The outward form of the church—the large Romanesque style—is in keeping with that great patriotic thought and resolve. It is essentially of the soil. The grand curves of the arches, the massive pillars, the sense of space and freedom seem the proper expression of the mediæval Lombard character, in their union of Latin breadth and clearness with the picturesque ruggedness, and the rich effects of light and shade of Northern building. Above all, the material—brick and stone, that fortunate combination which produces such glory and enchantment of colour—is peculiarly Lombard. The effect of it in St. Ambrogio is most beautiful and satisfying. Even the newness of much of the brick at the present time—crude evidence of restoration—cannot destroy the charm. [Illustration: SIDE AISLE OF ATRIUM, ST. AMBROGIO.] [Illustration: CAPITAL IN ATRIUM OF ST. AMBROGIO. ] The atrium or forecourt is surrounded on three sides by arcades supported on massive pillars. It is rather later in date than the façade of the church, which rises up in a wide gable, pierced with lofty round-headed openings above the shadow of the narthex or portico, triple-arched, which forms the eastern side of the atrium. On either hand of the church rises a campanile of characteristic Lombard type. The lower one is the Monks’ Tower, and dates from the eighth or ninth century. It is probably the first thing which the Benedictines built on entering into possession of the church in 783, bells being a necessity of the monastic ritual. The tall tower on the left, which, with its ornamental arcading and delicate ribs of brick and stone, shows an advance of some centuries on the simplicity of the older one, was built in 1128 by Archbishop Anselmo for the Canons, to vindicate the ancient rights of these, the original servants and custodians of the basilica, against the encroaching monks, who are said to have pulled down the pre-existing belfry of the secular priests. The struggles between these two bodies of secular and regular clergy, established side by side and sharing the privilege of serving the church, were very fierce and continuous through the Middle Ages. The monks are long gone now, and the Canons remain in peaceful possession of the altars and of the quiet courts and shrunken cloisters of the old place. Both towers have been restored in recent times. The atrium and façade have also been restored, but show more vestiges of the original work. In the fantastic sculptured imagery which ornaments the capitals of the great columns, in the curling foliage patterns of the friezes on archivolts and architraves, in the endless knots and intricate web of the ribbed stems upon the lintels and jambs and columns of the great middle doorway, in the grotesque beasts and human creatures which course up pillars, or writhe round capitals, we see the hand of the twelfth century craftsman still shaping the stone into the forms of religious symbolism, but expressing