MAGNANIMITY IN ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE.
[To TIE EDITOZ OF TEE " SPZOTATOE."] Sin—The very interesting article in your last issue on " The Magnanimity of Italy " (which I hope may find its way into some Italian periodical) tempts me to add a few words in support of Italian greatness in regard to lavish architecture.
Italy, indeed, shows no stint or meanness in building for her religious needs, her philanthropic causes, her patriotic monu- ments, or her social and municipal wants. For instance, I too recall Novara, as I first remember that delightful Piedmontese city in 1886, with its then sixteen thousand inhabitants, and besides the splendid Thum°, the Church of San Gaudenzio, and the Mercato, the noble Ospedale Maggiore, with its cortile, supported by eighty-eight granite columns, stands out in my mind as one of the most decorative buildings in the town. If the Duomo has naught but size as an architectural recommendation, one must reflect that its acoustic merits have contributed to make it one of the greatest schools of ecclesiastical music in the whole of Italy. But one could dilate interminably on the beauties of these well-beloved towns, for which, as the writer in last week's Spectator justly remarks, many of us are this year yearning, in a state of "starvation." I should, however, like to add to Novara and arcaded Chiavari the names of one or two splendid churches—splendid in point of size, if not of beauty—in the little Umbrian town of Tosoanella. Toscanella is little more than a village, and yet owns no fewer than four most interesting churches, a fine town hall, and a theatre—a theatre being, I believe, a sine qua non in every Italian town or village.
But perhaps Italian magnanimity in building stands out most conspicuously in the glorious pilgrimage churches wii h which we are so well acquainted in the loveliest mountain scenery of Northern Italy. Who is not struck dumb at the first sight of the Sanctuary of Oropa suddenly coming to view at the end of a wild mountain valley, flanked by a wall of mountains, with the great colonnade standing on a raised terrace, approached by a magnificent stone staircase ? Mr.
Samuel Butler says of this beautiful Sanctuary : "I do not know how better to give a rough description of Grope than by comparing it with one of our largest English Colleges." The yet more remote sanctuary of Graglia gives another specimen of a magnificent building raised to God's service, and seen by comparatively few eyes of men, the beautiful
cupola being added through the zeal and labour of one poor priest. It seems almost absurd to mention isolated examples of noble buildings in a country where these examples are not isolated. Great-mindedness, beauty of building, art, of character, of scenery, we all know, are connected in our minds with Italy; and even in our days of temporary
"starvation" one is cheered by the thought of these places,
for—
"In the soul's December
The fancy backward strays, And dearly doth remember The huo of golden days."
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