unk; and this is the case with the very
threshold of the door by which you enter. I think it would have been a
very preposterous ambition in the architects, to show how far they
could deviate from the perpendicular in this construction; because in
that particular any common mason could have rivalled them; [All the
world knows that a Building with such Inclination may be carried up
till a line drawn from the Centre of Gravity falls without the
Circumference of the Base.] and if they really intended it as a
specimen of their art, they should have shortened the pilasters on that
side, so as to exhibit them intire, without the appearance of sinking.
These leaning towers are not unfrequent in Italy; there is one at
Bologna, another at Venice, a third betwixt Venice and Ferrara, and a
fourth at Ravenna; and the inclination in all of them has been supposed
owing to the foundations giving way on one side only.

In the cathedral, which is a large Gothic pile, [This Edifice is not
absolutely Gothic. It was built in the Twelfth Century after the Design
of a Greek Architect from Constantinople, where by that time the art
was much degenerated. The Pillars of Granite are mostly from the
Islands of Ebba and Giglia on the coast of Tuscany, where those
quarries were worked by the antient Romans. The Giullo, and the verde
antico are very beautiful species of marble, yellow and green; the
first, antiently called marmor numidicum, came from Africa; the other
was found (according to Strabo) on the mons Taygetus in Lacedemonia:
but, at present, neither the one nor the other is to be had except
among the ruins of antiquity.] there is a great number of massy pillars
of porphyry, granite, jasper, giullo, and verde antico, together with
some good pictures and statues: but the greatest curiosity is that of
the brass-gates, designed and executed by John of Bologna,
representing, embossed in different compartments, the history of the
Old and New Testament. I was so charmed with this work, that I could
have stood a whole day to examine and admire it. In the Baptisterium,
which stands opposite to this front, there are some beautiful marbles,
particularly the font, and a pulpit, supported by the statues of
different animals.

Between the cathedral and this building, about one hundred paces on one
side, is the famous burying-ground, called Campo Santo, from its being
covered with earth brought from Jerusalem. It is an oblong square,
surrounded by a v