Cathedral Cities of Italy

by W. W. Collins

Immediately above and at the bases of the four shafts are the huge bronze symbols of the four Evangelists. They rest on the abaci of the pilasters which form a sort of drip-course right along the façade. Over the centre porch is a bronze tent, the curtains of which Angels draw aside revealing the Virgin and Child seated. The lights, forming the tympanums of the porches, are thin sheets of alabaster. The columns are spiral and twisted, octagonal and quadrangular. Each is set against a different coloured background of black lava, red, white, or grey marble; and each is covered with geometrical mosaic. The wheel window of the façade is beautified with exceptionally good tracing. It is framed by quatrefoils in panels, with the head of a saint in each. On two sides of these, in recessed rectangular niches, are statues of the Twelve Apostles.

At the top of the frame are canopied niches with a row of saints. The whole of this wonderful front is covered by modern mosaics which do not quite fit in with the severe lines of the architecture. Neither does the scheme of colour in which they are executed take its place with the warmth of the marble as well as it might.

The whole of the main building is constructed in bands of black lava and white marble. Semicircular chapels in the aisles break the monotony of the lower portion of the exterior; while the upper is rendered less severe by the pointed clerestory windows, a dripstone and string-course, and a good cornice.

The interior is one of the best in Italy. It was greatly improved when the colossal statues which stood at the bases of the piers were removed, and the side chapels cleared of their altars and rather meretricious adornments. The massive columns of the nave, eight of which are round, four clustered, and two engaged, have capitals that partake of a style far more classic than Gothic. Above the round arches they support runs a triforium gallery. This is open in the nave, and covered at the west end, where it follows the slope upwards of the gables of the aisles. At the east end it is carried over the window, being also covered in here. The windows of the aisles are all filled, or partly filled, with thin slabs of alabaster. The effect of light produced through this thick but comparatively translucent medium is extremely mellow and beautiful.

The short transepts are raised three steps above the nave, and the choir five. A fine red marble balustrade separates the latter from the rest of the church. The open stalls in the choir have some extremely good intarsia work. The wooden screen that shuts them off from the nave is a carved mass of most intricate geometrical design. Under the east window is the bishop's throne, backed and surrounded with more good intarsia, in which saints and sainted bishops with their symbols most effectively figure. The walls above and around are covered with fourteenth-century frescoes by Pietro di Puccio and Ugolino, both native artists. In their present faded state they harmonise beautifully with their surroundings, to which the colour of the well-worn red marble floor of the cathedral adds a pleasant note.

The work of Luca Signorelli can be better studied in the Cappella della Madonna di S. Brizio than anywhere else in Italy. This chapel practically forms the shallow south transept. In the magnificent frescoes which adorn its walls one can trace the possible influence of this great painter on the works of Michael Angelo. Two panels of the ceiling came from the brush of Fra Angelico. The north transept is almost entirely occupied by the Cappella del S.S. Corporale. The reliquary containing the "Corporal," or linen cloth of the Miracle of Bolsena, is kept over the altar. This reliquary is a fine piece of silver-gilt work, with two dozen beautiful panels of blue enamel. It was on to this linen cloth that the Blood dropped from the broken Host, and convinced the officiating priest of the Real Presence. Pope Urban IV. had it brought from Bolsena, and commenced to build this magnificent cathedral as a great shrine in which the sacred relic should rest for ever.

Behind the cathedral, that is to the east, Orvieto, not many years ago, was a ruined, broken-down mass of insanitary buildings. Gardens now take the place of what was a plague-spot, and the houses of the city as we find it now occupy barely one-half of the area contained within the walls. In this respect modern ideas have decidedly improved Orvieto. What is left of the old streets is well looked after from the sanitary point of view; and from the artistic, there are not many places in Italy where subjects are to be found in such plenty. The massive Torre del Moro is close to the Piazza del Popolo, where stands the ruined church of S. Domenico. This fine Romanesque structure is entered by a flight of steps at the west end; it is built over a massively constructed crypt, now used as a granary. The mighty arches of this crypt sustain part of the church, but it does not extend beneath the whole of the fabric. One of the numerous arched gateways which are to be found throughout the city intervenes between it and the little buttressed dwelling underneath the east end. From this rises the solid campanile. An arcade runs round the whole church. This good feature is composed of round arches, containing small round-headed lights. The outer member of each arch is finished by a broad, flat, square billet, the inner has a cable pattern. Above is a dripstone and string-course.

Saturday sees the piazza crowded with country folk, and it then presents a busy scene. All the rest of the week it is silent and deserted. I was there with my sketch-book one afternoon. A thunderstorm was rolling about in the hills. The air was charged with disturbing electricity. Swifts flew screaming round the ruined church. A kestrel up in the battered old tower cried to her young. The storm crept nearer. Grand cumuli clouds piled themselves higher and higher above the lightning-riven mass of rain-sodden blackness below. A beautiful swallow-tail butterfly, brilliant against the deep purple background, came gracefully sailing across the square into the sunshine. It hovered, now here, now there, like a spirit from another world seeking rest but finding none. Little puffs of wind stirred odd bits of straw and paper about the piazza. Dust began to eddy round and round. A drop of rain fell on to the open leaves of my sketch-book. It was the writing on the wall; so I closed the book and hurried home. For half an hour the heavens emptied themselves on Orvieto. To me a stage-play of some scene in her past was re-enacted in the sky; the passing storm seemed so appropriate to the rugged old city.

ROME

WITH pen in hand one approaches the subject of the Eternal City with great diffidence. The more one's acquaintance with her has ripened, the more does the attempt to write a chapter seem a hopeless task. There are so many Romes—Republican Rome, Imperial Rome, Rome of the Papal supremacy, Christian Rome, Pagan Rome; and then Modern Rome, with a municipality that is fast changing the face of everything. Catering for the tourist in these days of cheap transit does much to alter things. In the end it will defeat its own object, and history will be contained in libraries and museums only. Rome, like London, is fast becoming cosmopolitan. The perícolo giallo, or "yellow peril," as the motor post 'bus is facetiously called, rushes through streets where not so long ago solemn processions of the Mother Church wended their way. Building is going on at present with feverish haste. The "boom" of 1880, which ruined many of the wealthy families who speculated in it, does not seem to have acted as a deterrent to others. The great boulevard projected by the powers that be, slowly grows in length. Despite the outcry against such vandalism, an area that might disclose and yield up unknown archæological treasures if properly excavated is being levelled in the sacred names of sanitation and opportunism! The picturesque dwellings that lined the banks of Rome's famous river have disappeared, and the yellow waters of the historic Tiber rush along between massive walls of stone.