of the bricks in appearance, and, perhaps where two bricks are side by side on the same plane, to make a little distinction between them by tooling the bricks in opposite directions. Two other features of Pavian brickwork may also here be mentioned: one, that the depth of the arch-bricks is almost always increased from the springing line to the centre—the intrados and extrados not being concentric; the other, that the arch-bricks do not radiate from a centre, but are arranged so as to obtain a vertical joint in the centre. The first is a very defensible practice, the second seems to me to be the contrary.
There are several other churches to be noticed here. The most interesting to me after San Michele is that of Sta. Maria del Carmine, or San Pantaleone (for it seems to rejoice in a double dedication), which, in some respects, is more akin to our northern Gothic work than any other Italian church I have as yet described. The plan and all the details of the interior are exceedingly simple. The nave is divided into four groining bays, each of which has two arches into the aisles; the transept takes one bay and the choir one, and there are an aisle and a row of chapels on either side of the nave, and chapels on the east side of the transept. The only openings between the arches and the groining are small circles by way of clerestory, ludicrously small as compared with the immense space of blank wall below them, which seems to call loudly for decorative painting. The whole of the interior is executed in red brick, which has, however, been much daubed with a coloured wash; its effect is, notwithstanding, very fine and well worthy of imitation. As in Italian churches generally, the choir is very short as compared to the length of the nave. The exterior is even better worth examination than the interior; the design of the west end is an exaggerated example of the mode of finishing west fronts not uncommon in Italian Gothic; it is to some extent a sham, and therefore bad, but there is much which is of value in its detail, as it is even more than usually elaborate; and apart from the general outline of the mass, which pinnacles and pilasters cannot redeem from ugliness, there is considerable beauty in the group of windows and doors arranged so as to rise gradually to the centre. The cornices are very heavy and elaborate, and the whole front may be looked at as a masterpiece of terra-cotta and brick architecture. It is purely Italian in its great breadth and general arrangement, and, I confess, very far from being to my taste, though I could wish that we had more often some of the same breadth and simplicity in our own elevations.
It is very curious that this west end is the only elevation in this church which is at all distinctly Italian in its design; for those of the transepts and choir might much more reasonably be put down as imitations of Northern work; they are very similar, and a description of the latter will therefore suffice. It is flanked by massive buttresses, and has two large and lofty trefoiled lancets, surmounted by a circular window of great size; the whole is very richly moulded and executed entirely in brick. The buttresses and roof finish at the top in a rude temporary-looking manner, and it is therefore impossible to solve the interesting question of their original terminations, which must, I imagine, have been pinnacles. The ordinary bricks used here are about 10 in. × 3 in. in size, and laid with very wide joints of mortar; those used for window-jambs and arches are of much deeper colour and finer clay than the others. There is something quite refreshing in coming suddenly and unexpectedly upon such a simple and English-looking elevation, after the multitude of thoroughly Italian fronts it has been our fate to see lately.
