between 1276 and 1283, protected her harbours by a gigantic mole, and in
1295 brought the streams of the Ligurian Alps into the city by an aqueduct
worthy of old Rome. Venice had to win her very footing from the sea and
sand. So firmly did she drive her piles, so vigilantly watch their
preservation, that palaces and cathedrals of marble might be safely reared
upon the bosom of the deep. Meanwhile, stone bridges began to span the
rivers of Italy; the streets and squares of towns were everywhere paved
with flags. Before the first years of the fourteenth century the Italian
cities presented a spectacle of solid and substantial comfort, very
startling to northerners who travelled from the unpaved lanes of London
and the muddy labyrinths of Paris.

Sismondi remarks with just pride that these great works were Republican.
They were set on foot for the public use, and were constructed at the
expense of the commonwealths. It is, however, right to add that what the
communes had begun the princes continued. To the splendid taste of the
Visconti dynasty, for instance, Milan owed her wonderful Duomo and the
octagon bell-tower of S. Gottardo. The Certosas of Pavia and Chiaravalle,
the palace of Pavia, and a host of minor monuments remain in Milan and its
neighbourhood to prove how much a single family performed for the
adornment of the cities they had subjugated. And what is true of Milan
applies to Italy throughout its length and breadth. The Despots held their
power at the price of magnificence in schemes of public utility. So much
at least of the free spirit of the communes survived in them, that they
were always rivalling each other in great works of architecture. Italian
tyranny implied aesthetic taste and liberality of expenditure.

In no way is the characteristic diversity of the Italian communities so
noticeable as in their buildings. Each district, each town, has a
well-defined peculiarity, reflecting the specific qualities of the