THERE are very few specimens in Italy of circular or polygonal buildings of any class belonging to the Gothic age. As churches, none are to be expected. Baptisteries had passed out of fashion. One such building, at Parma, commenced in 1196, deserves to be quoted, not certainly for its beauty, but as illustrating those false principles of design shown in every part of every building of this age in Italy. Externally the building is an octagon, six storeys in height, the four upper ones being merely used to conceal a dome, which is covered by a low-pitched wooden roof. The lowest and the highest storeys are solid, the others are galleries supported by little ill-shaped columns. It is probable that this was not the original design of the architect, Antelami. No doubt he intended to conceal the dome, or at all events to cover it, as was the universal practice in Italy; but instead of a mere perpendicular wall, as here used, the external outline should have assumed a conical form, which might have rendered it as pleasing as it is now awkward. We have no instance of a circular building carried out by Italian architects according to their own principles sufficiently far to enable us to judge what they were capable of in this style, unless perhaps it be the tombs of the Scaligers at Verona. These take the circular or polygonal form appropriate to tombs, but are on so small a scale that they might rather be called crosses than mausolea; and though illustrating all the best principles of Italian design, and evincing an exuberance of exquisite ornament, they can hardly be regarded as important objects of high art. It is only from small buildings like these that we may recover the principles of this art as practised in Italy. Not being, like the Northern styles, a progressive national effort, but generally an individual exertion, if the first architect died during the progress of a larger building, no one knew exactly how he had intended to finish it, and its completion was entrusted to the caprice and fancy of some other man, which he generally indulged, wholly regardless of its incongruity with the work of his predecessor. [Illustration: 513. Baptistery, Parma. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.] [Illustration: 514. Baptistery at Parma, half Section, half Elevation. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.] TOWERS. The Italians in the age of pointed architecture were hardly more successful in their towers than in their other buildings, except that a tower, from its height, must always be a striking object, and, if both massive and high, cannot fail to have a certain imposing appearance, of which no clumsiness on the part of the architect can deprive it. Such towers as the Asinelli and Garisenda at Bologna possess no more architectural merit than the chimneys of our factories. Most of those subsequently erected were better than these, but still the Italians never caught the true idea of a spire.