of mediæval households. More complete and of great charm are some frescoes in a chamber on the ground floor of the palace, which visitors are allowed to see. They depict the pleasant country life of the Milanese nobles in the fifteenth century—gaily attired ladies and gentlemen, with high head-dresses and broad hats, seated round a table under a tree in a wide landscape, playing the game of cards called _tarocco_, others dancing, a lady with an astonishingly tall form and tiny head performing a _pas seul_. These paintings suggest to some extent Pisanello’s style, and are doubtless by one of the many painters—Michelino da Besozzo, the Zavatarii, and others, who were covering the walls of the Viscontean palaces in Milan and elsewhere with scenes of the same sort, all now long vanished. The Borromeo Art Collection will be spoken of in a later chapter. Buildings of the middle and second half of the fifteenth century, the period of the Sforza, those great patrons of architecture and all the arts, are much more numerous. Sta. Maria del Carmine, a little to the south-west of the Brera, was built under the direction of Guiniforte Solari about 1446, and is the first of the transitional period from Gothic to Renaissance. It has a modern façade, and the nave is the only original part, the choir having been rebuilt late in the sixteenth century. In a chapel on the north side there is a Madonna by Luini, much spoilt. [Illustration: CORTILE OF PALAZZO BORROMEO] Sta. Maria Incoronata, further north, near Porta Garibaldi, consists of two churches in one, that on the right built by the Augustinian monks, with the help of Francesco Sforza, in 1451, the other by the Duchess Bianca Maria ten years later. The twin building is an interesting memorial of the closely united ducal pair. It has been much modernised. The exterior of the north side and of the apse, and the tower, with its rich terra-cotta decoration, make a very picturesque mass of brick building. Inside the church is the fifteenth century tomb of Gabriele da Cotignola, brother of Francesco Sforza and Archbishop of Milan, with his recumbent effigy set up against the wall. Also monuments to some of the Bossi family, with finely carved profile heads, perhaps by one of the Busti; a monument to Giovanni Tolentino, attributed to Fusina, and one or two other sculptured memorials, also of Renaissance style.