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Rh as. vin. ch. II. INVASION of goths. 297 CHAPTER II. LOMBARD AND ROUND-ARCHED GOTHIC. CONTENTS. Chapel' at Friuli — Churches at Piaceiiza, Asti, and Novara — St. Michele, Pavla — St. Ambrogio, Milan — Cathedral, Piacenza — Churches at Verona — Cir cular Churches — Towers. WHEN, in the early centuries of the Christian era, the great mass of Gothic barbarism moved up the valley of the Danube towards the west, one great division followed that river to its source, and thence penetrated into and settled in the valley of the Rhine. They were sufficiently numerous to be able almost wholly to obliterate all traces of former civilization, and to invent that original style of architecture whose history was sketched in the fourth Book of this work. The other great division of the horde turned the Sommering Alps and, penetrating into Italy by way of ITdine and Conegliano, settled in the valley of the Po. They may have been as numerous as the others ; but Italy in those days was far more densely peopled than Germany, and the inhabitants were consequently able to resist oblit- eration far more successfully than on the north of the Alps, and even Avhere the new element prevailed most strongly, its influence was far less felt than in the more sparsely peopled Rhenish provinces. This was generally more apparent along the coast than in the interior. Venice long resisted, though Ravenna was overwhelmed. Pisa and Lucca resisted throughout. Florence was divided. The Barbarian influence was strongly felt at Siena, more feebly at Orvieto ; but there it was stopped by the influence of Rome, which throughout the Middle Ages remained nearly uncontaminated. Notwithstanding the almost insuperable barrier of the Alps, which stretched between them and the different influences to which they were subjected, the connection between the northern and southern hordes remained intimate during the whole of the Middle Ages. Milan was as much German as Italian; and, indeed, except from a slio-htly superior degree of elegance in the southern examples, it is sometimes extremely difficult to distinguish between the designs of Lombard and of Rhenish churches. As the Middle Ages wore on, however, the breach between the two styles widened, and there is no difficulty, in the later pointed schools, in seeing how Italy was gradually working itself free from German influence, till at last