Bk. VIII. Ch. VI. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE, 387 Nothing at all resembling it occurs in the southern parts of the province, though it must be admitted that they contain very few really important towers of any sort. Perhaps the earthquakes to which a great portion of the country is liable may have deterred the architects from indulging in structures of great altitude ; but it must be added that the idea of belfry or tower did not enter into their municipal arrangements, and their towns are not consequently illustrated by such towers as those of Venice, Cremona, or Verona, in the north. Of those which do exist that of Gaeta is perhaps as picturesque as any. It was erected 1276- 1290, and is both chai-acteristic of the style and elegant in outline. As will be observed, the lower story has pointed arches, while those above are all round ; an arrangement which, though to our eyes it may appear archseologically wrong, is certainly constructively right, and the effect is very pleasing, from the height and dignity given to the entrance. The two towers of the cathedral at Bari (Woodcut No. 804) are not so happy in design as this. They are too tall for their other dimensions, and want accentuation throughout ; while the change from the lower to the upper story is abrupt and ill-contrived. Tl:e tower at Caserta Vecchia (Woodcut No. 806) is low and squat in its ]»roportions, and unfortunately too typical of the towers in this land of earthquakes. Civil Architecture. As a rule, it may be asserted that the southern province of Italy is singularly deficient in examples of civil or domestic architecture. Great monastic establishments existed there during the Middle Ages which must have possessed buildings befitting their magnificence ; but these have either perished and been rebuilt, or have been so restored that their original forms can hardly be recognized. There are, indeed, cloisters at Amalfi and Sorrento ; much more remarkable, however, for the beauty of their situation than for their architecture, which is extremely rude and clumsy. There are no chapter-houses; no 1 1 alls or conventual buildings of any sort. In this respect, the pro- vince forms a remarkable contrast with Spain in the same age ; though it must be confessed that the North of Italy is also very deficient in conventual buildings of the Middle Ages, the most magni- ficent and beautiful belonging more to the Renaissance than to the Mediaeval peried. At Ravello there is the Casa Ruffolo, a picturesque palace of the 13th century, still nearly entire: a strange mixture of Gothic and Saracenic taste, but so exceptional, that it would not be fair to quote it as a type of any style. It seems to owe its peculiarities more
