same Solaro carved the monument of
Beatrice Sforza in the Certosa of Pavia. He was indeed in all
points competent to criticise or to confirm the design of his
fellow-craftsman. Il Gobbo disapproved of the proportions chosen by
Rodari, and ordered a new model to be made; but after much discussion,
and some concessions on the part of Rodari, who is said to have
increased the number of the windows and lightened the orders of his
model, the work was finally entrusted to the master of Maroggia.

Not less creditable than the general design of the tribune is
the sculpture executed by the brothers. The north side door is a
master-work of early Renaissance chiselling, combining mixed Christian
and classical motives with a wealth of floral ornament. Inside, over
the same door, is a procession of children seeming to represent the
Triumph of Bacchus, with perhaps some Christian symbolism. Opposite,
above the south door, is a frieze of fighting Tritons--horsed sea
deities pounding one another with bunches of fish and splashing the
water, in Mantegna's spirit. The doorways of the facade are decorated
with the same rare workmanship; and the canopies, supported by naked
fauns and slender twisted figures, under which the two Plinies are
seated, may be reckoned among the supreme achievements of delicate
Renaissance sculpture. The Plinies are not like the work of the same
master. They are older, stiffer, and more Gothic. The chief interest
attaching to them is that they are habited and seated after the
fashion of Humanists. This consecration of the two Pagan saints beside
the portals of the Christian temple is truly characteristic of
the fifteenth century in Italy. Beneath, are little basreliefs
representing scenes from their respective lives, in the style of
carved predellas on the altars of saints.

The whole church is peopled with detached statues, among which a
Sebastian in the Chapel of the Madonna must be mentioned as singularly
beautiful. It is a finely modelled figure, with the full life and
exuberant adolescence of Venetian inspiration. A peculiar feature of
the external architecture is the series of Atlantes, bearing on their
shoulders urns, heads of lions, and other devices, and standing on
brackets round the upper cornice just below the roof. They are of all
sorts; young and old, male and female; classically nude, and boldly
outlined. These water-conduits, the work of Bernardo Bianco and
Francesco Rusca, illustrate the depar