“Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan.”
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act ii. sc. 5.
Milan: the Cathedral--Sant’Ambrogio--Sant’Eustorgio--Sta. Maria
delle Grazie--Certosa of Chiaravalle--Novara--Vercelli--Monza: the
Cathedral--The Broletto--Sta. Maria in Strada--Como: the
Broletto--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 places; the crowds of
foot-passengers threading the narrow ways, with no protection from the
omnibuses and carts which jostle against them, are full of animation,
and lively and picturesque in their costumes. Elbowing our way between
them, we soon found ourselves in a piazza, with the Duomo rising before
us in all the magnificence of its white marble walls. If it be indeed
true that it was designed by a German,[71] 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 pleasantly 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 moulding,
or the heaviness of traceries, or the preposterous tenuity of pinnacles,
which daylight revealed, to the destruction 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
[Illustration: GROUND-PLAN--MILAN CATHEDRAL.]
in brick. The buttresses are bold in their formation and scale, but poor
and weak-looking in their design, and finish at the top with pinnacles,
whose thin outline, seen against the deep blue sky, is painfully bad and
unsatisfying. The 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 particularly restless and
wanting in repose. Great flying buttresses 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 effect of a prodigious number and repetition of vertical
lines is produced, and yet, notwithstanding this, the effect 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 development of which it is the only example; and there does
appear, if we consider the matter, to be some intrinsic probability that
such a building must have been designed by a foreigner rather than by a
native. It has, in fact, all the appearance of having 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 been 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 being 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
destructive of the kind of breadth and dignity which this last generally
has; finally, 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 which an Italian model has been at all
followed is the section, where the proportions of the aisles to the nave
and the pitch of their roofs certainly shew a knowledge of San
Petronio, Bologna. But its architect appears to me to have been shocked
at the necessity under which he lay of sacrificing 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
parapets, 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 effect is, after all, entirely
horizontal. Extremes meet, and so the attempt to avoid absolute
horizontal lines has completely 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 arrangement of these
members, slight though they are, than we should of the simplest defined
horizontal line.
And the same consequence followed the same kind of work in England. I
know no building in which the horizontal 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 leads up to the west door is last of all mounted, the first
feeling must be one of perfect amazement and delight--amazement that
the same mind which conceived 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, object of my Italian notes is as to the
development of really Italian work. I was struck at first by the
prodigious width and height of the building. The nave is enormously
wide, and has two aisles on either side, those next to it being also of
great size and height, and having clerestories in their 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 produced than I can recollect even any approach to in any other
church; for not even in Köln or in Amiens is there any effect so
magnificent as that of this forest of prodigious piers. They are
finished at the top with capitals peculiar to this building, and quite
unlike anything I have before 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.
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 fillet turning off gradually into the round line of
the shaft, produces the same moulding; a fulness and richness are
consequently 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 are all filled in with painted
imitations of elaborate traceries in brown colour, an abominable device,
which never ceases to offend and annoy the eye more and more every time
it is observed.[72] The window tracery throughout is meagre, confused,
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 prominence 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 be catalogued in this great church, 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 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 unfortunate
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 _visé_, 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 way 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 then again the great number of the
troops at the gates and elsewhere throughout the city certainly presents
very much the impression of a place whose normal condition is one
perpetual state of siege.[73]
Next to the cathedral the great architectural attraction of Milan is the
famous church of Sant’Ambrogio, 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-Romanesque character, the columns having quaintly
and stiffly carved capitals of stone, and the wall and arches being
built of mixed bricks and stone.[74] Three arches, open from the atrium
to the west end of the church, and above them three other arches of
similar plan, and arranged in triplet fashion, that in the centre being
the highest and widest, nearly fill 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 south perfectly plain and rude, and perhaps therefore of the
very early date at which some antiquaries appear to place the building
of the main structure of this portion of the existing church.[75]
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 place.
The entrance by the 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 Romanesque, and that this
groining was subsequently inserted, and again in later times
strengthened and supported by great piers and arches of Classic
character.
The plan, after passing the atrium, is a nave of three bays, each
subdivided 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 Romanesque baldachin above the
high altar. This is supported on four marble shafts, and has a
semicircular arch on each face, with figures and foliage in the four
flat pediments or gables which finish it above. Three flights of five
steps 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.[76] 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 this
interesting church.
[Illustration: 58. BALDACHIN. S. AMBROGIO. MILAN. p. 326.]
On the north side of the nave is a very curious pulpit, coeval with the
church and remarkable for its carvings, and for a Roman sarcophagus
which occupies the space between the 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,
however, very much disappointed; 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 Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. I know not
how much this may have suffered within the last few years, but 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 which covers the opposite wall of the refectory, and
contains a good and busy painting of the Crucifixion, painted in 1495.
The church is of very late pointed date, entirely of brick, with a large
and ugly dome added by Bramante. The nave arcades are pretty
good--pointed arches springing 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 campanile 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 building 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 all 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 architectural art to be studied or dwelt upon in Milan. The
cathedral, too, teaches little; its main office is, rather, to prove the
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
[Illustration: 59. PIAZZA DEI MERCANTI. MILAN p. 329.]
to see the magnificent Sposalizio of Raffaelle, 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 were 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 unoccupied 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-altered 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 Ringhiera. The _piano nobile_ consists of five
pointed arches carried on delicate shafts, and above was a deeply sunk
line of arcading, each division garnished with a statue. There was once
evidently a canopy over the Ringhiera. The materials of this front are
black and white stone, but they are used with such moderation that
there is nothing at all bizarre in the general effect of the façade.
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
Renaissance and half Gothic in its character, though the general scheme
of the building is wholly Renaissance. 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 whole
lantern from the ridge to the base of the spire is about ninety feet,
and the effect of the complicated brickwork is not bad. It is somewhat
difficult 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
really a work of earlier date than about A.D. 1370 to 1400. The steeple
of San Gottardo in Milan, which also has round arches everywhere, and is
in some other
[Illustration: 60. CERTOSA OF CHIARAVALLE. p. 330.]
respects somewhat 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 disappointing 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 afforded, 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 Rosa) 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
century, and is said to have brought back with him to Vercelli a French
or English architect. The evidence of the building itself is in favour
of a French rather than an English influence, 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, counterchanged 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 imposing, 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 with small
[Illustration: 61. SANT’ANDREA. VERCELLI. p. 332.]
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 weatherings 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 effect 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.[77]
There is an interesting monument in the south-east chapel, corbelled out
from the wall and decorated with sculpture and painting. In the gable is
the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, below a figure kneeling before
her, and said to represent the architect of the church, 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 Duomo 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
effect, 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 panels 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 the windows, which, though
not uncommon in Italian pointed work, is never satisfactory in its
effect. In the upper part of the front this is not the case.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL--MONZA.]
The central division has a porch resting upon detached shafts, 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 with pinnacles, of which one only now remains; this is
certainly 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, supported on trefoiled arches, and
with small pinnacles between the gables, all of which are crocketed; the
mouldings are 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 particularly 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 pulpit 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 Renaissance 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 indifferently, to
damp my pleasure, and make me cease to admire the work very decidedly.
There is a difference in construction which ought to be noted between
this marble front and the marble work at Venice; for, whilst the latter
is not at
[Illustration: 62.--BROLETTO, MONZA. Page 337.]
all constructional, this is entirely 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 workmanship. They appeared
to me to be by a German rather than an Italian hand.
[Illustration: BROLETTO--MONZA.]
The Broletto, which stands near the cathedral in the centre of the city,
is very interesting. It is raised upon open arches of stone, two at
either end and five at the sides. In my sketch of it the southern end is
shewn with the projecting Ringhiera in the second stage; the northern
end is very singular, the tower rising out of one side, with the
steep-pitched roof of the other half abutting against it. The detail of
the windows is very good, the arch-stones in some of them increasing in
depth towards the centre, with an effect of very great strength. All the
windows are shafted. The dimensions of this building are forty-two feet
from east to west, and sixty-four feet from north to south.
The only other ancient building 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 effect 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 interpolated, 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 continental 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 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 throughout the façade 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 long before we
reached the borders of the lake, after following the windings of an
almost interminable street, passing the guardhouse, and, to our sorrow,
parting again for the last time with our passports, then crossing the
piazza in which stand the Duomo and the Broletto side by side--for 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 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 _vice versâ_, 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 Broletto at
Bergamo, but in real beauty it is scarcely inferior to any one building
I have seen in Italy. Towards the
[Illustration: 63.--BROLETTO. COMO. Page 340.]
piazza it has four arches on the ground story, which is divided from the
next stage by an arcaded string-course. This 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 Ringhiera, 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
façade, or rather ought to finish it, for above this some barbarian has
added another stage, nearly to the destruction of the effect of the
building.[78] North of this façade 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 top. The whole of this façade (with the exception of the
campanile) is built of red, white, and dark grey marbles, which are very
carefully and effectively 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 remarkable 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 device on some such
ground as this: it takes much 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 therefore 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 effect of the interior. I did so, however, and found a large
but uninteresting 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 at
the time of my first visit, ends my hurried study of Gothic architecture
in Italy. But if at that day it was
[Illustration: 64. STA. MARIA, COMO. p. 342.]
somewhat sad to leave Como after an all too rapid journey, it has been
my happiness to revisit the quaint old town again and again since, and
each time with increased pleasure. Italian scenery, Italian art, Italian
travel, afford some of the happiest recollections of well-spent days of
travel, which, if they have never been able to exceed in pleasure or to
approach 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.