Identifier: brickmarbleinmid00stre (find matches)
Title: Brick and marble in the middle ages: notes of tours in the north of Italy
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Street, George Edmund, 1824-1881
Subjects: Architecture, Medieval Architecture -- Italy Architecture, Gothic
Publisher: London : J. Murray
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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uded with a visitto the Gallery, and then, finding no more mediaeval remains,I pushed on to Piacenza. This is a city of no small interest, and remarkable aboveeverything else in the possession of a Palazzo Publico ofunusual and striking design—a building of special value andinterest to me, since it is a capital example of the use ofbrick and marble together. Before looking at any of thechurches I devoted myself to this building with the moresatisfaction 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 in1281, and I think we may assume that no part of it is ofmuch later date than this. It consists, as do most of thesebuildings, 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 duccutisIncepit dictus, opus hoc sculptor Beiiedictus.
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57. P^URZZO PUBLICO. PMCE^JZ^. p. 308. Chap. XL) THE PALAZZO PUBLICO. 309 above this. The Iafade is very dignified in effect. On theground level are five lofty arches, very slightly moulded, andresting on square piers just rounded at the corners. Thematerial of this stage is marble, mainly white, but with justa line of red and another of grey near the string-coursewhich divides this from the next stage. From this point upalmost the whole work is executed in brickwork of veryelaborate and delicate detail. The two stages have no kindof uniformity or connection with each other, six windowsbeing arranged above the five arches. In the centre of thefirst floor is the old doorway to the Einghiera (which wasaltered in the seventeenth century) ; the windows on eachside are of three lights, inclosed under a round arch with adeep archivolt very slightly recessed—all the enrichmentsbeing on very nearly the same face as the wall. Thesewindows agree in size, but vary very much in all theirdetails

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