men.

When we reflect that all the force, solemnity, and beauty of the
Lombard buildings was evoked from clay, we learn from them this
lesson: that the thought of man needs neither precious material nor
yet stubborn substance for the production of enduring masterpieces.
The red earth was enough for God when He made man in His own image;
and mud dried in the sun suffices for the artist, who is next to God
in his creative faculty--since _non merita nome di creatore se
non Iddio ed il poeta_. After all, what is more everlasting than
terra-cotta? The hobnails of the boys who ran across the brickfields
in the Roman town of Silchester, may still be seen, mingled with
the impress of the feet of dogs and hoofs of goats, in the tiles
discovered there. Such traces might serve as a metaphor for the
footfall of artistic genius, when the form-giver has stamped his
thought upon the moist clay, and fire has made that imprint permanent.

Of all these Lombard edifices, none is more beautiful than the
Cathedral of Crema, with its delicately finished campanile, built
of choicely tinted yellow bricks, and ending in a lantern of the
gracefullest, most airily capricious fancy. This bell-tower does not
display the gigantic force of Cremona's famous torrazzo, shooting
396 feet into blue ether from the city square; nor can it rival the
octagon of S. Gottardo for warmth of hue. Yet it has a character of
elegance, combined with boldness of invention, that justifies the
citizens of Crema in their pride. It is unique; and he who has not
seen it does not know the whole resources of the Lombard style. The
facade of the Cathedral displays that peculiar blending of Byzantine
or Romanesque round arches with Gothic details in the windows,
and with the acute angle of the central pitch, which forms the
characteristic quality of the late _trecento_ Lombard manner. In
its combination of purity and richness it corresponds to the best age
of decorated work in English Gothic. What, however, strikes a Northern
observer is the strange detachment of this elaborate facade from the
main structure of the church. Like a frontispiece cut out of cardboard
and pierced with ornamental openings, it shoots far above the low
roof of the nave; so that at night the moon, rising above the southern
aisle, shines through its topmost window, and casts the shadow of
its tracery upon the pavement of the square. This is a constructive
blemish to which the Italians in no part of th