The exterior has a great bald west front with three round arched doorways, and a false gable between two small but lofty flanking towers. The walls are arcaded under the eaves, and over the crossing rises an octagonal lantern, which is gathered in after a rather ungainly manner above the lowest stage. This steeple is finished with a low circular brick spire adorned in the most curious fashion with small
[Illustration: 61. SANT'ANDREA. VERCELLI. p. 332.]
circular brick pinnacles--one over each side of the tower--which look extremely like a collection of chimneys.
Detached from the church, and standing at an angle to it, is a simple campanile of later date (1399), and of four stages in height. The combination of this eccentrically placed tower with the rest of the church is very remarkable, and appears to have been simply a caprice. Its effect certainly does not warrant the sort of admiration which should lead any modern architect engaged in studying the church to recommend the copying of the relative positions of it and its bell-tower. I ought not to forget one feature--the buttress--which is treated here in quite the French or English fashion, with bold projection and good steep sloped weatherings instead of in the usual Italian fashion as a mere pilaster.
North of the nave of the church is a good cloister, on the east side of which is a fine square chapter-house, divided by groining piers into nine bays. The original triple entrance to the chapter-house--a door with window on each side--still remains, and there is a communication also through a groined sacristy with the north transept. I know few churches which shew more just sense of the best treatment of a good Gothic interior than this does. In its original state, when the brickwork was exposed in its natural colour, the effect was of course much better than it is now; but the effect is still so good that I may safely assert that, were the exterior equal to the interior, there would be few more beautiful churches in Northern Italy.[77]
There is an interesting monument in the south-east chapel, corbelled out from the wall and decorated with sculpture and painting. In the gable is the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, below a figure kneeling before her, and said to represent the architect of the church, who died in 1246, being Abbat as well as architect. Immediately opposite the church is a hospital founded by the same cardinal. It has been much altered, but there are still some ancient portions, which I could not get leave to see.