“Beyond, the eye ranges to an immense distance over the rich and fertile plains of Lombardy, Piedmont, and the Venetian States, luxuriant with every description of rural beauty, intersected by rivers and lakes, and thickly studded with towns and villages, with their attendant gardens, groves, and vineyards.  The Northern horizon, from East to West, is bounded by the vast chain of the Alps, which form a magnificent semicircle at from eighty to one hundred and twenty miles distant, Monte Rosa, Monte Cenis, Monte St. Gothard, the Simplon, &c. covered with eternal snow, being conspicuous from their towering height; towards the South the view is bounded by the Apennines, extending across the peninsula from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic; and on the South-west, the Piedmontese hills, in the neighbourhood of Turin, appear a faint purple line on the horizon, so small as to be scarcely visible; the purity of the atmosphere enables the eye to discern the most distant objects with accuracy, and the brilliant sunshine gives inconceivable splendour to every part of the scene; each antique spire and curiously-wrought tower sparkles brightly in its beams, whilst the dark foliage of fine trees, even in the heart of the city, relieves the eye, and produces a beautiful and pleasing effect.”

The cathedral will be recollected as the finest specimen extant of pointed Gothic architecture, and termed by the Milanese, the eighth wonder of the world.  It is entirely of white marble, and its highest point four hundred feet from the base.  A better idea of its minute as well as vast beauty will be afforded by the reader turning to our engraving of the exterior in vol. xiv. of The Mirror.  It is successfully painted in the Panorama, although it has not the dazzling whiteness that a stranger might expect; and, on it are those beautiful tinges which are thought to be shed by the atmosphere upon buildings of any considerable age.  This effect is visible ever in the fine climate of Italy:  it is ingeniously referred to by Sir Humphry Davy in his last work[6] to the chemical agency of water.  He speaks, however, rather of the decay produced by water, of which tinge is but the first stage.  The latter is very pleasing, and, about two years since, the fine portico of the Colosseum, in the Regent’s Park, was artificially coloured to produce this effect of time, as it has been poetically considered.

    [6] “Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher.”
    1830.

The City of Milan is not particularly interesting, though to an untravelled beholder, it has points of attraction.  He may probably be struck with the vast extent of some of the structures when compared with the puny buildings of our own country and times; and the space occupied by the palaces will but remind him of the mistaken magnificence of Buckingham, or the gloomy grandeur of St. James’s.  Again, the plastered and fancifully coloured fronts of the dwelling-houses, their gay draperies, &c. but ill-assort with the heavy red-brick exteriors of our metropolis; although this contrast is to be sought elsewhere than in externals.  Mr. Burford’s summary, or characteristics of the city may be quoted: