arches raised on simple piers. The façade of an Italian cathedral was
studied as a screen, quite independently of its relation to the interior;
in the beautiful church of Crema, for example, the moon at night looks
through the upper windows of a frontispiece raised far above the low roof
of the nave. For the total effect of the exterior, as will be apparent to
anyone who observes the Duomo of Orvieto from behind, no thought was
taken. In this way the Italians missed the point and failed to perceive
the poetry of Gothic architecture. Its symbolical significance was lost
upon them; perhaps we ought to say that the Italian temperament, in art as
in religion, was incapable of assimilating the vague yet powerful
mysticism of the Teutonic races.

On the other hand, what they sacrificed of genuine Gothic character, was
made good after their own fashion. Surface decoration, whether of fresco
or mosaic, bronze-work or bas-relief, wood-carving or panelling in marble,
baked clay or enamelled earthenware was never carried to such perfection
in Gothic buildings of the purer type; nor had sculpture in the North an
equal chance of detaching itself from the niche and tabernacle, which
forced it to remain the slave of architecture. Thus the comparative
defects of Italian Gothic were directly helpful in promoting those very
arts for which the people had a genius unrivalled among modern nations.

It is only necessary to contrast the two finest cathedrals of this style,
those of Siena and Orvieto, with two such buildings as the cathedrals of
Rheims and Salisbury, in order to perceive the structural inferiority of
the former, as well as their superiority for all subordinate artistic
purposes. Long straight lines, low roofs, narrow windows, a façade of
surprising splendour but without a strict relation to the structure of the
nave and aisles, a cupola surmounting the intersection of nave, choir, and
transepts; simple tribunes at the east end, a detached campanile, round