Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/84

66 striking; it is placed upon an insulated hill rising in the midst of the vast grassy plain of Apulia, more like the Downs of the South of England than the general scenery of Italy, and far from any village or habitation larger than a shepherd's hut, and it is in consequence very conspicuous over a large extent of the province, and even of the Adriatic.

"The walls of the best rooms are of rough limestone and probably were covered with hangings, for the base and cornice are of marble; and the upper parts or lunettes, immediately under the vaulting, are lined with marble, not actually built in the manner of the opus reticulatum, but scored, in imitation of it, over the surface of the square slabs. This gives the work a resemblance to the triforia of Chichester cathedral, to some work in the west front of Lincoln cathedral, and other Romanesque buildings, and shows that the diagonal form was used as ornament as well as in construction. Unfortunately the artist has given no representation of an interior. The details are not unlike those to be found in England of the XIIIth century. Trefoiled foliation and plate tracery, approaching the principle of the geometrical, as also an early style of capital are conspicuous features.

"The Castel del Monte may be easily visited by any traveller going from Naples to the Ionian Islands by Barletta, Bari, or Brindisi, the usual ports of embarkation."

Mr. communicated an account of the discovery of an extensive series of mural paintings in Pickering Church, North Riding of Yorkshire; they were brought to light about September, 1853, in the course of repairs. A description of these paintings was also received from Mr. W. Hey Dykes, of York, accompanied by carefully detailed drawings, representing the sides of the nave and the entire series of subjects with which its walls were decorated. The church, not noticed by Rickman, is of various dates; the plan consists of a spacious nave and chancel; the nave having north and south aisles, with transeptal chapels at the east ends of the aisles, a fine west tower, and a south porch. The arcade of the nave and lower part of the tower are Norman; the chancel, aisles, and transepts, and upper part of the tower are early decorated; the clerestory of the nave plain perpendicular. The nave communicates with the aisles by four arches, those on the north are round-headed and spring from massive cylindrical piers with square cushion capitals: the piers on the south are composed of clustered shafts with foliated capitals. Above these arches the entire face of the wall and the space between the clerestory windows had been decorated with sacred and legendary subjects, painted in distemper on a thin coat of plaster laid on the ashlar walls. They formed a series, extending from the west end to the chancel arch, and their date, as shown by the costume and character of the design, appeared coeval with the clerestory, probably about 1450. The subjects of the paintings were thus described by Mr. Hall, commencing on the north side from the west end:—St. George and the Dragon, a spirited design, occupying the entire height from the spandrel of the arch to the wall-plate; St. Christopher; Herod's Feast, in one part of this design St. John appears in the act of reproving Herodias, in another his head is brought to her daughter: this and the following subjects are designs of smaller proportions than the two first, and are painted in two tiers; the subject above the Feast is supposed by Mr. Dykes to have been