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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aborate work, octagonalin plan and covered with arcades one above the other, andfinished with a low spire. It is a fourteenth-century build-ing at the earliest, but in spite of this most of its arches aresemicircular. It is certainly a rich and picturesque tower,and well deserves inspection. The remaining churches in Milan seemed to be ailClassical, of different grades of merit and size. There wereindeed some very late examples of brickwork of some value,but really, save the cathedral, there is not much architec-tural art to be studied or dwelt upon in Milan. Thecathedral, too, teaches little; its main office is, rather, toprove tlie consummate beauty and magnificence attainableby the pointed style, carried out severely and simply on thevery grandest scale, and this its interior does triumphantlybeyond all cavil. A visit to Milan had always been looked forward to by mewith great interest: first, from curiosity as to the real effectand merits of the Duomo; and, secondly, from a longing
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Chap. XIl.) THE BRER A. 320 to see the m;i<^iiificent Sposalizio of liafliaelle, which is thegem of the collection in the Brera; and this famous gallerywas therefore one of the first objects of my curiosity. Thecareful examination of the pictures which adorn its wallswas, however, when we were there, much hindered by anexhibition of modern Italian pictures, hung in the samerooms as, and in most cases in front of, the old works. Wewere able, fortunately, to get a fair view of what I believe tobe not far from the greatest work of one of the greatestpainters in the world—the Sposalizio being in a room un-occupied by other pictures and unmolested by the modernexhibitors. The man who could so paint at the age oftwenty one must, assuredly, have been almost matchless, fornever have I seen a painting more thoroughly noble anddelightful, in every way recalling to mind, it is true, inevery figure the manner of his master, the great Perugino,but not the less enjoyable on that account. • T

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