It forms
the eastern wall of a large chamber with frescoes.
I am not sure
that this chamber does not occupy the whole space of the original
church.
There are a few nice votive pictures in the church, and one or two
very early frescoes, which are not without interest; but the main
charm of the place is in the architecture, and the sense at once of
age and strength which it produces. The stock things to see are
the vaults in which many of the members of the royal house of
Savoy, legitimate and illegitimate, lie buried; they need not,
however, be seen.
I have said that the whole building is of much about the same date,
and, unless perhaps in the residential parts, about which I can say
little, has not been altered. This is not the view taken by the
author of Murray's Handbook for North Italy, who says that
"injudicious repairs have marred the effect of the building;" but
this writer has fallen into several errors. He talks, for example,
of the "open Lombard gallery of small circular arches" as being
"one of the oldest and most curious features of the building,"
whereas it is obviously no older than the rest of the church, nor
than the keep-like construction upon which it rests. Again, he is
clearly in error when he says that the "extremely beautiful
circular arch by which we pass from the staircase to the corridor
leading to the church, is a vestige of the original building." The
double round arched portals through which we pass from the main
staircase to the corridor are of exactly the same date as the
staircase itself, and as the rest of the church. They certainly
formed no part of Giovanni Vincenzo's edifice; for, besides being
far too rich, they are not on a level with what remains of that
building, but several feet below it. It is hard to know what the
writer means by "the original building;" he appears to think it
extended to the present choir, which, he says, "retains traces of
an earlier age." The choir retains no such traces. The only
remains of the original church are at the back of the west end,
invisible from the inside of the church, and at the opposite end to
the choir. As for the church being "in a plain Gothic style," it
is an extremely beautiful example of pure Lombard, of the first few
years of the eleventh century. True, the middle arch of the three
which divide the nave from the aisles is pointed, whereas the two
others are round, but this is evidently done to economise space,
which was here unusually costly. There was room for more than two
round arches, but not room enough for three, so it was decided to
dock the middle arch a little. It is a she-arch - that is to say,
it has no keystone, but is formed simply by propping two segments
of a circle one against the other.
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