An impression was produced upon both of us that this
doorway and the arcade on either side were by a different architect
from the two lower archways, and from the inside of the church; or
at any rate, that the details of the enrichment were cut by a
different mason, or gang of masons. I think, however, the whole
doorway is in a later style, and must have been put in after some
fire had destroyed the earlier one.
Opening the door, which by day is always unlocked, we found
ourselves in the church itself. As I have said, it is of pure
Lombard architecture, and very good of its kind; I do not think it
has been touched since the beginning of the eleventh century,
except that it has been re-roofed and the pitch of the roof
altered. At the base of the most westerly of the three piers that
divide the nave from the aisles, there crops out a small piece of
the living rock; this is at the end farthest from the choir. It is
not likely that Giovanni Vincenzo's church reached east of this
point, for from this point onwards towards the choir the floor is
artificially supported, and the supporting structure is due
entirely to Hugo de Montboissier. The part of the original church
which still remains is perhaps the wall, which forms the western
limit of the present church. This wall is not external. It forms
the eastern wall of a large chamber with frescoes. I am not sure
that this chamber does not occupy the whole space of the original
church.
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