The typical example of a tower in the Italian style is the celebrated leaning tower at Pisa, partly seen in Woodcut No. [465]. It is, indeed, so far as we at present know, the only one which carries out that arrangement of numerous tiers of superimposed arcades which is so characteristic of the style. The lower storey is well designed as a solid basement for the superincumbent mass; its walls are 13 ft. in thickness, and it is adorned with 15 three-quarter columns: its height being 35 ft. The six storeys above this average 20 ft. in height, and are each adorned with an open arcade. The whole is crowned by a smaller circular tower, 27 ft. in height, in which the bells are hung. The entire height is thus 182 ft.; the mean diameter of the main portion, 52. There is no doubt that it was originally intended to stand perpendicular, though the contrary has been asserted; but before the commencement of the fifth storey the foundations had given way, and the attempts to readjust the work are plainly traceable in the upper storeys, though without success. It leans 11 ft. 2 in. out of the perpendicular,[[309]] which, though not sufficient to endanger its stability, is enough to render it very unsightly. Even without this defect, however, its design can hardly be commended; an arrangement of six equal arcades, with horizontal entablatures, is not an expedient mode of adorning a building, where elevation is the element of success. The introduction of strongly-marked vertical lines, or some variation in the design of the arcades, would have greatly improved the design: and so the Italians seem to have thought, for it was never repeated, and the Pisan tower remains a solitary example of its class.
488. Leaning Tower at Pisa. (From Taylor and Cresy.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
489. Tower of Gaeta. (From Schultz.) No Scale.
Nothing at all resembling it occurs in the southern parts of the province, though it must be admitted that they contain very few really important towers of any sort.
Perhaps the earthquakes to which a great portion of the country is liable may have deterred the architects from indulging in structures of great altitude; but it must be added that the idea of belfry or tower did not enter into their municipal arrangements, and their towns are not consequently illustrated by such towers as those of Venice, Cremona, or Verona in the north. Of those which do exist that of Gaeta is perhaps as picturesque as any. It was erected 1276-1290, and is both characteristic of the style and elegant in outline. As will be observed, the lower storey has pointed arches, while those above are all round; an arrangement which, though to our eyes it may appear archæologically wrong, is certainly constructively right, and the effect is very pleasing, from the height and dignity given to the entrance.
The two towers of the cathedral at Bari (Woodcut No. [470]) are not so happy in design as this. They are too tall for their other dimensions, and want accentuation throughout; while the change from the lower to the upper storey is abrupt and ill-contrived. The tower at Caserta Vecchia (Woodcut No. [472]) is low and squat in its proportions, and unfortunately too typical of the towers in this land of earthquakes.
Civil Architecture.
As a rule, it may be asserted that the southern province of Italy is singularly deficient in examples of civil or domestic architecture. Great monastic establishments existed there during the Middle Ages which must have possessed buildings befitting their magnificence; but these have either perished and been rebuilt, or have been so restored that their original forms can hardly be recognised. There are, indeed, cloisters at Amalfi and Sorrento; much more remarkable, however, for the beauty of their situation than for their architecture, which is extremely rude and clumsy. There are no chapter-houses: no halls or conventual buildings of any sort. In this respect, the province forms a remarkable contrast with Spain in the same age; though it must be confessed that the North of Italy is also very deficient in conventual buildings of the Middle Ages, the most magnificent and beautiful belonging more to the Renaissance than to the Mediæval period.