The finest portion is a long building of vast height, and retaining more or less of Gothic work throughout, but especially remarkable for the range of windows in its upper stage. Its front faces on one side towards the Piazza di San Pietro, and on the other with a very nearly similar elevation towards the Piazza del Pallone, one of the courts in the vast palace of the Gonzagas, of which it forms a part. This building is said to have been commenced about A.D. 1302 by Guido Buonacolsi, surnamed Bottigella, third sovereign of Mantua, and this date quite agrees with the character of all the detail. The interior has been completely modernized, mainly by Ginlio Romano, who carried out very extensive works in other parts of the palace. The windows in the upper stage of this portion of the palace deserve notice as being about the most exquisite examples of their class that I anywhere met with, though those in the campanile of Sant’Andrea, hard by, are only second to them. The main arch is of pure pointed form, and executed in brick with occasional voussoirs of stone--one of which forms a key-stone--and over it there is a label of brick effectively notched into a kind of nail-head. The same kind of label is carried round the arches of the window-openings, and down the jamb as a portion of the jamb-mould, and again round a pierced and cusped circle of brick in the tympanum. In the sub-arches the key-stones and cusps are formed of stone. The whole of the jambs are of brick, but instead of a monial there is a circular stone shaft, with square capital and band and base. The whole is so exceedingly simple as to be constructed with ease of ordinary materials, and it is quite equal in effect to any stone window of the same size that I have ever seen. The accompanying drawings will, I trust, sufficiently explain the merit of this magnificent piece of brickwork. The arcading upon which it rests, and the perfectly unbroken face of the whole, are very characteristic of Italian work. On the opposite side of the Piazza di San Pietro is the cathedral, the only ancient portion of which is a small part of the south aisle. It is of very elaborate character, entirely built in brick, and so far as it remains appears to have been part of an aisle finished with a succession of gables, one to each bay, a common arrangement in German and French churches, where additional aisles are so frequently met with, but uncommon in Italy, where, as in England, churches have seldom more than one aisle on either side of the nave.[60] The brickwork in this small fragment of the cathedral, though elaborate, was not pleasing, being of rather late date. On the same side of the Piazza as the cathedral is the Vescovato, a large pile of ancient building, but very much modernized. There still remain, however, some good three-light windows in the upper stage, inclosed within a circular arch, without tracery, and divided by marble shafts. Some [Illustration: 40. MANTUA