Red is used for the arcades under the cornices, for the middle order of the rose window, and the inner order of the main arches. Elsewhere the marble is white, except the one grey course below the principal string. The whole of the lower stage is open below on all sides and groined--in brick, I think--though it is now plastered; indeed, save the parts already described as being of marble in the principal fronts, the whole of this building is built of red brick. Behind the open ground story there remains a portion of an internal quadrangle, which, incomplete as it is, shews, nevertheless, the same delicate attention to detail which is conspicuous on the façades. I know hardly any detail of Italian brickwork which is so refined and good as that in the arches and some cusped circles between them in this quadrangle. [Illustration: BRICKWORK--PALAZZO PUBLICO, PIACENZA.] I have seen this building, full as it is of eccentric departures from ordinary rules and customs--piers being placed over openings, and round and pointed arches used indifferently--quoted for our benefit as a remarkable example of a public building erected in the Middle Ages in the most regular and formal fashion! It is, on the contrary, if the plain truth is to be spoken, an example of a very bold disregard of such fashions indulged in without any detrimental effect. Piacenza cannot boast of any very fine churches. They have been much ruined internally by modern alterations, and externally they do not seem ever to have been very attractive. The cathedral is a Lombard church of fine size, and with some good points. There are three western porches of two stages in height, according to the usual Lombard fashion. The doors are rudely sculptured; that in the centre with the signs of the Zodiac, and the northern door with the Annunciation, Salutation, and other subjects on its lintel. The columns rest on monsters, griffins, and men. The whole front is now finished with one large low-pitched gable, which has an arcade stepped up to suit its cornice. This is, however, a fourteenth-century alteration of the older church, as is also a rose window in the centre. A brick tower of late date rises at the north-west angle of the church, and is finished with a circular spire built of round-ended bricks. The external walls of the Lombard church were all built of stone or marble with shallow buttresses; the windows were very simple, and the effect was mainly due to the fine open arcade below the eaves, carried now on shafts, now on figures. The north-east view is very picturesque, owing to the number of angles and apsidal terminations which are seen together. These are produced by a plan of most unusual character, the transepts as well as the choir being finished with three apses, and an octagonal brick lantern rising out of the centre. Internally the cathedral, in spite of alterations, is still very interesting. The nave opens with eight arches to the aisles and