332 ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part II. more leisurely, but the nave and smaller domes of the choir were no doubt completed as •we now find them in the first twenty ydars of the 14tli century. The great octagon remained unfinished, and ^f covered in at all it was only by a wooden roof of domical outline externally, M'hich seems to be that represented in the fresco in the convent of San Marco, till Brunelleschi commenced the present dome, in 1420, and completed it in all essential parts before his death, which happened in 1444. The building may therefore be considered as essentially contemporary with the cathedral of Cologne, Avhich it very neai-ly equals in size (its area being 84,802 ft., while that of Cologne is estimated at 91,000), and, as far as mere conception of plan goes, there can be little doubt but that the Florentine cathedral far sur- passes its German rival. Nothing indeed can be finer than its general ground-plan. A vast nave leads to an enormous dome, extending into the triapsal arrangement so common in the early churches of Cologne, and Avhich was repeated in the last and greatest effort of the Middle Ages, or rather the first of the new school - — the great church of St. Peter at Rome. In the Florentine church all these parts are better subordinated and jiroportioned than in any other example, and the mode in which the effect increases and the whole expands as we approach from the entrance to the sanctum is unrivalled. All this, alas! is utterly thrown away ni the execution. Like all inexperienced architects, Arnolfo seems to liave thought that largeness of parts would add to the greatness of the whole, and thus used only four great arches in the Avhole length of his nave, giving the central aisle a width of 55 ft. clear. The whole width is within 10 ft. of that of Cologne, and the height about the same; and yet, in appearance, the height is about half, and the breadth less than half, owing to the better proportion of the i)arts and to the superior appropriateness in the details on the jiart of the German cathedral. At Florence the details are positively ugly. The windows of the side-aisles are small and mis])laced, those of the clerestory mere circular holes. The proportion of the aisles one to another is bad, the vaults ill-formed, and altogether a colder and iess effective design was not produced in the Middle Ages. The triapsal choir is not so objectionable as the nave, but there are large plain spaces that now look cold and flat ; the windows are too few and small, and there is a gloom about the whole which is very unsatisfactory. Tt is nearly certain that the ovigiual intention ■was to paint the walls, and not to color the windows, so that these defects are hardly chargeable to the original design, and would not be a])parent now were it not that in a moment of mistaken enthusiasm the Florentines were seized with a desire to imitate the true style oi Gothic art, and rival Northern cathedrals in the glory of their painted glass. This, in a church whose windows were designed only of such dimensions as were suflicient to admit the requisite quantity of Avhite
