You would understand this picture
better if you were a Catholic." I did not tell him of the mistake
he had made, but I thought even a Protestant after a certain amount
of experience would learn to see some difference between Benjamin
West and Sebastian del Piombo.
From Calonico I went down into the main road and walked to
Giornico, taking the right bank of the river from the bridge at the
top of the Biaschina. Not a sod of the railway was as yet turned.
At Giornico I visited the grand old church of S. Nicolao, which,
though a later foundation than the church at Mairengo, retains its
original condition, and appears, therefore, to be much the older of
the two. The stones are very massive, and the courses are here and
there irregular as in Cyclopean walls; the end wall is not bonded
into the side walls but simply built between them; the main door is
very fine, and there is a side door also very good. There are two
altars one above the other, as in the churches of S. Abbondio and
S. Cristoforo at Como, but I could not make the lower altar
intelligible in my sketch, and indeed could hardly see it, so was
obliged to leave it out. The remains of some very early frescoes
can be seen, but I did not think them remarkable. Altogether,
however, the church is one which no one should miss seeing who
takes an interest in early architecture.
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