the windows
are small, and for the most part, without sashes; they allow the walls
to retain the grandeur of their mass and the solidity of their position;
and among these long, straight and simple lines, in this natural light,
the innumerable shafts glow with the serenity of an antique temple....

Nothing more can be added in relation to the Baptistery or the Leaning
Tower; the same ideas prevail in these, the same taste, the same style.
The former is a simple, isolated dome, the latter a cylinder, and each
has an outward dress of small columns. And yet each has its own distinct
and expressive physiognomy; but description and writing consume too much
time, and too many technical terms are requisite to define their
differences. I note, simply, the inclination of the Tower. Some suppose
that, when half constructed, the tower sank in the earth on one side,
and that the architects continued on; seeing that they did continue
this deflection was only a partial obstacle to them. In any event, there
are other leaning towers in Italy, at Bologna, for example; voluntarily
or involuntarily this feeling for oddness, this love of paradox, this
yielding to fancy is one of the characteristics of the Middle Ages.

In the center of the Baptistery stands a superb font with eight panels;
each panel is incrusted with a rich complicated flower in full bloom,
and each flower is different. Around it a circle of large Corinthian
columns supports round-arch arcades; most of them are antique and are
ornamented with antique bas-reliefs; Meleager with his barking dogs, and
the nude torsos of his companions in attendance on Christian mysteries.
On the left stands a pulpit similar to that of Sienna, the first work of
Nicholas of Pisa (1260), a simple marble coffer supported by marble
columns and covered with sculptures. The sentiment of force and of
antique nudity comes out here in striking features. The sculptor
comprehended the postures and torsions of bodies. His figures, somewhat
massive, are grand and simple; he frequently reproduces the tunics and
folds of the Roman costume; one of his nude personages, a sort of
Hercules bearing a young lion on his shoulders, has the broad breast and
muscular tension which the sculptors of the sixteenth century admired.

The last of these edifices, the Campo-Santo, is a cemetery, the soil of
which, brought from Palestine, is holy ground. Four high walls of
polished marble surround it with their white and cr