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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ly magnificent in their detail,though most unreal and preposterous as wholes ; they are,both of them, vast sham fronts, like the west front, in thatthey entirely conceal the structure of the church behindthem, and pierced with numbers of windows which fromthe very first must have been built but to be blocked up.They have in fact absolutely nothing to do with the build-ing against which they are jjlaced, and in themselves,irrespective of this very grave fault, are, I think, posi-tively ugly in their outline and mass. And yet there is abreadth and grandeur of scale about them which doessomewhat to redeem their faults, and a beauty about muchof their detail which I cannot but admire extremely. Bothtransepts are almost entirely built of brick and very similar ,in their general idea; but, whilst only the round arch isused in the south transept, nothing but the j^ointed arch isused in the northern, and it is quite curious to notice howverv much more l)eautiful the latter looks than does the
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14.—NOKTH TEANSEPT, CATHEDRAL, CREMONA, Chap. X.) THE DUOMO. 267 former. The filliug-iu of stilted round-arched windows withogee pointed tracery and much delicate cusping gives thesouth transept a singularly Eastern look, and it is impossiblenot to feel that some such influence has been exercizedthroughout its design. It would indeed be most interestingto find out -^vhat this was, but I am not aware that there islikely to be any clue to it. The date of the work is in allprobability somewhere about the latter part of the four-teenth century. The detail and management of the wholeof the brickwork are exceedingly delicate and effective, sur-passing in their way anything I have yet seen. The putlog-holes are left unfilled, as they almost alwaysare in Italy. The only stone used is in the doorway andthe window-shafts, and these last are almost always coupledin depth. The windows are elaborately moulded, and coursesof chevrons, quatrefoils, andoilier ornaments are intro-duced occasionally

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