Another monument of Milan’s republican days, and of her noble struggles for liberty in the twelfth century, is the old Porta Nuova, often called the Portone,—the massive arches at the end of the Via Manzoni. This is one of the gates built in defiance of Barbarossa in 1171. It was originally decorated with rude sculptures representing the return of the Milanese, after the destruction of the city in 1162, and with a figure of Barbarossa seated cross-legged on a devil; these are now in the Castello. The bas-relief with two Roman heads, still to be seen on the gate, is said to be a relic of the older gate corresponding to this one in the Roman walls. The old towers have been pulled down. CHAPTER XIII _Gothic and Renaissance Buildings_ “O tempo consumatore delle cose e o invidiosa antichità.”—LEONARDO DA VINCI. A campanile here and there about the city, as for example those of S. Gottardo and S. Marco, already described, the richly decorated belfry of St. Antonio—near the Ospedale Maggiore—and but little else, remains in Milan of the graceful Gothic brick building of the period, early fourteenth century, when Azzo Visconte beautified the city with many new edifices. The Duomo stands as the great monument of Gian Galeazzo Visconte’s time, half a century or so later. [Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO BORROMEO] From the beginning of the fifteenth century dates the Palazzo Borromeo, a rare example, still surviving, of the domestic building of the Gothic period. The fine pointed doorway is enriched with sculptured mouldings of beautiful design, into which at the top is introduced the heraldic device of the House, the Camel couched in a basket, emblematic of the patience and the far journeyings of the _Bonromei_, the Good Pilgrims. The cortile, which is exceedingly picturesque, has porticoes with pointed arches of wide span, resting on low octagonal pillars with simple capitals of stiff foliage. On one side, where there is no portico, the windows are richly ornamented with terra-cotta mouldings, and are of a somewhat later date. They have been recently restored, and the fresco decoration in the wall appears too freshly repainted. The Bit, also a device of the Borromei, is moulded beneath the windows, and the motto Humilitas, surmounted by a crown—a suggestive juxtaposition—is repeated everywhere in the painted pattern. Fragments of early fifteenth century frescoes have been uncovered on other parts of the walls in the cortile. In one corner we see a company of sweetfaced, pensive ladies, with the shaven foreheads and turban-like head-dresses and coiffures of the period, gathered on a ship, which a reverend Signor, in crimson cloak and cap, seems to await at a landing-place, a page without beginning or end of one of those entrancing stories of Ursula and her maidens, or some other saint, or of errant knights and beautiful princesses which, figured thus upon the walls, fed the romantic spirit