3 10 4
MILAN. DUOMO.
Chamouni, Wednesday 17th October, 1849. I climbed yesterday afternoon
an hour up the Breven to my old friend the cleft-stone
and above, nearly as high again: the sun and air both
so warm as to render the work oppressive: Two main
points I noted on the opposite aiguilles. That the
excessive sharp peak of Chamnoy is on this side quite broad
at the base, nearly of the form a opp: showing how safe-
ly it may long stand, though from the Montanvert it looks
like a lower head: the other that the deep gaps which
seem from the valley to separate the aiguilles are for
the most part gaps of perspective: drawn by the re-
tiring lines of the advanced buttresses: and that the
separation between the masses is in reality very shallow
in proportion to their height, i.e. c opposite instead
of a b.
Milan, Friday 27th Oct. The cathedral is a mixture of
of perpendicular with flamboyant: the latter being
peculiarly barbarous and angular, owing to its being en-
grafted, not on a pure, but a very early penetrative Gothic
thus the ruling lines of the barbarous flamboyant rose,
fig 1. p 29, as given in plain bands at fig 2 (too few
observe: the upper half inch being true:) are evidently
directly derived from old Byzantine Bandwork, and as such a[n]
small scale would be very agreeable: on a large scale,
forming as they do the meagre traceries of the roses of
the west windows of the intermediate aisles
[Version 0.05: May 2008]