[M2.170L]                                                             [M2.170]									170
                                                                      			Lyons Cathedral
                                                                      
                                                                      		he constant overlapping of the circular bases separate
                                                                      		it from all Italian work as well as the richly clustered
                                                                      		pier.  The west front is of the time and style of the
                                                                      		North gate {transept} of Rouen   In its general arrangement
                                                                      		- placing of niches and filling of gables, it is so
                                                                      		totally inferior that I do not wonder it is so often
(x)  Much more might one say that of the apse;  which is              		passed with a glance;  in fact at first one would
marvellously harsh and meagre;  As compared either with               Apses. l	set it down as a very ugly facade in good style (x)
the apse of Frari or of St John and Paul, or with the lovely          		But on examining the work of the niches and pedestals
Romanesque apses of Verona it is like the pasteboard                  		I found it  by far the most wonderful I have yet seen
Gothic of a bazaar and well shows the superiority of the              		in northern Gothic  The pedestal filled with grotesques
buttress to the pier, where the former is the least                   		in the same way:  less able in sculpture but more wild and
contracted or undecorated.  I felt this still more at                 		curious in fancy than Rouen, and many of them much richer
Bourges, where the perfectly undecorated flying Buttresses            		in ornamentation the whole panel filled with a ground
have exactly the look of shores set to support a ship.                		of running foliage, like Italian (Can Mastino sarcophagus)
                                                                      		These of the central door are chiefly sacred
                                                                      		subjects - those of the lateral doors mostly grotesques -
                                                                      		but I put down from the lateral ones a few of the more
                                                                      		striking subjects.
                                                                      		1.   Elephant and castle:  Less graphic than the St Zeno one.
                                                                      		2.   A huge head walking on two legs turned backwards,
                                                                      		hoofed, the head has a horn behind with drapery over
                                                                      		it;  which ends in another  head like lord Brougham.
                                                                      		3.  A boar hunt, the boar under a tree very spirited.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]