A number of the town-halls or Brolettos in the smaller towns still remain unaltered, or nearly so, and retain all the peculiarities of their original design. The Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona for instance (Woodcut No. 521) only requires its lower arcades to be again opened to present all its original features, which resemble in almost every respect those of the palazzo at Piacenza above mentioned, except that the latter has five arches below and six windows above, instead of two and three as here shown. This building is wholly of brick, like most other civic buildings in the North of Italy. Sometimes, as at Piacenza, they are of stone below and brick in the upper storeys. Sometimes, though rarely, they are entirely faced with party-coloured marbles like the Broletto at Como (Woodcut No. 522), which, though not extensive, is a very beautiful specimen of the best form of civic architecture of the best age in the North of Italy, and standing as it does between the cathedral on the one hand and its own rude old belfry on the other, makes up an extremely pleasing group.[1] [Illustration: 522. Broletto at Como. (From Street.)] One of the most important buildings of this style is the Great Hospital, Milan. It was founded in the year 1456, and consequently belongs to an age when the style was dying out. It still retains more of the pointed style and of Gothic feeling than could have been found in any city farther south, or in any one less impregnated, as it were, with German blood and feeling. [Illustration: 523. Ornamental Brickwork from the Broletto at Brescia. (From Street.)] Almost all the windows in the part originally erected are pointed in form and divided by mullions. Their principal ornament consists of garlands of flowers interspersed with busts and masks and figures of Cupids, which surround the windows, or run along the string-courses. The whole of these are in terra-cotta, and make up a style of ornamentation as original as it is beautiful. It is besides purely local, and far superior to the best copies of Northern details, or to the misapplied forms of Gothic architecture which are so common in Italy. There is perhaps nothing in the North of Italy so worthy of admiration and study, as the way in which moulded bricks of various kinds are used for decoration, especially in the civic buildings, and also occasionally in the churches. Sublimity is not perhaps to be attained in brickwork; the parts are too small; and if splendour is aimed at, it may require some larger and more costly material to produce the desired effect; but there is no beauty of detail or of design on a small scale that may not be obtained by the use of moulded bricks, which are in themselves far more durable, and, if carefully burnt, retain their sharpness of outline longer, than most kinds of stone.