, from curiosity as to the real effect 
 and merits of the Duomo ; and, secondly, from a longing
 
 Chap. XIl.] THE BRER A. 320 
 
 to see the m;i<^iiificent Sposalizio of liafliaelle, which is the 
 gem of the collection in the Brera ; and this famous gallery 
 was therefore one of the first objects of my curiosity. The 
 careful examination of the pictures which adorn its walls 
 was, however, when we w'ere there, much hindered by an 
 exhibition of modern Italian pictures, hung in the same 
 rooms as, and in most cases in front of, the old works. We 
 were able, fortunately, to get a fair view of what I believe to 
 be not far from the greatest work of one of the greatest 
 painters in the world — the Sposalizio being in a room un- 
 occupied by other pictures and unmolested by the modern 
 exhibitors. The man who could so paint at the age of 
 twenty one must, assuredly, have been almost matchless, for 
 never have I seen a painting more thoroughly noble and 
 delightful, in every way recalling to mind, it is true, in 
 every figure the manner of his master, the great Perugino, 
 but not the less enjoyable on that account. • 
 
 The modern pictures .were almost invariably worthless, 
 and shewed no sign of any revival parallel to that which I 
 trust I am not too sanguine in believing that one sees at the 
 present day in England. 
 
 In the Piazza dei Mercanti is a much-alte'red building of 
 the thirteenth century (its date is said to be 1228), which 
 looks in its arrangements like a Palazzo Publico, and which 
 in its original state must have been very charming. On the 
 lower stage are five open arches, which have been modernized, 
 I believe ; above this a line of square panels, inclosing 
 shields, forms a bold string-course, the central portion being 
 brought forward on corbels for a liinghiera. The jjiano 
 noli/e consists of five pointed arches carried on delicate 
 shafts, and above was a deeply sunk line of arcading, each 
 division garnished with a statue. I'here was once evidently 
 a canopy over the liinghiera. The materials of this front are 
 black and white stone, but they are used with such mode-
 
 330 CERTOSA OF CHIARAVALLE. [Chap. XH. 
 
 ration that there is nothing at all bizarre in the general 
 effect of the facade. 
 
 In addition to these buildings there is still to be described 
 another very grand brick domestic building of late date — the 
 Ospidale Maggiore — which contains a great deal of very rich 
 detail, half Eenaissance and half Gothic in its character, 
 though the general scheme of the building is wholly Eenais- 
 sance. This building has been much extolled, but I think 
 those who have praised it so much have mistaken clever 
 manipulation of detail for good architectural design. The 
 terra-cotta enrichments with which it is so richly set are 
 hardly surpassed in their way by any of the same period in 
 Italy, but I cannot admire the building as a whole. 
 
 With this building my architectural notes in Milan must 
 end, but I should advise all students of architecture to include 
 in their visits one of about half an hour's drive to the Certosa 
 of Chiaravalle just outside Milan. The church here has 
 been much modernized, but over the centre of the crossing 
 still rises a brick lantern and steeple of singular interest. 
 My engraving will explain what the character of this work is, 
 better than any words. The construction is singular. Behind 
 the base of the second stage of the great octagon a spire is 
 constructed which carries the upper steeple, and the whole of 
 the walls pierced with the second, third, and fourth series of 
 windows are really only screen-walls or parapets in front of 
 the spire. The height of the v.'hole lantern from the ridge to 
 the base of the spire is about ninety feet, and the efiect of 
 the complicated brickwork is not bad. It is somewliat diffi- 
 cult to say exactly when it was built. The Certosa itself was 
 founded in 1135, and consecrated in 1228, but my impression 
 is decidedly that though the whole steeple is built with 
 round arches, it is not refilly a work of earlier date than about 
 A. u. 1370 to 1400. The steeple of San Gottardo in Milan, 
 which also has round arches everywhere, and is in some other
 
 <S0. CEI^TOSA OF CHlRX{hVhUhE 
 
 p. 33 0.
 
 (■iiAP. XII.] An^.IKJELLT. 331 
 
 respects sonicwliat similar in detail to this, dates from 1339, 
 and it would be a great mistake to argue for an earlier date 
 in either case from the mere use of the round arch. If I 
 recollect right, the low third stage in height at Chiaravalle 
 is modern. 
 
 Milan was on the whole rather clisajipointing to me in 
 my architectural capacity, though pleasant enough in every 
 other ; and after I had lounged and driven about, first in one 
 direction and then in another, and had really enjoyed my last 
 great Italian city very much, finding that little more was to 
 be done but to eat ices, look at smart carriages on the Corso, 
 and long for more chance of a clear view of the Alps than the 
 hazy sultry weather afibrded, I made up my mind to leave 
 earlier than I had originally intended. 
 
 No architectural student should turn his feet homeward 
 from Milan without having first of all visited Vercelli. It is 
 easily reached by railway, passing on the road Novara, where 
 there was only a few years back a fine Lombard cathedral, 
 which has unfortunately been lately supplanted by a modern 
 Italian fabric, even more than usually vapid and uninteresting, 
 and where there is still an old baptistery so plastered and 
 painted as to have lost almost all its old interest. The 
 traveller has therefore to content himself with the views — 
 which become better as he proceeds — of the snow-capped 
 Alps (including their noblest peak, Monte Eosa) to the north 
 of the railway, which, in clear weather, are most glorious in 
 their effect. 
 
 The cathedral at Vercelli is modernized, and I believe not 
 worth visiting ; I confined myself to the remarkable church 
 of Sant' Andrea, which is fortunately close to the railway 
 station, and of unusual beauty and interest. The interest is 
 historical as well as architectural. The church was built by 
 Cardinal Guala de' Bicchieri, who had been in England as 
 legate from the Pope at the very beginning of the thirteenth
 
 332 VERCELLI. [Chap. XIT. 
 
 century, and is said to have brought back with him to Vercelli 
 a French or English architect. The evidence of the buikling 
 itself is in favour of a French rather than an English influ- 
 ence, but neither is felt anywhere save in the interior, and 
 the outside views shew to my eyes no trace of any but an 
 Italian hand. It is the square-ended choir probably which 
 has made some writers say that it was designed by an English 
 architect. This choir is short, and on the east side of each 
 transept are two chapels, which are apsidal. The whole 
 church is groined ; the columns between the nave and aisles 
 are well clustered, and all the mouldings and details are 
 well and skilfully drawn. The church is well designed to 
 suit the climate, all the windows being small except at 
 the east end, where there is a fine triplet, with a circular 
 window filled with well-designed tracery above. Over the 
 crossing of nave and transepts is a raised lantern, groined, 
 and lighted by very small windows high up. The angles 
 under it have extremely well-designed pendentives with 
 carvings of the Evangelistic emblems in the centre. Brick 
 is used for the main portion of the work, counter-changed 
 in many parts with stone, and the proportions and details 
 of the interior are so good that I found myself in the rare 
 state of mind (in an Italian church) of admiring without 
 grumbling ! The dimensions are good without being im- 
 posing, the total length being a little over two hundred 
 feet, and the width across the transepts about a hundred 
 and twenty feet. 
 
 The exterior has a great bald west front with three 
 round arched doorways, and a false gable between two small 
 but lofty flanking towers. The walls are arcaded under the 
 eaves, and over the crossing rises an octagonal lantern, which 
 is gathered in after a rather ungainly manner above the 
 lowest stage. This steeple is finished with a low circular 
 brick spire adorned in the most curious fashion witlji small
 
 
 \li m*raJ'Kj * J^-^*" 
 
 u 
 
 €1 . Sft]NIT' Af^Or^Eft. VBf^CELLI 
 
 p. 332.
 
 CuAP. XII.] SANT' ANDREA. oo3 
 
 circular brick pinnacles — one over each side of the tower — 
 which look extremely like a collection of chimneys. 
 
 Detached from the church, and standing at an angle to 
 it, is a simple campanile of later date (1399), and of four 
 stages in height. The combination of this eccentrically 
 placed tower with the rest of the church is very remarkable, 
 and appears to have been simply a caprice. Its effect certainly 
 does not warrant the sort of admiration which should lead 
 any modern architect engaged in studying the church to 
 recommend the copying of the relative positions of it and its 
 bell-tower. I ought not to forget one feature — the buttress 
 — which is treated here in quite the French or English 
 fashion, with bold projection and good steep sloped weather- 
 ings instead of in the usual Italian fashion as a mere pilaster. 
 
 North of the nave of the church is a good cloister, on the 
 east side of which is a fine square chapter-house, divided by 
 groining piers into nine bays. The original triple entrance 
 to the chapter-house — a door with window on each side — still 
 remains, and there is a communication also through a groined 
 sacristy with the north transept. I know few churches 
 which shew more just sense of the best treatment of a good 
 Gothic interior than this does. In its original state, when 
 the brickwork was exposed in its natural colour, the ejBfect 
 was of course much better than it is now ; but the effect 
 is still so good that I may safely assert that, were the exterior 
 equal to the interior, there would be few more beautiful 
 churches in Northern Italy. ^ 
 
 There is an interesting monument in the south-east chapel, 
 corbelled out from the wall and decorated with sculj)ture and 
 painting. In the gable is the Coronation of the Blessed 
 
 1 It is worth uotice that the regular-looking bays of the nave are of very 
 various widths. The two eastern are 21 feet; tlie next two, four feet less ; 
 and the liftli still narrower. The bricks here measure 1 ft. i in. x 5 in., and 
 are 3| in. high, and have all been cliiselled on the face.
 
 334 MONZA. [Chap. XII. 
 
 Virgin, below a figure kneeling Leibre her, and said to repre- 
 sent the architect of the clmrch, who died in 1246, being 
 Abbat as well as architect. Immediately opposite the church 
 is a hospital founded by the same cardinal. It has been 
 much altered, but there are still some ancient portions, 
 which I could not get leave to see. 
 
 From Vercelli we retraced our steps to Milan, and halted 
 no longer than was necessary before going on to Monza on 
 our way to Como. Here we were well rewarded and most 
 agreeably surprized. We found a very curious and good 
 Broletto, a cathedral of fine and elaborate brickwork with a 
 great west front of marble, and another brick church of most 
 elaborate detail. The west front of the Duonio is a very 
 fine example of Italian Gothic in marble ; it is divided into 
 five divisions in width, those in the centre and at the sides 
 being the widest, and is constructed in yellow and dark grey 
 marbles in alternate courses, the former very deep, the latter 
 generally shallow, but varying without much rule. 
 
 All the roofs are flat, but finish at the west at different 
 levels, and not in one continuous slope. The eaves have 
 heavy cornices, and under these, all the way up, is an arcade 
 resting upon shafts supported on corbels. The windows are 
 all filled with traceries which are certainly not at all equal 
 to English tracery, as they are very flat in their efiect, and 
 have no proper subordination of parts. There is a large rose 
 window in the centre division treated in a better manner 
 than is usual, and set within a square line of moulding, with 
 small circles in the spandrels, and a line of square 2)anels on 
 each side continued in the most unpleasing way above ; five 
 other smaller circular windows are similarly treated. In some 
 parts of the wall the courses of black marble are continuations 
 of the black arch-stones of tlio windows, which, though not 
 uncommon in Italian pointed work, is never satisfactory in its 
 effect. In the upper part of tlic front this is not the case.
 
 Chap. XIL] 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 335 
 
 The central division has a porch resting upon detached 
 slial'ts, and with a semicircular arch, which is, however, richly 
 cusped ; and throughout the front semicircular and pointed 
 arches seem to have been used quite indiscriminately. The 
 buttresses which divide the front were originally finished 
 
 CATHEimAL — MONZA. 
 
 with pinnacles, of which one only now remains ; this is cer- 
 tainly very beautiful, of precisely the same type as the 
 pinnacles on some of the tombs of the Scaligers at Verona, 
 standing on detached shafts, with gables on either side, sup- 
 ported on trefoiled arches, and with small pinnacles between 
 the gables, all of which are crocketcd ; the mouldings arc
 
 336 MONZA. [Chap. XTT. 
 
 very flat, but in the pure white marble seen against the 
 deep blue sky of Italy this flatness is as much a virtue and a 
 beauty as its counterpart executed in stone in chilly England 
 would be poverty-stricken and tame. All the remainder of 
 the exterior of the Duomo is of red brick, with some particu- 
 larly good detail. I give one window from the south side of 
 the choir as an example. 
 
 There is a large low cloister on the north side, and from 
 this the central tower is best seen ; it is an octagon of two 
 stages in brick and stone, a good deal arcaded, and has a 
 pyramidal tiled roof, with a square turret in the centre. 
 This forms a dome internally, which is however (as is the 
 whole of the church) miserably modernized. 
 
 The cornices under the eaves here are of brick of good \ 
 detail, but of the common arcaded character. I noticed 
 an inscription on the east end, referring to the erection 
 of the church in 1390, a date which tallies very well with 
 the character of most of the external detail. Internally 
 there is a rather remarkable pul^nt or ambon on the north 
 side of the nave. It is a gallery measuring some twenty 
 feet east and west, supported on detached shafts with a 
 projection in the centre, and of combined Gothic and Renais- 
 sance detail ; so large a pulpit certainly suggests rambling 
 discourses. 
 
 On the whole, such a church as this is very interesting, 
 and to some extent striking; but, much as I admired the 
 conjunction of the two marbles, and the more than usually 
 Gothic character of some of the details, there was yet 
 enough in the ungainly outline of the sham front, and in 
 the capricious use of round and pointed arches indiflerently, 
 to damp my pleasure, and make me cease to admire the 
 work very decidedly. There is a difl'erence in construction 
 which ought to bo noted between this marble front and 
 the marble work at Venice ; for, whilst the latter is not at.
 
 ^}l;' LblXO, MOMZA. 
 
 Pdje 337.
 
 Chai>. XII.] 
 
 THE BROLETTO. 
 
 337 
 
 all coustnictional, this is eutirely so, the marbles not being 
 veneered on to the wall, but forming a portion of its 
 substance. I need not say that in this respect, when we 
 wish to use marble in England, the paucity of our supplies 
 will probably always compel us to imitate the Venetians 
 rather than the architects of Monza, Como, or Milan. 
 
 The sacristy here is worth visiting. Among other relics 
 are two fifteenth-century chalices of unusually good work- 
 manship. They appeared to me to be by a German rather 
 than an Italian hand. 
 
 BUULElTo — Jlu.NZA. 
 
 i The Broletto, which stands near the cathedral in the 
 j centre of the city, is very interesting. It is raised upon 
 • open arches of stone, two at cither end and five at the sides. 
 I In my sketch of it the southern end is shewn with the 
 ; projecting Einghiera in the second stage ; the northern end 
 jis very singular, the tower rising out of one side, with 
 I the steep-jntched roof of the other half abutting against 
 lit. The detail of the windows is very good, the arch- 
 stones in some of them increasing in depth towards the 
 ioentre, witli an effect of very great strength. All the 
 {windows are shafted. The dimensions of this building are 
 
 z
 
 338 MONZA. [Chap. XII. 
 
 forty-two feet from east to west, and sixty-four feet from 
 north to south. 
 
 The only other ancient buikling which I could find was 
 the church of Sta. Maria in Strada ; the most elaborate 
 example of late work in brick and terra-cotta that I have 
 anywhere seen. The eftect is not satisfactory ; for when, as 
 here, carvings are imitated and repeated in terra-cotta, and 
 traceries entirely executed in it, one begins, I confess, to 
 long much for a little of the fire and spirit which some mark 
 of the individual artist might have given such an amount of 
 elaborate decoration in stone. The west front is the only ; 
 part of the church of any interest, the interior having been 
 thoroughly modernized, and retaining no traces of its 
 original character. 
 
 The door and windows in the lower stage have been in- 
 terpolated, and besides this there is a strangely ugly window 
 above them, about which — as this is the last of its class we 
 . shall see — I wish to say a word. In starting on a con- 
 tinental journey, between London and Croydon on the South- 
 Eastern Railway you used to pass under several great semi- 
 circular arched bridges. When first built, the engineer 
 chose, in order to gratify some odd fancy, to prop these up 
 by two piers of brickwork, dividing the arch into three, and 
 putting the whole in great jeopardy. It is curious that this 
 singularly supported and divided arch finds a counterpart in 
 almost every large church in the North of Italy. It was the 
 one great idea of the Renaissance builders, and, until they 
 had taken out one of the old windows and inserted in its 
 place one of these hideous contrivances, they were never 
 satisfied. In Venice every church, even the noble church of 
 the Frari, has them, and I believe scarcely a large church in 
 the North of Italy is without at least this one evidence of 
 the delicacy of taste which characterizes the Renaissance age ! 
 
 The skill which is shewn in making and fitting together
 
 Chap. XII.] COMO. 339 
 
 brickwork .such as that in the front of this church is very 
 great indeed, but, after all, I fear, rather mistaken, for the 
 effect is most unsatisfactory, and every one must see that 
 throughoTit the facade there is an evident attempt to satisfy 
 the eye by the exceedingly elaborate character of the detail, 
 rather than by the fitness of the thing itself, or by the 
 beauty of the proportions. The insufficiency of the windows 
 for the extent of wall is an obvious fault, and not less so is 
 the fact which I am almost tired of referring to, that the 
 whole front is sham and designed without any reference 
 whatever to the wants of the building,* to which it forms the 
 street-front. 
 
 In the evening we left Monza for Camerlata, a village 
 within about a mile of Como, availing ourselves again of the 
 Milan and Como railway. 
 
 The Camerlata station was soon reached, and after some 
 little delay we found ourselves ensconced in one of those 
 long omnibuses so fashionable in Italy, and driving down a 
 long hill, planted on either side with trees, towards Como. 
 Above us, to the right and to the left, we could see, by the 
 bright moonlight, the shapes of the mountains which hem in 
 this arm of the fairest of lakes ; whilst just above us, proudly 
 perched upon a crag, were the ruins of a castle, which lent, 
 when we saw it by daylight, an additional charm to the 
 otherwise beautiful view. 
 
 Soon we were in the outskirts of the town ; but it was 
 j long before we reached the borders of the lake, after foUow- 
 i ing the windings of an almost interminable street, passing 
 ! the guardhouse, and, to our sorrow, parting again for the 
 i last time with our passports, then crossing the piazza in 
 i which stand the Duomo and the Broletto side by side — for 
 j me the main attraction of the place — until at last we were 
 ! fairly discharged at an hotel on the very edge of the water. 
 We had heard an Austrian band as we rolled across the 
 
 z 'I
 
 340 GOMO. [CHAr. XII. 
 
 piazza, and so without delay thither we returned in time to 
 hear the last of Austrian music, and to revel by moonlight 
 in the beauty of the many-coloured marble front of the fair 
 Broletto. We stood listening to the music for about a 
 quarter of an hour, when suddenly a word of command was 
 given, the men who held the lanterns marched to the front, 
 the band formed behind them four abreast, the lights were 
 extinguished, and, suddenly breaking into a lively march, 
 the band disappeared, and the crowd soon left us in quiet 
 possession of the piazza, whose old houses still rang with 
 the wild and clamorous echoes of the beautiful music. 
 
 We returned to our inn, and had infinite trouble in the 
 attempt to find a voiturier to take us to the Lago Maggiore 
 in time for the steamer on the morrow. The route by which 
 I had fully intended to return was to go by the lake to 
 Menaggio, thence to cross to Porlezza and by the Lake of 
 Lugano, and then from Lugano across the Monte Cenere to 
 Bellinzona; to my great annoyance I found, however, at 
 Milan that, owing to the long-standing quarrel between the 
 Emperor and the Confederation, no travellers were allowed 
 to pass immediately from the Austrian into the Ticinese 
 territory, or viee versa, and we were obliged, therefore, to 
 defer seeing the beautiful Lake of Lugano, to go instead 
 to Laveno, and thence to Bellinzona, by the Lago Maggiore ; 
 and our difficulty at Como was to find any true account of 
 the time that it would take us to reach Laveno, or of the 
 time at which we were likely to find the steamer to 
 Magadino. In the end it was decided that we should start 
 at seven the next morning, and accordingly soon after five I 
 was out in the piazza taking notes and sketches of my last 
 Italian building, the Broletto of Como. 
 
 In general character this is somewhat similar to the 
 lirolotto at r>ergamo, but in real beauty it is scarcely inferior 
 ii) any one building I liavo seen in Italy. Towards the
 
 Chap. XII.] THE BROLETTO. 341 
 
 piazza it lias four arches on the ground story, which is 
 divided from the next stage by an arcaded string-course. 
 Tliis second stage has three windows only over the four 
 arches below; and another very noticeable irregularity is, 
 that one of these windows, and that not the central, has a 
 pedimental canopy above its arch, and has more shafts than 
 the others. The central window has been modernized to 
 some extent, but this was the Einghiera, and the balcony 
 still remains, though looking more modern than the rest of 
 the front. Some of the arches of these windows are very 
 noticeable ; for though they are semicircular, the back of the 
 stones which form them is cut with a different sweep, so 
 as to produce an outer pointed line, and thus to leave 
 an impression on the eye of absolutely pointed windows. 
 Another arcaded corbel-table finishes the fafade, or rather 
 ought to finish it, for above this some barbarian has added 
 another stage, nearly to the destruction of the efiect of the 
 building.^ North of this facade a great plain tower of rough 
 stone recalls to recollection those of Bergamo and Brescia ; 
 it boasts of an immense clock and some faint traces of 
 painting, and is left unfinished at the toj). The whole of 
 this facade (with the exception of the campanile) is built of 
 red, white, and dark grey marbles, which are very carefully 
 and efiectively contrasted in their arrangement ; the courses 
 are very irregular in their widths, and apparently arranged 
 upon no systematic rule. The opposite (east) side of the 
 Broletto is very similar, but one of its windows is re- 
 markable for the way in which the shafts are knotted 
 together in the centre. This is not at all an uncommon 
 feature in Italian pointed, and I have often wondered how 
 it is that the eye is not at once disgusted with it, instead 
 of being, as it usually is, pleased. I take it to be a justifiable 
 
 ' I think no aiiologj- is necessary for the omission of this modern stage in 
 my view of tlie Broletto.
 
 342 COMO. [Chap. XII. 
 
 device on some siicli ground as this : it takes mucli labour 
 and skill to cut several shafts out of one block of marble, 
 but all this labour and skill is unthought of, if they are 
 entirely separated, or held together by a band which might 
 perchance be made of some other material ; this knot there- 
 fore is devised as the only means of explaining to us that 
 the shafts so carved have really been accomplished with a 
 very great expenditure of time and patience and skill, and 
 do not depend upon any artificial band for the firmness with 
 which they are all united in one. The capitals of all the 
 columns in this Broletto are very well carved. 
 
 By the side of the Broletto stands the Duomo, the bad 
 character of whose west front, even though it is of late 
 Gothic, hardly tempted me to go in to see the eftect of the 
 interior, I did so, however, and found a large but un- 
 interesting church, with groining of pointed section, which 
 gives considerable character to an otherwise insipid work. 
 The west front has doorways of Lombard character, and 
 above them a large rose window; but every part of the 
 exterior and interior seems to have been so much altered 
 that little remains of the original work. 
 
 Internally works of restoration were going on, and these 
 permitted me to see that the whole church had a great deal 
 of colour introduced on the walls and over the groining, 
 though I was unable to ascertain anything satisfactorily as 
 to its age or character. 
 
 About ten minutes' walk from the cathedral is the fine 
 Lombard church of Sta. Maria. This has unfortunately been 
 much modernized, but its east end with an apse arcaded 
 outside, and finished with a fine eaves-cornice rich in shadow, 
 is still extremely striking and almost unaltered. It is built 
 of black and white stone. Here, alas ! I remember that I 
 thought fit the time of my first visit, ends my hurried study 
 of Ciothic architecture in Italy. But if at that day it was
 
 ^4. $Tfl }AR'^m. coyio. 
 
 342
 
 Chap. XII.] COMO. 343 
 
 somewliat sad to leave Como after an all too rapid journey, 
 it lias been my happiness to revisit the quaint old town 
 again and again since, and each time with iiicreased pleasure. 
 Italian scenery, Italian art, Italian travel, afford some of the 
 happiest recollections of well-spent days of travel, which, if 
 tliey have never been able to exceed in pleasure or to ap- 
 proach in profit the remembrances of travels in my own 
 and other lands, undertaken for the same purpose, are 
 nevertheless full to overflowing with lessons in art which no 
 true architect could afford to despise or wish to forget.
 
 344 DEPARTURE FROM COMO. [Chap. XIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " And now farewell to Italy — perhaps 
 For ever ! Yet, methinks, I could not go, 
 I could not leave it, were it mine to say 
 ' Farewell for ever ! ' " 
 
 Rotjers. 
 
 Departure from Coiuo — Varese — Lake of Varese — Italian Boatmen — 
 Intra — Laveno — Lago Maggiore — Magadino — Road to Hospenthal — 
 Ti)e Dazio filrande — Airolo — Hospenthal — Ascent of the Furca — Valley 
 of the Reusa — Lake of Luzern — Lnzern — The TTnter Ilaucnstein — 
 Strasburg. 
 
 Theee "was great delay in leaving Como ; the passport officer 
 was asleep, and no one dared to awaken him for our con- 
 venience ; at last we determined to start, and went off to the 
 passport office, and, after waiting nearly half an hour, the 
 dilatory clerk arrived, and our passport having been stamped 
 with the " Buon per partire," so uncivilly glad to get rid of 
 you as it seems to be, I mounted the carriage, and we were 
 soon on our way. 
 
 All Como was astir, and bedecking the houses and 
 churches, and building triumphal arches across the roads, 
 for some religious fete whose nature we did not discover; 
 but we soon left its streets and hills behind, and began to 
 look out anxiously for our first view of Monte Rosa and its 
 attendant Alps ; but, alas ! the weather, instead of clearing, 
 rapidly became more and more cloudy, and ere long we felt 
 that we must give up all liope of getting even the most
 
 Chap. XIII.] LAKE OF YAIIESE. 345 . 
 
 distant glimp.sc of the monarch of this portion of the Alpine 
 chain. 
 
 Without this view, from which we had promised our- 
 selves so much pleasure, the road is tame and uninteresting- 
 all the way to Varese, where we changed our horses and 
 carriage. It is an uninteresting town, with a good many 
 villas and gardens, belonging, I believe, to inhabitants of 
 Milan, who come out here for the mountain air. None of 
 their houses are free from that general look of dreariness 
 and lack of care which seem to afflict most Italian villas. 
 Passing through Yarese, we soon saw on our right a very 
 famous pilgrimage church crowning the summit of a con- 
 siderable hill, and approached by a succession of chapels, 
 somewhat as in the still more famous pilgrimage church of 
 Yarallo, and so popular that round it there seems to have 
 grown up a small town for the accommodation of the 
 pilgrims. 
 
 Farther on we passed the lake of Yarese, and from one 
 point in the road had a view of no less than about five 
 diftercnt lakes, one of which was Lago Maggiore. The 
 Lago di Yarese is a tame, uninteresting sheet of water, 
 surrounded by low flat woody country, except at one point 
 on the north, but even there the hills do not rise imme- 
 diately from the lake. 
 
 The only approach to old buildings that we saw were one 
 or two brick campanili of early date, and the remains of a 
 castle, near Yarese, finished at the top with the favourite 
 forked battlement. 
 
 We had much ado to make our driver understand our 
 desire to reach Lago Maggiore without delay, and, to say 
 the truth, there was something too much like cruelty in the 
 attempt to compel our poor steeds to any such feat of speed 
 and strength as the performance of some six miles an hour 
 really appeared to be. As we neared the lake tlie scenery
 
 346 ITALIAN BOATMEN. [Chap. Xllf. 
 
 improved ; and woody hills, with here and there a dashing 
 streamlet finding its way down the hill-side, and a glimpse 
 now and then of the blue water of the lake, made the way 
 pleasant. At last we reached the outskirts of the village 
 of Laveno, and were immediately chased by all the male 
 population of the place, who explained their eager pursuit 
 when at last we stopped on the beach, by vying with one 
 another for the privilege of conveying us across the lake to 
 Intra, where we had to join the steamer. I asked their 
 charge, and they rather astonished me by deAanding twelve 
 francs and a buono-mano ; of course I blandly offered them 
 five francs, much to their disgust, and with shrugs of their 
 shoulders and grand looks of contempt they turned away. ! 
 However, I was determined not to submit to so palpable i 
 an imposition, so, when I was having my passport vise, I ' 
 asked the courteous passport-officer what the fair charge 
 might be ? " Four and a half lire," was the answer. " But 
 how am I to compel the rascals to take me ?" — " Oh ! bring 
 them up to me," he replied ; so down I went to where all the 
 boatmen were discussing together the atrocity of my off'er, 
 and, taking two of them by the arm, I quietly walked them 
 up to the friendly officer ; the rest followed, and then com- 
 menced one of the most amusing scenes I ever witnessed. 
 The passport-officer told them to take me for the four and 
 a half lire, upon which, they all, standing with their right 
 arms extended towards him, answered w^ith a furious volley 
 of Italian ejaculations, quite unintelligible to me, but suffi- 
 ciently absurd when contrasted with the quiescent state of 
 their antagonist. Their eloquence was, however, all in vain ; 
 for, after a short attempt to reason them into submission, 
 my friend sent them off, and threatened to send a soldier 
 with us if they did not start at once. Before I could reach 
 the beach again the luggage was all in the boat, and in 
 another minute we were afloat, propelled by three sturdy
 
 Chap. XIII.] INTRA. 347 
 
 fellows, who, after having tried in vain to make me pay 
 fourteen lire and a buono-mano, were really not apparently 
 much annoyed when I paid them the legal fare, being 
 about one-fourth less than at a guess I had first of all 
 offered ! They were evidently true philosophers. 
 
 I fear that my experience of travelling in Italy obliged 
 me to look upon the ])roceedings of these men as by no 
 means unusual or peculiar to boatmen ; wherever you go it 
 is the same, and, unless you wish to pay much more than 
 the rest of the world ever thinks of paying, you must make 
 a point of disputing hotel accounts, shop charges, and 
 voituricr's charges ; the result always is, that you pay about 
 twenty per cent, less than you otherwise would, and are 
 evidently looked up to with infinitely more respect. 
 
 About half an hour sufiiced to take us to Intra, the 
 Sardinian port opposite to Laveno, just a glimpse being ob- 
 tained of the famous Isola Bella as we crossed. A Sardinian 
 soldier welcomed us to his liberal Majesty's dominions, and, 
 as we told him that we were going on by the steamer, 
 allowed us to go into the town without shewing our pass- 
 ports. There was, however, nothing to see, except the 
 pretty view of the opposite hills — they are scarcely moun- 
 tains — and of the long sheet of water stretching up and 
 down for many a mile, and commanded almost more com- 
 pletely hence than from any other place in its whole extent. 
 We dined at a very miserable inn, with a pretty look- 
 out, and, as it happened to be a jour maigre, could get 
 nothing fit to eat ; the landlord took, however, a convenient 
 view of the matter, and, assuring us that he never made any 
 difierence on this account, charged us as though we had 
 eaten all the delicacies of the season. Here, again, as I had 
 time on my hands, I amused myself with lowering my host's 
 demands, and finally paid him a fair valuation for a very 
 maigre dinner.
 
 348 LAGO MAGGIORE. [Chap. Xlll. 
 
 This business was no sooner satisfactorily finished, a 
 sketch of the opposite coast having been secured during the 
 argument, than the steamer arrived, and in a few minutes 
 we were ploughing our way along the fair expanse of water, 
 leaving the not very honest people of Laveno and Intra 
 behind us and forgotten, all our attention being devoted to the 
 gradually developing beauties of the upper end of the lake. 
 
 We were amused at Laveno by the warlike demonstra- 
 tions of the Austrians, who had there a very smart little 
 war-steamer for the protection of their interests on the 
 lake, besides a small fort. They had, in fact, less territory 
 on the lake than either Sardinia or Switzerland; luckily, 
 however, for the peace of the water, these two last states | 
 seemed not to think it necessary to keep up a rival force, 
 and so the little war-steamer at Laveno remained, un- 
 touched and uncared for, and her officers passed their lives 
 in smoking cigars and longing for some change of place and 
 duty, which was provided for them at last by the abrupt 
 conclusion of Austrian rule in these parts a few years after 
 the time of this visit. 
 
 Our steamer kept very much to the Sardinian shore of the 
 lake, and, as there are two or three great bends in its course, 
 a view of one small portion only of the lake is obtained, until, 
 upon reaching a promontory, and rounding it, as it were a 
 new lake and new scenery are disclosed ; and happily, as the 
 water is ascended towards Magadino, each turn brings more 
 beautiful scenery than the last, until, as the head of the lake 
 is neared, the view is very grand — not equal, certainly, to 
 the head of Lake Como — but still exceedingly beautiful. 
 The sun was just setting as we reached Locarno, and then 
 our steamer, skirting along the sedgy shores of the lake — 
 where the Ticino, at its entry, brings down a continually 
 increasing deposit of niouiitaiii refuse — brought us in u 
 few minutes to Ma<i;adino.
 
 CiiAP. XIII.] MAGADLXO. 349 
 
 Our 2)riucipal compauions on the steamer were a large 
 party of Eii,i>lish, wLose travelling-carriage and horses 
 blocked up hull' the hoat, and a very pleasant old Italian 
 woman, whose elaborately neat hair and magnificent array of 
 pins, each filigreed at the end, and all radiating like arrows 
 from a central knot of hair, through which two larger and 
 more magnificent pins were passed horizontally, forced upon 
 our notice— but not more strongly than it had been forced 
 before — this wonderful smartness and elaborate treatment and 
 get-up of the hair, so common among the middle and lower 
 classes in the North of Italy, and so unlike the customs of a 
 similar class in England : I am bound to say, though, that 
 the result of the elaborate straining and dressing of the hair 
 seems generally to be, that, by the time women are fifty, 
 they have no hair at all, or, at best, some two or three stray 
 locks, which are then brought carefully together, and tied 
 up, with a bold disregard of eff'ect, in a knot at the top of 
 the head. 
 
 When we landed at Magadino we found a diligence 
 waiting, and, securing the coiqje, jumped in, and were soon 
 trotting off rapidly on the road to Bellinzona ; in little more 
 than an hour we passed through its gateway without having 
 our passports demanded (how pleasant a change after Italy !), 
 and were soon comfortably ensconced at the very respectable 
 Albergo dell' Angelo. 
 
 We started from Bellinzona very early the next morning, 
 determined, if possible, to surmount the worst part of the 
 road and to sleep at Hospenthal, on the northern side of the 
 pass. The view of Bellinzona on leaving it is very striking ; 
 three old castles perched on crags above give it an air of 
 picturescj^ue antiquity, and these, with the mountains rising 
 grandly on either side of the Ticino, and sloping down in the 
 distance to the l)osom of Lago Maggicu'e, make a most beau- 
 tiful picture. The situation is not, however, to be compared
 
 350 THE S. GOTHAl^D EOAP. [Chap. Xlll. 
 
 to that of Chiavenna, whose wall of mountains, clothed with 
 Italian luxuriance of foliage, is pierced here and there with a 
 chasm only, for the passage of some headlong river dashing 
 down into the broad valley below the town ; here the valley 
 continues to be of considerable width for some miles above 
 the town, whilst there one scarcely sees in what way any 
 road is to escape across the mountains. 
 
 The first portion of the road is not very interesting. 
 The pass of the Bernardino soon turns o& to the right up a 
 valley which allows a partial view, and from this point the 
 S. Gothard road is sole possessor of the valley. Our first 
 change of horses was at Bodio ; and from thence the road 
 gradually became much more beautiful. Many churches are 
 seen scattered here and there on the summits of the inac- 
 cessible-looking mountains on either side of the valley, all of 
 them whitewashed and generally distinguished by their tall 
 campanili, and sometimes by the small cluster of houses 
 and the patches of cultivated ground around them, betoken- 
 ing man's labour as well as man's religious love, on the 
 summit of these forbidding-looking steeps. And whilst the 
 distant prospect was so fair, the scenery close to the road was 
 embellished by vineyards and magnificent chestnuts, growing 
 in some places among great rocks shivered from the mountain- 
 side above, and, in others, in groves on either side of some 
 beautiful stream descending in a silver fall over the grey 
 precipices which overhang the road. 
 
 The villages through which we passed were pretty and 
 picturesque, and the villagers all very busy in the fields 
 bringing in their hay, and gathering their grapes, which are 
 always trained here over rocks and roofs in the most pictu- 
 resquely irregular way ; and altogether the valley, rife with 
 so many signs of industry and activity, bore thoroughly the 
 appearance rather of a Swiss than of an Italian district. 
 The upper slopes of the mountains, on either side, were
 
 Chap. XIIL] P.TASCA AND GIORNICO. 351 
 
 clustered with lir-trees, and the deep blue water of the 
 Ticino, here gently murmuring, there hastily dashing over 
 some rocky impediment, made grateful music in our ears 
 and imparted additional beauty to the w^ay. 
 
 At Biasca and Giornico there are ancient churches, the 
 exteriors of which are, however, of no interest ; though the 
 interior of the latter, with its crypt and curious paintings, 
 well deserves a passing visit ; but besides these all seemed 
 new, and the houses as well as the peoj)le and the scenery 
 soon began to remind us of Switzerland. There were those 
 particularly large well-to-do looking inns in every village, 
 with wdiite walls and windows resplendent with green 
 wooden shutter-blinds which are so common throughout this 
 country ; and here and there were to be seen houses with a 
 display of well-carved or craftily-framed woodwork, which 
 gave proof of our rapid approach to the land jjcir excellence 
 of carpentry. 
 
 But it was not till Faido had been passed, and the 
 increasing barrenness of the hills, the entire absence of 
 vineyards, and the only occasional appearance of some grand 
 old chestnut-tree, weatherbeaten and rugged from conflict 
 with many a storm, or, may be, some frightful inundation 
 such as the Ticino loves at times to indulge in, shewed 
 how rapidly we were rising into mountain regions, that 
 the scenery became really striking. Then the road seems 
 suddenly to arrive at the end of the valley, but presently as 
 we advance, a narrow gorge in the mountain is perceived, 
 and we enter this, the most magnificent portion of the Yal 
 Levantina, called Dazio Grande. The road is admirablv 
 engineered, carried through two or three short tunnels, and 
 in excavations in the rocks above the torrent ; the dark blue 
 water leaps from rock to rock, and here and there dashes 
 down in a fine waterfall ; and the scenery is altogether so 
 striking that, on the whole, I am much inclined to give the
 
 352 DAZIO GEANDE AND AIROLO. [Chap. XIIT. 
 
 preference to this portion of the valley — that is to say, from 
 the commencement of Dazio Grande to within a short distance 
 of Airolo — over any portion of similar length in the whole 
 course of the Spliigen. The first narrow defile passed, the 
 valley opens out again, and, with occasional glimpses all the 
 way of the old road winding below near the margin of the 
 stream, and destroyed some years since in a storm, ere very 
 long we reach another defile as beautiful as the last, but 
 much shorter ; for here, after crossing the stream and 
 mounting a short distance, a projecting rock is pierced, the 
 river finds its outlet beneath through a chasm not twenty 
 feet in width, and then, the valley opening out again, Airolo 
 is seen just before us, and beyond the little cluster of houses 
 which marks the village rise the mountains, so grandly and 
 abruptly closing in the head of the Val Bedretto, up which 
 our course now lies, whilst every here and there on their 
 rugged sides or summits some snowy peak or glacier edge 
 tells not uncertainly of their grand elevation. 
 
 We arrived at Airolo by about two o'clock, and here we 
 had a rest of an hour and a half for dinner, followed by a 
 ransacking of a collection of Swiss woodwork, ending — as 
 such an operation always does — much to the advantage of 
 its proprietor. 
 
 With fresh horses w'e w^ere soon on the road again, and 
 now the weather, which had been unpromising and occasion- 
 ally wet, seemed inclined to improve, and we commenced the 
 real ascent of the mountain under rather more promising 
 circumstances than we had at first anticipated. The road 
 soon leaves the river, and, turning to the right, winds and 
 twists about in the serpentine fashion known only to Alpine 
 roads, and quite incomprehensible until one has seen them, 
 keeping the church and village of Airolo in view, first on the 
 right, then on the left, for hours. Here and there a straight 
 bit of road gives hopes that the zig-zagging is over, but the
 
 CiiAi'. XIII.] AIROLO. 353 
 
 thought is no sooner expressed than it is contradicted hy 
 another ascent worse than before, and one begins to envy the 
 electric telegraph carried here in straight lines from point to 
 point, where one would have thought it impossible to gain 
 footing for its supports, and giving fair idea of the direct- 
 ness and speed of the communications of which it is the 
 channel. The head of the Val Tremola, as the valley along 
 which the road finds its way is called, is nearly reached, 
 and the last glimjise of the mountains, at the head of Yal 
 Bedretto, is caught, when a stream is crossed and the 
 last flight of zig-zags is commenced ; these are both nume- 
 rous and intricate, and as one looks down upon them 
 from above, their interlacings produce a most singular 
 efl'ect. At last, however, these are surmounted, great- 
 coats and plaids are in requisition, and we all begin to 
 feel uncomfortably cold. The cold grey colour of the wild 
 mountains of granite, great blocks from whose sides strew 
 the ground thickly on either side, seems to harmonize well 
 with the scene, and when presently we pass the Capuchin 
 hospice our driver tells us that we are at the summit. Two 
 or three dark deep-looking pools or tarns stand close to the 
 hospice, and reminded me in their gloomy and cold asjiect 
 of the tarn which gives so much character to the hospice 
 uf the Grimsel. The same kind of scenery accompanied us 
 on the now rapid descent ; the sun went down, and the stars 
 were soon out shining brilliantly upon the mountain road, 
 when at last a sudden turn brought us in sight of lights, and 
 then, descending a few zig-zags, we saw below us the roofs of 
 the houses of Hospenthal, and, in less time than it takes to 
 describe, were standing on the steps of one of the best inns 
 even in Switzerland, the Goldner Lowe, and superintending 
 the unpacking of our goods. 
 
 In such an inn as this everything proves forcibly that 
 one is in Switzcrhmd ; tlie rooms arc all very clean and very 
 
 2 A
 
 354 HOSPENTHAL. [Chap. XIIT. 
 
 small, and there is a certain homely air about everybody 
 and everything which is the especial charm of the better 
 class of Swiss country inns, and in which they excel, perhaps, 
 all but the very best English inns of the same kind/ 
 
 We spent an amusing evening, having for companions a 
 Frenchman with his wife and two daughters, all very lively 
 and exceedingly loquacious : the walls of the modest salle a 
 manger rang with hearty laughter until after the time at 
 which early travellers generally go to bed, and so we 
 paved the way doubtless for a hearty night's rest. 
 
 The first thing to be done in the morning, after the 
 discussion of the excellent trout and honey put before uS) 1 
 was to take a stroll up to the old castle which lends so much 
 picturesque character to the village. The weather was 
 glorious ; the perfectly blue sky overhead, the bright green 
 of the valley, the luxuriance of the low^er slopes of the 
 mountains, and the view up the pass of the Furca closed in 
 with a white line of snow, combined together to make us 
 all regret our determination to push on rapidly for Luzern ; 
 and no sooner was the regret felt than — like idle school- 
 children enjoying themselves while they may- — we made up 
 our minds to ascend the Furca, sleep on the summit of the 
 pass, and return early the next morning. No sooner said than 
 done ; our horses were taken out of the carriage, and in half 
 an hour, with a guide and horses for the ladies, we were on 
 our way for a mountain excursion, full of that elastic feeling 
 which the treading of a Swiss mountain-path always gives^ 
 and bent upon enjoying ourselves to the full. 
 
 The contrast with the flat dusty roads and the sultry 
 weather to which you are so often forced to submit in Italy 
 made the walk especially pleasant ; and though, compared to 
 
 ' This old inn is a tiling of the past. A lar^e, bustling, and niucdi smarter 
 hotel has taken its place; and a magnificent carriago-road lias put a stop to 
 all need for wallving by pleasant field-jiaths to the Furca.
 
 Chap. XIIJ.] AS'CKNT OF THE FUKCA. 355 
 
 many other mountain excursions, it was of slight interest, 
 under the circumstances it presented more than common 
 attraction to us. The jjath was one of those pleasant ways 
 so common in Switzerland— a paved narrow road between 
 banks of fields or low walls, gradually rising and falling, 
 now crossing the dry bed of some glacier torrent, and now 
 bridging the stre(im which descends the valley to feed the 
 Keuss. The fields were rich in colour, and bright with 
 various and lovely flowers, and the lower slopes of the 
 mountain were tinted a rich purple with the bloom of herbs, 
 I cropped gratefully here and there by small and melancholy 
 
 Mookin<? sheen. 
 
 I 
 
 ! The small village of Eealp is soon reached, and then 
 
 I the ascent begins ; this is rather stiff", and it has taken us, 
 
 when we reach the summit, just foiw hours and a half of 
 
 hard walking from Hospenthal. We found dinner going on 
 
 at the little hostelry at the top, and, after partaking of it, 
 
 started again to ascend the Furca-Horn, a mountain risin^^- 
 
 above the summit of the pass, and, as we had been told, 
 
 quite worth the trouble of the ascent. There was no 
 
 kind, of path, and in j^laces the mountain-side was so 
 
 steep that I began to think it was no place for ladies to 
 
 scramble up ; however, they thought otherwise, and after 
 
 divers tumbles in the snow, and surmounting rather for- 
 
 jmidable-looking obstacles, we reached the summit at last, 
 
 I and, sitting down on the edge of a great rock, spent a long 
 
 !time in enjoying the glorious view. 
 
 j Just under us was the vast glacier of the Ehone, and then 
 
 jbeyond it we looked down the long valley of the same river 
 
 luntil its shape wa3 obscured by mist, and traced the path by 
 
 jwhicli we had walked in a previous journey up the steep 
 
 jMeycnwand to the Grimsel. Immediately in front of us 
 
 jwero the vast peaked mass of the Schreckhorn, the whole 
 
 |eourse of the glaciers of the Aar, and the peaks of the 
 
 ! 2 A 2
 
 356 ASCENT OF THE FURCA. [Chap. XIII. 
 
 Finster-Aarhorn, the Jungfrau, and the Monch ; above our 
 heads rose the Galenstock, and opposite ns the Miitthorn 
 and Monte Fiiido ; whilst the summit of Monte Eosa, 
 discerned with difficulty among a marvellous array of distant 
 peaks, completed one of the finest views of snow-covered 
 mountains which it has ever been my good fortune to 
 behold. 
 
 Long time did we keep our elevated seats, scanning 
 again and again the glorious panorama, and at last, 
 most unwillingly, commenced the descent ; this was more 
 difficult, though much more speedy, than the ascent, as the 
 side of the mountain was both steep and slippery. We 
 reached the summit of the j^ass, itself about eight thousand 
 three hundred feet above the sea, in little more than an 
 hour, the ascent to the Horn having occupied about two 
 hours and a half; and here we found our French friends 
 of the previous evening, who had in vain endeavoured to 
 follow us in our ascent, but had been one and all obliged 
 to give up the attempt. 
 
 Late at night we all went out again to look at the most 
 glorious moonlight effect it is possible to imagine ; the jjeaks 
 of the mountains and the vast fields of snow or glacier 
 lighted up by the bright light of the moon had a charm 
 about them peculiarly fascinating. 
 
 Very early the next luorning we started again on our 
 way back to Hospenthal, and got down to the inn in good 
 time, had breakfast, and then, mounting our carriage, we 
 were soon off again down the valley of the Reuss. The 
 Devil's Bridge was ere long reached, and the glorious scenery 
 with which it is surrounded amply redeemed the expectations 
 I had always formed of its extreme beauty ; indeed for 
 grandeur, combined with luxuriant cultivation of the lower 
 slopes of tlie mountains, and for the wild beauty of the course 
 of th(! river itself, nothing even in Switzerland surpasses
 
 Chap. XITT ] LAKE OF LUZERX. 357 
 
 the narrow valley tlirongli wliicli the turbulent Eeuss finds 
 its way from Andermatt to Amsteg. 
 
 Here the valley widens considerably, and orchards 
 full of fruit-trees, covered with bright-looking apples, 
 spread half over the valley, on each side of which the 
 mountains are very grand in their outline. Before long 
 Altdorf is reached, and all the scenes so dear to Swiss 
 freemen are rapidly passed, until at last our carriage sets 
 us down on the very edge of the lovely Lake of Luzern, 
 where the half-hour which we have to wait for the depar- 
 ture of the steamer is spent in attempting a sketch of the 
 rocks which descend so precipitously into the deep recesses 
 of the lake. 
 
 Much harm is done by overpraising beautiful scenery, 
 and even the Lake of the Four Cantons suffers from this ; for 
 so much has been said and written about its unmatched 
 loveliness and grandeur, that the result is perhaps a slight 
 disappointment with the reality. One great beauty, no doubt, 
 is the succession of entirely distinct views which different 
 portions of the lake afford, though at the same time the 
 irregular outline of the water very much diminishes its 
 apparent scale ; I doubt, too, whether there is any one view 
 so grand as that at the head of Lake Como, though otherwise 
 I know no lake which can be preferred to it. 
 
 On the voyage down the lake, Tell's Chapel and the 
 famous Grriitli were of course seen ; a distant view was caught 
 of the old cradle of Switzerland, the little town of Schwytz, 
 with the grand peaks of the Mythenberg rising proudlv 
 behind it ; the Eighi, and the black-looking Pilatus, were 
 each in turn passed ; and as evening drew on, the flat 
 shores of the lower part of the lake were neared, and presentlv 
 the spires and turrets of Luzern came in sight. In a 
 few minutes the bustle of landing being over, the immense 
 Schweizer Hof received us within its capacious walls, just in 
 
 f
 
 358 LUZERN. [CiiAP. XITI. 
 
 time for one of those accommodating late tables-d'liote so 
 acceptable after a long day's travel. 
 
 Three or four hours spent the next morning in strolling 
 about served only to convince us that there was not very 
 much of architectural interest in the city itself. A line of 
 old wall, broken at short intervals by picturesque and 
 irregular towers, and a very long covered bridge across the 
 hike just where the Keuss runs out of it, are the only 
 noticeable features. The bridge is ornamented with an 
 immense number of oil-paintings- — two to each principal 
 rafter — illustrative of the history of the place and country, 
 not valuable as works of art, but curious in themselves, and 
 giving much additional interest to the structure. 
 
 The principal church has two western towers and sj)ires ; 
 the latter are of metal and managed in the way so common 
 in this part of the world, though never, so far as I know, 
 attempted in England,^ with the angles of the spire over the 
 centre of the cardinal sides of the tower. The whole of the 
 rest of the church is modernized ; and there is a singular 
 modern cloister, which nearly surrounds the churchyard, 
 and contains an immense array of graves and grave-crosses. 
 
 We left Luzern at eleven for Basel, in the diligence, 
 and had a very pleasant ride over often-travelled ground, of 
 which, therefore, the less said perhaps the better. The 
 rich luxuriance of the crops, the careful farming, the vast 
 barns, and the great loads of produce which are constantly 
 met upon the road, remind the traveller more of England than 
 any other portion of the Continent ever does. The Lake of 
 Sempach was soon passed on our right, and at last a pause 
 Avas made in the good old-fashioned way, for a very comfort- 
 able dinner at the little old town of Zofingen. At Aarberg 
 
 ' The fiimous . steeple of Antwerp is urniugeil in the same way. Tlio 
 spires of S. Elizabeth at Marburi;:, and the metal spires of the ehurciies at 
 [.iilifi^k ami Liinehnrj;. are also somewhiil f-iiniiarlA- Irrated,
 
 t'liAi". Xlll.] STEASBURG. 359 
 
 the dasliing Aar was crossed, and soon the ascent of the Unter 
 Hauenstein range was commenced ; and here we enjoyed 
 the most extensive of all the day's views of the Alps — the 
 last and grandest. Gradually as the summit is reached 
 peak after peak is seen rising up above the mist which 
 shrouds the lower slopes of the mountains, their white out- 
 lines tenderly relieved against the blue sky : we recognized 
 one after the other almost the entire range of the grandest 
 mountains in Europe, seen before nearer but not in fairer 
 guise, but wherever seen leaving the same lasting impression 
 upon the mind. Suddenly we overpassed the summit, and 
 began rapidly to descend the northern slope of the hills; 
 but the last link that bound us to the land in which we had 
 been voyaging, as we hope, not for the last time, is never 
 to be remembered but with affectionate regard, touched, as 
 every one must be, in viewing such a panorama, with the 
 extreme glory of the scene. 
 
 We had now done with mountains and with mountain 
 scenery, though the road was still interesting and very 
 pretty, and at last late in the evening we reached Basel. The 
 moon was shining brightly on the Ehine as we went to our 
 beds for the last time, in this journey at least, in Switzerland. 
 
 "We were amused, on our way to Strasburg, by the 
 comparative insignificance in our minds of the chain of the 
 Vosges, which, on our outward journey, had impressed us as 
 really very striking in their outline. So much for the effect 
 of a recent acquaintance with grander mountains ! 
 
 Strasburg Cathedral was visited, not for the first time 
 and with a consequent increase of pleasure. Such mag- 
 nificent architecture as that of its most exquisite nave is 
 truly refreshing after Italian work, and, small as its scale is 
 compared to that of Milan, it in no way lost its effect upon 
 my mind. I was particularly struck by the vast difference be- 
 tween the delicate art shewn in the design of the traceries.
 
 360 STRASBURG. [Chap. XI 11. 
 
 in tlie softly rounded contour and dark recesses of the mould- 
 ings, and in the vigour and beauty of the carving of all the 
 capitals, heightened as they are l>y the flood of coloured 
 light let into the interior by its immense windows filled 
 with some of the noblest stained glass in Europe, compared 
 with that shewn in the rude traceries, heavy carving, 
 and plainness or absence of moulding, which characterize 
 almost all Italian Grothic work. No more strong or decided 
 example need be desired of nearly all the points of con- 
 trast between the best work, north and south of the Alps, 
 than this, the first great northern Grothic church seen \ 
 on the homeward way, presents, when compared with all ] 
 the work which has nevertheless been studied with so much ! 
 pleasure and advantage on the southern side of the Alps. \ 
 
 It is only fair to say that the first impression produced 
 by the west front of Strasburg was one — felt, indeed, before, 
 but much more strongly now — of the smallness of scale and 
 narrowness of the whole. I have not at any time had 
 any especial love for this front, but, just after seeing 
 the simple unbroken facades of Italian churches, with 
 their grand porches and their simple breadth of efi'ect, 
 there is something so entirely destructive to all repose in 
 a front covered as this is with lines of tracery, panelling, 
 niches, and canopies in every direction, that it leaves, I 
 confess, a painful feeling upon the mind, of the restless 
 nature of its designer's thoughts. But this is true only of 
 the west front, for, on entering by the door into the nave, all 
 such tlioughts are banished on the instant, and you stand 
 awestruck at the beauty and solemnity of the art in which 
 hitherto Northern architects alone have ever approached at 
 all nearly to perfection, and convinced at the same time 
 that, with sucli a work to refer to, we need never doubt, 
 between the comparative merits of (lothic arcliitecturc north 
 and sou til of the Alps.
 
 CiiAi'. XiV.] CONCLUDING SUMMARY. 361 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 " Alas ! of thousand bosoms kind, 
 That daily court you and caress, 
 How few the happy secret finil 
 Of your calm loveliness ! " 
 
 Christian Year. 
 
 Concluding Summary— Clas-sic and Gothic Architecture — Italian Gothic — 
 Shafts — Cornices — IMomiraents — Cloisters — Windows —Brickwork — Colour 
 in Construction — Truth in Architectural Design and Construction. 
 
 I PROPOSE in this chapter to sum up, as shortly as I can, tlie 
 information whieli I have gathered in the course of my tours 
 in the North of Italy, on the subject of mediaeval art. In 
 doing this I shall have to remark, not only on the beauties, 
 but also on the failings of Italian Gothic architecture, and 
 to give expression to the thoughts which arise in examining 
 its remains as to developments which are possible to us in 
 the same direction, as well as to suggest some of the 
 lessons which may be learnt from them. 
 
 I think it may be gathered, from what has been already 
 said, that it will be useless to look for anything like the com- 
 pleteness in the development of the style in Italy which our 
 ancestors attained to in England ; and this is easily ac- 
 counted for. In England there were no Classic buildings to 
 find hen- and there an admirer, or perhaps a cluster of 
 disciples, as in Italy; and men worked, therefore, when the
 
 362 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE [Chap. XIV. 
 
 Gothic style was thoroughly established, freely, and in their 
 own way, and apparently quite untrammelled with a suspi- 
 cion even that there had ever been another style brought to 
 perfection by people above most others civilized and refined 
 in their habits and tastes, and one moreover which was dis- 
 tinguished by certain broad and strongly marked lines of 
 separation from the style which they inherited from their 
 fathers, and practised and brought, as nearly as they could, 
 to perfection. In England, therefore, in the Middle Ages, we 
 may look in vain for any evidence of active sympathy with a 
 more ancient and venerable style than that which was then in 
 the fulness of vigour, life, and constant development ; and con- 
 sequently, if it be likely that any infusion of the art practised 
 by the ancients could have aided the Northern architects in 
 their work, we must not expect to find here any trace of such 
 assistance or such advantages. But in Italy the case was 
 far different : the love for the remains of earlier ages was 
 never dead, but only slept, ever and anon to break forth in 
 some new appropriation of ancient materials, or some imita- 
 tion and reproduction of an ancient form or idea. So in 
 Venice, in the thirteenth century, whilst pointed arches were 
 being reared by some to support the walls, not only of the 
 churches, but of the houses also, other hands were busy with 
 the task of raising aloft those two Classic shafts, Avith their 
 antique capitals and detail, which, even to the present day, 
 stand peculiar and well-remembered features of the Piaz- 
 zotta of S. Mark ; standing proofs, if such are indeed 
 wanted, that there had been artists in earlier days whose 
 art was noble and well worthy of the emulation of men 
 in all ages. 
 
 And this Classic seed fell into not ungrateful soil ; for 
 though there, as elsewhere throughout Europe, the value of 
 the pointed arch as a feature in construction — independently, 
 that is, of its intrinsic beauty — must have been well known,
 
 Chap. XIV.] IN ENGLAND AND ITALY. 363 
 
 and was boldly recognized where it could not be avoided, 
 there were nevertheless in a hundred ways proofs that men 
 still remembered the lessons and traditions of the past, and 
 used it with a certain degree of caution and unwillingness, 
 and associated with features which, rightly or wrongly, were 
 at the time eschewed by all Northern architects, either as 
 being contrary to its spirit, or through ignorance of their 
 existence. This fact would seem, therefore, to place the 
 Italian works of the Middle Ages in the ranks of hybrid 
 and mixed styles, and to debar them from competition with 
 the more pure contemporary works of Northern Europe. 
 
 There will, however, always be much profit in the careful 
 examination of such works as these in Italy, because 
 their authors stood in the same position that we do' now, 
 and, conversant to some extent with the beauties of the 
 best Grothic architecture of the North and the best Classic 
 examples of Italy, took what they deemed best from each, 
 and endeavoured to unite the perfections of both. 
 
 Classic architecture is that of the lintel and impost, in- 
 volving the idea of rest : Gothic is that of the arch and the 
 tlying buttress, involving the idea of life and motion. The 
 two ideas are absolutely opposed to each other. Classic 
 architecture, directly it admits the arch, ceases to be true to 
 itself in any real artistic sense ; yet if it refuses to use, and 
 to exhibit the use of the arch, it denies itself wilfully the 
 use of the best known mode of construction. Gothic archi- 
 tects may still, on the other hand, as they always have done, 
 gain much from the teachings of Classic buildings. And if 
 sometimes there is too great liveliness and want of repose 
 in their works, they may usefully study those of their 
 predecessors who undoubtedly obtained more breadth and 
 repose in them by some knowledge of Classic examples, than 
 they would have had if they had not known them. 
 
 Gothic architecture was essentiallv the work of scientific
 
 364 CLASSIC AND GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 men ; the most consummate skill being displayecl in ar- 
 ranging tlionsands of small blocks of stones, any one of wliicli 
 might be carried upon a strong man's shoulders, into walls 
 rising far in height above anything ever dreamt of by the 
 Greek, bridging great openings, and providing by the ex- 
 actest counterpoise of various parts for the perfect security 
 of works whose airiness and life would seem to have lifted 
 them out of the region of constructive skill ; and yet all 
 these wonderful works were executed in materials as pon- 
 derous in- their nature as those which the Greek had 
 handled so rudely in construction, and so delicately in 
 ornamentation. 
 
 The natural result of this excess of science was, perhaps, 
 that less delicacy and beauty of detail became necessary ; 
 for when the plain rough walls, without carving and without 
 ornament, were nevertheless of necessity so beautiful in their 
 intricacy of outline and delicacy of structure ; and when, too, 
 so little (comparatively) plain surface remained to be looked 
 at or dwelt upon, men cared less for the choicest examples 
 of the sculptor's art, and were less obliged to satisfy the 
 eye with them. Much, therefore, as Art gained in most 
 ways by the invention of the arch^ she at the same time 
 lost something w'hich had been until then possessed, and 
 which, too, was essential in the highest order of work. 
 
 This was the case, speaking generally ; but, as need 
 hardly, I suppose, be said, there are examples scattered here 
 and there throughout the North of Europe, and particularly 
 in France and England, which shew distinctly enough that 
 their artists had grasped this necessity in its very fullest 
 extent ; and were in no degree satisfied with anything less 
 than the greatest perfection in the sculpture, and other 
 decorations with which they adorned their works. 
 
 Italian arcliit(H'ts stood, in the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries, in a position in many respects very
 
 Chap. XIV.] CLASSIC AND GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 365 
 
 different from tluit liold l^y their Northern contemporaries, 
 and the marks of this difference are everywhere to he seen. 
 It was natural to them to reconcile in their works, so far as 
 they could, the principles of two styles which we are too 
 prone to deem irreconcilable ; and where they have achieved 
 a real success, it. ought to be a lesson that the course which 
 they pursued is still open to us, though with larger oppor- 
 tunities and greater knowledge. At the same time they 
 committed faults which we ought especially to beware of 
 imitating in any respect. 
 
 They ignored, as much as possible, the clear exhibition 
 of the pointed arch, and, even when they did use it, not 
 unfrequently introduced it in such a way as to shew their 
 contempt for it as a feature of construction ; employing it 
 often only for ornament, and never hesitating to construct it 
 in so faulty a manner, that it required to be held together 
 with iron rods from the very first day of its erection. This 
 fault they often found it absolutely necessary to commit, 
 because they scarcely ever brought themselves to allow the 
 use of the buttress ; and this reluctance was a remarkable 
 proof of their Classic sympathies. Classic architecture was 
 as distinctly symbolic of rest as Gothic was of life ; the 
 column and lintel of the one were as still and symbolical of 
 jierfect repose, as the arch of the other, sustained by the 
 strong arm of the flying buttress, was of life, vigour, and 
 motion. Italian Gothic architects then, in never resorting 
 to the buttress, avowed their feeling that a state of perfect 
 rest was the only allowable state for a perfect building, and 
 they preferred almost always to use the arch for its beauty 
 only, and avowedly not for its constructional value, which 
 tliey evidenced by tying it together with iron bars at its 
 base, which there was no intention of disguising, and there- 
 fore no shamefacedness in the use of. From this, I believe, at 
 least one beauty arose. It is obvious that the pointed arch,
 
 366 NOKTHERN ARCHITECTURE. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 descending upon the cajiital of a shaft without any visible 
 stay or buttress to retain it in its place, would look weak 
 and thin ; and it was soon perceived that, in order to over- 
 come this difficulty, the only course was to add to its 
 substance by cusping it on the under side. Thence came the 
 trefoiled arches so frequent in Italy, and always so very lovely. 
 As so much depended upon them, no pains were spared in 
 bringing their outline into the very purest form. To this 
 we owe the absolute perfection which characterizes some of 
 the trefoiled arches in early Italian work ; of this we have an 
 example (to take one instance among many) in the tombs of 
 the Scaligers, at Verona, in which the mass of the trefoil de- 
 scending from the arch conveys to the eye the impression of 
 a firmness which, in part, it certainly gives, but which would 
 nevertheless be insufficient in reality for the stability of the 
 work, without the aid of the connecting rod of iron below. 
 
 In northern Grothic architecture, arches invariably tell their 
 own story, and do their own work, avowedly and without any 
 disguise ; in Italy this is the exception, not the rule, and 
 the commonest exception is seen in the arcades dividing the 
 aisles from the naves of churches, and in the large open 
 arches forming the arcades upon which public and jDrivate 
 buildings so often stand, though even these are sometimes 
 (as in the second stage of the Ducal Palace at Venice) formed 
 of continuous traceries in place of arches, and are dependent 
 for their stability, like the single arches of tombs and monu- 
 ments, upon the assistance of iron ties. 
 
 Another proof of the reverence for ancient tradition in 
 art is furnished by the extent to which, throughout the time 
 of the prevalence of ])ointed architecture in Italy, the round 
 arch was also used. Examples of this are very frequent, and 
 of the most capricious kind. At Cremona, e.g., the south 
 transept has semicircular arches throughout, and the north 
 transept pointed arches ; the date of both being, however, as
 
 Chap. XIV.] THE OGKE ARCH. 867 
 
 nearly as possible the same. At Yerona, in the old house 
 t;-ivon in plate 14, some of the bearing arches are pointed, 
 some round ; and again, in some buildings the main arches 
 are round, and the ornamental pointed. Again, one of the 
 most common cornices in all the mediaeval brickw ork of Italy 
 is a continuous arcade of round arches intersecting one 
 another, and forming at their intersections j)ointed arches ; 
 and in the Ca' d'Oro, one of the most elaborately ornate late 
 Gothic buildings in Venice, some of the entrance arches 
 are pointed and some round. It needs not, however, that 
 examples should be multiplied, for almost every building 
 exhibits some trace of this kind of confusion. 
 
 The Venetian love for the ogee arch, which spread thence 
 to Verona, Vicenza, and Ferrara, has been already mentioned ; 
 no doubt we must look to the East for the very early introduc- 
 tion of this feature in Venice, and I only incidentally refer to 
 it here as proving, from the way in which it was perpetually 
 used, that its adopters had no peculiar love for the form of the 
 pure pointed arch, of which it is certainly a most vitiated 
 perversion. 
 
 With this, by way of preface, let us now go on to 
 look at the features of these Italian works in detail, "VVe 
 shall find that we have two influences brought out, even 
 more strongly than in most mediaeval works, in Italian 
 ])uihlings. These are, first, local, and next, personal in- 
 fluences. The Venetian, the Bolognese, and the Veronese, 
 for instance, are all distinctly local styles, in which early 
 traditions were preserved, to some extent, from first to last ; 
 and to these might be added the Florentine, the Genoese, and 
 the Pisan. On the other hand it is impossible not to notice the 
 very great personal influence exercized over their descendants, 
 as well as over their contemporaries, by some of the greater 
 Italian architects, of whom I may adduce Nicola Pisano as 
 the most eminent example.
 
 368 GOTHIC AECHITFXTUEE. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 There is a third influence which must not be overlooked 
 — that of foreign architects, Milan Cathedral, designed by a 
 German, is very unlike any other Italian building in style ; 
 San Francesco at Assisi was also the work of a foreigner ; 
 and the western front of Genoa Cathedral owes much of its 
 peculiar and extremely beautiful character to contact with, 
 and knowledge of, French art ; whilst Vercelli is another 
 instance, as far as its interior is concerned, which may be 
 included in this list. Generally speaking, however, the in- 
 fluence of the foreigner seems to have been confined pretty 
 much to the particular church designed by him. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the Italians led a life more akin to 
 our own, at the present day, than other people. The country 
 was populous, the cities numerous and rich, and the people 
 full of emulation and individuality. This was precisely the 
 condition of things that would lead, most certainly, to the 
 employment of artists from a distance, and to the establish- 
 ment of a professional practice of the art earlier than else- 
 where. It led to the employment of the family of the Pisani, 
 of the Camjjione clan, the sculptors of Como, the Cosmati in 
 Kome, and many others. In England and in France it is 
 much more difiicult to point to any facts proving the employ- 
 ment of the same architects in various parts of the country, 
 and there is, at first sight, therefore, less of what is obviously 
 personal in their art in the Middle Ages. 
 
 The history of our old architects in England and France 
 is very peculiar ; they were, as a rule, each confined to a 
 certain district, in which they wrought in what was in fact a 
 merely local variety of their national style. In point of artistic 
 talent, they were very equally matched, so that it is diflicult 
 to assign the pre-eminence to any one over the rest, though 
 in England we may point to our Yorkshire abbeys, and in 
 France to the buildings in the Isle de France as being on 
 the whole the finest examples. We have had no Nicola Pisaiio
 
 Chap. XIV.] GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, 369 
 
 here ; our old arcliitects' work is singularly equal in its 
 character in each period ; and whether it was displayed in the 
 little village church lying concealed on the banks of a rippling 
 stream, or in the vast abbey of some sequestered valley, or in 
 the cathedral church of the busy city, there seems to be matter 
 for equal admiration in all. In Italy, on the other hand, 
 we see a number of individual architects exercizing each 
 his peculiar influence, varying very much in their skill and 
 power, and having, moreover, the doubtful advantage of a 
 constant recollection of the works of a different style of art, 
 from whose traditions they never escaped. Placed, in short, 
 very much in the position that we are at the present day, 
 they never wrought with the same absolute and joyous 
 freedom that marks their contemporaries' work in France and 
 England ; and thus, though their architecture may be inferior, 
 it is of very special value to us ; for we may, perhaps, see better 
 the cause of some of our own shortcomings, when we inves- 
 tigate theirs, and so we may hope to excel the works which 
 they executed under conditions so similar to those under 
 which we labour, even if we cannot quite rival the com- 
 plete perfection of the greater mediaeval architects of the 
 North. And, seeing that all the faults of Italian Gothic 
 artists arose from their incomplete devotion to the new 
 art, and their lingering fondness for the old Classic forms, 
 we shall be led probably to recognize the paramount im- 
 portance of throwing ourselves heartily and entirely into 
 the study and practice of the one great and national division 
 of our art, and then, not venturing to attempt to design in 
 some base imitation of Classic one day, or in a pretended 
 Gothic the next, as is only too much the custom, we shall 
 make our sense of art so completely a portion of our inmost 
 selves, as never to do anything new in any but our own one 
 special style. We shall, in short, recognize, as the greatest 
 danger to the progress of real art, that eclectic spirit 
 
 .2 B
 
 B70 ITALIAN GOTHIC. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 which the Italians never escaped from, and which, in our 
 own day, leads men to design their work in the style which 
 they or their clients fancy for the moment, and not in that 
 which is the truest result of previous experience, and most 
 fitted to the country in which it is to be executed. 
 
 In examining the features of any national school of archi- 
 tecture, it is worthy of notice how distinctly some of its 
 peculiarities and prejudices are marked from the very first, 
 even in the ground-plans of the buildings it produced. This 
 is notably the case in the ecclesiastical edifices of France, 
 England, and Germany, Each country, after the art had 
 become settled and, so to speak, acclimatized, had its special 
 arrangement of plan, which was seldom departed from and was 
 handed on from age to age as a j)recious heirloom. And, 
 going to Italy, we shall find that the same feature strikes us 
 there in almost all the buildings of the pointed style, and 
 that the buildings from which they were directly derived are 
 the same as those from which we indirectly derived our own. 
 Their plans are all derived from two ancient types, both of 
 which are of venerable antiquity. It was from the basilica, 
 converted into a church, with its nave and aisles terminated 
 at the end, by an apsidal projection from a sort of transept, 
 that all of one class of the Italian Gothic churches with 
 transepts were copied. Indeed, if Ave look at the ground- 
 plan of S. Paul without the walls, at Eome, and compare it 
 with the fully developed church of Sta. Anastasia, at Verona, 
 we shall see that absolutely the oaly difference is the ad- 
 dition of small chapels on the east side of the transept ; so 
 that in place of the one apse, which marks the former, we 
 have the central apse and subsidiary chapels on each side 
 of it. The church of San Clcmentc, at Eome, with its 
 three aisles ended with parallel apses at the east end, 
 is a variety of this type, followed in such churches as 
 the Cathedral of TorccUo, and indeed in all later Italian
 
 Chai'. XIV.] ITALIAN GOTHIC. 371 
 
 Gothic clnu-flios without transepts. And even when, as in 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian archi- 
 tects endeavoured to secure an immensely wide unbroken 
 area of nave, they still looked back fondly to these old pre- 
 cedents, and finished them at the east, with three parallel 
 apsidal chapels. 
 
 The other model was the Byzantine plan of S. Mark's at 
 Venice, itself imported from the East, which was copied closely 
 in the south-west of France, and produced no slight effect in 
 modifying the simple Eomanesque plan, until it assumed all 
 the characteristics of the complete Lombard style, and from 
 the North of Italy sent out vigorous off-shoots, of w'hich the 
 most important were those which we trace all along the 
 valley of the Ehine, and throughout the centre of France. 
 
 Thus, the ground-plans of Italian Gothic buildings were 
 simply a natural development from those of earlier date, and 
 adhering, as they always did, very closely to the older 
 plan and arrangements, afford us scarcely an example of 
 those later developments of prolonged choirs, of which 
 our English cathedrals and abbeys afford perhaj)s the most 
 magnificent examples, or of the splendid French clievet with 
 its surrounding aisle and chapels. The traces of Classic in- 
 fluence on the plan are indeed so many and so clear, that 
 it is hardly speaking too strongly to say that Gothic plan- 
 ning was never developed by Italian architects, so shackled 
 w^ere they by the ever-present influence of buildings in an- 
 other style. Hence, the more we study their peculiarities, the 
 more we see how curious a mixture there is in them of the 
 character of Classic and Gothic buildings, and how essen- 
 tially clumsy all their planning is when compared with the 
 scientific work of the more thoroughly Gothic architects 
 of the North. If we compare an ordinary Italian groined 
 church with a French or English example, we shall find 
 one very marked difference in them. In the former each 
 
 2 B 2
 
 372 ITALIAN GOTHIC. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 bay of the nave is scjuare, and hence each bay of the 
 narrower side aisles is oblong, with the greatest width 
 towards the nave; in the latter, on the contrary, the aisle 
 compartment is square, and that of the nave oblong, with its 
 narrowest side towards the aisle. Hence, in the former, the 
 points of support are farther apart, and the plan loses much 
 of its intricacy, and at the same time, no doubt, the whole 
 building loses much of its apparent scale. The enormous 
 church of San Petronio at Bologna, for instance, has but six 
 bays in the length of its vast nave, and the eye refuses to be 
 convinced by the practical measurement of the foot of the real 
 dimensions of the building. The object of the Italian archi- 
 tect always was to obtain as few points of support as possible 
 in a given area ; but there is little if any I'eal gain in this. 
 The points of support in the Italian churches were larger, 
 and the cost in the end was probably much greater than in 
 the apparently more intricate and complex plans of the 
 French and English architects. The science displayed in 
 their planning was therefore of a superficial and mistaken 
 description, and not really equal to that which marks the 
 work of their Northern competitors.^ 
 
 The same absence of subdivision is seen in the elevation 
 of each bay of an Italian church, where in place of the triple 
 division in height of our great Northern churches, with their 
 well-accentuated jiroportions and beautiful variety of detail, 
 we have a singularly meagre design perpetually repeated, and 
 consisting generally of simple broad arches, with a small 
 circular clerestory window above them, and no other kind of 
 decoration, save wlicrc the })ainter has come witli his ever- 
 
 ' Tlw iisiutl iilau is sometimes duviatLd I'lom and impioveil by Imviiig two 
 bays of aisle opening with two arches into each bay of the nave, so tliat every 
 bay of groining tiiroughout the cliurch is very nearly sqnare. Tliis is a 
 common i)lan in early Gorman churches, and is one of the many indications of 
 similarity between G(u-man an<l Italian work, which might be adduced were 
 we to enter on this interesting question.
 
 Chap. XIY.] ITALIAN GOTHIC GROINING. 373 
 
 ready art to the rescue of the apparently incompetent 
 architect. 
 
 How this plainness and severity was corrected we have 
 already seen in the interior of Sta. Anastasia, at Verona — 
 a church which, though it is simple and unadorned in its 
 construction almost beyond any large church with which I 
 am acquainted, has been made remarkable, owing to the 
 skill of its decorator, for being more than usually ornate 
 and magnificent. 
 
 The invariable simplicity of Italian groining has been often 
 noticed in these pages, and need only be referred to here as 
 illustrating the love of simplicity upon which I have dwelt. 
 No one feature gains so much by it as this, and I can fancy 
 the horror with which an Italian, or indeed any other archi- 
 tect, in the thirteenth century, would have viewed such fine 
 works in their way, as our own examples of complicated fan- 
 traceried groinings. The painting of this simple groining 
 at Yerona, at Lodi, and still more at Assisi, proves how it 
 ought always to be treated ; and happily in England we have 
 still more than one example of the same kind, as, for in- 
 stance, two chapels in the Cathedral at Winchester. 
 
 So far for the plan. When we look at single features of the 
 building we shall find another peculiarity meeting us at every 
 turn, and of the good efiect of which it is impossible to speak 
 too warmly. This is the constant use of the detached shaft or 
 column. This is the one great and lasting beauty which was 
 derived from Classic examples. The Italians, finding it used 
 with luxurious profusion in their Classic and Byzantine build- 
 ings, persevered in its use throughout the whole Gothic period. 
 It is true that, as time wore on, there was a somewhat less free 
 use of it than at first, but it was never altogether ignored. We 
 cannot say as much for our own ancestors : so long as the in- 
 fluence of Lombard and Romanesque art is visible in French, 
 German, and English Gothic, so long the detached shaft was
 
 374 NORTHERN GOTHIC MOULDINGS. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 used, and just in proportion as in course of time that influence 
 decreased, so did the frequency of its use decrease. Our four- 
 teenth and fifteenth century buildings present nothing in 
 its place but combinations of mouldings, in themselves very 
 beautiful, but by no means so beautiful as to reconcile us 
 to the loss of that which they so entirely supplanted. One 
 consequence of their introduction, to the exclusion of the 
 detached shaft, was, that the art of sculpture deteriorated just 
 in proportion as the art of moulding was developed. There 
 is no j)lace in which architectural sculpture can be more 
 fittingly displayed than in the capital of a column. It is the 
 most convenient, and at the same time the most conspicuous, 
 position for it. It is, too, the most important feature in I 
 every design in which the detached column is used. The 
 gathering together of all the arch mouldings into one above 
 the capital, in order that their forces may be collected before 
 being transmitted to the ground, leads naturally to the laying 
 of a special emphasis on this point above all others ; and it is 
 one of the strongest among the many reasons in favour of 
 earliest Gothic, and against the later varieties of the style, 
 that in the former the use of shafts involved the use of 
 forcible and elaborately-cut capitals, so that this point might 
 be most distinctly marked, whilst in the latter, by the disuse 
 of the shaft and the constant practice of carrying the mould- 
 ings of the arch down to the ground without any interruption, 
 it was made as little of as was possible. 
 
 In this respect, therefore, above all others, Italian Gothic 
 artists— having given way to change less than their con- 
 temporaries—are worthy of our highest admiration. The 
 love of variety, which is characteristic of all good Gothic 
 art, is conspicuous in the Italian treatment of the shaft just 
 as much as in the northern Gothic variation of mouldings. 
 AVlien they are plain cylinders, and not banded (and the 
 band occurs but seldom in Italian Avork), they often taper
 
 Chap. XIV.] VAllIOUS KINDS OF SHAFTS. 375 
 
 sliglitly, and with very beautiful effect. This was distinctly 
 a relic of the Classic entasis, and the examples given in 
 a note will suffice to shew the extent to which the shaft is 
 reduced in proportion to its height.^ "Wherever, however, 
 the shaft is spiral or decorated with carving, or when the 
 occurrence of a band destroys the idea of its continuity 
 from base to capital, its monolithic character needs not to 
 be marked, and the shaft is then always majde of the same 
 diameter throughout. The ornamentation is of various 
 kinds. Circular shafts are inlaid, carved, diapered, or made 
 of marbles selected for their beauty of colour, Lucca 
 Cathedral affords, perhaps, the best examples of decoration 
 by inlaying : there the shafts are of white marble inlaid 
 with dark green ; some have a diaper, others are girt with a 
 succession of simple chevrons, others with spiral lines, others 
 with crosses, flowers, fleurs-de-lis, or foliated circles ; and 
 one, at least, with a succession of imitations of arcades one 
 over the other ; but I remember no example of the same kind 
 in the buildings described in these pages. At Lucca these 
 inlaid shafts are frequently alternated with sculptured shafts, 
 of which examples are common all over Italy. They are 
 deeply cut with spiral lines of mouldings, occasionally 
 adorned with sculpture of flowers, as in the doorways at 
 Bergamo and Modena, and are often also inlaid richly with 
 mosaic. 
 
 The best examples of the richer kinds of shafts are seen 
 frequently in Italian Gothic buildings and monuments south 
 of the Apennines. Such, for instance, as those which, with 
 rich iron work between them, form the screen round the altar 
 
 
 
 Height 
 of Shaft. 
 Ft. in. 
 
 Diameter 
 
 at Base. 
 
 Jn. 
 
 Diameter 
 
 at Neck. 
 
 In. 
 
 Cloister, 
 
 San Zeiione, Verona . 
 
 . 3 11^ 
 
 5^ 
 
 n 
 
 Cloister, 
 
 Genoa Cathedral . 
 
 . 4 5 
 
 U 
 
 H 
 
 Cloister, 
 
 San Stefano, Uologna 
 
 . 2 81 
 
 n 
 
 •n
 
 376 VARIOUS KINDS OF SHAFTS. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 under the " crossing " of Sta. Chiara at Assisi, or in the 
 monument of Pope Benedict X. at Perugia, where the shafts 
 are of white marhle, the spiral lines formed with a bead and 
 fillets, and at the base and neck of the shaft the beads are all 
 connected together with small arches, in the spandrels of 
 which vine leaves are delicately carved ; whilst to add to the 
 extraordinary richness of the work, small figures are carved 
 in the marble creeping round the shaft in the hollow formed 
 by the spiral construction, and the spaces between the 
 mouldings are filled in with glass mosaic patterns in red, 
 green, and blue on a gold ground. The shafts of Orcagna's 
 shrine in Or' San Michele, Florence, are of the same cha- 
 racter, but these extraordinary decorations occur generally 
 only in the best and richest internal work, executed under the 
 direct influence of Florentine, Neapolitan, or Roman artists.^ 
 
 The arrangement of spiral shafts was generally, but not 
 always, symmetrical. In the Campanile of Florence, where 
 they occur in pairs on each side of a window, they are 
 always arranged with the spiral lines curving in opposite 
 directions. In the porch of Sta. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo, 
 the three shafts in each jamb are all difi'erent : the first 
 spiral and carved, but not moulded ; the second moulded 
 with chevrons ; the third spiral and moulded only, and the 
 central shaft is red whilst the others are all white. In the 
 spirally designed string-courses of the Venetian palaces the 
 spiral lines are always worked in opposite directions right 
 and left of the centre. 
 
 Another bold variety is seen in the beautiful coupled 
 shafts at the entrance to the crypt of San Zenone, Verona, 
 where both the shafts are (^uatrefoil in section, butT entirely 
 difi;erent in character, one of them being quite straight, the 
 
 ' Tlie shafts used in tho sliiinc of S. Kdwai-d at Wcsfiuiiister uru of the 
 same description, and shew that in one of the most exijuisitt; works in England 
 our early architects saw no incongruity between tlieir beautiful but foreign 
 ohnracter and the otherwise, at that time, purely national architecture.
 
 Chai'. XIV.] VAEIOUS KINDS OF SHAFTS. 377 
 
 other slightly, hut yet conspicuously, spiral. In a monument 
 in the south aisle of the same church, four shafts are cut out 
 of one block of marble ; and in order that this may be realized 
 they are knotted together in the centre; and a similar 
 example exists in the porch, of which I have given a view, 
 at Trent, and in one of the windows of the Broletto at Como. 
 The shafts round the lower basin of Nicola Pisano's beautiful 
 fountain at Perugia are in clusters of three, chevroned, 
 spiral, and fluted in the greatest possible variety ; and in 
 later Avorks, in which we find that the error of continuing 
 arch mouldings to the ground, instead of stopping them on 
 the capital, was occasionally committed — as, e.g., in the arch- 
 way to the baptistery in the church of the Frari, at Venice — 
 we see an instance of a moulded imitation of such a cluster 
 of shafts as these of Nicola Pisano's, chevroned and spiral, 
 forming jamb and arch alike. In the later doorways, such 
 as those of the western front of the cathedral of Como, 
 and many of those at Monza, Pavia, and in most of the 
 Venetian churches and buildings, the jambs and arches are 
 identical in section ; but even in these cases there is always 
 a capital interposed, and I hardly remember an example 
 of a continuous moulding without an impost, which at 
 least marked — if often in an incomplete manner — the line 
 of the springing of the arch. 
 
 I must not forget that which is, after all, the most 
 cliurming of all arrangements of shafts, viz. the use of them 
 in couples, set generally one l)ehind the other, so that, in 
 clovution, extreme delicacy is secured, whilst, in perspective, 
 there is beautiful light and shade, and ample effect of 
 strength. This is a favourite arrangement in cloisters and 
 in belfries ; and, wherever it occurs, one regrets, as one looks 
 at it, that though in old days French, Spanish, German, 
 and even Irish ' architects gladly followed the Italian 
 ' Jeiijoiiit and Gong Abbeys are Irish examples.
 
 378 ITALIAN GOTHIC MOULDINGS. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 example, it was so seldom that an Englishman condescended 
 to do the same.^ 
 
 In the treatment of mouldings the Italian Gothic work is 
 quite peculiar. An Italian architect would have been surprized, 
 could he have seen the dark and piquant recesses of the mould- 
 ings in which his Northern brethren in the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries so much delighted. He rarely, if ever, 
 indulged in a deep hollow, but made a ^^oint rather of shew- 
 ing the hard sharp outline of the square edges of his stones 
 or bricks, relieved only by the interposition of simple round 
 members, alternated with flat hollows ; his mouldings, even 
 when designed for such grand works as the Ducal Palace, being 
 bald and crude in design, though they conduced no doubt to 
 that breadth of effect to which he always desired that every- 
 thing should be sacrificed. There is but little skill shewn 
 in the way in which their contours are drawn, and the 
 carelessness with which they are fitted to the size of the 
 capital that carries them is a constant source of disgust to 
 any one who has been trained by the study of the exquisite 
 English mouldings of the same period. The architectural 
 carving was designed with the same idea ; for when it was 
 introduced elsewhere than in the capitals of columns, it was 
 always very flat and delicate, severe in outline, and not 
 much relieved, and often very decided in its direct imita- 
 tion of nature. This, however, is mainly seen in the earliest 
 examples, for I am bound to say that later Italians never 
 rivalled the Byzantine capitals of S. Mark's, or some of 
 those in the early church of San Zenone, Verona. Indeed, 
 as time wore on, the carving in Italian buildings became 
 steadily worse and Avorse. Most of the later Venetian 
 capitals are bad in their outline, confused and purposeless 
 
 ' Kiiglisli examples may Ik; scon in tlie wcstcru pdrcli of Fountains Abbey, 
 anil among the extcnsivf fragments of Egglestonc Abbey, near Barnard 
 Castle.
 
 Chap. XIV.] CORNICES. 379 
 
 in all tlunr lines, and shew no sense of that vigorous petri- 
 faction of the elements of natural growth and form, which 
 was so sensitively felt and expressed by French and English 
 artists. 
 
 CORNICE — SAN FRANCESCO, BRESCIA. 
 
 And, next, we come to the cornice, the feature which 
 al)ove all others must most startle men who, for the first 
 time, make acquaintance with Italian work, and which most 
 recalls in its idea its Classic prototype ; for, though its 
 treatment in detail is as unlike that of the ancients as it 
 can well he, it is, nevertheless, so decidedly marked and so 
 prominent a feature (crowning not only the summits of walls, 
 but even running up the gables, and returning round but- 
 tresses), that it is impossible not to regard it as another 
 evidence of admiration for, and imitation of, earlier work.
 
 380 ITALIAN GOTH[C BUILDINGS. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 The ordinary northern parapet is never used, the eaves 
 almost always finishing with the common Italian tiles pro- 
 jecting slightly over the deep cornice of the walls. AVe have 
 nothing at all parallel to these cornices in England, and I 
 remember but few examples of anything of the same kind 
 in the North of Europe, save in the transept of Liibeck 
 Cathedral, and such churches as those of Bamberg and the 
 Rhine country ; which last seem to be derived from the 
 Lombard churches of Pavia, and to have nothing in common 
 with later pointed work, and to have exerted little, if any, 
 influence on its development. 
 
 I have said enough, I hope, to explain the grounds for my 
 opinion that, with the single exception of their use of shafts, 
 we never find the same kind of perfection in Italian Gothic 
 buildings as in French or English works of the same date ; but 
 I am not slow to allow, nevertheless, that they do contain 
 features of extreme beauty and purity ; and many of them 
 peculiar to themselves. There is perhaps no country in the 
 world which excels Italy in the buildings which were erected 
 for civic and domestic purposes. The Doge's Palace, and 
 many of the other palaces at Venice, the Broletto of Como, 
 the other houses or palaces of which I have given illustrations 
 throughout this volume, are some only among many which 
 might be enumerated, any one of which would have not only 
 an advantage over very many of our own buildings, as a 
 model of good architecture, but at the same time the merit of 
 fitness for the purposes for which our domestic buildings in 
 towns are at the present day required. Then again, there 
 are, as I have shewn, the exquisite porches ; the peculiar, 
 and generally noble, campanili ; the many-shafted cloisters ; 
 the perfect monuments ; the use of brickwork of the best 
 kind; and, liiuilly, that in which Italian architecture of the 
 Middle Ages teaches us more than any other architecture 
 since the commencement (^f the world — tlie introduction of
 
 (HAP. XIV.] ITALIAN GOTHIC BUILDINGS. 381 
 
 colour in construction — which is managed generally with 
 such consummate beauty, refinement, and modesty, tliat 
 even where it accompanies faulty construction and un- 
 worthily sham expedients, it is impossible to avoid giving 
 oneself up altogether to admiration of the result. 
 
 It will be seen that I am not by any means a blind 
 enthusiast about Italian architecture. Who, indeed, that 
 has studied on the spot, as I have done, not only a vast 
 number of buildings in England, but also nearly all of the 
 best examples in France, Spain, and Germany, could do 
 otherwise than profess his truest allegiance to be due to the 
 truthful beauties of his own national variety of the style ? I 
 should think that most students would agree with me, if 
 they found themselves able to institute such a comparison. 
 
 The first view of an Italian Gothic church, whatever its 
 date, is startlingly and, I think, disagreeably unlike any- 
 thing that we are accustomed to in our own old buildings. 
 You may go to a great English cathedral and find that from 
 every point of view, inside and outside, every feature is well 
 proportioned to its place, and beautiful in itself, whilst the 
 tout ejisemble is also perfect in proportion and mass. This 
 can never be said of Italian work. It never produced any- 
 thing perfect both in detail and in mass ; and one always 
 finds it necessary to make excuses for even the best works, 
 such as one never finds necessary, or allows oneself to think 
 of making, for English works. There is something really 
 absurd in comparing even the best of the Italian churches 
 with such cathedrals as those of Canterbury or Lincoln, so 
 superior are the latter from almost every point of view. 
 The Italian churcli is usually a long, broad, rather low 
 building, lighted with but few windows, having but a small, 
 if any, clerestory, and with scarcely any irregularity in 
 sliape or plan ; it has scarcely ever more than one tower, 
 and this is never combined with the rest of the design
 
 382 ITALIAN GOTHIC BUILDINGS. [Chap. XIY. 
 
 in the manner common to us in England or France. 
 There is no approach, therefore, to such combinations of 
 steeples as are familiar to us at Canterbury, AVells, Laon, 
 Eeims, or Eouen, and undoubtedly there is very much 
 less external grandeur. The steeple, when it does occur, is 
 often detached ; and when it is engaged, it does not open 
 into the church, but is placed in some irregular and abnor- 
 mal position, where it is at once felt that it is purposely not 
 intended to be looked at in conjunction with the main fayade 
 of the building. There is no attempt even to secure a 
 tolerable sky-line. The only relief to the monotonous out- 
 line of the main building is at the crossing, where something 
 in the way of a low, mean dome is occasionally introduced, 
 but this is always of but slight elevation, and not intended to 
 j)roduce any good external effect, such as was aimed at in our 
 own central steeples. So also if we look at their facades, 
 we have a feature on which, in common with ourselves, 
 they often lavished considerable expense, and probably the 
 greatest pains. The treatment is very similar in its idea 
 throughout the whole jDeriod during which the style j)re- 
 vailed ; and the effect produced is undoubtedly oftener very 
 disappointing than attractive. The commonest type of 
 fa(;ade is one in which the cornice, which is generally of 
 slight projection, but deep and marked in character, is carried 
 up the flat gable of the building, whilst the whole front, 
 divided by vertical pilasters into three or five divisions in 
 width, is lighted either by a series of circular windows, or 
 by one large and important rose in the centre. This class of 
 front is common to most of the Gothic churches in Lombardy. 
 At Ferrara, we see another and very different design in 
 the grand front to the cathedral, which, save that it is 
 entirely and shamelessly a sham front, might vie even with 
 that of a Northern cathedral in beauty, intricacy, and 
 richness of character; but this design is not really very
 
 Chap. XIV.] MURAL IMONUMENTS. 383 
 
 Itiiliiui in stylo, and is a solitary example. When an 
 Englishman sees the tympanum of the principal doorway 
 of such a church filled with a sculpture of S. George and 
 the Dragon, he may be pardoned for recollecting that our 
 royal family have sprung from the same stock as the 
 D'Estes, once Lords of Ferrara, the front of whose cathedral 
 is almost the finest in Italy. 
 
 Other portions of Italian churches are even less satisfac- 
 tory than their facades. I have already explained that the 
 clerestory is rarely lighted by anything more elaborate than 
 a succession of circular windows of small size. The church 
 of Sta. Anastasia, Verona, gives us the best example of 
 these, the windows there being of brick, filled in with very 
 good early plate tracery in stone. The east end is often 
 more picturesque than the west ; and that of the church of 
 San Fermo Maggiore, Verona, affords a good example. The 
 east ends of the churches of the Frari and SS. Giovanni e 
 Paolo, at Venice, are perhaps the two finest examples of this 
 })ortion of the building to be seen in Italy, and are worthy 
 of very high praise. 
 
 If we descend from generals to details, we shall find 
 mucli more to admire, and altogether much more to interest 
 us. The doorways and the porches, which protect without 
 concealing them, are often especially beautiful. I have 
 already mentioned the doorways of Sta. Anastasia and San 
 Zenone at Verona, of S. Mark's, Venice, the cathedral at 
 Modena, and the north porch of Sta. Maria Maggiore, at 
 Bergamo, all of which are full of beauty and full of national 
 character. Another favourite and beautiful type is that of the 
 porch on the north side of San Fermo, at Verona, which is 
 arched on each face, and roofed with a flat-pitched roof, gabled 
 both ways. In the doorways, inclosed within these jiorches, 
 we shall hardly find so much to admire, and must not ex- 
 pect anything like our own or the great French examples.
 
 384 CLOISTEES. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 Generally tlie opening is square-headed, with a lintel often 
 formed by an ingenious dovetailing of stone together/ and 
 the mouldings of the jambs are too often continuous and 
 very small and badly marked in their sections. 
 
 The exquisite monuments Avhich so often occur against 
 the walls or by the sides of Italian churches are somewhat 
 similar in idea to these porches. Of these I have said so much 
 that I only refer to them here, as among the most charming- 
 features of Italian art. I think that our own monuments, 
 rich as our country is in them, will only be considered much 
 superior to the best of these by those whose patriotism 
 warps their judgment ! One of the most perfect examples of 
 the class is to be seen in the Castelbarco monument close 
 to the church of Sta. Anastasia, Verona. Here the pointed 
 trefoiled arch, on each face of the canopy over tlie tomb, 
 springs from four detached shafts, and fits very closely 
 under flat gables or pediments, above and from betAveen 
 which rises a perfectly plain pyramidal mass of stone. 
 The very simplicity of the design of these monuments is 
 their greatest charm ; and so conscious were their designers 
 of this, that they seem to me to have lavished all their 
 care and refinement upon them. There are of necessity 
 iron ties at the springing of the arch ; but it was felt 
 necessary to give the eye a sense of security beyond what 
 the existence of these ties could afford, and this was accom- 
 plished by adding on the under side of the arch a simple and 
 rather heavy cusp, generally proportioned with a degree of 
 delicate skill of which modern architects appear to me (if I 
 may dare to say it) never to dream. I believe that good 
 architecture may generally be detected at once, by the excel- 
 lence of such ap})arently small matters as the shape of a cusp. 
 
 ' Numcious f.\airii)l('s nf iiiascmiy armiigcd in tlie same way ficciir in old 
 Kngliwli examples. 'J'lic fipcninj^s of fiicplaoos in iiartiiiilnr are often so 
 <!onstincte(l.
 
 Chap. XIV.] WINDOW TRACERIES. 385 
 
 I am certain that good Italian ai-eliitecture invariably lias 
 ciisping, which is both nervous in its curve and yet delicate ; 
 and I believe that most modern cnsj^s are drawn l)y the hun- 
 dred as a mere matter of routine, without care and without 
 i)leasure, and consequently without good effect. 
 
 Not less beautiful than the porches and monuments 
 is another feature which occurs in Italy, as often as, and 
 perhaps more perfectly than, anywhere else — the cloister. 
 This consists generally of an open arcade supported on 
 detached shafts, and is very frequently of two stages in 
 height. Notwithstanding their extreme simplicity and 
 moderate amount of enrichment, these Italian cloisters are 
 always capital in their effect. They owe this very mucli 
 to the number of shafts which support their arches ; these 
 are generally of marble, coupled together except at the 
 angles, where there are usually four. Some of the cloisters 
 which still remain in Verona, are among the most beautiful 
 examples. Nor are those of San Stefano, Bologna, nor at a 
 later date those of the church of Sant' Antonio at Padua 
 and at Brescia, less worthy of study. They never have the 
 beautiful traceries of our Northern cloisters, for the sufficient 
 reason, that the climate rendered less protection from the 
 weather necessary ; and the consequence of this is, that 
 their arcades, being always severely simjjle in design, no 
 effort was ever spared to make them as perfect as possible 
 ill their proportions. 
 
 The cloisters of the cathedral at Aosta are interesting as 
 affording an instance of the lavish richness of illustration 
 which some of the mediaeval sculptors bestowed on their work ; 
 the capitals throughout being sculptured with illustrations of 
 subjects, all of which are made fully intelligible by inscrip- 
 tions incised in the stone — a favourite practice not only of 
 early Italian sculptors, but of their brethren in Germany and 
 France. In the cloister of San Gregorio, Venice, we have 
 
 2 c
 
 386 WINDOW TRACERIES. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 another variety in which the shafts support the woodwork of 
 the roof in a very picturesque fashion, without any arches. 
 This is a type of cloister which might often he most useful in 
 modern work, and is an evidence of the extent to which a 
 Gothic artist may, when necessity requires it, trench holdly 
 on what is ordinarily supposed to be the exclusive province of 
 Classic art — the use of the shaft and lintel ; but here the 
 Gothic artist with liis usual reality made his lintel of wood 
 in place of stone. 
 
 The Italian treatment of windows is especially worthy 
 of note. The drawings which I have given will shew how 
 generally the tracery, commonly called plate-tracery, was 
 used. It is, indeed, a very beautiful mode of treatment, but 
 quite distinct from all fully-developed systems, inasmuch as 
 it deals only with the piercings here and there in the block 
 of stone which forms the window-head, and not with the 
 intricate combinations of lines which mark out the outlines 
 of the spaces to be pierced. The difference is great — the one 
 kind giving that exquisite depth and mystery and admitting 
 of the infinite variety so characteristic of northern Gothic, the 
 other giving breadth and flatness of effect, and leaving space 
 on its broad surfaces for the play of the brilliant sunshine, 
 save where the black piercing of some simple form — quatrefoil 
 or trefoil — gives life to the otherwise monotonous window- 
 head. Of the two the former admits of infinitely more 
 variety and display of fancy and ingenuity ; though the 
 latter, perhaps, when seen at its best, is really the more 
 beautiful. Botli of them are, however, so good as to be 
 equally usable, and neither of them to the exclusion of 
 the otlier. 
 
 In Italian Gothic traceries, it is difficult to shew the pro- 
 gression or regular development which marks every stage of 
 northern Gothic. There are numerous examples of simple 
 lancet windows, of cusped lancets, of combinations of lancets
 
 Chap. XIY.] WIXDOAV TRACERIES. 387 
 
 cusj)ed or imcusped, and oftentimes of windows of plate- 
 traceiy, and then of more developed tracery which, however, 
 was still treated as plate tracery with the addition of mould- 
 ings. In the later windows an unsightly effect is produced 
 by the wide and bald plain splay or reveal which is usually 
 formed round the window, outside as well as inside, and also 
 by the placing of glazing behind the traceries in a separate 
 wooden frame, so that they are completely concealed from view 
 on the interior. The tracery of the second stage of the Doge's 
 Palace at Venice is probably equal to any that has ever been 
 executed, and may well be the pride of the country. It has 
 also the special peculiarity, common to all Venetian domestic 
 work, of being sufficiently strong in its section and con- 
 struction to bear an enormous weight of wall without the 
 aid of any discharging arch above it. There is another class 
 of traceries which seems to have been essentially an Italian 
 invention, and which is as objectionable as any tracery 
 that I know. Examples of this may be seen in the south 
 transept of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, at Venice. They give 
 the idea of having been cut out to order, from an 
 enormous mass of ready-made tracery, kept in slab, sold 
 by the superficial yard, and cut to fit any opening required. 
 There is no attempt to finish the tracery where it meets 
 the inclosing arch, and the efiect is consequently always 
 rude and unskilful.^ 
 
 Another feature is, the constant use at all dates of 
 shafts in place of moulded window monials; and another, 
 
 ' There is a very ciirious example of Italian tracery in tlio church of San 
 Giacomo, in Bologna. This is a two-liglit window, composed of a series of 
 slabs of stones, pierced witli geometrical figures and supported by shafts. 
 It has, beginning at the sill and reckoning upwards— 1, two lights divided 
 by a bhafttd nionial ; 2, a slab pierced with two trefoiled hends to the lights; 
 
 3, a large transonic panel of stone pierced with a quatrefoil and two trefoils ; 
 
 4, same as 1st ; 5, same as 2nd ; 6, the arch, whose tympanum is filled in 
 with another pierced slab of stone. It will be seen that the construction of 
 such a window as this is altogether unlike that of any English window. 
 
 2 c 2
 
 388 CIRCULAR WINDOWS. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 the very frequent insertion of a transome of tracery, 
 across the middle of the height of the window. The 
 use of the shaft instead of the moulded monial does not 
 seem to be so admirable in ecclesiastical as in domestic work. 
 It generally accompanied the system already mentioned of 
 fixing the glazing in wooden frames, behind the stone-work, 
 and hence seldom looks well in church-windows except 
 on the outside. The deep transomes pierced witli tracery 
 are of common occurrence. They are seen in almost all the 
 Venetian Gothic churches, but their utility and beauty are 
 alike doubtful. 
 
 No country affords more frequent examples of circular 
 windows than Italy. They occur in almost every church, 
 and are of stone, marble, and brick. The best example 
 I know, of very early pointed character, and one which 
 is unsurpassed anywhere, is in the west front of the 
 church of Sta. Maria, Toscanella. Here there is an 
 inner wheel, and the space between the two wheels is 
 divided by shafts, between each of which is pierced a 
 quatrefoil. The little window in the gable of the oratory 
 of San Zenone, Verona, is a favourable example of a 
 smaller window. It is of eight lights divided by shafts, 
 and well moulded and proportioned in all its parts. Other 
 circular windows as at S. Mark's, Venice, and in the 
 church of Sant' Antonio, Padua, are of the class already 
 described, where the tracery seems to have been inserted, 
 without reference to, or connection with, the inclosing 
 circular line. 
 
 I have now, I think, exhausted the distinguishing features 
 of an Italian church, with the exception of its campanile. 
 This, as I have said before, is always a single steeple (with 
 the perhaps uni(|ue exception of Genoa Cathedral, which lias 
 two), generally detached from the main fabric, j^lanted wher- 
 ever it happened to be most convenient ; sometimes as at Ver-
 
 Chap. XIV.] CAMPANILI. 389 
 
 celli, not even at right angles to the building to which it is 
 attached, and with but little reference to its eifect upon the 
 remainder of the building. There are no features of Italian 
 buildings which are so universally remembered with pleasure ; 
 and similar as they are in their general scheme, there is 
 nevertheless a considerable variety in their treatment in 
 detail. The first thing to be noted is, that they are never 
 supported by buttresses, and that the usual mode of ascent 
 was by a staircase in the thickness of the wall, and not by 
 any such excrescence as a staircase turret. The outline 
 is severely square and simple, and, unlike as it is to most 
 of our English steeples, generally exceedingly striking. 
 No doubt the apparent height of these towers is enormously 
 increased by the absence of buttresses. The originals of 
 all Italian campanili seem to be the early steeples of the 
 Koman churches, divided into a series of stages of equal 
 height, pierced with windows not varying much in design 
 throughout. The most exact reproductions of these steeples 
 may be found so far from the centre of Italy as at Susa 
 at the foot of the Mont Cenis, and in other very similar 
 erections all over the North of Italy. With certain broad 
 general features of resemblance there are, however, several 
 local variations, which may be divided roughly into the 
 following separate classes or schools : — (1) The Pisan : (2) 
 tlie Venetian and Veronese : (3) the Genoese : and (4) 
 the Florentine : of which I need here only sj)eak of the 
 Venetian and Veronese, which are undoubtedly among the 
 finest. In the Veronese there is a very distinct imitation of 
 the pure Eomanesque examples, whilst in the Venetian there 
 is generally less subdivision into stages, the walls being 
 arcaded with very slightly recessed lofty arcades, and the 
 horizontal divisions being much fewer in number. Of these. 
 San Giacomo del Eialto is one of the best examples ; it is 
 executed, as all the Venetian examples are, in brick. In
 
 390 ITALIAN BRICKWORK. [Chap, XIV. 
 
 all these examples the pilasters at the angles are carefully 
 marked. But there is another variety of distinctly Italian 
 towers in which this is not the case. The finest example of 
 this is the tower of the Scaliger Palace, at Verona, where the 
 simple unbroken mass of masonry and brickwork shoots up 
 into the sky all but uUpierced until the belfry stage. Of 
 this kind of tower the examples are not unfrequent in the 
 smaller churches in Lombardy, and in the public halls 
 and private houses of many of the cities described in 
 these pages. The tower at Asti is one of the best of 
 these. 
 
 There remain two other subjects which, more than any 
 others, meet us at every stage of our study of Gothic archi- 
 tecture in Italy. These are, first, the use of brick ; and 
 secondly, the introduction of coloured materials in con- 
 struction, of both of which, as we have seen, there are so 
 many valuable examples. 
 
 It has been by far too much the fashion of late years 
 to look u2)on brick as a very inferior material, fit 
 only to be covered with compo, and never fit to be used 
 in church-building, or indeed in any buildings of any 
 architectural pretension, so that I suspect many people, 
 trusting to their knowledge of pointed architecture in Eng- 
 land, would be much surprized to find that, throughout large 
 tracts of the Continent, brick was the natural, and indeed 
 the popular material during the most palmy days of archi- 
 tecture in the Middle Ages. Yet so it was that in Holland, 
 in the south-west of France, in Northern Germany, and 
 the Low Countries, in large tracts in Spain, and through- 
 out Northern Italy, stone was either scarce or not to 
 be obtained, and brick was therefore everywhere and most 
 fearlessly used. 
 
 In all these countries, just as in Italy, it was used with- 
 out any concealment, but each country developed its practice
 
 Chap. XIV.] 
 
 ITALIAN BRICKWORK. 
 
 391 
 
 in this matter for itself, and there is therefore cousiderahle 
 diversity in their work. They are all unlike, and far superior 
 to what remains to us of ancient brickwork in England, for I 
 need hardly say that, with a rare exception here and there, 
 and in comparatively small districts, brick was not used in 
 England between the time of the Eomans and the fifteenth 
 century, and, when used afterwards, was seldom remarkable 
 either for any singular beauty or originality of treatment. 
 In this matter, therefore, we are obliged to go to the Continent 
 for information. 
 
 Italian brickwork is remarkable as being almost always 
 executed with nothing but red bricks, with occasional but 
 rare use of stonework; the bricks for the ordinary walling 
 are generally rather larger than ours, in no way superior in 
 their quality, and always built coarsely with a wide joint of 
 mortar. Those used for windows, doorways, and generally 
 where they were required to attract attention and to be 
 ornamental, were made of much finer clay and moulded with 
 
 ^- if.. 
 
 STBING-COURSE— PALACE OF JURISCONSULTS, CREMONA. 
 
 the greatest care and skill. The transepts and campanile of 
 Cremona Cathedral are instances of red brick used without 
 any intermixture of stone save in the shafts of the windows, 
 and their efi'ect is certainly very grand. The mouldings are 
 elaborate, and the way in which cusping is formed singularly 
 successful. This, it must be observed, was not usually done
 
 392 
 
 ITALIAN BRICKWORK. 
 
 [Chap. XIV- 
 
 by means of bricks moulded in the form of a cusp, but with 
 ordinary bricks, built with the same radiating lines as those 
 of the arch to which they belonged, and cut and rubbed to 
 the necessary outline. Sometimes, as, e.g., in the windows 
 at Mantua,^ which are some of the very best I have ever seen, 
 the points of the cusps and key-stones of the arches are 
 formed in pieces of stone, the alternation of which with the 
 deep-red hue of the bricks jjroduces the most satisfactory 
 effect of colour. This sort of treatment is common at 
 Brescia, Verona, Mantua, and Venice, but unknown at 
 Cremona. 
 
 In nearly all cases where brick is used for tracery, it is in 
 the shape of plate-tracery. The tympanum of the arch is filled 
 
 WINDOW IN NOItTlI TRAXSErX, CliEMOXA CATHEDRAL. 
 
 in with a mass of brickwork, through which are pierced the 
 arches over the several lights of the window, and these are sup- 
 ported 01) marble or stone shafts with carved capitals, instead 
 
 ' See pliite 40, p. 250.
 
 Chap. XIV.] 
 
 ITALIAX BRICKWOltK. 
 
 393 
 
 of mouials :' and above these sometimes, as in the windows 
 of Sant' Andrea, Mantua, are three cnsped circles; some- 
 times, as in the palace at Mantua, only one cusped circle ; 
 or else, as in a beautiful example at Cremona, the plain 
 brick tympanum is relieved by the introduction of a panel 
 
 PETAII. OF WIXnOW-JAMB- CREMONA. 
 
 of terra-cotta, bearing the cross on a shield, whilst round its 
 outer circumference delicately treated though large cusping 
 defines the outline of the arch.^ 
 
 The windows at Coccaglio^ and at Monza* are examples of 
 tympana left quite plain, or, as in the former case, pierced 
 only with a small opening of a few inches in diameter, which 
 nevertheless gives much effect to the design. In the latter 
 case there is a feature which is well worth notice, because it 
 is remarkable in the best Italian brickwork, and always very 
 effective. Labels are exceedingly rare, but their place is 
 usually supplied by a course of very narrow deep red bricks 
 which surrounds the back of the arch. In the window in 
 ]\[onza Cathedral there are two such courses — one about 4i 
 inches wide, the other not more than 2h. They serve to 
 define the arch and keep it distinct in effect from the walling 
 
 ' The windows iu tlic Castle of S. Angelo, between I/odi and Pavia. are 
 the only examples I met with of tlie use of brick for monials. In Northern 
 Germany, on the contrary, where the shaft was almost unknown, brick 
 m.inials are universal, and j^enerally unsatisfactory in their effect. 
 
 - See preceding page. •* See i)p. 04, o5. '' See p. 335.
 
 394 
 
 ITALIAN BRICKWORK. 
 
 [Chap. XIV. 
 
 around it. Sometimes, as in the Yescovato at Mantna, and 
 in the houses at Asti, these narrow bricks are introduced 
 
 
 
 ^rif 
 
 
 l: 
 
 URICK AUCHrVOLT, VESCOVATO — MANTUA. 
 
 between a succession of rims of brickwork on the same face, 
 
 alternated very picturesquely 
 with squares of stone, and 
 sometimes, as in some beautiful 
 arcading outside San Fermo 
 Maggiore ;it Verona,^ to define 
 and enliven the lines of stone- 
 work ; for in this case, though 
 the work is all in stone and no 
 brick was really required, so 
 great was the appreciation of 
 colour, that it was gladly and 
 most successfully introduced. 
 In the early cloister of San 
 Zenone we see it again, ■^ as also in all the very beautiful 
 arches which still remain in the Broletto of Brescia.^ 
 
 ' Sec plate 18, p, 122. = See plate 15, p. 111. ^ Sec plate 0, p. 72. 
 
 ARCII-MOULB— CKEMONA.
 
 Chap. XIV.] ITALIAN BRICKWORK. 395 
 
 But beside this there was another way in which Italian 
 architects produced a very beautiful effect : this was in the 
 alternation of stone and brick. We have one of the first 
 examples of this in the magnificent walls of San Zenone at 
 Verona, in which a deep red brick is used in courses alter- 
 nating with a very warm-coloured stone. The brick is used 
 very irregularly : beginning at the base of the walls over 
 the cloisters, we have alternately with courses of stone, first 
 a band of three courses of brick, after this one course of 
 brick, four courses, five courses, two courses, one course, and 
 then the cornice, which is mainly of stone, but relieved by 
 two courses of narrow bricks ; in spite of the variation in the 
 height of the brick courses, those of stone in this case are 
 nearly uniform in depth. In the west front of San Fermo 
 Maggiore ^ we have brick and stone used in alternate and 
 regular cour.-es all the way up ; in this case the brick is 
 used rather for colour than for any other reason, though the 
 side walls of this church are entirely of brick and crowned 
 with excessively deep brick cornices. 
 
 The churches at Asti afi'ord examples of the worst kind 
 of counterchanging of stone and brick ; in them the jamb of 
 a window is treated like a chess-board, being chequered with 
 alternate red and white both horizontally and vertically. 
 To accomplish this the construction is ingeniously twisted, 
 and it need hardly be said that the efiect is not at all good. 
 
 The interior of San Zenone, Verona, is lined with brick 
 and stone, arranged just as it is outside, and the eft'ect is 
 most satisfactory ; indeed, this and the interior of the bap- 
 tistery at Cremona, still left in their original state, shew how 
 noble an eft'ect of colour may be given by brick internally, 
 and how mistaken we are when we cover our walls with 
 undecorated plaster. I have seen it maintained by men who 
 possibly had never seen such old works as these in their old 
 ' See pl»te 17, p. 121.
 
 396 
 
 ITALIAN BPvICKWORK. 
 
 [Chap. XIV. 
 
 state, that such colour as this is savage and fit only for uncul- 
 tivated men. If, however, there is refinement in whitewash 
 or plaster, I am unable to see it, and I can see no more incon- 
 sistency in honestly shewing the real materials of the wall 
 inside than in doing so outside. This at any rate is beyond 
 all doiibt what these old Italian architects did. 
 
 The east end of the church of the Frari at Venice is 
 another example of coursing with stone. ^ There, however, 
 the courses are far apart, and seem to be intended to define 
 the lines of the springing of arches, of transomes, and the 
 like ; and this they do very satisfactorily. But, perhaps, the 
 very best example of mixed stone and brick is that which we 
 have in the window-heads of the church by the side of the 
 Dnomo at Verona,^ in which the arrangement of the two 
 
 colours is quite perfect. In this 
 case the cusped head of the light 
 is executed in stone, not in 
 brick ; and this is, I think, as a 
 general rule, by far the better 
 plan ; for if an attempt is made 
 to execute tracery in brick, we 
 have the example of the Germans 
 before our eyes as a warning. 
 They rarely (S. Katharine, Lii- 
 beck, is almost a solitary excep- 
 tion) used stone in their window 
 tracery ; and as they never de- 
 veloped the kind of brick plate- 
 tracery which is so characteristic 
 of the best Italian work, they 
 built windows which were either 
 bald and ugly in their simplicity, or else, endeavouring to 
 execute elaborate traceries by the use of bricks, moulded into 
 
 ' Sec iiliitc 24, p. 180. 2 ^(jy pjj^j^j, ig^ p_ 122. 
 
 \V 1 N 1 )0 W — V E KOK A .
 
 Chap. XIV.] COLOUR IN CONSTRUC'J'IOX. 397 
 
 the forms of component parts of tracery, tliey produced what 
 are even more distasteful than any otlier kind of window ; in 
 part because they consist of an 
 endless repetition of small reticu- 
 lations, and in part because they 
 lead naturally to the constant re- 
 production of the same window 
 for economy's sake. 
 
 There can be no doubt that 
 the best windows for brick 
 churches are either those beauti- 
 ful Italian developments of plate- 
 
 BltlCK WINDOW, SAKT' ANDKKA — WAKTUA. 
 
 tracery in which all the bricks 
 
 are carefully cut and rubbed for their proper place, or those 
 in which, within an inclosing arch of line upon line of 
 brickwork, a small portion of stone is used for the traceries. 
 And this last has the advantage of giving much more oppor- 
 tunity for variety of form and beauty of effect than any 
 brick traceries can ever give. 
 
 There is one point in which a curious practical difference 
 exists between our old work and most old Italian. Here it 
 was not the custom to have keystones to pointed arches, 
 whilst there it is quite the rule to have them ; this may 
 have been partly, perhaps, because it was a matter of con- 
 venience to mark the central stone in arches composed of 
 alternate voussoirs of brick and stone, and it may have been 
 partly some relic of Classic traditions : not only, however, is 
 there a keystone, but sometimes, as in the Broletto at 
 Brescia, this is additionally distinguished, above the rest of 
 the stone voussoirs, by some small ornament carved uj)on 
 it. With one more fact I think I may end what I have to 
 say on this head : this is with reference to the mode in which 
 some of the Italian brick arches very beautifully follow the 
 fashion, not so uncommon in stone, of increasing in depth as
 
 398 COLOUR IN CONSTRUCTION. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 they approach the centre. In this manner, one sometimes 
 sees an arch whose outer circumference is pointed, whilst 
 its inner line is a semicircle. This was a fashion most 
 popular in Florence, and not so common in Northern Italy ; 
 still it is to he seen at Monza, Verona, and elsewhere. The 
 effect is always very good, and, though quite unknown to 
 our forefathers in England, may well be introduced in our 
 works, as it gives great appearance of strength, and is no 
 doubt, at the same time, the strongest possible form of arch. 
 No one can deny that the study of Italian brickwork 
 must be useful to those who are compelled, as we so often 
 are, to use the same material in buildings for whose good 
 architectural effect and charactei we are anxious. But, 
 far as it is in advance of most ancient brickwork in 
 England, there are points in which we must refuse to follow 
 it ; we need not, for instance, in attempting to rival its 
 beauties, confound them with faults which were essentially 
 those of the whole Italian style, and not specially of Italian 
 brickwork. We may with the greatest advantage emulate 
 the Italian system of brick-window tracery, whilst we take 
 care never to imitate the equally common custom in Italy 
 of erecting sham fronts in order to display our traceries. 
 Again, though they never used any but red bricks, there is 
 no reason why we should not enliven our work with the 
 contrast of other colours. Germany gives us examples of 
 green and black bricks, and, indeed, Italy affords some (e.g., 
 Sant' Antonio, in Padua, Murano, and Torcello) of a yellow- 
 ish brick ; and, no doubt, the effects producible by these 
 contrasts of colour are such as Italian architects were always 
 ready to avail themselves when they had the opportunity. 
 This their parti-coloured works in marble sufficiently prove ; 
 but at the same time it was seldom that they ventured upon 
 such works in brick ; and as it must be admitted tliat there 
 is no sort of work which so much requires skilful handling,
 
 Chap. XIV.] COLOUR IN CONSTRUCTION. 399 
 
 or which is so liable to degenerate into vulgarity, as this, it 
 is probable that they advisedly abstained from it. 
 
 As to the question whether it be desirable or not to 
 introduce brick at all in ecclesiastical edifices, or generally 
 in public buildings, one might, a few years ago, have been 
 anxious to say somewhat. I trust, however, that the ignorant 
 prejudice which made many good people regard stone as a 
 sort of sacred material, and red brick as one fit only for the 
 commonest and meanest purposes, is fast wearing out, and 
 that what now mainly remains to be done is to shew how it 
 may most effectively be used, not only in external, but also 
 in internal works. 
 
 One word only as to its colour, for I think that we ought 
 as much as possible to insist upon this being taken into 
 consideration. We do not, as a general rule, I suppose, 
 adopt any material in good works of» architecture simj)ly 
 because it is the very cheapest that can be obtained ; some- 
 times, indeed, we must, and then I should be the last to 
 contend against what is simply an act of necessity, not of 
 choice ; but ordinarily, before, for economy's sake, w^e de- 
 termine to sacrifice the colour of our work, and to use those 
 detestable-looking dirty yellow bricks in which Loudon 
 so much indulges, we ought to consider whether, by some 
 economy in other respects, we may not save enough to allow 
 of the use of the best kind of red brick for the general face 
 of our walls. ^ 
 
 At the present day there is, I think, absolutely no one 
 point in which we fail so much, and about which the world 
 in general has so little feeling, as that of colour. Our 
 
 ' It would be difBcult to give stronger evidence of the intrinsic effect of a 
 good coloured material than is afforded by the fact that designs so really 
 ignorant in their architectural detail as, e.g., most of the buildings of the 
 time of William HI. and Qiioen Anne should nevertheless have a certain 
 charm for us, solely derived from the beautiful colour of the bricks with which 
 they are built.
 
 400 COLOUR IN CONSTRUCTION. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 buildings are, in nine cases out of ten, cold, colourless, 
 insipid, academical studies, and our people have no concep- 
 tion of the necessity of obtaining rich colour, and no suffi- 
 cient love for it when successfully obtained. The task and 
 duty of architects at the present day is mainly that of 
 awakening and then satisfying this feeling ; and one of the 
 best and most ready vehicles for doing this exists, no doubt, 
 in the rich-coloured brick so easily manufactured in this 
 country, which, if jDroperly used, may become so effective and 
 admirable a material. 
 
 The other mode of introducing colour in construction, by 
 means of the use of marbles, deserves also some notice. In 
 my notes upon the buildings as they were passed in my 
 journeys, I have described two modes in which this kind of 
 work was treated : the first was that practised in Venice — the 
 veneering of brick walls with thin layers or coats of marble ; 
 the other, that practised at Bergamo, Cremona, and Como 
 — in which the marble formed portion of the substance 
 of the wall. 
 
 These two modes led, as would naturally be expected, 
 to two entirely different styles and modes of architecture. 
 
 The Venetian mode was rather likely to be destructive of | 
 good architecture, because it was sure to end in an entire 
 concealment of the real construction of the work ; the other 
 mode, on the contrary, proceeded on true principles, and took 
 pleasure in defining most carefully every line in the con- 
 struction of the work. It might almost be said that one 
 mode was devised with a view to the concealment, and the 
 other with a view to the explanation, of the real mode of 
 construction. 
 
 I have already described, at some length, the main 
 features of these old works in marble, and I feel, therefore, 
 that all that need now be done is to point out the degree to 
 which they afibrd matter for our imitation with the coloured
 
 Chap. XIV.] COLOUR IN CONSTRUCTION. 401 
 
 materials and marlilcs wliicli wc fortunately have in Great 
 Britain fit for the purpose, though not in very great variety. 
 
 There appears to me to be a certain limited extent to 
 which we may safely go in the way of inlaying or incrusta- 
 tion : we may, for instance, so construct our buildings as 
 that there may be portions of the face of their walls in 
 which no strain will be felt, and in which this absence of 
 strain will be at once apparent ; obviously, to instance a 
 particular place, the spaces inclosed within circles con- 
 structed in the spandrels of a line of arches can have no 
 strain of any kind. They are portions of wall without any 
 active function, and may safely be filled in with materials 
 tlie only object of which is to be ornamental. All kinds of 
 sunk panels inclosed within arches or tracery would come 
 under the same head ; the spaces between string-courses 
 might also do so very frequently, if, as in old examples, the 
 string-courses were large slabs of stones bedded into the very 
 midst of the wall, and so capable of protecting the thin, weak 
 slabs of marbles incrusted between them. 
 
 In Venice we have some grand examples, at S. Mark's, of 
 this system of incrustation filling in the whole of the space 
 within large arches ; here it is lawful, because there is no 
 weight upon it to thrust it out of its i)lace or disjoint it, as 
 the least pressure most certainly always will. So far in 
 praise of the Venetian system. But in other parts of the 
 same building we have this system carried to a length which 
 I cannot but think most mistaken, and which, I most heartily 
 trust, may never find imitators here. In these the 
 arches were constructed in brick, and then entirely covered 
 with marble. Of course there, was some difficulty in 
 doing this, and the way in which the difficulty v/as met was 
 extremely ingenious ; a succession of thin slabs of marble 
 was placed round the soffeit of the arch, having perhaps 
 enough of the cohesion given by the form of tlie arch to 
 
 2 T)
 
 402 COLOUR IN CONSTRUCTION. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 enable them to siii:»port their own weight, and fnrther sup- 
 ported by metal staples let into the joints of the brickwork. 
 The edges of these thin slabs projected sufficiently in advance 
 of the face of the brickwork to allow of their being worked 
 with some kind of pattern — generally, as has before been said, 
 a sort of dentil — and of their giving some support to the thin 
 slices of marble with which the walls were then covered. 
 The whole system was excessively weak ; and this can no- 
 where be better seen than in the Fondaco de Turchi, where 
 almost the whole of the marble facing and beautiful medal- 
 lions, in which it was once so rich, have peeled off, and left ' 
 nothing but the plain and melancholy substratum of brick. 
 Few architects, I should think, would like to contemplate 
 their work perishing in this piecemeal manner, any more 
 than they would enjoy the thought of a west front left 
 unfinished, like that of Sta. Anastasia at Verona, and pre- 
 pared only for marble with rough, irregular, and unsightly 
 brickwork. 
 
 It would be unjust not to say that often, very often, this 
 system of incrustation, even when carried to the extreme 
 limits of what seems to be lawful, wins upon our love by the 
 exquisite delicacy and taste of the sculptured patterns, 
 worked in low-relief, with which it is covered. The men 
 who did this work were, perhaps, more of sculptors than of 
 architects ; and certainly it must be confessed that never in 
 buildings in which the construction is mainly thought of, 
 is there, so far as I know, so much elaborate thought and 
 skill exhibited in the decorative part of the work as in 
 buildings such as these. 
 
 Sometimes, the sculptured medallions set in the centre 
 of a plain surface of marble are of exquisite taste and 
 beauty ; whilst here and there, as e.g. in S. Mark's and in 
 one or two spots in the water-front of the Ducal Palace, 
 are examples of great be.auty, of medallions formed of marbles 
 
 i
 
 CiiAP. XIV.] COLOUR IN CONSTRUCTION. 403 
 
 of various colours, arranged witli great refinement in some 
 kind of geometrical pattern, which shew another and equally 
 beautiful mode of relieving plain spaces of walling. 
 
 The plain surfaces of the walls in Venetian work were 
 commonly either entirely inlaid, or else inlaid within a square 
 inclosing border of projecting moulding. The inlaying was 
 composed of a number of rectangular slabs of marble, not by 
 any means always of the same size, supported to some extent 
 by the projections of the inclosing marbles or by those of the 
 archivolt, but always dependent mainly on metal cramps let 
 into the fabric of the wall ; and, when possible, these marbles 
 were slabs cut out of the same block, and put side by side, so 
 as to produce a kind of regular pattern wherever the veining 
 of the marble was at all positively marked. 
 
 The other mode of introducing constructional colour in 
 marble commends itself to one's reason as that which is 
 most likely to endure for ages, and as that, therefore, which 
 ought, wherever it may be, to be adopted. The first idea of 
 the architects of these buildings seems to have been to 
 arrange their material with as much regard to strong con- 
 trasts of colour as w^as possible. The first thing they did, 
 therefore, was to alternate the colours of every course of 
 masonry, either simply as in the Broletto at Como^ and in 
 Sta. Maria Maggiore at Bergamo,^ or as in the west front of 
 the cathedral at Cremona, where very narrow layers of white 
 marble are laid between each of the other courses, which 
 are of course so much the more defined. 
 
 The description which I have already given of these 
 works, as well as of the porch at Bergamo, will shew how 
 regular is the way in which this system of counterchanging 
 the colours was carried out by the purely constructional 
 school ; this is, in fact, the great mark of difference between 
 the constructional and the incrusting school of Italian archi- 
 
 ' See plate 63, p. .S40. - Sofi plate 1, frontispiece. 
 
 2 D 2
 
 404 COLOUR IN CONSTRUCTION. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 tects, the whole arrangement of coloured materials hy the two 
 schools heing quite different, and producing singularly dif- 
 ferent results. The most common fault of the Venetian 
 system of incrustation must have been that upon a general 
 surface of plain wall you had here and there a square i^atch 
 of marble surrounding a window opening ; that of the other 
 system would be, in the opinion of many, that you have too 
 stripy an effect of colour, and that all the divisions, moreover, 
 are horizontal. 
 
 The former must certainly have been the case wherever 
 the incrustation did not extend over the whole surface of the 
 walls, which was very frequently the case ; but the latter is not 
 really a fault ; it was only an elaboration in a more beautiful 
 material of the same system which we have seen pursued 
 with such happy results by the builders of Verona in brick 
 and stone,^ and which we find adopted by the architects of 
 Northern Germany in the frequent alternation of courses of 
 red and black brick, and sometimes by our own forefathers in 
 the coursing of flint work with stone, or in the counter- 
 changing of red and white stones which we see in some of the 
 Northamptonshire churches. The system was a thoroughly 
 sound one, because it not only proceeded from and depended 
 on the natural arrangement of the material, but afforded the 
 best possible means for displaying the various colours which 
 were to be used. 
 
 Probably all these systems are mainly useful now as shew- 
 ing us certain principles which we may work out and apply 
 to our own somewhat different circumstances ; and surely one 
 of our first objects ought to be the discovery of the extent of 
 our means and opportunities, which in this matter are at 
 tlie present day far beyond what is generally imagined. 
 
 It must never be forgotten by us that our forefathers had 
 
 ' Some of the modireval buildings in Greece have small patterns carved 
 in low n^lief all round the walls in occ;isioiial courses, which are evidently 
 intended to produce the kind of cdcL't ri'ferred to above.
 
 Ckai-. XIV.] COLOUR IX CONSTKUCTlOX. 40") 
 
 very limited means of obtaiuiug materials from one locality 
 and transporting them to another ; and were moreover, to a 
 great extent, unacquainted with the materials which miglit, 
 if necessary, be obtained. We have not this excuse ; we not 
 only know what materials we may obtain, but we have at 
 the same time marvellous facilities for their conveyance 
 between all parts of the country ; and we know also how 
 much has been done of old in other countries by using them 
 in a jjroper way. 
 
 No excuse therefore can be found for us if we con- 
 tinue to neglect to avail ourselves of them as though they 
 were still undiscovered. We have alabaster, which may be 
 wrought at a really trifling expense ; large fields of marbles, 
 of which those of Devonshire and Ireland are particularly 
 valuable for architectural decoration, and those of Derby- 
 shire and Purbeck for the formation of shafts and columns : 
 we have, moreover, an exhaustless supply of granites of 
 various colours ; of serpentine ; and, lastly, of building- 
 stones of many tints, many of which may be very effective 
 when contrasted. In addition to these natural materials we 
 luive every facility for making the most perfect bricks ; and, 
 owing to the excellence already achieved by our manufac- 
 turers of glass and pottery, we have no difficulty in making 
 mosaics and tiles, either for roofing, flooring, or inlaying, 
 of any degree of beauty, either of colour or form. 
 
 With such advantages we ought long since to have efi'ected 
 far more than we have ever attempted, or apparently ever 
 thought of. Our buildings should, both outside and inside, 
 have had some of that warmth which colour only can give ; 
 they should have enabled the educated eye to revel in bright 
 tints of nature's own formation, whilst to the uneducated 
 eye they would have aft'orded the best of all possible lessons, 
 and, by familiarizing it with the proper combination of 
 colour and form, would have enabled it to ajjpreciate it.
 
 406 TKUTH. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 And then, if ever the day shall come when our buildings 
 thus do their duty and teach their proper lesson to the eye, 
 we may hope that we shall see a feeling, more general and 
 more natural, for colour of all kinds and for art of every 
 variety in the bulk of our people. At present it is really 
 saddening to converse with the majority of educated men on 
 any question of colour. For them it has no charms and no 
 delight. The puritanical uniformity of our coats and of all 
 our garments is but a reflection from the prevailing lack 
 of love of art or colour of any kind. A rich colour is 
 thought vulgar, and that only is refined which is neutral, 
 plain, and ugly. 
 
 Perhaps in all this there may be something more than 
 art can ever grapple with ; it may be ingrain, and part of the 
 necessity of the present age ; but if so, oh for the days 
 when, as of yore, colour may be appreciated and beloved, 
 when uniformity shall not be considered beauty, nor a hideous 
 plainness be considered a fit substitute for severity ! Oh 
 too, for the days when men shall have cast off their depend- 
 ence on other men's works, and the customs of their own 
 days, and, like true men and faithful, shall honestly and 
 with energy, each in his own sphere, set to work to do all 
 that in them lies to increase the power of art and to advance 
 its best interests. All these aims and objects are more or 
 less bound up with the best interests of a j)eople, however 
 old and however powerful, because they depend for ultimate 
 and real success upon the thorough belief, on the part of all 
 its votaries, in certain great and eternal principles, which, if 
 always acted upon, would beyond all doubt sometimes make 
 great artists and always good men. 
 
 The principle which artists now have mainly to contend 
 for is that of Truth ; forgotten, trodden under foot, despised, 
 if not hated for ages, this must be their watchword. If 
 they be architects, let them remember how vitally necessary 
 
 i
 
 Chap. XIV.] TRUE PRINCIPLES. 407 
 
 truthfulness in construction, in design, and in decoration, is 
 to any permanent success in even the smallest of their works ; 
 or sculptors, let them recollect how vain and unsatisfactory 
 has been their abandonment of truth in their attempted 
 revival among us of what in Classic times were — what they 
 no longer are — real representations and natural works of art ; 
 if painters, let them remember how all-important a return 
 to first principles and truth in the delineation of nature and 
 natural forms is to them, if they are ever to create a school 
 of art by which they may be remembered in another age. 
 
 Finally, I wish that all artists would remember the one 
 great fact which separates by so wide a gap the architects, 
 sculptors, and painters of the best days of the Middle Ages 
 from us now — their earnestness and their thorough self- 
 sacrifice in the pursuit of art, and in the exaltation of their 
 religion. They were men who had a faith, and hearts 
 earnestly bent on the propagation of that faith ; and were it 
 not for this, their w^orks would never have had the life, 
 vigour, and freshness which even now they so remarkably 
 retain. Why should we not be equally remembered three 
 centuries hence ? Have we less to contend for, less faith to 
 exhibit, or less self-sacrifice to offer than they, because we 
 live in later days ? Or is it true that the temper of men is 
 so much changed, and that the vocation of art has changed 
 with it ? I believe not. There have been evidences enough 
 that there is no lack of liberality on the part of our em- 
 ployers, where there is any evidence of skill and enthusiasm 
 for his work on the part of the artist. The English architect 
 of to-day has opportunities as great as those of any of his 
 predecessors, if he will but use them. Vnit he must use his 
 art as one who respects both himself and it. There is no 
 real respect for an art when it is treated, as it always has 
 been by the Ecnaissance architects and their followers, as a 
 mere aft'air of display. No good building was ever yet
 
 408 TRUTH. [Chap. XI\^ 
 
 erected in which the architect designed the front, and left 
 the flanks or internal courts to take care of themselves. So 
 also no good building was ever seen, in which the exterior 
 only was thought of, and the internal decoration and design 
 neglected. But this is almost universal now, except in the 
 few buildings in which the Gothic style has been carefully 
 revived. In such treatment of art as this, there is an 
 ingrain falseness, which is as demoralizing as it is ruinous. 
 If architecture is only an affair of outside disj^lay, no one 
 will take any real interest in it, for from the first it is the 
 evidence of the architect's love for his work which has 
 given the human interest which is all in all to it. 
 
 It is this truthfulness only, in every line and every 
 detail of every part of a building, which can ever make 
 great architecture — it is this only which one would wish 
 to extract from the works of our forefathers — and this 
 only which I have desired to discover in the works of those 
 Italian artists whose labours I have been considering, and 
 whose efforts I have endeavoured to set before my readers ; 
 and it is this desire which can alone be my excuse for 
 having undertaken the work which I have now brought to a 
 conclusion.
 
 Key Pl.-vn of Capitals DurAi. Palace Venicf,. 
 
 n 
 
 ► 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 THE CAPITALS ARE NUMBER 
 
 ED CONSECUTIVELV FRO 
 
 THE CAPS ARE OF FOUR DE5 
 
 GN5 MARKED iiV lETTEB 
 
 PLAIN TUFFS AT ANGLES Wl 
 
 » HEADS BEASTS «C B 
 
 FOLIAGE CURVING OVER AN 
 
 FALLING DOWNWARDS 
 
 WITH VERTICAL FOLIAGE UN 
 
 DEB SUBJECTS 
 
 FOLIAGE RISING VERTiCALlV 
 
 TO ANGLES AND CUR 
 
 AND FALLING DOWN UNDER 
 
 SUBJECTS 
 
 FOLIAGE AT ANGLES AND UN 
 
 DEF< SUBJECTS CURV 
 
 <INGS I 
 
 CARVED WITH 
 
 WITH CORDED NECKINGS IS MAR! 
 3TTED LINES UNDER PRINTING SHI 
 
 ARE ABOVE THE CAPITALS 
 AIN LINES UNDER PRINTING SHEW 
 
 ARE ABOVE THE GROUND STORY 
 
 CAPITALS ARE EITHER MOULDED (MARKED OR 
 AGE (2) OR CORDED fO) e ^ A TU FTED CAPITAL 
 
 J^' 
 
 
 ...".-- 
 
 ^ 
 
 *iifc^d£i*3li^^i£:*i; 
 
 nk
 
 ( 401) ) 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Catalogue of the Subjects of the Sculptured Capitals in the Lower 
 Stage of the Doge's Palace, Venice. 
 
 TiiK capitals are uinubcred as in the accompanying key-plan, 
 l)cginning at the south-east angle on the Molo front, and going 
 from right to left nntil the last capital, near S. Mark's, is 
 reached. For those who Avish for something more than a 
 catalogue, I need hardly say that in the latter portion of the 
 second volume of the ' Stones of A^enice,' Mr. Euskin has given 
 all that can he desired, -with his usual felicity and beauty of 
 verlml illustration. 
 
 In the ' Annales Archeologiques,' vol. xvii. (1857 j, Mr. 
 Burges has given a very full and careful account of all the 
 capitals, to wliich M. Uidron Aine has added some supple- 
 mentary notes. 
 
 Zanotto (' 11 Palazzo iJucale di Venezia,' vol. i. pp. 209-35o) 
 has given a still more full description, accompanied by rather 
 rude outlines of all the lower range of capitals. There is small 
 need, therefore, for anything more than a mere catalogue here, 
 which it seems to me may be of service to some of those Avho 
 are able to look at the Ducal Palace, but uiuible to carry with 
 them any of the weighty volumes to Avhich 1 have referred. 
 
 South-east Angle. — Above the capital is the Drunkenness of 
 Noah. Above this, on a level with the traceries oi' the u])per
 
 410 APPENDIX. 
 
 arcade, the archangel Raphael, with Tobit, who bears a scroll 
 with these words — 
 
 EFICE Q 
 SO . FRE 
 TV . RAF A 
 EL . REVE 
 RENDE 
 • QUIETU.^ 
 
 Capital I. Partly built up. Has three figures of nude 
 children, one with a comb and shears, another with a bird. 
 The foliage is good ; but the nude figures have the ajjpearance 
 of semi-Eenaissance work. 
 
 II. Partly built up. Large birds — one devouring a serpent, 
 another a fish, and the third pluming its feathers. The 
 foliage here is not very good, and the design of the capital in 
 no way first-rate, the birds being treated in a very naturalesque 
 way. 
 
 III. Partly built up. Large heads, male and female. The 
 man has a helmet, partly of plate, but with chain mail round 
 the neck. 
 
 IV. Partly built up. Cliildren, nude, holding (1) a bird, 
 and (2 and 3) fruit. 
 
 V. Partly built up. Emperors. This is the first capital which 
 has inscriptions. Those visible are (1) rrrus vespasian ipat ; 
 
 (2) TRAJANUS INPE ; and (3) (Oct) AVi anus ipato. 
 
 YI. Partly built up. Large heads, alternated with tufts of 
 foliage, badly carved. 
 
 VII. Virtues and Vices. (1) Liberality ; inscribed Laru it as. 
 ME . ONORAT, (2) Constancy ; Costancia . su . nil . times. 
 
 (3) Discord; Discordia . su . discordans. (4) Patience; 
 
 Patientia . MANET , MEcuM. (5) Despair; Desperacio . mors . 
 CRUDELis. (6) Obedience; Obediencia.a.dno.exibeo. (7) Infi- 
 delity; Infidelitate . — ili.gero. (8) Modesty; Modestia . robu 
 OBTiNEO. This capital should be compared with No. XXVIII. 
 The foliage here is very beautiful; but the execution of No. 
 XXVIII. is best. 
 
 ' "Oh, venerable Raphael, inake thou tlie j^ulfealm, we beseech tliee !" This 
 rigure looks towards the sea and the port.
 
 APPENDIX. 411 
 
 VIII. Monsters, generally with musical instruments. A 
 riding figure here wears chain armour. There are no inscrip- 
 tions on this capital, and its intention is very obscure. 
 
 IX. Virtues. (1) Faith ; Fides. oi-tima. in. dec, (2) Fortitude ; 
 FoRTiTUDO.'suM.viRiLis' (Mr. Euskin), or ' invincibilis.' (3) 
 Temperance; Temperantia . sum . in . OiMibu. (4) HumiHty; 
 HuMiLiTAS.ABiTAT.i.ME. (5) Charity; Karitas.dei.jiecu.est. 
 (6) Justice ; Eex . sum . justicie. ( 7 ) Prudence ; Prudentia . metit . 
 oiA. (8) Hope ; Spe.habe.in.dno. The differences between tliis 
 capital and No. XXIX. are very slight. In the latter, Prudence 
 has a book, which she has not here ; and I'emperance has a jug 
 here in addition to the chalice which the other carries. 
 
 X. Vices. (1) Luxury; Luxuria . sum . imensa. (2) Glut- 
 tony ; GuLA . SINE . ORDiNE . su. (3) Pride; Superbia.preesse. 
 VOLO. (4) Anger ; Ira . crudelis . e . in . me. (5) Avarice ; 
 Avaritia . anplector. (6) Idleness; Accidia . me . strigit. (7) 
 Vanity; Vanitas . in . me . habundat. (8) Envy; Invidia.me. 
 COBVRIT, This capital is very finely sculptured. 
 
 XI. Pirds. Some web-footed, some not so ; and with no 
 inscriptions. 
 
 XII. Virtues and Vices. (1) Misery; Miseria. (2) Cheer- 
 fulness ; Alacritas. (3) Folly ; Stulticia . . e . regnat. 
 (4) Castitas (ce)l(est)is . e. (5) Honesty; (IIo)nest(atem . 
 DiLiGo), (H) Falsehood. (7) Injustice ; Injusticia . seva . su. 
 (8) Abstinence; Astinecia . optima . E . . This capital is so much 
 damaged as to be hardly intelligible without comparison with 
 No. XXXI II. 
 
 Xni. Lions' heads, large and coarse, and Avith very pooily 
 carved tufts of foliage between them. 
 
 XIV. \\ ild animals. 'Ihe whole of the beast, not the head 
 only, is given. They are poorly carved and designed. 
 
 XV. Damsels and Youths. Considered by Selvatico, and after 
 him by Mr. Euskin, to represent Idleness. There are no in- 
 scriptions. More probably they represent the youth of the 
 higher class with marks of their sportive occupations. This is 
 an extremely well-carved capital. 
 
 XVI. Eight large heads alternately with tufts of foliage. 
 The whole finely carved and designed. Supposed by Zanotto to
 
 412 APPENDIX. 
 
 represent the foreigners who traded with A^enice. Selvatico 
 describes it as representing Latins, Tartars, etc., and as being in 
 fact a repetition of No. XXIII. (vide infra.) 
 
 XVII. Philosophers. This is very much damaged, and the 
 inscriptions are nearly destroyed. (1) Solomon. (2) Triscian. 
 
 (3) Aristotle. (4) Tnlly. (5) Pythagoras. On a label carried 
 by this figure Mr. Purges reads the date 1344. Mons. Didron 
 interprets it 1399; this is a date, however, which he will not 
 admit, believing the real date to be 1299. Mr. Ruskin does not 
 appear to have seen these figures, and I have been unable to 
 satisfy myself about them. 
 
 XVIII. This is the angle capital. Above it is the Tempta- 
 tion of Adam and Eve ; and on the second stage, the four winds 
 on the capital of the arcade, and the Archangel Michael above. 
 The whole is a perfectly beautiful group of sculpture, of an 
 equally beautiful and well-selected story. 
 
 Planets. (1) Creation of Man; de.limo.Ds. Ada.de. costa 
 
 FORMAVIT . ET . EVA. (2) Satum ; ET . SaTURNE . DOMUS . EGLOCERUNTIS . 
 ET . URNE. (3) Jupiter ; InDE . .lOVI . DOMA . PISCES . SIMUL . ATQ . CIIiONA. 
 
 (4) Mars ; e -- aries.martis.et.acu -- e.soorpio. partis, (o) 
 The Sun ; est . domu . sous . tu . quoq . signe . leoni. (6) Venus ; 
 Libra . cu . tauro . Venus . - - t . purior . auro. (7) Mercury ; 
 
 OCCUPAT . ERIGONE . STILBONS . GEMIUQ . LACONE. (8) The Moon ; LuNE 
 
 CANCER. domut.pbet. I. ORBE siGNORio. The wholc of the sculp- 
 ture of this capital deserves careful study. Mars is a figure in 
 chain mail. Venus, seated on a bull, and the Moon— a female 
 figure in a boat, with a crescent in one hand and a crab in the 
 other — are both of them exquisitely treated. 
 
 XIX. Artificers. Figures alternately crowned and uncrowned 
 working at parts of a building. The foliage is admirable. The 
 })ieces of stone on which the artificers are at wta-k are inlaid 
 with porph^'ry. Mr. Kuskin points out that all the architectural 
 details represented are such as would be found in the early part 
 of the fourteenth century. It is certainly very curious that 
 among the workers one has ' Discipulus optijius;' another — 
 ' UisiPULS inckedul,' over the head : a reference to S. John and 
 S. Thomas, which is not intelligible to me. 
 
 XX. Beasts. Eight large heads, well carved and set as
 
 APPENDIX. 413 
 
 knops below masses of rather heavilj- treated leaves. The 
 heasts have their names inscribed : Leo. Lupus. Ursus. Musipul. 
 Chanis.' Aper. Grifo. Vulpur. 
 
 XXI. Trades. Finely carved. Inscriptions over the heads 
 of the workmen : (1) Lapicida sum. (2) Aurifices. (3) Cerdo 
 SUM. (4) Carpentarius sum. (5) Mensurator. (fi) Agrichola. 
 (7) NoTARius SUM. (8) Farer sum. 
 
 XXII. The Ages of Man. A very interesting capital. 
 (1)4- Luna . dnat . ifancie . p . and . iiir. (2) Mecureu . dnt . 
 
 PUERICIE . P . AND . X. (3) AdOLOSEN'CIE . (Ven)uS . P . AN . VII. 
 
 (4) Inventuti.dnt.sol.p. AN.xix. (5) Senectuti.dnt.mars.p. 
 
 AN . XV. (6) SeNICIE. DNT. JUPITER, p. ANN. XII. (7) DeCREPITE . 
 DNT . SATN . UQ . AD . mote. (8) L^LTIMA . E . MORS . PENA PECATI. 
 
 XXIII. Nations. This is treated in the same way exactly' 
 as No. XX. The heads are inscribed, Latini. Tartari. 
 TuRCHi. Ongari. Greci. Goti. Egicy. Persii. It will be 
 found that, counting from the soiith-west angle, the second and 
 fifth capitals on each front are of the same description, i.e. 
 Nos. XIII. and XVI. on the west side, and XIX. and XXIII. on 
 the Piazzetta front. I think this militates against Mr. Euskin's 
 view that this capital is not old, as it shews how very regularly 
 they are placed ; and I do not see much to choose between in 
 these four capitals. It is worth notice here that this capital is, 
 to a considerable extent, a replica of No. XVI. ; but the latter 
 has no inscriptions. 
 
 XXIV. Love and IMarriage. This is a much larger column 
 than the others. It carries a cross wall above, so placed as to 
 alloAv of rooms on the sea-front, about sixty- three feet in width. 
 It is one of the most exquisite of all the series. The subjects 
 are: (1) A young man with his hand on his heart, admiring a 
 damsel. (2) They meet and converse. (3) She puts a crown 
 on his head, and presents him with an apple. (4) They embrace. 
 (5) The marriage bed. (6) They hold their bambino wrapped 
 in sAvaddling clothes betAvcen them. (7) The child grows, and 
 enjoys life. (8) The child is dead, and his parents mourn over 
 his body. The change in character from the extreme smartness 
 
 ' Mr. Riiskin founds an argument on the introduction of an ii in this waj* in 
 what lie calls one of the Renaissance capitals of the Piazzetta (the "3rd). Ho 
 omits to notice its use in this undoubtedly eai-ly capital.
 
 414 APPENDIX. 
 
 of dress in the earliest sul)ject to the carelessness about it in the 
 last, should be observed. 
 
 Above this capital is a figure of Venice personified, in one of 
 the divisions of the tracery. She is seated on lions' backs, with 
 her feet above the sea. 
 
 XXV. Labours of the Months. This is not a replica. (1) 
 March ; Marcius . Cornatou. (2) April and May ; Aprilis + 
 Magius. (3) June; Junius. cu.cerisis. (4) July and August; 
 Julius + Augustu. (5) September ; Septebe . Supeditat. (6) 
 October and November; Octobe + Novembe, (7) December; 
 
 Decem CAT SUUM. (8) January and February ; jANVARivs-f 
 
 Februaru. 
 
 XXVI. Sports and Employments of damsels and young men. 
 This is a replica of No. XV. The foliage here is exquisitely 
 carved. There are no inscriptions. The figures, as in the other, 
 hold : (1) A horse. (2) A bird, and the leg of a larger bird 
 (hawking?). (3) A distaff". (4) A dog. (5) A flower, ttc. &c. 
 
 XXVII. Fruit in baskets. This is not a replica. It is the 
 finest of the " knop " series of capitals. The fruit is admirably 
 carved, and here the exact imitation of nature in the fruit, 
 combined with foliage in the knops between the baskets, which 
 is quite conventional and architectural in its character, is ex- 
 tremely interesting and instructive, as shewing how distinctly 
 the sculptor knew the proper limits of conventional and realistic 
 representation. The fruit are described : (1) Cherries; Serexis. 
 (2) Tears ; PiRi, (3) Cucumbers ; Chocumeris. (4) Peaches ; 
 Persici. (5) Gourds; Cuche. (6) Melons; Moloni. (7) Figs; 
 FiGi, (8) Grapes; Huva. 
 
 XXVIII. Virtues and Vices. This is a replica of No. VII. 
 The differences are very small. Here n is prefixed to the 
 " ONORAT " of the other capital. 
 
 XXIX. Virtues. A replica of No. IX. 
 
 XXX. Vices. A replica of No. X., but well deserving study. 
 
 XXXI. Monsters. A replica of No. VIIL, but very rudely 
 carved, and very inferior to the next. 
 
 XXXII. Students. This is not a replica of No. XVII. The 
 figures are admirably treated, all looking thoughtful, and some 
 holding foliage. It seems to represent the more thoughtful side 
 of youth as compared with the idle side, represented in the
 
 APPENDIX. 415 
 
 capitals XV. and XXVI. Zanotto siipposcK tlie figures to be 
 tlie Seven Wise Men of Greece; bnt the eiglitli figure — a woman 
 speaking — does not lend itself to this. Mr. Burges most in- 
 geniously suggests that it refers to Nouvella d'Andrea, who, in 
 her father's last illness, lectured from behind a curtain to his 
 pupils ; her father died in 1348. 
 
 XXXIII. Virtues and Vices. This is a replica of No. XII. 
 
 XXXIV. Eight birds. A replica of No. XI. 
 
 XXXV. Niide children. A replica of Xo. IV. They have 
 l)irds, fruit, etc., in their hands. 
 
 XXXVI. Justice and Lawgivers. This is the north-west 
 angle column. The capital has the following subjects : (1) 
 Justice; Justitia. (2) Aristotle; Aristotel . che . die . legge. 
 (8) Moses; i, . ruoLO . d . l . sue. isel . rita.^ (4) Solon; Sal. 
 
 UNO . DEI . SETE . SAVI . DI . GRECIA . CHE . DIE . LEGGE. (5) Scipio ; IsiPIONE . 
 
 achastita.che - - E.LA.FIA.ARE.^ (6) Numa Pompilius ; Numa 
 PoMPiLio . IPERADOR . EDiFiCHADOR . DI . Tepi . E . CHiESE. (7) Moscs re- 
 ceiving the tables of the law ; Quado . moise . riceve . la . lege . i . 
 suL. MONTE. (8) Trajan ; Traino.iperadore. che. die. justitia. 
 a.la.vedova. 
 
 The carving of foliage in this capital is, I think, simpler, 
 and on the whole better than that on the other great angle, 
 capital No. XVIII., with which it invites comparison; but the 
 carving of the figures is quite inferior, and later in character. 
 1'he foliage above this capital, which supports the Judgment of 
 Solomon, is inferior to that on the capital itself, and is, I believe, 
 considerably later in date, being no doubt of the same age as 
 the figures in the Judgment, i.e. not earlier than 1430-1450. 
 Above this angle is the figure of the Archangel Gabriel. 
 
 ' Unintelligible ; but explained by Zanotto to be : " Mosfe che die' legge al suo 
 popolo Israelita." 
 
 - Zanotto roads this: " Scipione a castita che ronde la figlia al padre." 
 
 THE END
 
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