Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/276

244 The Baptistery is a magnificent building, circular, one hundred feet in diameter, with a dome one hundred and eighty feet in height, of marble, decorated with arcading and sculpture. Inside there is a font of great size, in which all children born in Pisa are baptized. The dome produces a remarkable echo, which is set going by a man waiting his chance of a tip, who sings in sonorous tones the four notes of the common chord; his voice is followed by rolling waves of harmony, like the diapason of a great organ, rising and falling, until you can hardly believe it is only an echo. A small tip goes a long way in Italy, where money is scarce. Outside the door an old man, with a little girl who prompts him as to the probable nationality of visitors, begins his beggar's litany: "poo' blin' man," "poo' blin' man." These folk haunt the Gates Beautiful of Italian churches, and, they say, thrive on their spoils.

Next a visit to the Campo Santo, close at hand, quite the most notable God's acre in Italy. A lofty wall encloses an oblong burial ground, with cloisters that open into it, through arches decorated with open tracery work. The cloister walls are covered with fresco paintings of the fifteenth century, chiefly of Scriptural subjects; some by Orcagna, which fascinate you with their grim and grotesque realism,—one of these represents the last Judgment. In it St. Michael, the Angel of Judgment, summons the dead, looking down upon them as they rise from their graves, partly concealing his face with the hem of his robe, as if horror struck at the scene. Below, some are welcomed by angels, others carried off by hideous demons; in the foreground King Solomon emerges from his tomb, bewildered and uncertain what his