Abstract

A European Summer - VI

Milan, Italy is an older, richer, more historic city than Turin; but its general aspect is no more distinctly Italian. The long Austrian occupation, perhaps, did something to Germanize its physiognomy; though, indeed, this is an indifferent explanation when one remembers how well, picturesquely, Italy held its own in Venetia. The cathedral is before all things picturesque; it is not interesting, it is not logical, it is not even, to some minds, commandingly beautiful; but it is grandly curious, superbly rich. A great building is the greatest conceivable work of art. More than any other it represents difficulties annulled, resources combined, labor, courage, and patience. And there are people who tell that art has nothing to do with morality. Little enough, doubtless, when it is concerned, ever so little, in painting the roof of Milan Cathedral within to represent carved stonework. Of this famous roof every one has heard how good it, how bad, how perfect a delusion, how transparent all artifice.