ling in S. Francesco ought not to be
laid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning
a Gothic into a classic building. All that he could do was to alter
the whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman
arches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet
to leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doors
especially, _in statu quo_. With the interior he dealt upon the same
general principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he covered
every available square inch of surface with decorations alien to the
Gothic manner. Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most original
and graceful of the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse the
mediaeval and the classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. A
century elapsed before Palladio, approaching the problem from a
different point of view, restored the antique in its purity, and
erected in the Palazzo della Ragione of Vicenza an almost unique
specimen of resuscitated Roman art.

Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisite
wall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in a
soft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in the
style of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity of
outline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones might
copy, troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angels
traced upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawn
than sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all arts
and sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs and
sea-children:--such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapel
walls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundance
that had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it would
have presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation.
Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with the
ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and
medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all
this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much
is indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo
Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and
Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of
Florence is everywhere perceptible.

Whatever be the merit of these re