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                                                                      MILAN  ST AMBROSIO    MONYA
                                                                      
                                                                      Baldacchini	The Baldacchion of St Ambrozio is a most curious
                                                                      instance of the first expansion of the Gk. temple into
                                                                      the Gothic niche p 35 1 N.  It has the          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 
                                                                      Gargoyles		showing the Gothic tendency to the Gar[n]goyle:  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 more incisions.  The angle of 
                                                                      gable is considerably larger than 90:  the shafts
                                                                      are massy and smooth, of porphyry, and have no base.
                                                                      Late Gothic of  (Lucco 1st November)  A glorious drive from Milan -
                                                                      Monya		view of Monte Rosa the finest I have ever seen, some
                                                                      five miles beyond Monya;  then the Resegone and the great pyramid which I find is to the right east of the
                                                                      lake of Lucco;  over soft wooded hills, Monya is remark-
                                                                       able for its engrafting of renaissance fooling 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 cir-
                                                                      cular window with a square, divided into square pannels,
                                                                      the ribs dividing the pannels cut deep and enriched
                                                                      with exquisite classical mouldings:  and each pannel
                                                                      filled with a circular tracery or star:  Rose windows
                                                                      may evidently be fityl associated

[Version 0.05: May 2008]