Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/340

272 the Strada Grande is lined with quaint old houses of the city nobility and well-to-do citizens, and have marble balconies, their sculptured entrances, and heraldic decorations. The cathedral occupies a terrace, with the palace of the Lascaris having an open loggia and staircase on one side of the piazza. The cathedral, dedicated to S. Barnabas, fondly deemed to have founded it, is a fine church of the thirteenth century, vaulted without groining ribs. Beneath it, at the east end, is the very early baptistery, unhappily remodelled in the seventeenth century. This contains a huge stone baptismal basin, with stage inside on which children could stand, whereas it is deep in the middle for adults. Two recesses are at the sides; one of these is for the priest performing the ceremony. In the vestries are portraits of the bishops, several in surplice and rochet, looking very much like English prelates. But more interesting even than the cathedral is S. Michaele, at the farther end of the town, a church of the twelfth century, with a rich west doorway, having on the capitals a range of quaint carving of human beings. The church is vaulted in the same manner as the cathedral. Beneath the choir is a crypt, one pillar of which is a milestone from the Via Aurelia, of the time of the Emperor Antoninus. A slab in the floor bears rich early interlaced work. The side aisles of this church had fallen into ruin, but have been judiciously restored, along with the body of the church. Outside the walls of the town, towering above it, are the remains of a castle, which is held to date from Roman times, but which was enlarged, altered, and mainly rebuilt in mediæval days.