[M.14L]                                                               [M.14]	Milan.  St Ambrogio  Monza	14
                                                                      
                                                                      Baldacchini	The Baldacchino of St Ambrogio is a most curious instance of
                                                                      		the first expansion of the Gk. temple into the Gothic niche p 35l
                                                                      		N.  It has the [diagram] of the Gk. temple turned out, like a plume
                                                                      		of feathers, a, and carried by a little capital of an angle shaft
                                                                      		b; which has a projecting bird at its base c c already showing
                                                                      Gargoyles	the Gothic tendency to the Gargoyle:  The capital d is very
                                                                      		curious, from its sudden reduction of the square abacus to the
                                                                      		cylinder by means of the round backed clumsy leaves under
                                                                      		the volutes, (barbarously formed of two rude fillets once turned) 
                                                                      		while the basket pattern is rudely drawn by mere incisions. 
                                                                      		The angle of this gable is considerably larger than 90:  the shafts
                                                                      		are massy & smooth, of porphyry, and have no base.
                                                                      Late Gothic of	(Lecco 1st November)  A glorious drive from Milan - view
                                                                      Monza		of Monte Rosa the finest I have ever seen, some five miles beyond
                                                                      		Monza;  then the Resegone and the great pyramid which I
                                                                      		find is to the right east of the lake of Lecco;  over soft wooded hills, 
                                                                      		Monza is remarkable for its engrafting of renaissance feeling
                                                                      		on the Round arch:  it is, as I believed, deserving of notice
                                                                      		as a separate school of Gothic, never developed: The main idea of
                                                                      		the front is the surrounding a wheel circular window with a square, divided
                                                                      		into square pannels, the ribs dividing the pannels cut deep, & enriched
                                                                      		with exquisite classical mouldings: and each pannel filled with a
                                                                      		circular tracery or star:  Rose windows may evidently be fitly associated

[Version 0.05: May 2008]