. Brick and marble in the middle ages: notes of tours in the north of Italy . s one of the finest churches in the is now so shabby and decayed outside, and so covered withpainters and decorators work inside, that all its good effectis ruined. Its interior was the victim of what was, I daresay,a very well-meant restoration some years ago, and little of ithas been left in its original condition. It has a chevet withaisles and chapels, and externally the rare feature (in Italy)of flying buttresses to support the choir vault. They werebuilt by men who had never seen one before, I suppose,a
. Brick and marble in the middle ages: notes of tours in the north of Italy . s one of the finest churches in the is now so shabby and decayed outside, and so covered withpainters and decorators work inside, that all its good effectis ruined. Its interior was the victim of what was, I daresay,a very well-meant restoration some years ago, and little of ithas been left in its original condition. It has a chevet withaisles and chapels, and externally the rare feature (in Italy)of flying buttresses to support the choir vault. They werebuilt 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 areunlike in size and design, and illustrate the perfect indiffer-ence with which all mediseval architects viewed the gravestdepartures from laws of symmetry. The larger of the twohas rather rich Gothic details, the belfry-stage havingtraceried windows of three lights with spiral shafts for. CLOISTER—SAN STEFANO, menials. The gables in this church have large white marblecrosses let into them; these are rounded at the ends, andeach end has a bright green tile disk inserted. The westfront is of the usual description—a great sham front of Chap. XI.] SAN STEFANO. 299 hideous outline. Most of its windows are lancets, new, butprobably copied from old examples, and the doorway under acanopy is of good character. I have left to the last what, I suppose, is in fact theoldest of the Bologuese churches—San Stefano. It is a col-lection of seven churches, rather than one church, and, inspite of modernization without end, it is still a most curiousand interesting jumble of old buildings. The churches arededicated to—1, San Stefano ; 2, San Lorenzo; 3, SanSepolcro (a circular church); 4, The Corte di Pilato (acloister); 5, Sta. Trinita; 6, SS. Pietro e Paolo (with threeliomanesque apses); and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidbrickmarblei, bookyear1874