Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy. George Edmund Street
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 the corresponding tower at Bergamo, great rudely-arched openings are left, through which appear the wheels and works of the bells.
The new cathedral, approached by a flight of steps from 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 effect; nor did the church seem to contain any pictures of 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 plan, with an aisle round it; the central portion, 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 mediæval monuments, and beneath the church is a large crypt. The old stone altar in the choir is a fine example 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 Vecchio is chill and dismal to a degree; it is neglected and dirty, and apparently shut up except for occasional services, and left no pleasant impressions 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.[10]
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
stands in the same Piazza. The main portion of this immense building appears to have been built rather early in the thirteenth 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.
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 cast 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 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 Ringhiera, 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 which 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.
The size of the building is prodigious, and certainly the detail of all the parts (excepting perhaps the cornice, which is of the common arcaded kind) is most beautiful and valuable. The brickwork is so good and characteristic that I have given several sketches of it. All the arches have occasional voussoirs 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 voussoirs. 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.
Of the churches of Brescia there seem to be but few of any interest; that of San Francesco, of whose west front I give a sketch, is the best, and, though not of uncommon design, is worth notice; the mixture of white and black
marble and brick is very judicious; but I must protest once more against the arcaded eaves-cornices, which 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 mediæval 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 person 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 Gothic church. The west front is most fantastic and unpleasing, and the pinnacles composed of