Verona.
Almost every important city in Lombardy shows local peculiarities in its style, arising from some distinction of race or tradition. The greater number of these must necessarily be passed over in a work like the present, but some are so marked as to demand particular mention. Among these that of Verona seems the most marked and interesting. This Roman city became the favourite capital of Theodoric the Goth—Dietrich of Berne, as the old Germans called him—and was by him adorned with many noble buildings which have either perished or been overlooked. There is a passage in the writings of his friend Cassiodorus which has hitherto been a stumbling-block to commentators, but seems to find an explanation in the buildings here, and to point to the origin of a mode of decoration worth remarking upon. In talking of the architecture of his day he speaks of “the reed-like tenuity of the columns making it appear as if lofty masses of building were supported on upright spears, which in regard to substance look like hollow tubes.”[[298]] It might be supposed that this referred exclusively to the metal architecture of the use of which we find traces in the paintings at Pompeii and elsewhere.[[299]] But the context hardly bears this out, and he is probably alluding to a stone or marble architecture, which in the decline of true art had aspired to a certain extent to imitate the lightness which the metallic form had rendered a favourite.
To return to Verona:—The apse of the cathedral seems to have belonged to an older edifice than that to which it is now attached, as was often the case, that being the most solid as well as the most sacred part of the building. As seen in the woodcut (No. [449]) it is ornamented with pilasters, classical in design, but more attenuated than any found elsewhere; so that I cannot but believe that this is either one of the identical buildings to which Cassiodorus refers, or at least an early copy from one of them.
449. Apse of the Cathedral, Verona. (From Hope’s ‘History of Architecture.’)
At a far later age, in the 12th century, the beautiful church of San Zenone shows traces of the same style of decoration (Woodcut No. [450]), pilasters being used here almost as slight as those at the cathedral, but so elegant and so gracefully applied as to form one of the most beautiful decorations of the style. Once introduced, it was of course repeated in other buildings, though seldom carried to so great an extent or employed so gracefully as in this instance. Indeed, whether taken internally or externally, San Zenone may be regarded as one of the most pleasing and perfect examples of the style to be found in the North of Italy.
The cathedral at Modena is another good example, though not possessing any features of much novelty or deserving special mention. That of Parma is also important, though hardly so pleasing. Indeed, scarcely any city in the Valley of the Po is without some more or less-perfect churches of this date, none showing any important peculiarities that have not been exemplified above, unless perhaps it is the apse of the church of San Donato on the Murano near Venice, which is decorated with a richness of marble decoration to which the purer Gothic style never attained, and which entitles this church to rank rather with the Byzantine than with the Lombard buildings of which we are treating, or a style so curiously exceptional as to make it one of the most interesting churches, historically, to be found in the North of Italy.
450. Façade of San Zenone, Verona. (From Chapuy.)
Recent discoveries in Syria[[300]] have proved almost beyond a doubt that the carved slabs with which it is adorned externally were borrowed from some desecrated building on the coast of Syria—destroyed probably by the Moslems—and brought to Venice, probably at the time when the church acquired the remains of San Donato, in the beginning of the 12th century. Whether brought then or at an earlier period, they belong to the age of Justinian, certainly came from the East, and, mixed up with Italian details of the period, make up an exterior as picturesque as it is interesting to the student of the history of art in those days.
It is extremely difficult to draw a line between the pointed and round-arched Gothic styles in Italy. The former was so evidently a foreign importation, so unwillingly received and so little understood, that it made its way but slowly. Even, for instance, in the church at Vercelli, which is usually quoted as the earliest example of the pointed style in Italy (built 1219-1222), there is not a pointed arch nor a trace of one on the exterior. All the windows and openings are round-headed, and, except the pier-arches and vaults, nothing pointed appears anywhere. Even at a later date than this the round arch, especially as a decorative form, is frequently placed above the pointed one, and always used in preference to it. Instead, therefore, of attempting to draw a line where none exists in reality, it will be better now to pass on from this part of the subject, and to take up the older style at a point from which we can best trace the formation of the new. The latter does not essentially differ from the former, except in the introduction of the French form of the pointed arch and its accompaniments. It remains only to say a few words on the peculiarities which the round form of churches took in the hands of the early Lombard architects, as well as on the campanile, which forms so striking a feature in the cities of Northern Italy.