Identifier: brickmarbleinmid01stre (find matches)
Title: Brick and marble in the Middle Ages: notes of a tour in the north of Italy
Year: 1855 (1850s)
Authors: Street, George Edmund, 1824-1881
Subjects: Architecture, Medieval Architecture Architecture, Gothic
Publisher: London, J. Murray
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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lpture of thearchivolt; it is very slightly relieved, and its outlineis so graceful, its imitation of nature so close, and itsfitness for its position so complete, that I think I haverarely if ever seen anything so satisfactory, and cer-tainly never anything the elements of which weremore severely simple. The crypt itself, too, is singularly fine, the mainpiers being continued down from above, and the inter-mediate spaces divided by numerous slender marbleshafts supporting the groining. Some points in therelative arrangement of these piers and shafts in-duced me at the time to think it probable, or at anyrate possible, that this crypt had been formed in thechurch at a date subsequent to the original foundation—just as in the church at Wimborne, where the four-teenth century crypt is clearly built up in the thir-teenth century church. The colour of the whole church is very striking^the walls being built in alternate and very irregularcourses of red brick and stone, and here and there
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fonl&West Cbrssuolitk, Chap. VI. S. ZENONE. 101 frescoed, the whole of the apsidal portion of thechoir having its groining very elaborately painted,though with but little gold; the groining ribs arerichly coloured, and on each side of them is a wideborder, generally subdivided into regular geometri-cal iiguies, and the space between is painted blueand powdered with gold stars. The number of fres-coes is very great; and it is curious that the samesubjects are repeated over and over again. In thesouth aisle is an altar under an ancient baldachin, sup-ported at each angle by four clustered shafts knottedtogether in mid height—a capricious custom of whichItalians seem to have been especially fond, and theonly excuse for which, so far as I can see, is that itproves that all the shafts were cut out of one block,and therefore of more value than four plain detachedshafts cut out of separate blocks could be. There is per-haps, also, a relief to the mind, after looking at a longseries of

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