mns, eighteen in number, of various coloured
marbles, supporting the round arches of the first storey; above, the
roof of the aisles slopes gradually inwards, and is supported again by a
tier of pillars of various marbles, while above rise two other tiers
supporting the roof of the nave. On the corners of the church and on the
corners of the nave are figures of saints, while above all, on the cusp
of the facade, stands Madonna with Her Son in Her arms. The door in the
south transept is by Bonannus, whose great doors were destroyed in 1595.

Within, the church is solemn and full of light. Sixty-eight antique
columns, the spoil of war, uphold the church, while above is a coffered
Renaissance ceiling, of the seventeenth century. There is but little to
see beside the church itself, a few altar-pieces, one by Andrea del
Sarto; a few tombs; the bronze lamp of Battista Lorenzi, which is said
to have suggested the pendulum to Galileo, and that is all in the nave.
The choir screens, work of the Renaissance, are very lovely, while above
them are the _ambones_, from which on a Festa the Epistle and Gospel are
sung. The stalls are of the end of the fifteenth century, and the altar,
a dreadful over-decorated work, of the year 1825. Matteo Civitali of
Lucca made the wooden lectern behind the high altar, and Giovanni da
Bologna forged the crucifix, while Andrea del Sarto, not at his best,
painted the Saints Margaret and Catherine, Peter and John, to the right
and left of the altar. The capital of the porphyry column here is by
Stagio Stagi of Pietrasanta, while the porphyry vase is a prize from a
crusade. The mosaics in the apsis are much restored, but they are the
only known work of Cimabue,[56] and are consequently, even in their
present condition, valuable and interesting. The most beautiful and the
most interesting work of art in the Duomo is the Madonna, carved in
ivory in 1300 by Giovanni Pisano, in the sacristy. This Madonna is a
most important link in the history of Italian art; it seems to suggest
the way in which French influence in sculpture came into Italy. Such
work as this, by some French master, probably came not infrequently into
Italian hands; nor was its advent without significance; you may find its
influence in all Giovanni's work, and in how much of that which came
later.[57]

It is but a step across that green meadow to the Baptistery, that like a
casket of ivory and silver stands to the west of the Duomo. It was