Santa Croce, within, gives one an enlarging
sense of satisfaction, but as a pantheon rather
than as a church. Here at Bologna, San
Petronio, which approaches more nearly than
usua,l to living Gothic and contains so many
interesting things, gives me no pleasure at all,
and the smell of dirt which assails one at the
entrance into an atmosphere of human effluvia
such as I have never breathed in any Spanish



SAN PETRONIO 17

church would alone suffice to sicken any sense

of pleasure, if such sense there were. Of all

the interesting things it holds, I am only likely

to carry away the memory of two, especially

the first, which enjoys the advantage of being

outside, the lovely reliefs of Jacopo da Querela,

/'' with their free and delightful feeling for beauty,

' around the central portal, representing Bible

history from the days when Adam delved and

Eve span onwards. And then there is the

Knight whom we see in coloured effigy on his

tomb inside, near the west door, the youth

who, at the beginning of the fifteenth century,

as I learn from the inscription, having lost at

gaming, angrily struck with his dagger the

image of the Madonna outside the church,

thereby knocking off a finger of the Divine

Bambino, whereupon, filled with horror at

his own deed, he fell to the ground powerless,

was seized by the ministers of the church and

condemned to death for his sacrilegious act.
