On the north side of the nave is a very curious pulpit, coeval with the church and remarkable for its carvings, and for a Roman sarcophagus which occupies the space between the columns which support it.
From Sant’Ambrogio I made my way under a burning sun to what I expected to find a very interesting church, that of Sant’Eustorgio. I was, however, very much disappointed; the interior is abominably modernized, though still retaining enough of its old Romanesque features to be intelligible if carefully studied, and remarkable for many ancient monuments on its walls. It has nave, aisles, and chapels beyond the aisles, the whole groined, and there is a prodigious ascent to the choir, which is raised upon a crypt.
That for which it ought to be visited is the exquisite monument to S. Peter Martyr, executed by G. Balduccio da Pisa, in 1339. It consists of a sarcophagus supported on pilasters, in front of which are statues representing virtues. Few works of the kind have ever been executed, in which the skill of the sculptor has been more happily united with that of the architect than in this. It deserves all praise.
Sta. Maria delle Grazie, which I next visited, is a church known generally as that in the refectory attached to which is to be seen all that remains of L. da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. I know not how much this may have suffered within the last few years, but really, when I read the kind of remarks which I so frequently see about it, I cannot help fancying, rather strongly, that they have perhaps been written before instead of after seeing the veritable picture. It is in fact in the last stage of decay, with scarcely any of its colouring or drawing intelligible; and has probably been entirely repainted since Leonardo’s death. Visitors who go to admire and do admire the Leonardo, might do worse than in examining and admiring the extremely fine and fairly well-preserved earlier fresco or distemper painting by Montorfano which covers the opposite wall of the refectory, and contains a good and busy painting of the Crucifixion, painted in 1495. The church is of very late pointed date, entirely of brick, with a large and ugly dome added by Bramante. The nave arcades are pretty good—pointed arches springing from the square Classical-looking capitals of equally Classical-looking columns; very much as in the church of San Francesco at Venice. Elaborate brick cornices and the usual sham front leave the same kind of impression on my mind in respect to this church that it has of all late Italian pointed work in brick—one of a tasteless, unreal, and unsatisfactory school of art.
South of the cathedral there is a fine late brick campanile attached to the church of San Gottardo, which rises from behind some of the great public buildings in which the city abounds. This is a very elaborate work, octagonal in plan and covered with arcades one above the other, and finished with a low spire. It is a fourteenth-century building at the earliest, but in spite of this most of its arches are semicircular. It is certainly a rich and picturesque tower, and well deserves inspection.
The remaining churches in Milan seemed to be all Classical, of different grades of merit and size. There were indeed some very late examples of brickwork of some value, but really, save the cathedral, there is not much architectural art to be studied or dwelt upon in Milan. The cathedral, too, teaches little; its main office is, rather, to prove the consummate beauty and magnificence attainable by the pointed style, carried out severely and simply on the very grandest scale, and this its interior does triumphantly beyond all cavil.
A visit to Milan had always been looked forward to by me with great interest: first, from curiosity as to the real effect and merits of the Duomo; and, secondly, from a longing