The cathedral church of Verona is said to date from between the eighth and ninth centuries. The period of its erection cannot be stated with certainty, and beyond the fact that it was first dedicated to Sta. Maria Matricolata nothing definite relating to it can be affirmed. It was nearly completed in its primitive state in 806 under Bishop Rathold, though it was considerably heightened in after years. The building itself is a mixture of the Lombard style with Gothic and Italian introduced--a mixture eminently satisfactory in its results notwithstanding the divergence of style. Ruskin speaks of it as follows, when, after six months’ close study of Byzantine work in Venice, he came again to the Lombard work of Verona and Pavia. “(Verona)--Comparing the arabesque and sculpture of the Duomo here with St Mark’s, the first thing that strikes one is the low relief, the second the greater motion and spirit, with infinitely less grace and science. With the Byzantines, however rude the cutting, every line is lovely, and the animals or men are placed in any attitudes which secure ornamental effect, sometimes impossible ones, always severe, restrained, or languid. With the Romanesque workmen all the figures show the effort (often successful) to [Illustration: SOUTH DOOR OF THE DUOMO] express energetic action; hunting chiefly, much fighting, and both spirited; some of the dogs running capitally, straining to it, and the knights hitting hard, while yet the faces and drawing are in the last degree barbarous ... the Lombard building is as sharp, precise and accurate as that of St Mark’s is careless. The Byzantines seem to have been too lazy to have put their stones together; and, in general, my first impression on coming to Verona, after four months in Venice, is of the exquisitely neat masonry and perfect _feeling_ here; a style of Gothic formed by a combination of Lombard surface ornament with Pisan Gothic, than which nothing can possibly be more chaste, pure, or solemn.”[41] A temple dedicated to Minerva is said to have stood here originally, and traces of this can yet be seen, though in point of size there is no difference whatever between the Pagan temple of the past and the Christian church of to-day. The outside decoration of the apses is very beautiful, and is formed of a frieze of carved and decorated work running along the upper lines, and giving an idea of care and finish to the exterior that is very effective. The chief entrance in some ways recalls that of St Zeno. It consists of a beautiful canopied porch, with two columns resting on colossal griffins, while around are scrolls, and carvings, and devices, not of such interesting workmanship as those at St Zeno, though from some lines on the archivolt they claim to be the work of the same man, one Niccolŏ of the eleventh century. Those lines are as follows:-- “Artificem quarum qui sculpserit haec Nicolaum Hunc concurrentes laudent per saecula gentes.”[42]