Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy

by George Edmund Street

On the north side of the nave there seems to have been a fine row of pointed windows, but they have been all destroyed to make way for Renaissance improvements. There are very large buttresses dividing the bays in this aisle—a feature which is unusual in Italy, and which, in addition to the design of the choir and transepts, would seem to show that this church was not entirely the work of an Italian. In the plan, too, it is remarkable that, though the general arrangement is quite that of the large Italian churches, such as the Frari at Venice and Sta. Anastasia at Verona, in one particular it is unlike them. The groining bays of the aisles are square, and not oblong; and as two of the aisle arches make one bay of the nave, the groining compartments in both are as nearly as possible square. This is an arrangement which occurs often in German Romanesque, but is not seen so often in Italy.

There is a fine campanile between the south transept and the choir; it has four stages above the roof of the church, and scarcely any opening below the belfry windows: these are exceedingly good, of three trefoiled lights under an inclosing arch, with two plain circles pierced in the tympanum, the monials being shafts of white marble. A low spire of circular bricks finishes, but does not improve, this very beautiful belfry.

There is another brick pointed church at Pavia—San Francesco—which has a fine west front redeemed from the common Italian character by the grand window-arch in its central division; and though this has been filled in with later and barbarous work, to the entire concealment of the tracery, its effect upon the whole front is astonishingly good. The detail is very elaborate, and in the arch a great number of terra-cotta ornaments are introduced. The front is divided by large pilasters into a centre and wings corresponding with the nave and aisles, but these are again subdivided by smaller pilasters, each of which is composed of three circles on plan, and finished rather nicely with a kind of finial at the top.

San Francesco is lighted by a succession of small clerestory windows, and the aisles have large buttresses, the greater part of the upper portion of the west front being a mere mask to make out the desired outline. I begin really to wonder whether I shall see a west front before I leave Italy which is not a purely unnecessary and unprepossessing sham!

Pavia is a busy and a pleasant city, and one that improves on acquaintance; it is true that it was very hot and sultry, but to this I have been fairly acclimatized, and so rather enjoyed it, except when a piazza had to be crossed in the sun, or a walk to be taken along a street unprotected by arcading, which by the way is much rarer here than in Padua, Mantua, and other cities which I have been describing. The main street of the city is very picturesque, with somewhat of a fall towards the south, so that just a glimpse is obtained between the houses of the distant Apennines.

From Pavia we went, on our road to Milan, to pay a visit to the renowned Certosa. The road thither, which is also that to Milan, pursues a monotonously straight course by the side of a canal, or canalized river, and between rows of stiff trees, until, about four miles from Pavia, a turning at right angles out of the main road soon leads to the gateway of the monastery, and through this—which stands open apparently rather through carelessness than out of hospitality—we drove into the courtyard in front of the church. This, grown all over with weeds, looked certainly very desolate and wretched, and but a poor preface to the polished marbles of the west front, and the riches and paintings of the interior of the church.

The west front is of great magnificence of material, though a kind of design which seems to have proceeded upon the principle of setting all established architectural styles and customs entirely at defiance. This indeed may be said of the whole church, which is a kind of mixture of Lombard-Romanesque features with some Gothic, and no slight dash of the Renaissance spirit; altogether a most magnificent hybrid, but certainly a hybrid. The doors stand wide open, and from the decaying and desolate court in front of the church we enter into the nave, full of everything that is magnificent in material, and all preserved with jealous care and in admirable order; we look up to the lofty vault which spans the grand width of the nave, and find the groining ribs arched overhead in pure pointed form, and cannot help marvelling how far this one pointed feature harmonizes—I had almost said sanctifies—the whole interior, though in fact, save this one point, there is scarcely a single detail throughout the church which would ever pass muster as really being of Gothic character.

I think it is hardly possible to scan or criticize the architecture of such a building; it is better to follow the guidance of the cicerone, and look at the pictures behind the many altars set around with precious stones, and inclosed within reredoses made of such an infinite variety of marbles, that, with some degree of envy, one thinks how precious such an array would be on this side of the Alps, even if spread through fifty churches.

The nave and aisles are divided from the side chapels and from the transepts by high metal grilles, and the transept is again divided by another screen from the choir: this produces a very singular and unusual effect, and makes the transept appear somewhat like a nave placed at right angles to the choir. All the chapels on either side of the nave communicate with one another, so that the monks are able, without entering the nave, to obtain access to all of them, whilst females are carefully excluded both from the chapels and from the transepts and choir. Except a Perugino in one of the chapels on the north side of the nave, and one picture in the sacristy, there seemed to be no pictures of any very great value; in fact, travellers are asked rather to admire the value of the stones which are used in the altars, and the marbles in the reredoses behind them, than the paintings which they inclose. The groining of the church, enhanced as it is in effect by the way in which it is painted—with a blue ground, powdered very richly with gold stars—conduces more than anything else to the very fine effect of colour which the nave produces; and the beautiful pavements, composed mainly of red and white marbles, laid in elaborate geometrical patterns, increase not a little the general effect. This is an instance of the superiority of decorative painting over pictures as far as improvement of architectural effect is concerned.