To the west of the Broletto is a good open staircase (much like that in the Piazza dei Signori at Verona),[5] forming a portion of one side of the Piazza, and leading to the upper part of the buildings, and, I think, to the great clock-tower, which, gaunt and severe in its outline, undecorated and apparently uncared for, rears its great height of rough stone wall boldly against the sky, and groups picturesquely with the irregular buildings around it. I have omitted to notice that the whole of the Broletto, with the exception of the window-shafts, is executed in stone, and without any introduction of coloured material, so that it in no way competes with the exquisite piece of coloured construction which we have next to examine, immediately behind it. A few steps will take us under the open-arched and cool space beneath the Broletto, to the face of the north porch and baptistery of Sta. Maria Maggiore. This is a very fine early Romanesque[6] church, but with many additions and alterations on the outside, and so much modernized inside as to be quite uninteresting to any one who thinks good forms and good details necessary to good effect. The plan is cruciform, with apses to the choir, on the east and west sides of the south transept, on the east of the north transept, and at the west end of an additional north aisle; in all no less than five apsidal ends. The nave is of three bays with aisles, and to each transept have been added, in the fourteenth century, porches, thoroughly Italian in their whole idea, and novel to a degree in their effect upon an English eye. A domed chapel, erected as a sepulchral chapel by Bartolomeo Colleoni in the Renaissance style, on the north side of the nave, is most elaborately constructed of coloured marbles. The effect is too bizarre to be good; there is an entire absence of any true style in its design, and there is nothing which makes it necessary to criticize it with much minuteness.