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 98 Gothic Architecture. roofs are common, spires are comparatively rarely met with ; the elaborate groined vaulting of Northern Europe, with its attendant external buttresses, are almost unknown, and window tracery is of a very inferior character. The church of St. Francis at Assisi (1238 — 1253), famous for its beautiful fresco paintings rather than for its architectural design; the cathedral of Florence (Fig. 47), one of the largest churches of the middle ages, commenced 1294 or 1 298, and completed early in the fourteenth century, remark- able alike for the grandeur of its plan — larger, and better conceived, than that of the great cathedral of Cologne — and for the inappropriateness of its details ; the cathedral of Milan (1385 — 1418), one of the largest of the mediaeval cathedrals, built of white marble and sumptuously decor^ ated, spoilt by an attempt to combine Eenaissance with Gothic features ; and the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto (the former commenced 1243, the latter 1290), — are among the best known specimens of Italian pointed Gothic. The civic buildings of Venice are many of them fine specimens of the same style ; of these, one of the richest is the palace called the Ca d'Oro (Fig. 46) ; but the noblest and most renowned, as well as largest, is the Doge's Palace. In Spain the pointed Gothic buildings are fine and numerous. The best are the cathedrals of Burgos, Toledo, Seville, Tarragona, Barcelona, and Leon. Little is accu- rately known of their dates. We reserve our notice of the English pointed Gothic buildings for the chapter on English architecture, in which will be found a continuous description of the development of the style in this country. We must not quit the architecture of the middle ages without calling attention to the institution of freemasonry,