I should judge the width of each arch to be about twenty feet,
and the thickness of each clustered pillar is eight; or ten more, and the
length of the entire building may be between two and three hundred feet;
not very large, certainly, but it makes an impression of grandeur
independent of size. . . . .
I never shall succeed even in reminding myself of the venerable
magnificence of this minster, with its arches, its columns, its cornice
of popes' heads, its great wheel windows, its manifold ornament, all
combining in one vast effect, though many men have labored individually,
and through a long course of time, to produce this multifarious handiwork
and headwork.
I now took a walk out of the city. A road turned immediately to the left
as I emerged from the city, and soon proved to be a rustic lane leading
past several villas and farm-houses. It was a very pleasant walk, with
vineyards and olive-orchards on each side, and now and then glimpses of
the towers and sombre heaped-up palaces of Siena, and now a rural
seclusion again; for the hills rise and the valleys fall like the swell
and subsidence of the sea after a gale, so that Siena may be quite hidden
within a quarter of a mile of its wall, or may be visible, I doubt not,
twenty miles away.
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