[M.14L] [M.14] Milan. St Ambrogio Monza 14 Baldacchini The Baldacchino of St Ambrogio is a most curious instance of the first expansion of the Gk. temple into the Gothic niche p 35l N. It has the [diagram] of the Gk. temple turned out, like a plume of feathers, a, and carried by a little capital of an angle shaft b; which has a projecting bird at its base c c already showing Gargoyles the Gothic tendency to the Gargoyle: The capital d is very curious, from its sudden reduction of the square abacus to the cylinder by means of the round backed clumsy leaves under the volutes, (barbarously formed of two rude fillets once turned) while the basket pattern is rudely drawn by mere incisions. The angle of this gable is considerably larger than 90: the shafts are massy & smooth, of porphyry, and have no base. Late Gothic of (Lecco 1st November) A glorious drive from Milan - view Monza of Monte Rosa the finest I have ever seen, some five miles beyond Monza; then the Resegone and the great pyramid which I find is to the right east of the lake of Lecco; over soft wooded hills, Monza is remarkable for its engrafting of renaissance feeling on the Round arch: it is, as I believed, deserving of notice as a separate school of Gothic, never developed: The main idea of the front is the surrounding a wheel circular window with a square, divided into square pannels, the ribs dividing the pannels cut deep, & enriched with exquisite classical mouldings: and each pannel filled with a circular tracery or star: Rose windows may evidently be fitly associated
[Version 0.05: May 2008]