The Cathedral, dedicated to San Cyriaco, is a curious building, but not by any means beautiful. It was built by Margaritone, an architect of the thirteenth century. The roofs are so combined, that the whole rises in a sort of tent-like form not ungracefully, and it is crowned with a dome upon a lofty drum, the former being covered with varnished tiles of different colours. The porch is formed by an arch supported on columns, which again rest on figures of animals, and these are completely worked round, so as to exhibit the false bearing of the columns, in which probably the artist prided himself. As this porch has every appearance of being of the date of the church, we might at least fix a period in which these animal-propt columns were in fashion, but unfortunately we only know of Margaritone, that he died at the age of seventy-seven, and probably before the year 1300. I may add, that this church was not a production of his old age. The doorway is ornamented with a series of columns supporting arches; diminishing in width as they approach the opening: a very common arrangement in the later Norman and early Gothic. In this instance the arches are pointed. There is a small circular window over the porch, and a range of simple arches, forming part of the enrichment under the raking cornice. The inside forms a Greek cross, except that an addition to the further tribune has taken place in modern times, but as it has little to recommend it, I shall spare you the description. All the arches are circular, except those of the doorway already mentioned, and this exception does not include the porch, the arch of which is a semicircle. There is a curious little church or chapel at Ancona, dedicated to Santa Maria della Piazza Collegiata. The front is covered with small semicircular arches, each formed of one enriched moulding, and resting on little columns, imitated from the Corinthian. All the ornaments exhibit a good deal of Roman taste, but there is certainly nothing Roman in the disposition. The gable, instead of being carried up to a point, is cut off by a horizontal line. I do not know the date, but I should attribute it to the eleventh century, or early in the twelfth. There is little good in the civil or domestic architecture of Ancona, nor is there much to excite the attention of the antiquary, though some pointed arches and ornaments of the middle ages, may be observed among the later productions.