alternating obedience and command, not ranked beneath a monarchy, but
capable themselves of sovereign power.[14]

What has been said of Siena is no less true of the Duomo of Orvieto.
Though it seems to aim at a severer Gothic, and though the façade is more
architecturally planned, a single glance at the exterior of the edifice
shows that the builders had no lively sense of the requirements of the
style they used. What can be more melancholy than those blank walls,
broken by small round recesses protruding from the side chapels of the
nave, those gaunt and barren angles at the east end, and those few
pinnacles appended at a venture? It is clear that the spirit of the
northern Gothic manner has been wholly misconceived. On the other hand,
the interior is noble. The feeling for space possessed by the architect
has expressed itself in proportions large and solemn; the area enclosed,
though somewhat cold and vacuous to northern taste, is at least impressive
by its severe harmony. But the real attractions of the church are isolated
details. Wherever the individual artist-mind has had occasion to emerge,
there our gaze is riveted, our criticism challenged, our admiration won.
The frescoes of Signorelli, the bas-reliefs of the Pisani, the statuary of
Lo Scalza and Mosca, the tarsia of the choir stalls, the Alexandrine work
and mosaics of the façade, the bronzes placed upon its brackets, and the
wrought acanthus scrolls of its superb pilasters--these are the objects
for inexhaustible wonder in the cathedral of Orvieto. On approaching a
building of this type, we must abandon our conceptions of organic
architecture: only the Greek and northern Gothic styles deserve that
epithet. We must not seek for severe discipline and architectonic design.
Instead of one presiding, all-determining idea, we must be prepared to
welcome a wealth of separate beauties, wrought out by men of independent
genius, whereby each part is made a masterpiece, and many diverse elements
become a whole of picturesque rather than architectural impressiveness.