MILAN CATHEDRAL
Note How the Façade Suggests the German Use of Including Nave and Aisles Under a Single High-Pitched Roof. [P. 313]
INTERIOR OF MILAN CATHEDRAL
Showing Canopied Figures Above the Capitals. [P. 314]
enthusiasm of the truly Gothic architect. He treated the edifice as a shell to be enriched with decoration.
In the interior, the walls and vaultings offered surfaces for painting. When this was accomplished as, for example, in the frescoes by Cimabue, Giotto, and others in the Church of S. Francis in Assisi, by Giotto in the Arena Chapel, Padua, and the chapels of the Perozzi and Bardi in S. Croce, Florence, and in S. Maria Novella, possibly by Taddeo Gaddi, or at any rate by some painter of the school of Giotto, the effect is incomparably resplendent. Where, however, as in the Cathedral of Florence, frescoes are missing, the appearance is cold and barren; redeemed somewhat, it is true, in this case by the colossal dimensions and sense of spaciousness.
For the exteriors reliance was placed upon applied embellishments. The side walls, for example, of Florence are veneered with marble; those of Siena and Orvieto with horizontal stripes of black and white masonry. But this colour decoration is a poor substitute for the structural enrichments, the traceried windows, flying buttresses, and mounting roofs of the true Gothic.