It is, however, right to add that what the communes had begun the princes continued.

To the splendid taste of the Visconti dynasty, for instance, Milan owed her wonderful Duomo and the octagon bell-tower of S.Gottardo.The Certosas of Pavia and Chiaravalle, the palace of Pavia, and a host of minor monuments remain in Milan and its neighbourhood to prove how much a single family performed for the adornment of the cities they had subjugated.

And what is true of Milan applies to Italy throughout its length and breadth.

The Despots held their power at the price of magnificence in schemes of public utility.

So much at least of the free spirit of the communes survived in them, that they were always rivalling each other in great works of architecture.