324 ITALIAN ARCHITECTUEE. Takt II. Francis at Assisi, and the Certosa near Pavia. From this circum- stance they are perhaps the most admired in Italy. In others the spaces left for color are still plain and blank. We see the work of the architect unaided by the painting which was intended to set it off, and M^e cannot but condemn it as displaying at once bad taste and ignorance of the true Gothic feeling. One of the earliest, or perhaps tlie very first Italian edifice into which the pointed arch was introduced, is the fine church of St. Andrea at Vercelli, commenced in the year 1219 by the Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, and finished in three years. This prelate, having been lonor leo;ate in Eno-land, brought back with /3^^ him an English architect called, it Is said, Brigwithe, and entrusted him with the erection of tliis church in his native place. In plan, it is certainly very like an English church, terminating squarely to- wards the east, and with side chapels to the transepts, arranged very much as we find them at Buildwas, Kirkstall, and other churches of this class and size, only that here they are polygonal, which Mas hai'dly ever the case in England. But with the plan all influences of the Eng- 755. Plan of the Church at Ver- Hsh architect scem to have ceased, and celli. (From Osten's " Bau- . i t t i kunst in Lombardei.") Scale the Structure IS in purely Italian style. 100 ft. to 1 in. -ni ^ 11 ^1 -^ T 1 1 Externally the pointed arch nowhere appears, all the doors and windows being circular-headed; while internally it is confined to the pier-arches of the nave and the vaulting of the roof. The fa9ade is flanked at its angles by two tall, slender, square towers; and the intersection of the nave and transept is covered by one of those elegant octagonal domes which the Italians knew so well how to use, and which is in fact the only original feature in their designs. The external form of tliis church is interesting, as displaying the germs of much that two centuries afterwards was so greatly expanded by a German architect in the design of Milan cathedral. A few years later, in 1229, a eliurch was commenced at Asti, the tower of which was finished in 1260. This allowed time for a more complete development of the pointed style, which here prevails not only internally, but externally. Tall lancet windows appear in the flanks, and even the doorways assume that form, in their canopies, if not in their openings. The porch (Woodcut No. 756) is a later addition, and a characteristic specimen of the style during the 14th
