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

by George Edmund Street

cross the nave, is certainly fine. The wooden roofs of the aisles, too, are original, and their beams are painted very much like the Austrian sentry-boxes, in zigzag lines of black and buff. Much of this painting, however, did not appear to me to be old.

At about two-thirds of the length of the church between the west door and the apse it is cut in two, so to speak, by that which perhaps is now the greatest charm of the interior—the crypt. When I first visited San Zenone this crypt existed, but its existence was not realized from the nave. The only access to it was from the aisles, and even here the arches were partially blocked up. A flight of steps across the whole east end of the nave led up to the choir and concealed the old entrance to it. This, it has lately been found, was originally formed by three open arches from the nave with a flight of steps descending under them to the level of the crypt, whilst two arches on either side of these gave access to it from the aisles. This is the old scheme, and the only possible approach to the raised choir must originally have been that which has now been restored, viz., two narrow flights of steps against the side walls, so contrived as not to interfere with or conceal any part of the sculpture or other decorations on the western face of the arches to the crypt. The church as now restored yields to few with which I am acquainted in the solemn effect which is the result of mysterious light and shade, multiplied vistas of columns and arches, and picturesque originality of design. It is evidently rather a result of growth than of first intentions. The crypt—like our own remarkable example at Wimborne—seems to be an insertion. The columns and piers of the choir pass on into the crypt, whose piers and vaults are built against them. There is an obvious difference too in the style of the church and of the crypt, showing that at least a hundred years must have elapsed between the erection of the former and the insertion of the latter. The choir now occupies the three eastern arches of the old constructional nave, and beyond this has a square bay and a five sided apse, the two last divisions being groined and decorated with a good deal of colour. The apse is of the fourteenth century, but all its windows have been modernized. The crypt follows exactly the dimensions of the choir, but is divided into no less than nine bays in width, and six bays in length, exclusive of the apse. The red marble columns which support its groined roof are all monoliths, delicate in their proportions, and many of them probably antique. The vaulting is quadripartite, and there are considerable remains of wall paintings, which appear to be nearly coëval with the crypt. In the centre of this crypt is the shrine of San Zeno, half concealed by the gloomy but effective lighting, and surrounded by a metal railing made of quatrefoils, buckled or tied together, very much in the same style as the railings round the Scaligeri monuments. The altar in this crypt is worth notice on account of its sculptured front. This has in the centre a small crucifix with SS. Mary and John, and on either side, under arches, figures of the Evangelists. The face towards the nave of the seven arches which form the western part of the crypt is decorated with extreme care and finish. They are admirable examples of the really polished work of the Italian artists of the end of the twelfth century. The arches from the north aisle deserve special notice. They are carried on coupled shafts which, as well as their capital, are of red Veronese marble, the archivolt being of stone. The section of both shafts is circular, but one of them is delicately twisted to a spiral curve on its upward course. The refinement of this treatment of shafts is very characteristic of the best Italian work, and this coupled shaft, simple as its treatment is, and common as are the elements of its design, is so beautiful that it makes a real sunshine in a shady place. Not less are the arches above it worthy of admiration. The sculpture here, of a trailing branch of foliage, is very slightly relieved, but its outline is so graceful, its imitation of nature so close without being merely realistic, and its fitness for its position so complete, that I think I have never seen anything in its way more satisfactory, and certainly never anything really ornamental in the best sense, the elements of which were more severely simple.[22]

The colour of the whole interior is, to my mind, charming. It was first of all built in alternate and very irregularly divided courses of brick and stone. On this warm-coloured ground, one pious man after another came and painted what seemed to him best—a Madonna, a crucifixion, a saint, or a group of figures—with not much thought beyond that of making the particular work in which he was interested tell its own story well and produce its own effect. So little did he think of other men’s previous work that the same subjects are not unfrequently repeated. The result is that the walls were here sober and there gorgeous, but everywhere coloured, and everywhere more or less interesting. Yet the materials of which they are built are just those which we see every day of our lives, and it was the skill of the workman, not the richness of his materials, which made his work so worthy of our admiration.

Only one portion of the church is decorated upon a regular system; this is the eastern part of the choir and the apse, which has part of its walls and its groining very elaborately painted, though with but little gold; the groining ribs are richly coloured, and on each side of them is a wide border, generally subdivided into regular geometrical figures, and the spaces between these borders are painted blue and powdered with gold stars. In the south aisle is an altar under a baldachin, supported at the angles by four clustered shafts knotted together in mid height—a capricious custom of which Italians seem to have been especially fond, and the only excuse for which, so far as I can see, is that it proves that all the shafts were cut out of one block, and therefore of more value than four plain detached shafts cut out of separate blocks could be. There is perhaps, also, a relief to the mind, after looking at a long series of similar shafts, to come at last upon some one or two marked by capricious singularity such as this. Be this, however, as it may, the eye certainly always feels inclined to admire them, though the reason is never quite satisfied; and perhaps some better excuse does exist for their use than I have as yet been able to discover. It is probable that these columns belonged originally to the baldachin over the high altar. The canopy which they now support is not old.

The vestry on the north side of the choir is worth a visit, if only for the sake of its prettily panelled and painted ceiling. Here the panels are very small, and left in the natural colour of the pine, and the ribs are decorated with white, red, and black. There is also in this room a very good fourteenth-century marble cistern and lavatory under an arch in the wall; and lastly, in the wardrobes, among many things not worth seeing, a finely embroidered bishop’s mitre of the twelfth century, wrought in gold on linen. In front is a figure of Our Lord, at the back one of the Blessed Virgin, with emblems of two Evangelists on each, and a band below with figures of the Apostles, the stoles also being adorned with figures.

The arrangement of the choir shows the common Italian plan of stalls round the apse behind the altar. They are of early Renaissance character, with some relic of Gothic feeling in the traceries of the backs and elbows. There is also a good example of a square choir lectern, with a large base to contain books, and a revolving gabled desk.

Until the beginning of this century, there were only two altars in this church, one in the choir the other in the crypt. The verger told me that his father remembered the other altars being brought from a suppressed church, and erected here.

The campanile is well seen from the cloister, where it composes finely with the coursed walls of the church, and the many-shafted arcades of the cloister. It is a lofty square tower of several stages, with small pinnacles, and a low circular brick spire crowning it.