A large quadrangle is formed by the buildings, which has a cloister on two sides, and traces of another cloister on a third side now built up. The cloister still remaining on the cast side is ancient and on a large scale; it opens to the quadrangle with simple pointed arches resting upon heavy piers, and a row of piers running down the centre divides it into two portions, so that it may be judged that its size is very considerable. The groining has transverse and diagonal ribs, the former being very remarkable, and, as not unfrequently seen in good Italian work, slightly ogeed; not, that is to say, regular ogee arches, but ordinary arches with the slightest suggestion only of an ogee curve in the centre. Of the external portion of the building the west front is the most perfect, and must always have been the finest; it consists of a building containing in the upper story five windows, the centre being the largest, and possibly once the Ringhiera, to the south of which rises the great belfry of rough stone, and beyond that a wide building with traces--but no more--of many of the original windows; north of the building with the five windows is a very beautiful composition executed almost entirely in finely-moulded bricks; it has an exquisite door with some traces of fresco in its tympanum, executed mainly in stone, of which I give a drawing, and a magnificent brick rose window, above which is a brick cornice, which continues over the remainder of the west front and along the whole of the north side. [Illustration: DETAIL OF CIRCULAR WINDOW--BROLETTO, BRESCIA.] [Illustration: DOORWAY--BROLETTO, BRESCIA.] [Illustration: BRICK CORNICE--BROLETTO, BRESCIA.] The size of the building is prodigious, and certainly the detail of all the parts (excepting perhaps the cornice, which is of the common arcaded kind) is most beautiful and valuable. The brickwork is so good and characteristic that I have given several sketches of it. All the arches have occasional voussoirs of stone, and the centre of the arch is always marked by a key-stone, and these are sometimes slightly carved to distinguish them from the other stone voussoirs. The abaci are of brick, moulded and very varied. The doorway given in the woodcut on the preceding page has stone jambs, caps and bases, lintel and outer arch, the label and cusps being of terra-cotta; above this the whole of this portion of the front is of brick, and very admirably built. [Illustration: SAN FRANCESCO--BRESCIA.] Of the churches of Brescia there seem to be but few of any interest; that of San Francesco, of whose west front I give a sketch, is the best, and, though not of uncommon design, is worth notice; the mixture of white and black [Illustration: 9. BROLETTO--BRESCIA. Details of Archivolts]