The cloister on the south side of the church is very large and good, and some fine arches occur in it, composed of black and yellow marble with bricks of varied colour introduced. On its east side three open arches, filled in with a double iron grille, open into what was, no doubt, the chapter-house. Going from this into a second cloister to the east of it, no one can fail to be struck by the extreme picturesqueness and novelty of the view. In the foreground is the simple [Illustration: 21. SANT’ANTONIO, PADUA. p. 147.] pointed-arched and open arcade of the cloister; above this rise the gable of the south transept and the eastern apse with its surrounding aisle, and two lofty octagonal brick turrets, on each side of the apse, which look like minarets from Cairo, and combined with the collections of domes on the roof give a completely Eastern effect to the whole view. If, however, the detail of this striking building is examined, one can hardly be satisfied. There is throughout, as there so often is in Italy, a sad want of skill and neatness in the adjustment of details as compared to what is common in northern Gothic buildings. This indeed is a feature of all the works of the Pisani, and gives them the character--so common and so fatal in modern works--of being to a great extent the work of assistants and not of the master. Nothing can be much more clumsy than the provision for the steps leading to the turrets, nor weaker than the rectangular tracery inserted in the circular window of the transept. This, however, is a work of the middle of the fourteenth century, and Nicola Pisano, even if he were the first architect of the church, would not be responsible for it. I cannot say that I was at all satisfied either with the internal or external effect of the church--though it must be confessed that, when seen from a distance, there is excessive grandeur in the grouping of the multitude of domes, with the steep cone rising in the centre, and giving point and emphasis to the whole.[28] The arrangement of the windows and arches round the apse, for instance, is confused and weak to a degree; and I do not feel that Nicola Pisano has fairly settled the question of the adaptation of the dome to pointed buildings by his treatment of the domes here. The question is still, I think, an open one; and though it may be doubted whether with our present opportunities it will soon be satisfactorily answered, I still feel that it would not be difficult to answer it far more successfully than has been done here. In the evening we heard some very fine music of ancient character in Sant’Antonio, after which there was a sermon; and though it was a week-day, there was a large congregation, very attentive and quiet.