The Duomo at Milan was founded by Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1386, and was under the direction of several foreign architects, especially of Heinrich von Gmiind, who began it in 1386, and of Johann von Griitz, who continued it at a later date. The nave has five aisles, the transept three, the choir three with an aisle around the apse and chapels of two bays each outside the outermost aisle. The ground-plan (pi. 38, fig. T) brings to mind Northern edifices rather than Italian ones, yet the great dimensions and the want of a tower betray the nationality. The super structure has, indeed, its traceried windows; the pinnacles, the pen dants, and the Northern ground-plan cannot be denied; yet the but tresses have not the importance they assume in the North, and the slight pitch of the roof, the trifling difference between the height of the central and that of the side aisle, and lastly the details, which are often bizarre and always mistakenly applied, prove that the influence of the German masters did not penetrate deeply.
Notwithstanding the caricaturing of the Northern system and the verg ing upon barbaric misunderstanding of the details, this building produces a more than picturesquely beautiful impression through its noble material, its careful workmanship, its vast dimensions, its good proportions, and the richness and elegance of its parts. Aside from the things which have no influence on the arrangement as a whole, nobility and a fine artistic sense are so imprinted upon the grouping of the structure that it is not without admiration that one for the first time sees these pure white masses with their beautifully-varying shadows rise against the deep-blue Italian sky (fig. 2).
S. Peponio at of the most grandly-conceived churches of Italy, though one which is not entirely finished, is S. Petronio at Bologna, begun in 1390 by Antonio of Vicenza. This has a magnificent octangular cupola surrounded by four massive three-aisled halls, each with an elevated middle aisle. A row of chapels is added on each side, and the vaulting is so arranged that that of the middle aisle is square, while that of the side-aisles is oblong and of half the span. Each. bay of the side-aisles has two chapels lower than the side-aisles, to the upper part of which light is admitted by a small round window above the chapels, while a similar round window lights the middle aisle.
Certosa di same Gian Galeazzo Visconti that founded the Cathedral of Milan founded in 1396 the magnificent Certosa at Pavia, which was finished in the course of the fifteenth century. The round arch was again introduced, and to a great extent recalls the later Roman esque structures of the North, but the arrangement of the spaces follows the system of S. Petronio at Bologna; the middle aisle has but little
advantage in height over the side-aisles, and rows of lower chapels adjoin the latter. The late Romanesque of the North is recalled chiefly by the clustered pillars and the hexapartite vaulting of the middle aisle. The exterior has Romanesque galleries.
Como Cathedral was also commenced in 1396. Continued in the fif teenth century, this edifice passes into the Renaissance. Sta. Maria del Carmine at Piacenza follows a system similar to that of the Certosa at Pavia, while the nave of Sta. Maria delle Grazie at Milan has not such widely-spaced pillars; so that the vaulting of the side-aisles is nearly square, and only one square chapel corresponds to a single bay.
Gothic in Sicily.—Moorish reminiscences predominated in Sicily during the Gothic period, as in the Cathedral of Palermo, which during the four teenth and fifteenth centuries received various additions. Sta. Maria degli Angeli at Palermo, begun in 143o, has the semicircular arch throughout. In general, the Gothic style lasted longer in Sicily than in the rest of Italy, since it continued into the sixteenth century.
Decorative Works of Art.—The great churches of Italy are filled with decorative works of all kinds—altars, pulpits, tombs, credences, and stalls—which exhibit the decorative style of Italian architecture still more charmingly than it is evidenced by the large edifices. The pulpits of Pisa (1260), Siena (1266), and Pistoja (1301) bear yet a Romanesque character. The tomb of Pope Benedict XI., at Perugia, has the pointed arch; others exhibit the round arch. We have already spoken (p. 232) of the altar of Or San Michele (pl. 33, fig. 6). The tombs of the Scaligers at Verona, which form a group in an open square, have a most fanciful effect. The richest of this group, a hexagonal edifice, is shown in Figure 7.
Secular Buildings.—The Italian cities have a great number of secular buildings which testify to the might and importance of these republics as well as to the wealth and fine taste of their inhabitants, and also, espe cially in early times, to their defiant character and to the wars, between the cities. Until the thirteenth century every house was a strong castle calculated for defence against a threatened assault; at the close of the thirteenth and in the fourteenth century battlements everywhere remain as reminders; and whenever colonnades and rows of windows open out wardly, the battlements of the edifice assume a castellated character.