house at various times, but in the sketch which I give I have shewn so
much only of it as appeared to belong to the original foundation. In its
construction pointed and round arches have been used quite
indiscriminately, and in some of the arches the depth of the voussoirs
increases towards the centre of the arch. This is a rather favourite
Italian device, and I was always as much pleased as at the first with
the effect of strength and good proportion which it produces. Most of
the arches are built with alternate voussoirs of brick and stone, but
beyond the outside line of the brick and stone arch there is invariably
a line of very thin bricks laid all round the arch, delicately defining
without pretending to strengthen the main arch, just as a label does
with us. I noticed too, generally, that this thin brick was of a
deeper, better colour than the other bricks, which are seldom any better
than the common English bricks, and are always built with very coarse
joints. This house is finished at the top with the quaint forked or
swallow-tailed Ghibelline battlement, so characteristic of Verona, and
which, as we found afterwards, was in use at Mantua, Cremona, and for
some distance south of Verona, but which I first met with in Verona.
[Illustration: WINDOWS--OLD HOUSE, VERONA.]
[Illustration: BRICK BATTLEMENT--VICCOLO CAVALETTO, VERONA.]
I am not pretending to journalize regularly, but rather
[Illustration: 14.--COURT-YARD OF OLD HOUSE, VERONA. Page 106.]
to note down the remarkable points of the various buildings as they
occur to me, and, before I forget that it was Sunday when I was first
looking at the Veronese churches, I must mention that in the evening we
found our way to the great Piazza di Brà, surrounded by barracks and
public buildings, and containing the vast Roman amphitheatre for which
Verona is so celebrated. Its size is prodigious, and, except in the
outer circuit of wall, it is nearly perfect; indeed, it is impossible to
look upon such a vast structure without a great admiration for the men
who ventured to conceive and carry it into execution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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