the parish, of which ground-plans are given; and also sufficient notice of its natural features, statistics, and genealogies of the chief proprietors.

The article on Llandderfel is mainly a record of the religious houses, chapels, and ancient mansions which once existed in the parish. Of the former there seem to have been an unusual proportion; but scarcely any vestiges now remain. The accompanying view of the parish church represents a small church, with Third-Pointed windows, rather superior to the common Welsh type.

We are much gratified to find from one of the notices that a sufficient sum has already been raised to restore the tower and transepts of Brecon Priory Church.

THE CHANCEL-STAIRCASES AT COBHAM AND EASTLING.

To the Editor of the Ecclesiologist.

Islington, April, 1861. SIR,-Seeing in this month's number a letter from Mr. Coates, relative to a spiral staircase being discovered in the south-east wall of S. Mary Magdalene, Cobham, Kent, I beg to inform you that a discovery of a similar staircase was made in 1857 at the restoration of S. Mary, Eastling, Kent. It strikes me as being peculiar that there should have been two discovered, and both in Kent.

The staircase at Eastling consists of some nine or ten steps with a rise of about 12 in. each: it commences about 2 ft. from the floor, and makes (as Mr. Coates tells us the one at Cobham does) but half a turn when the wall stops it; it is only about 2 ft. in width, and so could not, I think, have been used by the general public.

Hoping some of your correspondents may be able to clear up these apparent mysteries,

I remain, sir,

Yours truly,

C. KEMP.

CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL.

To the Editor of the Ecclesiologist.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,-Will you allow me space for a few lines concerning the restoration of Chichester spire? I want to call the attention of the Committee to a remarkable opinion of Professor Willis, and to guard them against following the advice given in his lecture on the fall of the spire reported in your April Number. He said, "he hoped they would not be satisfied without a complete restoration, not allowing a consideration as to whether this or that was ugly or not in the building, now a ruin, to have weight with them. He trusted they would restore the old spire actually as before," &c.

The fine old spire of Chichester is now a thing of the past, and the restorers can never bring it back again. By copying they can only obtain a copy-a lifeless copy-a spire without the vitality either of mediæval or nineteenth century work. The old spire was one of great beauty, and is besides interwoven with all the associations of the neighbourhood, and dear to the hearts of all the people; and, as such, it should be the model for its successor; but servile copyism will only end in failure. There are two points from which the question may be viewed the antiquarian and the artistic. Professor Willis is an antiquarian; and, as such, he loved the old spire, and will value drawings and models of it in proportion as he feels sure they are correct; but this new spire can never gain a higher point of interest than this. The drawings, or a model placed in the Architectural Museum, will be of equal value to what they are going to spend £50,000 upon.

There is one main feature to which I will confine my remarks. Is it really intended to rebuild the four Romanesque piers and arches? For if they are rebuilt as they were they will be in time as unsound as the old ones; but if they are rebuilt with thorough sound masonry there will be a serious waste of material. Besides, is it not a point for consideration that there has never yet been a successful piece of Romanesque copyism? and the probability is that the work at Chichester will be as unsuccessful as that in other places. Whether it is that the effect of Romanesque work is greatly produced by the surface and colour which time alone can give, or that there is an entirely different spirit of work into which we cannot enter, it is certain that we never do get the spirit of Romanesque in new work; and it is probable that they will fail just as much at Chichester as elsewhere. If they attempt something more consonant with our own times they will have lighter and stronger piers and arches. They will block up their space less, and thus render it more useable; and, what is more, they will be able to put some thought into it, and thus the work will speak the mind of man. By copyism they are sure to fail. By studying the thing well, and producing the best they can, they may succeed in erecting a work of art. I will not say more concerning this, though there is much that may be said; but about minor details and features I hope they will use consideration in them too; and where they feel that anything was not as good as it might have been, by all means work it better in the new work. There cannot be a doctrine more fatal to success than that enunciated by Professor Willis, viz., to work without consideration as to what is beautiful and what is ugly; and I hope the Dean and Chapter will carefully avoid it. It may be said that I am falling into the other extreme in advocating such a radical change as the total alteration in the substructure; but I think I have shown reasons for it both artistic and utilitarian. To do new work will give a great deal more trouble in the shape of thought, anxiety, &c. ; but I hope that £50,000 will not be thrown away on a mere copy executed without consideration.

Yours truly,

W. M. F.

155

FLORENCE.

Continued from p. 98.

THE ecclesiastical buildings next claim our attention. The oldest of these is undoubtedly the celebrated baptistery of S. John, the core of which is supposed to be a Roman or a Lombard building. However this may be, an external coating of black and white marble was added at the end of the thirteenth century by Arnolfo, who appears to have monopolised all the best jobs of his time-no doubt greatly to the disgust of his contemporaries. And after all, if we compare what remains of his work with what was produced during the corresponding time in France and England, I really do not think that Arnolfo has any claims to be considered a first-rate architect, much less a genius. Thus, the marble placage of the old Lombard churches, rife with historiated carvings and inlays, representing hunts, fights, men, mousters, &c., becomes in his hands a mere succession of angles and panellings in black and white marble-so that the effect of the cathedral and baptistery, which are thus treated, upon a mediævalist fresh from the other side of the Alps, is apt to be anything but pleasing; and it requires all the art and beauty of the gates of Paradise to reconcile him for the moment with Italian art.

So much, indeed, is this the case, that Pugin is said to have compared the baptistery and cathedral to magnified Brighton workboxes; but the interior of the former building quite makes amends for any faults of the exterior. It is difficult to examine this thoroughly, as there is but little light; but the great features are the row of columns below, and the triforium clerestory in the thickness of the walls above, the whole being crowned by an immense dome, ornamented with innumerable figures and stories in mosaic, upon a gold ground. Unfortunately, these mosaics, having suffered a good deal from time and the hand of man, have been in some places replaced by paintings; but I read in a newspaper the other day that it is intended to restore them in mosaic. It is to be hoped, if this is really the case, that the authorities will look sharply after the mosaicist, and see that he does not destroy or purloin any of the old work, under pretence of inserting new. I say this advisedly; for, only the other day, a large head of an apostle, in mosaic, was purchased at Venice, the which head is said to have been taken from the cathedral at Torcello. As it is, this appropriation, (to use a milder term than is, perhaps, warranted by the deed,) has not turned out badly for the interests of art; for the purchaser has presented it to the Dean and Chapter of S. Paul's cathedral, London, where it will doubtless be most useful as an example of manipulation in the execution of the mosaics with which it is proposed to decorate that very bare and unsatisfactory edifice.

But to return to the baptistery of S. Giovanni, at Florence. The centre of the building is said to have been occupied by a large font, surrounded by several smaller ones; much the same, in fact, as we see at Pisa. However, whatever was here was destroyed in 1577,

and thus Florence lost one more historical monument; for it was one of the charges raked up against Dante, (who doubtless rendered himself sufficiently disagreeable, without having recourse to sacrilege,) that he broke or defaced one of these smaller fonts.

At present the centre of the building is occupied by a zodiac of the twelfth century, executed in incised white marble. The sun is in the centre, and the signs are placed around, in connection with a good deal of conventional foliage. This zodiac-which, by the way, is very much worn-has been published by Mr. Waring, in his recent work on Italian decoration; but it is to be hoped that some ecclesiologist will secure a tracing of it for the Architectural Museum, so that we may have an opportunity of comparing it with the similar work at Siena, S. Omer, and Canterbury.

But one of the great glories of the baptistery was, and still is, the dossel of silver which annually decorates the altar on S. John's day. This wonderful work of art, preserved in the guardaroba, an edifice opposite the east end of the cathedral, (which, in fact, answers to the trésor of the French cathedrals,) was the work of many men, and of many years, viz., from the middle of the fourteenth until late in the fifteenth century. To mention the workmen would be but to enumerate most of the most gifted sons of the mediaval Athens, and Ghiberti, Orcagna, Pollajuolo, and Verrocchio, are among a few only of them. The small groups and statues are most exquisite both for movement and finish. And the same may be said of the enamels; but the architectural portion of the work by no means warrants high praise, for to a northern eye it appears full of faults and ill-proportions; and the same sentence may be passed upon a very large and splendid crucifix (middle of the fifteenth century), which on S. John's day is placed on the top of the dossel. The dossel itself is composed of three compartments, viz., a centre and two sides. The sides, as far as I could make out from the official who shows the contents of the guardaroba, fold back at right angles to the centre; so that the whole must have very much the appearance of one altar placed upon another.

I observed one very curious thing about some of the enamelling, and that was, that small paillons of metal were placed upon the translucent blue enamel, probably before it was melted, and are thus fixed upon the surface, or very little below it. The effect exactly resembles that of some of the Japanese enamelled vessels that have been brought over to this country of late years; and it is by no means improbable but that the Florentine workmen may have imported the process from the East, perhaps through Venice.

The greatest attractions of the baptistery are, however, the three gates of bronze. The history of these is too well known to bear repetition. Thus much may be said, that the southern one, completed in 1330, is the work of Andrea, the best of the numerous family of the Pisani. The commission for the northern one was won in fair competition by L. Ghiberti, at the commencement of the fifteenth century; while the eastern one is the more mature work of the same artist. The northern and southern doors are much of the same design, viz., square panels, containing groups of figures in alto-relief; the rails and stiles in L. Ghiberti's work having delicate foliage, while in the other imita

tion jewels supply the place. In both the figures are all that could be desired; and when gilt, as most of the mediaval bronzes were, the effect must have been very beautiful and splendid of course, I mean when the gold had got slightly oxidised. At present they are dirty and dark, and not very much better than we should see them in London. I think there is very little doubt but that the Greeks left their bronzes of the natural colour of the metal, and perhaps preserved them from oxidation by means of a coating of varnish or encaustic. In the present day, on the contrary, no sooner does a sculptor produce a statue in bronze, than he carefully tones it down to the colour of a chimney sweep.

The eastern door, generally considered as Ghiberti's chef-d'œuvre, is not so successful, in an architectural point of view, as the others. Firstly, the compartments are very much larger; and secondly, the subjects have elaborate backgrounds of trees, houses, &c., all represented in perspective gradation.

Before describing the cathedral, it would perhaps be as well to give a glance at the often illustrated church of S. Miniato, which stands on an eminence without the walls. This church and the surrounding cemetery now does duty as the Campo Santo of Florence, and accordingly the hand of the restorer has been very busy in the interior, which last autumn had just been painted with imitation black and white marble placage. However this is not the first time that the church has suffered from restoration; for the half-gables at the west end of the aisles and parts of the west front over the centre door display a reticulated pattern very much at variance with the historiated great western gable. The west front, with these exceptions, is particularly deserving of study; and shows a very early example of the black and white marble placage, which afterwards became so fashionable; so much so, indeed, that in after times whole exteriors of churches were roughly built of brick, with a view to their being afterwards cased with marble in this manner; and the marble casing having never been applied, or perhaps very partially, we now see churches, such as Santa Maria Novella, whose rough built exteriors are neither pleasing nor artistic. There are several things well worthy of note at S. Miniato. The first is the cross-arches, going across the nave and aisles, thus dividing the church into compartments, just as if it were going to be vaulted. Secondly, the raised chancel and large crypt below it. Thirdly, the incised marble pavement. Fourthly, the mosaic of the apse. Fifthly, the five medallions, by Luca della Robbia, in the vaulting of a sidechapel; and, sixthly, the stone panes of glass (to use an Irishism) in the windows of the apse. On my first visit to Florence I examined them rather closely, and can compare them to nothing but very transparent alabaster, parts of which are clouded with a brownish red colour precisely like the alabaster we now use. Of course it is impossible to see through them; but they really do admit a considerable amount of light, and doubtless look exceedingly beautiful when the sun strikes directly upon them; they are also in large pieces, only one slab being employed to each window. It is difficult to conceive why they should have been used, as the art of glass making was probably never lost since the time when the inhabitants of Pompeii used tolerably large pieces as