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

by George Edmund Street

I have left to the last what, I suppose, is in fact the oldest of the Bolognese churches—San Stefano. It is a collection of seven churches, rather than one church, and, in spite of modernization without end, it is still a most curious and interesting jumble of old buildings. The churches are dedicated to—1, San Stefano; 2, San Lorenzo; 3, San Sepolcro (a circular church); 4, The Corte di Pilato (a cloister); 5, Sta. Trinità; 6, SS. Pietro e Paolo (with three Romanesque apses); and 7, San Giovanni. No. 3 has an aisle round the circular portion, and was probably a baptistery, and there is still an old ambon in it. One gets fairly puzzled in this nest of queer little churches or parts of churches, and I found but little of architectural—as distinguished from antiquarian—interest in them. The brickwork in the cloister and in some of the external walls is extremely good. Some of the latter are diapered or reticulated on the face with square yellow tiles with dividing lines of red brick, and the cornices are of the same two colours also. In the cloister the columns and inner order of the arches are of stone, the rest of the walls and cornices being of red and yellow bricks, and in one part there is a course of red, green, and yellow tiles alternated. The effect of this work is extremely pretty.

Probably travellers remember Bologna more by its two leaning towers than by any other feature. One comes here however, from either side, after rather a surfeit of this sort of thing. On the one side is Pisa, with its leaning tower, and on the other we may see them at Rovigo, Ferrara, and elsewhere. The soil here is generally bad for foundations, I suppose, and these plain brick towers without any projection at the base are the most ill-contrived constructions for such foundations that one can conceive. In this case it is possible to get views of the two towers which shew an apparently impossible amount of overhanging on the part of the smaller one, and I confess to a strong preference for walking to what one may call the windward side of such an erection! There is no beauty in these towers, their only features being the vast array of putlog holes in their walls, and the machicolated battlement of the higher of the two.

Of domestic buildings of the Middle Ages there are not many remains. The Casa dei Mercanti, though it dates from the end of the fourteenth century, is not pleasing. The front has two lofty pointed arches on the ground story, and a canopied Ringhiera of very poor design above. But as the whole front has been restored, the bricks painted bright red, and the stonework cleaned and repaired, I am disposed to believe very little in the antiquity of any of the details. Certainly I found it not worth sketching, which was the more disappointing as I had heard of it always as a fine building. The Pepoli Palace has some old brickwork and a Ghibelline battlement of unusually picturesque outline. The Piazza Maggiore in front of San Petronio is certainly the best feature in this not very striking city. As always in Italian towns, it must be visited early in the day if it is to be seen to advantage. In the morning it is crowded with fruit and vegetable dealers, sitting under bright-coloured umbrellas; in the afternoon it is triste and deserted, save by the cabmen, who pursue the stranger with their importunities. One side of this piazza is occupied by the Palazzo Publico—a large pile of building altogether Gothic in its inclosing walls, I fancy, but they have been so much altered from time to time that not much detail remains. It seems, however, to have been much like the Castle at Mantua in its character, with bold machicoulis at the top of the walls, and a well battered-out base to the whole building. In a tower here there is a window which I engrave, because it shews well how good an effect may be produced by the skilful use of the very simplest materials. The combination of stone with brick adds much to the effect; and though this is in itself a very small and unimportant work, it appears to me to be exceedingly suggestive.

The Academy of the Fine Arts will be visited by every one who cares for Francia, and by many who fancy they care for the Caracci. As one of the former class, I recommend it very heartily. It contains a large collection, gathered in papal times from convents and churches, and mainly by painters of the Bolognese school. This school has the redeeming virtue of counting Francia on its list of painters, which may atone for much. He is seen here to advantage; and one trio, consisting of two of his pictures on either side of one of Perugino’s, forms the noblest group in the gallery. Here one sees how much in common the two men had in spite of Francia’s more forcible character. The same love of pure and rich colour, the same well-defined grouping, the same religious feeling mark them both. And never, I think, has the Madonna—pensive, lowly, and simple—been more beautifully represented than here by Francia. It is a face that one hopes to remember. Here, too, is Raffaelle’s S. Cecilia, no doubt a very great work, but not great quite in the sense one wishes to understand the word at his hand. S. Cecilia and S. John are very fine, but S. Paul is a sort of burly ruffian. The heavenly choir is very mundane, and the whole work somewhat academical in its design and treatment. The earlier pictures here are very disappointing. The early Bolognese painters seem to have painted coarsely and heavily, and to have drawn badly, and there is no comparison for a moment between their work and that of the early Sienese and Florentine painters on the one hand, and those of Padua and Verona on the other. One has indeed in their works a sort of foretaste of what one has from their followers—the Caracci, Domenichino, Bagna-Cavallo, and to some extent Guido. Dismal colour, great striving after chiaroscuro, violent and distorted attitudes, and a purely conventional and academical style, are not great recommendations of any school, but they are things which must be accepted if one is to enjoy these works at all heartily.

A very short railway journey takes one from Bologna to Modena. The one object of interest here is the cathedral, but this is a building of extreme historical and architectural value, and has fortunately been left with so few alterations that we can make out its history with fair certainty. At Bologna everything was built of brick—here at a short distance we find our eyes rejoicing again in the sight of stone and marble.

The ground-plan of the cathedral consists of a nave with aisles terminated at the east end by three semicircular apses. There are a sacristy on the north of the choir-aisle, and a tower to the north of this. There are two doorways on the south side, three at the west end, and one on the north side. A grand crypt with arches on slender shafts occupies the whole space under the eastern part of the church. The access to the choir from the nave is by stairs against the aisle walls in the same position as at San Zenone, Verona. Here the stairs and their handrails are not later than the thirteenth century, and the choir is divided from the aisles by screens of the same age; solid below, and with a continuous cornice carried on coupled shafts above. The cathedral is said to have been founded in 1099, but an inscription on the south wall gives the date of the consecration of the building by Pope Lucius III. in July 1184. I believe that the former date represents the age of the plan, and of most of the interior columns and arches still remaining, but that before the later date the whole exterior of the cathedral had been modified, and the groining added inside. The work of both periods is extremely good and characteristic. The columns of the nave are alternately great piers and smaller circular columns of red marble. The great piers carry cross arches between the groining bays, and each of these in the nave is equal to two of those in the aisles. The capitals here are very close imitations of Classical work, with the abaci frequently concave on plan. The main arches and the triforium openings of three lights above them are seen both in the nave and aisle, the vaulting of the latter being unusually raised. There is also a plain clerestory, and the vaults are now everywhere quadripartite. The outside elevation of the side walls is very interesting. Here we seem to have the old aisle wall with its eaves-arcade added to and raised in the twelfth century, and adorned with a fine deep arcade in each bay, inclosed under round arches, which are carried on half columns in front of the buttresses or pilasters. These arches shew exactly what the original intention was at Ferrara, where it will be recollected they still in part remain. Certainly they would have made the side walls very rich in their effect, even if there had not also been two porches, a projecting pulpit, and various bas-reliefs inserted in them.