There is also a beautifully built town hall in the Byzantine style, with statues of some of the most eminent Veronese—Maffei, Catullus, etc. Then there are the law courts, the old castle of the Scaliger family, and the vast brick Campanile, some three hundred feet high. Close to this piazza is a little church, also in the Byzantine style, where, enclosed by a wonderful network railing of very curious design and beautiful workmanship, are the finely sculptured sarcophagi of the Scaligers, the founders of the city.
Emerging from the piazza, we found ourselves in the quaint and busy market-place, the Piazza delle Erbe, reminding me of a huge open Covent Garden, only that here the healthy, robust market-women sit under immense umbrellas, whilst vending their fruits and vegetables. All around are houses of different size and form, painted in various colours, the whole making a bright and picturesque scene. In the centre there is a very ancient fountain; at the top are stone columns, which once supported the winged lions—the token of Venetian rule—thrown down on her emancipation. This market-place was the Forum in ancient times.
The Cathedral contains little worth seeing save the fine painting of the Assumption, by Titian. In the foreground the Apostles are standing beside the empty grave, looking upward at the figure of the Virgin, who is borne aloft upon the clouds by the usual attendant angels. The effect of this is very beautiful. The façade and porch outside are very fine. There are two figures in red marble, of Roland and Oliver, on either side, which are considered proof of a rather doubtful tradition that this church was built by Charlemagne.
At the Capuchin Church we saw a Dead Christ, by Paul Veronese, one of his best works. Santa Maria della Vittoria contains a Descent from the Cross, by the same illustrious artist, many of whose finest pictures are in the Pinacoteca, in the Palazzo Pompei, of this his native city.
We visited the churches of San Stefano and San Zeno. The former was once the Cathedral of Verona, and contains the tombs of most of the bishops who were buried there. The latter is very fine from an architectural point of view.
One of our most enjoyable expeditions was that to the ruins of the great amphitheatre. It is constructed of red marble from the Veronese quarries, upon basements of Roman brickwork. No other amphitheatre can be compared with this for costliness of material; nor I believe, for size, it having contained some fifty to sixty thousand spectators at a time. It is somewhat oval in form, being 546 feet by 436 feet across; the circumference is 1476 feet. The outer circuit once consisted of seventy-two arches, but only four now remain. The height from the pavement is 106 feet. Inside, the great flight of marble steps or seats rise tier above tier, and when at length we gained the top, we had a magnificent view of the whole city, and of its strong fortifications. The outer wall of the amphitheatre, all rugged and overgrown with weeds, seemed like the side of some huge cliff. There, far below in the piazza, people were passing backwards and forwards, outside the cafés loungers sipped their chocolate and smoked their cigarettes. The city lay before us, with all its palaces, churches, vineyards, picturesque towers, and forked battlements, divided by the swiftly flowing river, which curved round like a flash of light; and beyond lay the circling landscape, crowned with convents and villas; and in the far distance the Euganean Hills, with their blue and purple tints, and the snowy peaks of the Tyrolese Alps. It was indeed a lovely and an interesting scene.
The amphitheatre, as it now stands, is in excellent preservation; I believe a large sum is annually devoted to the purpose of keeping it so. It is a noble specimen of the gigantic works of the indefatigable Romans. These great Coliseums give one some idea of the immense populations of the cities in those times. We were very pleased with the fine echo in this Veronese amphitheatre.
The fortifications of the city are remarkably fine. Sanmicheli, the Italian engineer who planned them, was certainly a great architect; the Doric gate, Porta Strippa, Porta Nuova, and many of the buildings and palaces in Verona, were designed and built by him, and are good examples of his remarkable powers.
The shops here are fairly good, the town, as usual, abounding with cafés and confectioners. Oil and wine appear to be the principal products now, but at one time there were some ten thousand hands employed in the silk trade. There were evidently some very enjoyable excursions to be made in the country surrounding the city, but our short sojourn did not allow of our undertaking any pleasure trips.
The people looked healthy, but I did not find much to praise in the beauty of the Veronese ladies, who, less wise than those of Padua, discarded the graceful and becoming head-attire of black lace, and adopted excruciating and deforming Parisian fashions.