no pinnacles, no deep and fretted
doorways, such as form the charm of French and English architecture;
but instead of this, the lines of parti-coloured marbles, the
scrolls and wreaths of foliage, the mosaics and the frescoes which
meet the eye in every direction, satisfy our sense of variety,
producing most agreeable combinations of blending hues and
harmoniously connected forms. The chief fault which offends against
our Northern taste is the predominance of horizontal lines, both in
the construction of the facade, and also in the internal decoration.
This single fact sufficiently proves that the Italians had never
seized the true idea of Gothic or aspiring architecture. But,
allowing for this original defect, we feel that the Cathedral of
Siena combines solemnity and splendour to a degree almost
unrivalled. Its dome is another point in which the instinct of
Italian architects has led them to adhere to the genius of their
ancestral art rather than to follow the principles of Gothic design.
The dome is Etruscan and Roman, native to the soil, and only by a
kind of violence adapted to the character of pointed architecture.
Yet the builders of Siena have shown what a glorious element of
beauty might have been added to our Northern cathedrals, had the
idea of infinity which our ancestors expressed by long continuous
lines, by complexities of interwoven aisles, and by multitudinous
aspiring pinnacles, been carried out into vast spaces of aerial
cupolas, completing and embracing and covering the whole like
heaven. The Duomo, as it now stands, forms only part of a vast
design. On entering we are amazed to hear that this church, which
looks so large, from the beauty of its proportions, the intricacy of
its ornaments, and the interlacing of its columns, is but the
transept of the intended building lengthened a little, and
surmounted by a cupola and campanile.[1] Yet such is the fact. Soon
after its commencement a plague swept over Italy, nearly depopulated
Siena, and reduced the town to penury for want of men. The
cathedral, which, had it been accomplished, would have surpassed all
Gothic churches south of the Alps, remained a ruin. A fragment of
the nave still stands, enabling us to judge of its extent. The
eastern wall joins what was to have been the transept, measuring the
mighty space which would have been enclosed by marble vaults and
columns delicately wrought. The sculpture on the eastern door shows
with what magnificen