architect, Bertolino da Novara, disputed his opinion and persuaded the Duke that all was well. Mignot was dismissed and condemned to replace what he had already pulled down in conformity with his own ideas. So the battle raged for years. It had a negative rather than positive result on the building, which progressed on the lines already laid down, but without receiving any impress of individual thought or genius. In its complete state to-day it shows, with all its immensity, a poverty of ideas, both within and without, which no wealth of ornamentation can hide. It rose with great rapidity at first, in response to the energy and will of the prince. In 1392 the walls had reached the full height of the side aisles, and all the pillars of the interior were already standing. That forest of lofty shafts soaring to dim heights, in which we wander to-day, astonished and awed, must once have enclosed the puny mortal form and the immeasurable spirit of the first and greatest Duke of Milan. His death in 1402 robbed the great enterprise of vitality and inspiration. In the misfortunes of Giovanmaria’s reign, both funds and encouragement lacked, and the general mediocrity of the builders was equally blighting to the progress of the work. The local architects had by this time obtained undisputed charge of it, and the clamour of controversy had died down. Sons had succeeded to their fathers’ posts, and continued slowly in the old track. By the time Francesco Sforza attained the Dukedom, in 1450, general interest in the Cathedral was much diminished. Architectural ideas were changing. The Renaissance was begun. The great Tuscan masters, summoned to Milan by this Duke and his predecessor, had recalled to the Lombard builders those classic principles native to Italy and long forgotten under the Gothic influences of the Middle Ages. The earlier Sforza sovereigns used their patronage to raise new churches, and it was not till the fervent artistic atmosphere of the end of the century had developed a certain eclecticism in cultured minds that the Duomo received a new impetus from Lodovico il Moro.