Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain Part 21

Descending from the roof, the only other old portion of the church to be mentioned is the north transept. It is here that the two inscriptions given at p. 297 are built into the wall on either side of the lofty doorway. The doorway is finely moulded, and has a single figure under a canopy in its tympanum; above it the whole face of the wall is covered with very rich arrangement of niches, making an arcade over its whole surface, but there are no figures left in them. Over this again is a rose window under an arch, and then the octagonal tower. To the east of the transept are some round-headed windows, but my impression is that they are not of earlier date than the rest of the work. The outer wall of the north aisle of the nave has a row of very richly moulded windows lighting the chapels, and other windows over them which light the galleries over the aisle chapels. The eaves here have a simple round-arched corbel-tabling.

The west front is all modern and squalid; the original design for its completion is said to exist among the archives of the cathedral, and ought to be examined; I was not aware of this until long after I had been at Barcelona. Don F. J. Parcerisa[291] gives a view of this proposed front--an extremely florid Gothic work--but the drawing is so obviously not the least like an old one, that I hardly know how far to trust the statements about it which he makes. He describes it as being on parchment, sixteen palms long, and much defaced. The print is drawn in perspective, and elaborately shaded. It is a double door, with a steep gable above filled with extremely rich flamboyant tracery, and there are large pinnacles on either side and a great number of statues.

The cloisters are not good in their detail, but yet are very pleasant; they are full of orange-trees, flowers, and fountains. One of these is in a projecting bay at the north-east internal angle, and is old; another by its side has a little St. George and the Dragon, with the horse's tail formed by a jet of water; and a third, and more modern, plays in the centre among the flowers. In addition, there are some geese cooped up in one corner, who look as if their livers were being sacrificed in order to provide _pates_ for the canons; and finally a troop of hungry, melancholy cats, who are always howling and prowling about the cloisters and church, and who often contrive to get into the choir-stalls just before service, whence they are forthwith chased about by the choristers and such of the clergy as are in their places in good time! These cloisters are said to have been completed in A.D. 1448,[292]

and I have no doubt this date is correct. On the exterior they are bounded on three sides by streets, and the apsidal ends of the chapels do not show, the wall being straight and unbroken. The cloister is lofty and has panelled b.u.t.tresses between the windows, of which latter the arches only remain, the traceries having been entirely destroyed. The view from hence of the church is one of the best that can be obtained, the octagonal transept towers being the most marked features. The floor is full of gravestones, on which the calling of the person commemorated is indicated by a slight carving in relief of the implements of his trade.

The chapel of Sta. Lucia, at the south-west angle of the cloister, is probably a relic of the first church; it has a very fine round-headed doorway with its arch-mouldings covered with delicate architectural carving, and a lancet window under its very flat-pitched gable. The roof inside is a pointed waggon-vault. The door from the cloister into the south transept is of about the same date; it has three shafts in the jamb (one of them fluted), very deep capitals and abaci covered with carving of foliage, and an archivolt covered with chevron patterns of a flat and very unusual character. The label is large and carved with very stiff foliage. The foliage here is to a slight extent copied from the acanthus, but much of it is derived from some other leaf--I believe from the p.r.i.c.kly pear.

When the fabric has been pa.s.sed in review much still remains to be seen within its walls. A large number of the altars, particularly those of the cloister chapels, were furnished in the fifteenth century with Retablos of wood richly carved, and then painted with subjects: these are always placed across the apse, leaving a s.p.a.ce behind the altar, to which access was obtained by doors on either side of it. Perhaps then as now the priest attached to the altar kept his vestments in the chapel in which he ministered, and these s.p.a.ces may thus have been utilized.

Usually, now-a-days, in Spanish churches, for some ten or twenty minutes before the offices are sung in the choir, priests may be seen unlocking the gates of their chapels, vesting themselves, and then going one by one to their stalls in the choir, and there waiting till, on the clock striking the hour, the service commences. The paintings in the old Retablos are sadly defaced and damaged; but many of them have evidently had much value and interest. They are usually rather of Flemish than of Italian character, generally well and quaintly drawn, and with those striking contrasts of colour on gold grounds, of which this early school was so fond. The doors on either side of the altar have generally a whole-length figure of a saint painted on them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 38.

BARCELONA CATHEDRAL

VIEW OF THE STEEPLES FROM THE CLOISTER. p. 304]

Across the outer archway of all these chapels is an iron _grille_; very many of these are mediaeval; and in the cloister in particular there is a very considerable variety in their treatment, and often great delicacy of execution. I have before noticed the excellence of the smiths'

work in the Spanish churches. Yet though their work is of the latest age of Gothic, it is never marked by that nauseous redundance of ornament in which so many of the most active metal-workers of the present day seem to revel. Hence it is always worthy of study. The doors in these screens are generally double, and shut behind some sort of ogee-arched crocketed head, and sometimes there are crocketed pinnacles and b.u.t.tresses on either side. The locks are often, of course, specially elaborate; and the ill.u.s.tration which I give of one of them will serve to show their general character. In all the screens here the lower part is very simple, consisting generally of nothing but vertical bars, through which one can see without difficulty to the altars which they guard. The ornament is reserved for open traceried crestings, with bent and sharply-cut crockets, for traceried rails, and for the locks and fastenings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lock on Screen in Cloister.]

The woodwork of the choir-fittings is of very late date,[293] but good of its kind. The stall-divisions are richly traceried under the elbow, and the misereres carved with foliage. Behind the stalls, and under the old canopies, is a series of Renaissance panels, covered with paintings of the arms of the Knights of the Golden Fleece.[294] The canopies above are very delicate, and of the same character as the stalls. The carved oak pulpit is corbelled out at the east end of the north range of stalls, and is approached by a staircase outside the arcaded stone parclose, which still remains north and south of the choir. This staircase, with its arched doorway between pinnacles at the bottom, its traceried handrail fringed at the top with fantastic ironwork, and its door cunningly and beautifully made of open ironwork, is quite worth notice.

The Bishop's throne, second only in height and elaboration to that of Exeter, occupies its proper place at the east end of the southern side of the choir, with one stall for a chaplain beyond it. It will be remembered that in most Spanish cathedrals it is placed where the door from the nave into the choir ought to be: here, however, the old arrangement has never been altered.

The princ.i.p.al altar has a very Gothic Retablo, covered with gilding till it looks like gingerbread. I imagine it to be modern. It has curtains on either side, with angels standing on the columns which carry the rods.

The iron screen across, in front of the altar, and round the apse, is none of it old.

Near the door to the sacristies a hexagonal box for the wheel of bells is fixed against the wall; and just below it a fine large square box arcaded at the sides, and painted, appears to contain a couple of larger bells.

The sculpture here is not very remarkable. Over the east door of the cloister is a Pieta in the tympanum, whilst the finial of the canopy is a crucifix. The bosses at the intersection of the ribs in the nave are of enormous size, and each has a figure or subject. The boss in the chapel over the font in the north side of west door has the Baptism of our Lord, and another in the large chapel in the north-west of the cloister has the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the eight bosses around it the Evangelists and Doctors. Some of the monuments are peculiar. The effigy is generally laid on a sloping stone, so as to suggest the greatest possible insecurity. There are sculptures on the tombs and inside the enclosing arch; a favourite and odious device in this last feature is to make the radius of the label much longer than that of the arch below it; and the s.p.a.ce between the two is then filled with tracery. The nave groining was once painted. There seems to have been cinquecento foliage extending from the centre, about half-way across each vaulting cell; and the ribs were painted to the same extent. In the aisles there seems to have been no painting anywhere but on the ribs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARCELONA:--Ground Plan of Cathedral, Cloister. &c. Plate XVI

Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865]

The old organ occupies the north tower, and is corbelled out boldly from the wall. Below it is a pendant, the finish of which is a Saracen's head, which, for some reason unknown to me, is held by Catalans to be appropriate to the position. There are enormous painted shutters, and a projecting row of trumpet-pipes. The organ was first of all built in the fourteenth century; Martin Ferrandis, organ-builder of Toledo, having bound himself, by a contract dated July 25, 1345, to construct it for 80 libras[295] (pounds).

The sacristies are old and vaulted. The sacristan knew of no old vestments or vessels to be seen there; and as they were always occupied by clergy I had to satisfy myself with his ignorance.

The bishop's palace is on the south side of the cloister: its quadrangle still retains some remains of good late Romanesque arcading, ornamented with dog-tooth, nail-head, and billet mould; and probably there is more to be seen if access were gained to the inside. On the opposite side of the cathedral is a vast barrack, dating from the fifteenth century, and which, first of all a palace, was given in A.D. 1487 by Ferdinand to the Inquisition. It seems now to be a mixture of school, convent, and prison, and is apparently without any architectural interest.

The grandest church, after the cathedral, is that of Sta. Maria del Mar, a vast building, of very simple plan, and exceedingly characteristic of the work of Catalan architects.[296] An inscription written in Limosin (Catalan) on one side, and in Latin on the other,[297] gives the date of the commencement of the work as A.D. 1328; and it is said by Cean Bermudez not to have been finished until A.D. 1483;[298] but Parcerisa[299] says that the last stone was placed on November 9th, 1383, and the first ma.s.s said on August 15th, 1384; and I am inclined to think that the latter dates are the more likely to be correct. I have found no evidence as to the architect of this church: he was one of a school who built many and exceedingly similar churches throughout this district. My impression is that he was most probably Jayme Fabre, the first architect of the cathedral. Fabre had constructed a church for the Dominicans at Palma, in Mallorca, between the years 1296 and 1339. Of this church I can only learn the dimensions; but these point to a church of the same cla.s.s as those in Barcelona. It had no aisles, and was 280 palms long by 138 broad. The cathedral in the same city is figured in Parcerisa, and is similar in plan to Sta. Maria del Mar, but of far larger dimensions, the width from centre to centre of the nave columns being 71 feet, and the whole church 140 feet wide in the clear, and with the chapels 190 feet. There are north and south doors, and octagonal pinnacles at the west end, and, as will be noticed, its dimensions are proportioned just as at Sta. Maria del Mar. I do not think that Fabre's name occurs in connexion with the cathedral at Palma; but his fame must have been great, as he was specially summoned to Barcelona by the king and bishop; and nothing is more likely than that he would then have been consulted about this other great work going on at the same time, and in which, though the general design is different, there are so many points of similarity. The church at Manresa is said to have been commenced in the same year, 1328; and it is extremely similar in all respects to Sta.

Maria del Mar, as I shall have further on to show when I have to describe it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 39.

STA. MARIA DEL MAR, BARCELONA p. 308.

SOUTH-WEST VIEW.]

But whether these churches are to be attributed to the influence of one man suddenly inventing an innovation, or of a school of architects working on the same old traditions--and I have been unable to find any kind of evidence of this--it is certain that they are very similar. They are marked by extreme simplicity, great width, and great height. Usually they have no arcades and consist of broad unbroken naves, always groined in stone, and sparely lighted from small windows high up in the walls.

The two examples, so far as I know, which surpa.s.s all others, are the single nave of Gerona, seventy-three feet wide in the clear, and the nave and aisles of the Collegiata at Manresa, sixty feet wide from centre to centre of the columns, and a hundred and ten between the walls of the aisles. The Barcelonese examples do not equal the extraordinary dimensions of these two churches, but they are still on a fine scale.

Sta. Maria del Mar is the only Barcelonese example with aisles. It has--as will be seen by the plan[300]--an aisle round the apse, and small chapels between the b.u.t.tresses. These apses are all internal only, so that the side elevation of the church shows a plain straight wall pierced with windows. This is a very favourite device of this school, and has been already noticed in the north wall of the cathedral, and in the wall all round the cloisters. The interior of Sta. Maria del Mar is very simple. Enormous octagonal columns carry the main arches and the groining ribs, which all spring from their capitals. The wall rib towards the nave is carried up higher than the main arches so as to allow s.p.a.ce between them for a small circular and traceried clerestory window in each bay. The arches of the apse are very narrow, and enormously stilted. There are small windows above them, but they are modernized. The aisles are groined on the same level as the main arches, a few feet, therefore, below the vault of the nave, and they are lighted by a four-light traceried window in each bay, the sill of which is above a string-course formed by continuing the abacus of the capitals of the groining shafts. Below this there are three arches in each bay, opening into side chapels between the main b.u.t.tresses. Each of these chapels is lighted by a traceried window of two lights; and the outer wall presents, as will be seen, a long unbroken line, until above the chapels, when the b.u.t.tresses rise boldly up to support the great vaults of the nave and aisles. The Barcelonese architects of this period were extremely fond of these long unbroken lines of wall; and there is a simplicity and dignity about their work which is especially commendable.

Long rows of little sheds for shops which have managed to gain a footing all along the base of the walls rather disturb the effect, though they and their occupants, and the busy dealers in fruit who ply their trade all about Sta. Maria del Mar, make it a good spot for the study of the people.

The altar is a horrible erection of about A.D. 1730, and all the internal fittings are modern and in the worst possible taste.

The view which I give of the west front will explain the whole design of the exterior. Unquestionably it is a grand work of its kind, with good detail throughout. The great octagonal pinnacles at the angles are, however, awkwardly designed, and quite insufficient in scale for the vast ma.s.s of building to which they are attached. They are reproduced in all the churches of the same cla.s.s in Barcelona; and indeed most of the features of one of these churches are common to the others. The tracery in the circular window at the west end certainly looks later in date than that of the others in this church, and than that in the west front of Sta. Maria del Pi, which was commenced in A.D. 1329, but not completed until much later. It is worth mention that the western doors of this church are covered with iron, cut out into the form of cusped circles, with rather good effect.

The church of SS. Just y Pastor is of the same cla.s.s as Sta. Maria del Mar, but its foundation is slightly later, as it seems to have been commenced circa A.D. 1345. It consists of a nave without aisles, but with chapels between the b.u.t.tresses--one chapel in each bay. There are five bays, and an apse of five sides. The altar stands forward from the wall, and stalls are ranged round the apse. The nave is 43 feet 6 inches in width in the clear by about 130 feet in length. The vaulting is quadripart.i.te throughout, with large bosses at the intersection of the ribs, on which are carved--1, the Annunciation; 2, the Nativity; 3, the Presentation; 4, the Adoration of the Magi; 5, the Resurrection; 6, the Coronation of the B.V.M. The whole church has lately been covered with painting and gilding, in the most approved French style, and to the destruction of all appearance of age. The light is admitted by three-light windows with good geometrical traceries, very high up above the arches, into the side chapels, and by two-light windows in the chapels themselves. At the west end are remains of the usual octagonal flanking turrets; but the whole front is modernized. The side elevation is a repet.i.tion of those already described, presenting a long unbroken wall below, out of which the b.u.t.tresses for the clerestory rise.

Santa Maria del Pino is a still grander church, but on the same plan, with the addition of a lofty octagonal tower detached at the north-east of the church.[301] This is four stages in height, and the belfry-stage has windows on each face. The traceried corbel-table under the parapet remains, but the parapet and roof are destroyed. The nave here consists of seven bays, is fifty-four feet wide in the clear, and has an eastern apse of seven sides. The chapels between the b.u.t.tresses are not carried round the apse, but an overhanging pa.s.sage-way is formed all round outside, upon arches between, and corresponding openings through, the b.u.t.tresses just below the windows. The north door here is a very fine early work of just the same character as those already described in the earliest portions of the cathedral. It appears to be a work of the end of the twelfth century, and much older than any other portion of the church. The west front has a doorway with a figure in a niche in the tympanum, and a system of niches round and above it, enclosing it within a sort of square projecting from the face of the wall. The whole scheme is so exceedingly similar both in design and detail to that of the north transept door of the cathedral, that we may fairly conclude them to be the works of the same man. Above the door is a large circular window filled with good and very rich geometrical tracery. A church existed here as early as 1070;[302] and Cean Bermudez says that the first stone of the present church was laid in 1380, and that it was concluded in 1414.[303] Parcerisa,[304] on the other hand, says that materials were granted for the work in 1329, that it was nearly finished in 1413, and consecrated in 1453;[305] whilst in A.D. 1416 we have Guillermo Abiell describing himself as master of the works of Sta. Maria del Pi, and of St. Jayme, in Barcelona, when he was called as one of the Junta of architects to advise about the building of the nave of Gerona cathedral.[306]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARCELONA:--Ground Plans of Sta Maria del Mar:--Sta Maria del Pi:--and the Collegista of Sta Ana: Plate XVII.

Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]

St. Jayme, of which Abiell was the architect, is a small church in the princ.i.p.al street of the city, with an ogee-headed door with a crocketed label between two pinnacles. Above are some small windows; and the whole detail is poor in character, and exactly consistent with what might be expected from an architect at Abiell's time. I believe, therefore, that either Abiell was only the surveyor to an already existing fabric, who wished to make the most of his official position among his brethren at Gerona, or that if he really executed any works at Sta. Maria del Pi they were confined to the steeple, which is of later character than the church. I believe that the real meaning of the dates given by the authorities just quoted is as follows:--In A.D. 1329 stone was granted for the work which was then no doubt just commenced at the same time as the similar work in the transept of the cathedral; and the consecration probably took place in A.D. 1353, a date which occurs in an inscription in the church, and has been, I suspect, read by Parcerisa by mistake, 1453; and the work commenced in A.D. 1380 was probably the steeple, which was completed in A.D. 1414. To decide otherwise would be to ignore altogether all the information to be derived from the character of the architectural detail, which, after all, is to a practised eye a safer guide than any doc.u.mentary evidence. I should a.s.sume, too, from the ident.i.ty of the character of the two works, that Jayme Fabre was the architect who designed the church, and that Guillermo Abiell probably built the tower some time after his death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Interior of Santa Agata.]

I must now take my readers back somewhat to an earlier church, which is full of interest, but very different from those which I have been describing, and of different style. This is the church of Sta. Agata, situated just to the north of the cathedral. I have been unable to learn anything as to its history. It has a nave of four bays, spanned by pointed arches, which carry the wooden roof, and a groined apse of five sides. East of the apse is a waggon-vaulted chamber, whose axis is at right angles to that of the church, and out of it rises a delicate octagonal steeple, the belfry-stage of which has two-light windows on four sides, and gables on each face. These gables run back till they intersect the base of a low stone spire, which is now nearly destroyed, but the lower part of which can be clearly made out from the neighbouring steeple of the cathedral. A staircase, ingeniously constructed in the thickness of the south wall, leads up from the nave to the pulpit (now destroyed), and thence on again to a western gallery.

Some of the windows are like domestic windows in design, having a slender shaft-monial with the capital of foliage so often repeated in all the towns from Perpinan to Valencia. The great height of the windows from the floor--about twenty-six feet--secures an admirable effect of light, and their detail is thoroughly good early middle-pointed. The southern facade has a great deal of that picturesque irregularity which is always so charming when it is natural. The door is in the western angle of the south front, partly built under a great overhanging arch, which carries the wall of a building which abuts on the west end of Sta.

Agata. The lower half of the walls has small windows irregularly placed, lighting the eastern chapel, the pulpit, and the pa.s.sage to the gallery; and then above them the wall is set back a couple of feet between b.u.t.tresses, and each bay has an extremely well designed and moulded window of two lights, with geometrical tracery. The finish of the walls at the top is modernized. The construction of the roof is very effective, and at the same time of a most unusual character; it consists of a series of purlines resting on corbels in the walls over the arches across the nave; and though it is of flat pitch, this is but little noticed, owing to the good proportions of these arches, which are so marked a feature in the design.

The same kind of roof exists still in the great hall of the Casa Consistorial, and evidently once existed also in the church which I shall presently mention in the Calle del Carmen. In England we have somewhat parallel examples at Mayfield and the Mote House, Ightham; but these Barcelonese examples are useful, as showing how, when a flat-pitched roof is of necessity adopted, a very good internal effect may nevertheless be secured. This church is now desecrated, and used as a sculptor's workshop.

Another church, of which only the ruins now remain, in the Calle del Carmen, must, I presume, be Nuestra Senora del Carmen, founded in 1287.[307] This building was evidently greatly altered in the fourteenth century. It was first of all roofed with a flat roof, carried on arches across the nave, as at Sta. Agata, and subsequently the walls were raised and the church was groined. The groining is now destroyed, and behind it are seen the corbels in the cross wall marking the rake of the first roof. The aisles had roofs gabled north and south, and their windows good fourteenth-century tracery. This church of seven bays in length is 43 feet wide between the columns of the nave, and nearly 80 feet wide from north to south. Compared with Sta. Agata, it seems to prove that this cla.s.s of timber-roofed church was introduced here between the early waggon-vaulting of the chapel of Sta. Lucia and of Sta. Ana, and the great quadripart.i.te vaults of the cathedral and the other churches of its cla.s.s.

The other churches here are not of much interest. The front of San Jayme has already been incidentally mentioned: its interior is modernized. San Miguel is probably a very early church, having a Roman mosaic pavement preserved in the floor. It has a pointed waggon-vault, and a sixteenth-century stone gallery at the west end. The western front has a rich west door, half Gothic and half Renaissance, with St. Michael and the dragon in the tympanum, and the Annunciation in the jambs. The flat gable has its old crocketed coping and cross, and two very small windows. The best feature is the tower, a simple structure, square in plan, from within the parapet of which, over the centre, rises a small square turret, open at the sides and roofed with four intersecting gables. It is a pretty arrangement for carrying a fifth bell, the other bells hanging in the belfry windows, in the Italian fas.h.i.+on. The church of San Anton has a groined narthex or porch all across the west front, with three open arches in front. The nave cannot be wide, and has chapels between the b.u.t.tresses, but I did not see the interior. Another church, that of San Geronimo, is on the same plan, but of later date.[308] The churches of the Renaissance cla.s.s are numerous and ugly; but Berruguete and his followers hardly perpetrated so many freaks in art here as they did in the centre of Spain; had they been more popular, there had been much less for me to describe. But in truth, rich as this old city still is, it was much richer, two or three n.o.ble churches having disappeared at a comparatively late period, either during the war or in subsequent popular disturbances.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 40.

BARCELONA. p. 314.

CASA CONSISTORIAL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ajimez Window.]

The civic buildings are quite worthy of the ancient dignity of the city.

The Casa Consistorial, and the Casa de la Disputacion, face each other on opposite sides of the princ.i.p.al square, not far from the cathedral, The former has a modern Pagan front, but on the north side the old work remains. This building is said to have been commenced in A.D. 1369, and finished in A.D. 1378;[309] and inside the great hall I noticed an inscription (which unfortunately I neglected to copy) with the date of 1373. The old front to the north of this building seems worthy of ill.u.s.tration. The enormous arch-stones of the princ.i.p.al doorway are very common throughout Cataluna, and are seen indeed as far east even as Perpinan. The figure of St. Michael has metal wings; and as the little church dedicated in honour of the same archangel is just on the other side of the Casa, it seems as if there was some special connection between the two buildings. The _patio_ or quadrangle is oblong in plan, and on the first-floor the pa.s.sage is open to the air, with delicate arches all round. On the east side of this pa.s.sage a door opens into a n.o.ble hall, with a dais for the throne at the upper end, and doorways on each side of the dais. This hall is spanned by four moulded semicircular arches rising from corbels formed of a cl.u.s.ter of shafts.

These arches support a flat ceiling of rafters, with boarding between them, resting on corbels in the cross walls. The light is admitted by large cusped circles high up in the side walls, and by good _ajimez_ windows of three lights at the dais end. The rafters of the roof are all painted with coats of arms enclosed within quatrefoils, with a very rich effect. The dimensions of this room are about 40 feet wide by 90 feet long, and 45 feet in height. In a pa.s.sage near it is an admirable _ajimez_ window, which, as it ill.u.s.trates this common type very well, is worth preserving a record of. The marble shafts here are only three inches in diameter.[310]

The Casa de la Disputacion _was_ still more interesting; but on my last visit the delicate arcades of its beautiful _patio_ were all being walled up with common brick, leaving narrow slits of windows, which I suppose are to be glazed, to save the degenerate lawyers for the future from any of the chance squalls of wind or rain which their predecessors have endured since the fifteenth century, when Master Pedro Blay, the architect, superintended its erection. This _patio_ is of three stages in height, with a picturesque external staircase to the first floor. The lofty corridor round the first floor leads to the various courts and offices, and in one angle of it is the entrance to the chapel, consisting of three small arches, forming a door and two windows, with the wall above them covered with an elaborate reticulation of tracery.

The arches have ogee crocketed canopies, and the side arches iron _grilles_. This chapel is dedicated to St. George, the tutelar saint of Cataluna, and a figure of the saint rivals that of St. Michael in the Sala Consistorial. There are here some extremely well-managed overhanging pa.s.sage-ways corbelled out from the walls, and various excellent features of detail. The parapets generally to the various pa.s.sages are of plain stone slabs, pierced here and there only with a richly traceried circle.