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The circular ornaments in the spandrils of the arches are very pleasing and of fanciful variety. We see in the interior of this cathedral a confusion of styles a conflict of grace and beauty with rude and grotesque work. The interior is disfigured by some gaudy colouring under the new cupola, and the effect of the west end is, as usual, ruined by the organ loft.
The last flush of evening has died in the west, and the scattered worshippers are indistinctly seen by the dim lights, which, bringing out into strong relief the parts immediately adjacent to the massive yet graceful pillars to which they are attached, throw the rest of the interior into deeper gloom, brought into sharp contrast with the illuminated portions, by intersecting arch, clustered shaft, and all the endless intricacies of Gothic architecture; exuberant with profusely decorated spandrils, sculptured bosses, light flying buttresses, and delicate fan-like tracery.
The spandrils are filled with Gothic leafage, the bases and caps to the columns are early Renaissance, and the frieze is quite plain, with a dentilled cornice. The church is not interesting architecturally; the western façade is imitated from the cathedral, but it contains a crucifix brought from Bosnia by refugees after the battle of Kossovo.
Geometrical patterns of the rarest and most fanciful device; scrolls of acanthus foliage, and traceries of tendrils; Cupids swinging in festoons of vines; angels joining hands in dance, with fluttering skirts and windy hair, and mouths that symbol singing; grave faces of old men and beautiful profiles of maidens leaning from medallions; wide-winged genii filling the spandrils of cloister arches, and cherubs clustered in the rondure of rose-windows ornaments like these, wrought from the plastic clay, and adapted with true taste to the requirements of the architecture, are familiar to every one who has studied the church front of Crema, the cloisters of the Certosa, the courts of the Ospedale Maggiore at Milan, or the public palace of Cremona.
Near the altar we can perhaps trace the style of Bartolommeo Suardi in an Annunciation painted on the spandrils that heroic style, large and noble, known to us by the chivalrous S. Martin and the glorified Madonna of the Brera frescoes.
In the tympanum is a beautiful Madonna and Child, and two round medallions with heads adorn the spandrils above the arch. Beyond each pilaster is a canted side joining the porch to the wall and having a large niche and figure near the top.
In the spandrils of the arches are figures of Victories, and of old in the tympanum we might have seen Theodoric on horseback. Within, the arches are hung with curtains. On the extreme right is the great gate of the palace in the wall of the city, flanked on either side by towers.
The ground of it is gold, the sculpture in the spandrils is not more than an inch and a half deep, rarely so much.
The mass of the building being of Istrian stone, a depth of about two inches is left within the mouldings of the arches, rough hewn, to receive the slabs of fine marble composing the patterns. I cannot say whether the design was ever completed, or the marbles have been since removed, but there are now only two spandrils retaining their fillings, and vestiges of them in a third.
§ VII. The triangular spaces on the flanks of the arch are called Spandrils, and if the masonry of these should be found, in any of its forms, too heavy for the arch, their weight may be diminished, while their strength remains the same, by piercing them with circular holes or lights.
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