The columns in the nave are of different sizes and styles, and the capitals, most of them of pure Corinthian, are nearly all varied. The richness of originality and design shows to great advantage amidst the simplicity which exists on every side, and the freedom from an abundance of side-altars and--on the whole--from tawdriness of ornaments and paper flowers adds to the effect and dignity of the scene in a most grateful manner. A fine side-altar is to be noticed on the right going up the church, with four columns of reddish-brown marble all carved out of a single block, and resting on a lion and an ox, and dating from the fourteenth century. The walls are all of brick and of that picturesque stone known as “tufo” which we have had occasion to remark in nearly all the principal buildings in Verona. This “tufo” must be cut from the quarries in summer, when it hardens into such solidarity as to make it well-nigh everlasting. Should it be cut in winter its porous qualities remain and assert themselves, and it perishes and crumbles away in a short while. There can be little doubt that at one time the walls were all covered with frescoes, and even now many a one remains to testify to the piety and art that marked the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Layard points this out in his valuable work so often referred to in these pages. He says:[63] “Like other Italian cities, Verona possessed, from a [Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ZENO, VERONA] very early period, and before the revival of the arts in the thirteenth century, artists who decorated churches and public buildings with rude wall-paintings. Such early works are still to be seen in the ancient church of S. Zeno. They have no particular character or style to distinguish them from other productions of a similar kind.” The balustrade that divides the nave from the choir and that stands above the arches over the crypt has on it a fine row of figures of our Lord and the twelve Apostles, a work that probably belongs to the end of the thirteenth century, or to even earlier days.