THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN.
Passing on to the last of the church edifices to be described, we come to the cathedral of Milan. A good picture is necessary to give even a faint impression of the richness and harmonious proportions of this wonderful building; but it is possible, from description, to form a correct conception of its magnitude, and of its principal parts. Its length is four hundred and eighty-five feet; breadth, two hundred and fifty-two; breadth across the transepts, two hundred and eighty-seven feet; hight of the nave, one hundred and fifty-three feet. The hight from the pavement to the top of the crown of the Madonna, on the summit of the spire, is three hundred and fifty-five feet. This cathedral is one of the most stupendous piles ever erected; but it is not yet finished, although it has been almost five hundred years in building. Several duomos have been destroyed that once occupied this place. The first cathedral was destroyed by Attila in the fifth century; the second was burnt by accident in 1075; and the third was partially ruined by Frederic Barbarossa. A lofty bell-tower, demolished by him, crushed the duomo in its fall. The first stone of the present cathedral was laid in March, 1386, by G. G. Visconti.
The interior presents a wilderness of columns, some of which are almost twelve feet in diameter at the base, and more than eight in the shaft. Fifty-two pillars, of the hight of eighty feet, support the pointed arches on which the roof rests. The exterior shows equally a wilderness of statues and pinnacles. Each pinnacle, if placed on the ground, would appear a considerable spire. The statues already in place number three thousand, and forty-live hundred are necessary to carry out the plan. Each pinnacle or minaret is crowned by a statue, and there are many more in the niches, among the pinnacles, as well as in other situations. In order to become acquainted with them, you must ascend to the roof, and then you will see life and meaning in them all; if seen from below, they appear indeed as a multitude of statues in marble, but without any obvious design. Whatever the moral may be, it is exhibited at an immense expense of treasure; but, in Italy, it is a national passion, which has come down to them from the Romans, to people their ideal world with marble forms, commemorating those who once lived on earth, or the imaginary beings of allegory and of a fabulous mythology. In this cathedral, in addition to statues of the size of life or beyond its dimensions, there are many of inferior magnitude: little pretty cherubs and imaginative beings are seen, single or in clusters. In all parts of the building, there are delicate and elaborately wrought carvings in marble, and even in situations where they can not be seen except by a diligent explorer. Ascending to the roof of the cathedral, and walking over it, the traveler will observe that it is composed of massive blocks of marble accurately adjusted to each other, and although the weight is immense, no cracks are visible. One moves as freely upon the roof, and with as much confidence as if a mountain of marble were beneath his feet; and the view from it is as glorious as it could be from a mountain rearing its lofty head in place of this structure reared by the art of man!