There are many churches in Cremona, all more or less appearing to be
founded upon the work in the transepts of the cathedral, but generally
very inferior to them in merit.
San Domenico has a west front singularly like theirs, but debased in its
detail. It has, however, a very fine campanile, lofty, very simple, and
pierced with pointed windows in each stage, one above the other. The
interior is completely modernized, and not worth notice.
SS. Agostino and Giacomo in Breda is another church of the same class,
with a west front which is again a very bad second edition of the
cathedral, and which has been horribly mutilated and modernized inside.
It is, however, to be remembered gratefully for a most lovely picture by
Perugino, representing the Blessed Virgin with Our Lord seated, with
SS. Augustine and James on either side. The Virgin is very calm,
dignified, unearthly, and very simple and stately. Our Blessed Lord, in
her arms, has perhaps rather too much the character of an ordinary
infant; and the two saints have more than is quite pleasant of the bend
in their figures of which he was so fond; the heads stooping forward,
and the knees considerably bent, are a little too evidently straining
towards a reverential posture. Such a criticism is a bold one to venture
upon with the recollection of so glorious a picture fresh in my
mind--one from which I really derived intense pleasure. The date of this
very fine work is A.D. 1494.
Sta. Agata is another church which still has its old campanile intact,
with round-arched windows, very simple and not large. The church which
has been built against it tells its story so well, that at first we all
mistook it for a theatre! So much for Classic symbolism.
Another church, dedicated in honour of Sta. Margherita, is a very poor
erection of brick, with a simple campanile. One or two other churches we
saw with fair brick campanili, which were not otherwise remarkable; and
one there was, San Luca, close to the Milan gate, which seemed to be
very singular in its arrangements. It had a projecting western porch,
with its columns supported on beasts; and at the north-west angle an
octagonal building of brick, of exceedingly late date, which appeared to
be a baptistery.
I enjoyed the architectural remains in Cremona very much indeed: its
rich array of buildings in elaborate brick-work is very striking; and
the campanile of the cathedral, towering up high above the many other
steeples, combines well with them in the general views, and helps to
convert into a fine-looking city what is, perhaps, in its streets and
houses generally, very far from being anything of the kind. The way in
which the old walls and towers of the Palazzo Publico combine with the
steeple of the cathedral is extremely fine, a large piazza a short
distance to the west of the palazzo affording perhaps the best point of
view.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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