Fancy Twilight Or Moonlight On These Stairs, With
The Corpses Sitting Among The Withered Flowers And Snow, And The
Pealing Of A Great Organ.
After ascending the steps that lead towards the skeletons, we turn
again sharp round to the left, and come upon another noble flight -
broad and lofty, and cut in great measure from the living rock.
At the top of this flight there are two sets of Lombard portals,
both of them very fine, but in such darkness and so placed that it
was impossible to get a drawing of them in detail. After passing
through them, the staircase turns again, and, as far as I can
remember, some twenty or thirty steps bring one up to the level of
the top of the arch which forms the recess where the corpses are.
Here there is another beautiful Lombard doorway, with a small
arcade on either side which I thought English, rather than Italian,
in character. An impression was produced upon both of us that this
doorway and the arcade on either side were by a different architect
from the two lower archways, and from the inside of the church; or
at any rate, that the details of the enrichment were cut by a
different mason, or gang of masons. I think, however, the whole
doorway is in a later style, and must have been put in after some
fire had destroyed the earlier one.
Opening the door, which by day is always unlocked, we found
ourselves in the church itself.
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