certainly most indescribable; and I confess to feeling a doubt, as I looked at it, whether it was not more akin to some fairy-like vision, such as one might see in dreams, than to any real and substantial erection of stone and mortar; for, indeed, to a mind educated in and accustomed to the traditions of northern Gothic, there is something so very _outré_ in the whole idea, something so startling in its novelty, that it is hard at first to know whether to admire or not. It is far from imposing in size, but yet, as it is looked at more and more carefully, it grows much and rapidly on one’s love, and at last imprints itself on the mind as a real work of art of a very beautiful and unusual kind, wrought out with an abundance of beautiful detail, but in such a way as to prevent its being possible that it could ever be absolutely reproduced or taken as a model. As you pace down the broad level space of the Piazza, the feeling of the strangeness of the whole scene increases. There are of course no horses, and no vehicles of any kind; it is a large square in which all the space is footpath, and on which, in addition to the many men who pace it rapidly with busy brow, or idly lounge whilst enjoying the weather and the place, hundreds of pigeons are constantly fluttering or walking about in quiet confidence, sure that they will not be molested by any one. And then, as one draws near to the church, it is easy to understand rather better than at first in what its real charm lies; this is no doubt before anything else in its beautiful colour; the whole front is shafted to a greater extent than almost any building I know, the shafts all rather heavy, but of marble of the richest kind; the groining of the seven entrance arches is filled with mosaics, and the walls are encrusted everywhere with marble. Instead of ordinary gables masking the roof, the front is finished with great ogee gables most extravagantly crocketed, and obviously a modern alteration of the original Romanesque finish; behind these a cluster of fourteenth-century cupolas completes the view. Of the seven arches which compose the façade, four have doorways; the outer arches on either side are very narrow, and answer in width to the kind of cloister which masks the church on the south, west, and north sides; and the central arch is much wider and loftier than the others, rising indeed so high as to break through the line of balustrading which runs across the front just above the other arches.