As it stands, it is immense, and coldly bare in its immensity.

Yet the present church is but the nave of a temple designed with transepts and choir.

The length was to have been 800 feet, the width of the transepts 625, the dome 183 feet in diameter.

A building so colossal in extent, and so monotonously meagre in conception, could not but have been a failure.
[26] Vol.II., _Revival of Learning_, chap, 1.
[27] The following passage quoted from Milizia, _Memorie degli Architetti_, Parma, 1781, vol.i.p.

135, illustrates the contemptuous attitude of Italian critics to Gothic architecture.