Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/353

 1868.] Tlic- Cathedral of Milan. 293 is 8 ft. 3 in. The diameter of the four great pillars, which support the octag- onal cupola, is one-fifth greater. The beautiful capitals of the nave and choir were designed by Filippino of Mo- dena in 1500. The lower part is formed by a wreath of foliage, mixed with figures of children and animals. Above is a circle of eight niches, corresponding to the intervals between the eight sliafts of the clustered pillar, and each contain- ing a statue covered by a canopy. The shafts, which divide the niches, termi- nate in a pinnacle, surmounted by a small statue. The design, however, is varied indifferent pillars. The roof is painted to represent an elaborate fret-work. The execution is modern ; but the design, as well as this mode of ornament, is an- cient. The five door ways on the inside were designed by Fabio Mangoni, in 1548. Flanking the great centre doorway are two granite columns, each of a single block. They were given by San Carlo, and brought from the quarries of Ba- veno. Thej' have been called the largest monoliths in Europe ; and probably were so, until the erection of the church of St. Isaac at Petersburg. The height of each shaft is 35 feet, the diameter 3 feet lOf inches, and the cost of quar- rying and finishing them amounted to £1948. A tunnel connects the Duomo with the Archiepiscopal Palace. Annexed to it is a workshop belonging to the fabric, in which is the wreck of the model of one of the plans for completing the front of the Cathedral. Though sadly broken and neglected, it is so large, that a man can stand up in it. According to this design, the front would have had a superb portal of Gothic arches, not un- like Peterborough Cathedral in Eng- land, and much more appropriate than the present facade. The west fagade, or main front, ex- hibits — for pointed architecture — a great deal of horizontalism, in its panels and canopies, along with much perpendicu- larity on its lower buttresses, both prob- ably designed to harmonize with the Romanesque style of the doorways and lower windows, the former of which, very beautiful in themselves, have segment pediments, and the latter obtuse angled ones, the whole " broken " at the base. " In the tracery there is an unusual approximation to the flamboyant st3'le, probably owing to the influence of the French Gothic, as it is most apparent in the great east window,* built by Cam- pania from the designs of Nicholas Bon- aventure of Paris, 1391." — [Murray.] In the west front, the tracery of the centre Gothic window is* partly geo- metrical and partly flamboyant, the head being composed of two concentric cir- cles, the outer filling the arch head, the small inner one containing a quatrefoil arranged as an ordinary square cross. Between these two circles are five radial volutes thrown from the centre, marked by the quatrefoil, towards the circum- ference ; the two outer windows have „the large circle of tracery divided geo- metrically. Each window is in three great divisions running up, midway, into straight acute-angled sub-heads, kept upon the same horizontal line for each, and filled in with lozenges — the work ad- vanced, screen fashion, with crockets and finials — and, above, in curved lancet sub- heads running up to the larger circles, so that in each case the side divisions are taller than the centre ones. All these windows are deepty recessed, and have in their jambs supporting brackets, with canopied statues. The external angles of these concave jambs have the "egg and dot " moulding ; and each of these three Gothic windows rises from a pro- might be inferred from the paragraph cited. The window in question is equally balanced between the geometrical tracery and the flowing. The central compartment, how- ever, is a circle filled with eight, wavy, scrolled rays issu- ing from its very centre, and finally curving, but not melting, into its circumference. The open spaces between these rays are not cusped ; and altogether, while this compartment is not geometrical, it certainly is not flam- boyant in the true sense of the term, but, in fact, must be considered unique and rather un-Gothic, although the lines are flowing. Yet, as not geometrical, this might warrant the opinion in the text. — Eds.
 * We do not find it so particularly apparent hero, as