From this church I went to San Domenico, famous for a very elaborate tomb or shrine of the saint by Nicola Pisano. This is not a work that entirely pleases me. It is a high coped tomb covered with sculpture on the sides, erected behind the altar. The history of its erection by Nicola Pisano in 1265 gives it value as a dated work by a great artist. He seems to have been a good deal assisted by his scholar, Fra Guglielmo Agnelli, whose work is by no means equal to his master’s. The tomb alone is the work of these artists, the rest of the work about the altar having been frequently added to and altered in later days, and each sculptor employed having done his best to glorify his own skill and dexterity instead of thinking, as Nicola Pisano evidently did, simply of telling his story in the most straightforward way.
The stories represented in the bas-reliefs had more than common value for a sculptor of original power. In the centre is the Madonna; on one side the resuscitation by S. Dominic of a youth who had been thrown from his horse, and on the other the saint disputing with heretics and burning their books. At the angles are the four Doctors, and at the back two more subjects from the Life of S. Dominic, probably designed but certainly not executed by Nicola Pisano.
The church which contains this tomb has been ruthlessly modernized; but in the open piazza on the north side of it are two monuments of much interest. One of these has a square basement of brick, supporting detached shafts, above which are round arches, the whole being finished with a brick pyramid. Under the canopy thus formed is placed the sarcophagus, marked with a cross at the end, and finished at the top with a steep gabled covering. The detail of this is all of late Romanesque style. The other monument is of later date and much finer design, though keeping to the same general outline. In place of the brick basement of the first this has three rows of three shafts, which support a large slab. On this are arcades of pointed arches, three at the sides and two at the ends, carried on coupled shafts, and within this upper arcade is seen the stone coffin carved at the top, and with a stiff effigy of the deceased carved as if lying on one of the perpendicular sides. This monument is also finished with a brick pyramid. The whole design is certainly striking; it has none of the exquisite skill that marks the best Veronese monuments, but it is a very good example of the considerable success which may be achieved by an architectural design without any help from the sculptor, without the use of any costly materials, and with only moderate dimensions. The upper tier of arches is kept in position by an iron tie, and, in spite of its slender look, still stands after five hundred years’ exposure, in perfect condition.
San Giacomo is another example of a modernized church, which has, however, some interesting features. On the exterior there is a rather good treatment of the polygonal apse, with steep gables and pinnacles over the windows on each side. This is somewhat like the apse of San Fermo, at Verona. The campanile on the south-east of the nave is a very lofty late Gothic erection, finished with an incomplete Renaissance belfry-stage. The old portion is divided into a succession of stages of equal height, and is mainly striking on account of its good colour—being all of red brick—and simple outline. The west front is, as is usual here, a great gable divided into three parts by pilasters and half columns; the doorway is of the thirteenth century, and its columns rest on lions’ backs. The detail of the windows at the ends of the aisles is extremely good, and seemed to me to be of the same date. The windows are of two-lights, with shafts for monials, and a broad transome of plate tracery; the tympanum of the arch at the top is similarly filled: here, though the jambs are of brick, the whole of the rest of the
