But, At Present, Neither The One Nor The Other Is To Be Had Except Among The Ruins Of Antiquity.] There Is A Great Number Of Massy Pillars Of Porphyry, Granite, Jasper, Giullo, And Verde Antico, Together With Some Good Pictures And Statues:

But the greatest curiosity is that of the brass-gates, designed and executed by John of Bologna, representing, embossed in different compartments, the history of the Old and New Testament.

I was so charmed with this work, that I could have stood a whole day to examine and admire it. In the Baptisterium, which stands opposite to this front, there are some beautiful marbles, particularly the font, and a pulpit, supported by the statues of different animals.

Between the cathedral and this building, about one hundred paces on one side, is the famous burying-ground, called Campo Santo, from its being covered with earth brought from Jerusalem. It is an oblong square, surrounded by a very high wall, and always kept shut. Within-side there is a spacious corridore round the whole space, which is a noble walk for a contemplative philosopher. It is paved chiefly with flat grave-stones: the walls are painted in fresco by Ghiotto, Giottino, Stefano, Bennoti, Bufalmaco, and some others of his cotemporaries and disciples, who flourished immediately after the restoration of painting. The subjects are taken from the Bible. Though the manner is dry, the drawing incorrect, the design generally lame, and the colouring unnatural; yet there is merit in the expression: and the whole remains as a curious monument of the efforts made by this noble art immediately after her revival. [The History of Job by Giotto is much admired.] Here are some deceptions in perspective equally ingenious and pleasing; particularly the figures of certain animals, which exhibit exactly the same appearance, from whatever different points of view they are seen. One division of the burying-ground consists of a particular compost, which in nine days consumes the dead bodies to the bones: in all probability, it is no other than common earth mixed with quick-lime. At one corner of the corridore, there are the pictures of three bodies represented in the three different stages of putrefaction which they undergo when laid in this composition. At the end of the three first days, the body is bloated and swelled, and the features are enlarged and distorted to such a degree, as fills the spectator with horror. At the sixth day, the swelling is subsided, and all the muscular flesh hangs loosened from the bones: at the ninth, nothing but the skeleton remains. There is a small neat chapel at one end of the Campo Santo, with some tombs, on one of which is a beautiful bust by Buona Roti. [Here is a sumptuous cenotaph erected by Pope Gregory XIII. to the memory of his brother Giovanni Buoncampagni. It is called the Monumentum Gregorianum, of a violet-coloured marble from Scravezza in this neighbourhood, adorned with a couple of columns of Touchstone, and two beautiful spherical plates of Alabaster.] At the other end of the corridore, there is a range of antient sepulchral stones ornamented with basso-relievo brought hither from different parts by the Pisan Fleets in the course of their expeditions.

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