Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages they retained their affection for the original rectangular form, making their towers as broad at the summit as at the base. With very few exceptions, they are without buttresses, or any projection on the angles, to aid in giving them even an appearance of support. In consequence, when a spire was placed on such an edifice it always fitted awkwardly. The art by which a tower was prepared for its termination, first by the graduated buttresses at its base, then by the strongly marked vertical lines of its upper portion, and above all by the circle of spirelets at the top, out of which the central spire shot up as an absolute necessity of the composition—this art, so dear and so familiar to the Northern builders, was never understood by the Italians. If they, on the contrary, placed an octagon on their square towers, it looked like an accident for which nothing was prepared, and the spire was separated from it only by bold horizontal cornices, instead of by vertical lines, as true taste dictated. [Illustration: 515. View of the Duomo at Prato. (From Wiebeking.)] In fact, the Italians seem to have benefited less by the experience or instruction of their Northern neighbours in tower-building than in any other feature of the style, and to have retained their old forms in these after they had abandoned them in other parts of their churches. The typical tower of its class is the Torracio of Cremona. It is a monumental tower commenced in 1296 to commemorate a peace made between Cremona and the neighbouring states after a long and tedious contest for supremacy. It is not an ecclesiastical edifice, but partakes, therefore, like those of St. Mark, Venice, and of Modena, more of the character of a civic belfry than of a church tower, such as those previously mentioned. It is the highest and largest, and consequently, according to the usual acceptation of the term the finest, of Italian towers. Its whole height is 396 ft., about two-thirds of which is a square ungainly mass, without either design or ornament of any importance. On this is placed an octagon and spire, which, though in themselves perhaps the best specimens of their class in Italy, have too little connection either in design or dimensions with the tower on which they stand. [Illustration: 516. Torracio at Cremona. (From Gally Knight.)] The celebrated tower of the Ghirlandina at Modena is, perhaps, one of the best to enable us to compare these Italian towers with the Cis-Alpine ones, since it possesses a well-proportioned spire, which is found in few of the others. From its date it belongs to the second division of the subject, having been commenced in the 13th and finished in the 14th century; but, as before remarked, there is no line of distinction between the round-arched and pointed-arched styles in Italy, and though this campanile seems to be wholly without any pointed forms, we may describe it here.