From Cortona I proceeded to Arezzo, where there are the remains of an amphitheatre, but not of much consequence. The cathedral, and the church of the Pieve, interested me much more. The latter is a very singular building. The front has four stories of ornament, and the tower which arises from it at one angle, has five stories more, each of which has two double windows. The upper story of the front presents a range of thirty-three openings, and thirty-two little columns with fancy capitals; most of them are octangular, but some are cylindrical, and one is a statue, some of them have zigzag, and others spiral flutes. They stand on plinths of different sizes, and support a horizontal architrave. The next story is a series of twenty-five arches on twenty-four columns, very little, if at all, bigger than those above. There is equal or greater variety in their forms, for in addition to those above mentioned, we find one fasciculated shaft, and one covered with ascending leaves. Below this, is a range of thirteen larger arches, also on columns, with the same irregularity of shape; some standing on bases, with plinths, some without plinths, and some with neither. In this story there is a small wheel window. The lower range is of five arches only, of which the middle is the highest; there is a corbel over each spandril, which perhaps has supported a statue; and some unconnected, and irregularly disposed portions of ornament. You see from this account that the whole has amazingly the air of being made up of fragments, but it is difficult to imagine where such a multitude of different things in so small a scale could have been found. The Aretines say, that the building as it stands, was an ancient temple, which it certainly was not. Internally, the vaulting is composed of a mixture of semicircular, and of very obtusely pointed arches, like some of that at the church of St. Mark at Venice, and probably it is nearly of the date of the front galleries of that edifice (about 1100). The nave is not vaulted. The back of the choir shows the beautiful effect sometimes produced by a range of small columns placed over a high wall, either plain, or slightly recessed. I would not engage that in many cases, this strong contrast should not be disagreeable, but I think it succeeds best when, as in this instance, the plan is circular. The cathedral is a fine Gothic building; that is, fine as an edifice of the Italian Gothic, but not to be compared with the best examples of that style in France and England. It is very dark, but that darkness, the first time I visited it, set off to great advantage a side chapel of this form, [Illustration: Illustration of side chapel]