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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3), by
+John Ruskin
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3)
+
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 31, 2009  [eBook #30755]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STONES OF VENICE, VOLUME II
+(OF 3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marius Masi, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 30755-h.htm or 30755-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30755/30755-h/30755-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30755/30755-h.zip)
+
+
+      Volumes I and III are available in the Project Gutenberg
+      Library:
+      Volume I--see http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30754
+      Volume III--see http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30756
+
+      Volume III contains the index for all three volumes. The
+      index in the html version of Volume III has links to the
+      the other two volumes.
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      A few typographical errors have been corrected. They are
+      listed at the end of the text.
+
+      Characters following a caret were printed as superscript
+      in the original. For example, St^a; here the "a" is a
+      superscript.
+
+
+
+
+
+Library Edition
+
+The Complete Works of John Ruskin
+
+STONES OF VENICE
+
+VOLUMES I-II
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+National Library Association
+New York             Chicago
+
+
+
+
+The Complete Works of John Ruskin
+
+Volume VIII
+
+STONES OF VENICE
+
+VOLUME II
+
+
+
+
+THE STONES OF VENICE
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+The Sea Stories
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+It was originally intended that this Work should consist of two volumes
+only; the subject has extended to three. The second volume, however,
+will conclude the account of the ancient architecture of Venice. The
+third will embrace the Early, the Roman, and the Grotesque Renaissance;
+and an Index, which, as it gives, in alphabetical order, a brief account
+of all the buildings in Venice, or references to the places where they
+are mentioned in the text, will be found a convenient guide for the
+traveller. In order to make it more serviceable, I have introduced some
+notices of the pictures which I think most interesting in the various
+churches, and in the Scuola di San Rocco.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD.
+
+                         CHAPTER I.
+                                                      PAGE
+    The Throne,                                          1
+
+                        CHAPTER II.
+    Torcello,                                           11
+
+                       CHAPTER III.
+    Murano,                                             27
+
+                        CHAPTER IV.
+    St. Mark's,                                         57
+
+                        CHAPTER V.
+    Byzantine Palaces,                                 118
+
+
+  SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD.
+
+                        CHAPTER VI.
+    The Nature of Gothic,                              151
+
+                       CHAPTER VII.
+    Gothic Palaces,                                    231
+
+                       CHAPTER VIII.
+    The Ducal Palace,                                  281
+
+
+  APPENDIX.
+
+     1. The Gondolier's Cry,                           375
+     2. Our Lady of Salvation,                         378
+     3. Tides of Venice and Measures at Torcello,      378
+     4. Date of the Duomo of Torcello,                 380
+     5. Modern Pulpits,                                380
+     6. Apse of Murano,                                382
+     7. Early Venetian Dress,                          383
+     8. Inscriptions at Murano,                        384
+     9. Shafts of St. Mark's,                          384
+    10. Proper Sense of the Word Idolatry,             388
+    11. Situations of Byzantine Palaces,               391
+    12. Modern Paintings on Glass,                     394
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PLATES.
+
+
+                                                           Facing Page
+ Plate 1. Plans of Torcello and Murano,                             14
+
+   "   2. The Acanthus of Torcello,                                 15
+
+   "   3. Inlaid Bands of Murano,                                   40
+
+   "   4. Sculptures of Murano,                                     42
+
+   "   5. Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano,                         45
+
+   "   6. The Vine, Free and in Service,                            96
+
+   "   7. Byzantine Capitals--Convex Group,                        131
+
+   "   8. Byzantine Capitals--Concave Group,                       132
+
+   "   9. Lily Capital of St. Mark's,                              136
+
+   "  10. The Four Venetian Flower Order,                          137
+
+   "  11. Byzantine Sculptures,                                    138
+
+   "  12. Linear and Surface Gothic,                               224
+
+   "  13. Balconies,                                               247
+
+   "  14. The Orders of Venetian Arches,                           248
+
+   "  15. Windows of the Second Order,                             254
+
+   "  16. Windows of the Fourth Order,                             257
+
+   "  17. Windows of the Early Gothic Palaces,                     259
+
+   "  18. Windows of the Fifth Order,                              266
+
+   "  19. Leafage of the Vine Angle,                               308
+
+   "  20. Leafage of the Venetian Capitals,                        368
+
+
+
+
+               THE
+
+        STONES OF VENICE.
+
+  FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE THRONE.
+
+
+§ I. In the olden days of travelling, now to return no more, in which
+distance could not be vanquished without toil, but in which that toil
+was rewarded, partly by the power of deliberate survey of the countries
+through which the journey lay, and partly by the happiness of the
+evening hours, when, from the top of the last hill he had surmounted,
+the traveller beheld the quiet village where he was to rest, scattered
+among the meadows beside its valley stream; or, from the long-hoped-for
+turn in the dusty perspective of the causeway, saw, for the first time,
+the towers of some famed city, faint in the rays of sunset--hours of
+peaceful and thoughtful pleasure, for which the rush of the arrival in
+the railway station is perhaps not always, or to all men, an
+equivalent,--in those days, I say, when there was something more to be
+anticipated and remembered in the first aspect of each successive
+halting-place, than a new arrangement of glass roofing and iron girder,
+there were few moments of which the recollection was more fondly
+cherished by the traveller than that which, as I endeavored to describe
+in the close of the last chapter, brought him within sight of Venice, as
+his gondola shot into the open lagoon from the canal of Mestre. Not but
+that the aspect of the city itself was generally the source of some
+slight disappointment, for, seen in this direction, its buildings are
+far less characteristic than those of the other great towns of Italy;
+but this inferiority was partly disguised by distance, and more than
+atoned for by the strange rising of its walls and towers out of the
+midst, as it seemed, of the deep sea, for it was impossible that the
+mind or the eye could at once comprehend the shallowness of the vast
+sheet of water which stretched away in leagues of rippling lustre to the
+north and south, or trace the narrow line of islets bounding it to the
+east. The salt breeze, the white moaning sea-birds, the masses of black
+weed separating and disappearing gradually, in knots of heaving shoal,
+under the advance of the steady tide, all proclaimed it to be indeed the
+ocean on whose bosom the great city rested so calmly; not such blue,
+soft, lake-like ocean as bathes the Neapolitan promontories, or sleeps
+beneath the marble rocks of Genoa, but a sea with the bleak power of our
+own northern waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious rest, and
+changed from its angry pallor into a field of burnished gold, as the sun
+declined behind the belfry tower of the lonely island church, fitly
+named "St. George of the Seaweed." As the boat drew nearer to the city,
+the coast which the traveller had just left sank behind him into one
+long, low, sad-colored line, tufted irregularly with brushwood and
+willows: but, at what seemed its northern extremity, the hills of Arqua
+rose in a dark cluster of purple pyramids, balanced on the bright mirage
+of the lagoon; two or three smooth surges of inferior hill extended
+themselves about their roots, and beyond these, beginning with the
+craggy peaks above Vicenza, the chain of the Alps girded the whole
+horizon to the north--a wall of jagged blue, here and there showing
+through its clefts a wilderness of misty precipices, fading far back
+into the recesses of Cadore, and itself rising and breaking away
+eastward, where the sun struck opposite upon its snow, into mighty
+fragments of peaked light, standing up behind the barred clouds of
+evening, one after another, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea,
+until the eye turned back from pursuing them, to rest upon the nearer
+burning of the campaniles of Murano, and on the great city, where it
+magnified itself along the waves, as the quick silent pacing of the
+gondola drew nearer and nearer. And at last, when its walls were
+reached, and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered, not
+through towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two
+rocks of coral in the Indian sea; when first upon the traveller's sight
+opened the long ranges of columned palaces,--each with its black boat
+moored at the portal,--each with its image cast down, beneath its feet,
+upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of
+rich tessellation; when first, at the extremity of the bright vista, the
+shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve slowly forth from behind the
+palace of the Camerlenghi; that strange curve, so delicate, so
+adamantine, strong as a mountain cavern, graceful as a bow just bent;
+when first, before its moonlike circumference was all risen, the
+gondolier's cry, "Ah! Stalí,"[1] struck sharp upon the ear, and the prow
+turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met over the narrow
+canal, where the plash of the water followed close and loud, ringing
+along the marble by the boat's side; and when at last that boat darted
+forth upon the breadth of silver sea, across which the front of the
+Ducal palace, flushed with its sanguine veins, looks to the snowy dome
+of Our Lady of Salvation,[2] it was no marvel that the mind should be so
+deeply entranced by the visionary charm of a scene so beautiful and so
+strange, as to forget the darker truths of its history and its being.
+Well might it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the
+rod of the enchanter, than the fear of the fugitive; that the waters
+which encircled her had been chosen for the mirror of her state, rather
+than the shelter of her nakedness; and that all which in nature was wild
+or merciless,--Time and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests,--had
+been won to adorn her instead of to destroy, and might still spare, for
+ages to come, that beauty which seemed to have fixed for its throne the
+sands of the hour-glass as well as of the sea.
+
+§ II. And although the last few eventful years, fraught with change to
+the face of the whole earth, have been more fatal in their influence on
+Venice than the five hundred that preceded them; though the noble
+landscape of approach to her can now be seen no more, or seen only by a
+glance, as the engine slackens its rushing on the iron line; and though
+many of her palaces are for ever defaced, and many in desecrated ruins,
+there is still so much of magic in her aspect, that the hurried
+traveller, who must leave her before the wonder of that first aspect has
+been worn away, may still be led to forget the humility of her origin,
+and to shut his eyes to the depth of her desolation. They, at least, are
+little to be envied, in whose hearts the great charities of the
+imagination lie dead, and for whom the fancy has no power to repress the
+importunity of painful impressions, or to raise what is ignoble, and
+disguise what is discordant, in a scene so rich in its remembrances, so
+surpassing in its beauty. But for this work of the imagination there
+must be no permission during the task which is before us. The impotent
+feelings of romance, so singularly characteristic of this century, may
+indeed gild, but never save the remains of those mightier ages to which
+they are attached like climbing flowers; and they must be torn away from
+the magnificent fragments, if we would see them as they stood in their
+own strength. Those feelings, always as fruitless as they are fond, are
+in Venice not only incapable of protecting, but even of discerning, the
+objects to which they ought to have been attached. The Venice of modern
+fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of
+decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into
+dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow
+deserved sympathy, ever crossed that "Bridge of Sighs," which is the
+centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever
+saw that Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless
+interest: the statue which Byron makes Faliero address as of one of his
+great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty
+years after Faliero's death; and the most conspicuous parts of the city
+have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three centuries,
+that if Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be summoned from their
+tombs, and stood each on the deck of his galley at the entrance of the
+Grand Canal, that renowned entrance, the painter's favorite subject, the
+novelist's favorite scene, where the water first narrows by the steps of
+the Church of La Salute,--the mighty Doges would not know in what spot
+of the world they stood, would literally not recognize one stone of the
+great city, for whose sake, and by whose ingratitude, their grey hairs
+had been brought down with bitterness to the grave. The remains of
+_their_ Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which were the
+delight of the nation in its dotage; hidden in many a grass-grown court,
+and silent pathway, and lightless canal, where the slow waves have
+sapped their foundations for five hundred years, and must soon prevail
+over them for ever. It must be our task to glean and gather them forth,
+and restore out of them some faint image of the lost city, more gorgeous
+a thousand-fold than that which now exists, yet not created in the
+day-dream of the prince, nor by the ostentation of the noble, but built
+by iron hands and patient hearts, contending against the adversity of
+nature and the fury of man, so that its wonderfulness cannot be grasped
+by the indolence of imagination, but only after frank inquiry into the
+true nature of that wild and solitary scene, whose restless tides and
+trembling sands did indeed shelter the birth of the city, but long
+denied her dominion.
+
+§ III. When the eye falls casually on a map of Europe, there is no
+feature by which it is more likely to be arrested than the strange
+sweeping loop formed by the junction of the Alps and Apennines, and
+enclosing the great basin of Lombardy. This return of the mountain chain
+upon itself causes a vast difference in the character of the
+distribution of its débris on its opposite sides. The rock fragments and
+sediment which the torrents on the north side of the Alps bear into the
+plains are distributed over a vast extent of country, and, though here
+and there lodged in beds of enormous thickness, soon permit the firm
+substrata to appear from underneath them; but all the torrents which
+descend from the southern side of the High Alps, and from the northern
+slope of the Apennines, meet concentrically in the recess or mountain
+bay which the two ridges enclose; every fragment which thunder breaks
+out of their battlements, and every grain of dust which the summer rain
+washes from their pastures, is at last laid at rest in the blue sweep of
+the Lombardic plain; and that plain must have risen within its rocky
+barriers as a cup fills with wine, but for two contrary influences which
+continually depress, or disperse from its surface, the accumulation of
+the ruins of ages.
+
+§ IV. I will not tax the reader's faith in modern science by insisting
+on the singular depression of the surface of Lombardy, which appears for
+many centuries to have taken place steadily and continually; the main
+fact with which we have to do is the gradual transport, by the Po and
+its great collateral rivers, of vast masses of the finer sediment to the
+sea. The character of the Lombardic plains is most strikingly expressed
+by the ancient walls of its cities, composed for the most part of large
+rounded Alpine pebbles alternating with narrow courses of brick; and was
+curiously illustrated in 1848, by the ramparts of these same pebbles
+thrown up four or five feet high round every field, to check the
+Austrian cavalry in the battle under the walls of Verona. The finer dust
+among which these pebbles are dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed
+into continual strength by the Alpine snow, so that, however pure their
+waters may be when they issue from the lakes at the foot of the great
+chain, they become of the color and opacity of clay before they reach
+the Adriatic; the sediment which they bear is at once thrown down as
+they enter the sea, forming a vast belt of low land along the eastern
+coast of Italy. The powerful stream of the Po of course builds forward
+the fastest; on each side of it, north and south, there is a tract of
+marsh, fed by more feeble streams, and less liable to rapid change than
+the delta of the central river. In one of these tracts is built RAVENNA,
+and in the other VENICE.
+
+§ V. What circumstances directed the peculiar arrangement of this great
+belt of sediment in the earliest times, it is not here the place to
+inquire. It is enough for us to know that from the mouths of the Adige
+to those of the Piave there stretches, at a variable distance of from
+three to five miles from the actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into
+long islands by narrow channels of sea. The space between this bank and
+the true shore consists of the sedimentary deposits from these and other
+rivers, a great plain of calcareous mud, covered, in the neighborhood of
+Venice, by the sea at high water, to the depth in most places of a foot
+or a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere exposed at low tide, but
+divided by an intricate network of narrow and winding channels, from
+which the sea never retires. In some places, according to the run of the
+currents, the land has risen into marshy islets, consolidated, some by
+art, and some by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon, or
+fruitful enough to be cultivated: in others, on the contrary, it has not
+reached the sea-level; so that, at the average low water, shallow
+lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of seaweed. In the
+midst of the largest of these, increased in importance by the confluence
+of several large river channels towards one of the openings in the sea
+bank, the city of Venice itself is built, on a crowded cluster of
+islands; the various plots of higher ground which appear to the north
+and south of this central cluster, have at different periods been also
+thickly inhabited, and now bear, according to their size, the remains of
+cities, villages, or isolated convents and churches, scattered among
+spaces of open ground, partly waste and encumbered by ruins, partly
+under cultivation for the supply of the metropolis.
+
+§ VI. The average rise and fall of the tide is about three feet (varying
+considerably with the seasons[3]); but this fall, on so flat a shore, is
+enough to cause continual movement in the waters, and in the main canals
+to produce a reflux which frequently runs like a mill stream. At high
+water no land is visible for many miles to the north or south of Venice,
+except in the form of small islands crowned with towers or gleaming with
+villages: there is a channel, some three miles wide, between the city
+and the mainland, and some mile and a half wide between it and the sandy
+breakwater called the Lido, which divides the lagoon from the Adriatic,
+but which is so low as hardly to disturb the impression of the city's
+having been built in the midst of the ocean, although the secret of its
+true position is partly, yet not painfully, betrayed by the clusters of
+piles set to mark the deep-water channels, which undulate far away in
+spotty chains like the studded backs of huge sea-snakes, and by the
+quick glittering of the crisped and crowded waves that flicker and dance
+before the strong winds upon the unlifted level of the shallow sea. But
+the scene is widely different at low tide. A fall of eighteen or twenty
+inches is enough to show ground over the greater part of the lagoon; and
+at the complete ebb the city is seen standing in the midst of a dark
+plain of seaweed, of gloomy green, except only where the larger branches
+of the Brenta and its associated streams converge towards the port of
+the Lido. Through this salt and sombre plain the gondola and the
+fishing-boat advance by tortuous channels, seldom more than four or five
+feet deep, and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow
+the bottom till their crossing tracks are seen through the clear sea
+water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes
+upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed
+that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to
+and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide. The scene is
+often profoundly oppressive, even at this day, when every plot of higher
+ground bears some fragment of fair building: but, in order to know what
+it was once, let the traveller follow in his boat at evening the
+windings of some unfrequented channel far into the midst of the
+melancholy plain; let him remove, in his imagination, the brightness of
+the great city that still extends itself in the distance, and the walls
+and towers from the islands that are near; and so wait, until the bright
+investiture and sweet warmth of the sunset are withdrawn from the
+waters, and the black desert of their shore lies in its nakedness
+beneath the night, pathless, comfortless, infirm, lost in dark languor
+and fearful silence, except where the salt runlets plash into the
+tideless pools, or the sea-birds flit from their margins with a
+questioning cry; and he will be enabled to enter in some sort into the
+horror of heart with which this solitude was anciently chosen by man for
+his habitation. They little thought, who first drove the stakes into the
+sand, and strewed the ocean reeds for their rest, that their children
+were to be the princes of that ocean, and their palaces its pride; and
+yet, in the great natural laws that rule that sorrowful wilderness, let
+it be remembered what strange preparation had been made for the things
+which no human imagination could have foretold, and how the whole
+existence and fortune of the Venetian nation were anticipated or
+compelled, by the setting of those bars and doors to the rivers and the
+sea. Had deeper currents divided their islands, hostile navies would
+again and again have reduced the rising city into servitude; had
+stronger surges beaten their shores, all the richness and refinement of
+the Venetian architecture must have been exchanged for the walls and
+bulwarks of an ordinary sea-port. Had there been no tide, as in other
+parts of the Mediterranean, the narrow canals of the city would have
+become noisome, and the marsh in which it was built pestiferous. Had the
+tide been only a foot or eighteen inches higher in its rise, the
+water-access to the doors of the palaces would have been impossible:
+even as it is, there is sometimes a little difficulty, at the ebb, in
+landing without setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps: and the
+highest tides sometimes enter the courtyards, and overflow the entrance
+halls. Eighteen inches more of difference between the level of the flood
+and ebb would have rendered the doorsteps of every palace, at low water,
+a treacherous mass of weeds and limpets, and the entire system of
+water-carriage for the higher classes, in their easy and daily
+intercourse, must have been done away with. The streets of the city
+would have been widened, its network of canals filled up, and all the
+peculiar character of the place and the people destroyed.
+
+§ VII. The reader may perhaps have felt some pain in the contrast
+between this faithful view of the site of the Venetian Throne, and the
+romantic conception of it which we ordinarily form; but this pain, if he
+have felt it, ought to be more than counterbalanced by the value of the
+instance thus afforded to us at once of the inscrutableness and the
+wisdom of the ways of God. If, two thousand years ago, we had been
+permitted to watch the slow settling of the slime of those turbid rivers
+into the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters of
+the lifeless, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we have
+understood the purpose with which those islands were shaped out of the
+void, and the torpid waters enclosed with their desolate walls of sand!
+How little could we have known, any more than of what now seems to us
+most distressful, dark, and objectless, the glorious aim which was then
+in the mind of Him in whose hand are all the corners of the earth! how
+little imagined that in the laws which were stretching forth the gloomy
+margins of those fruitless banks, and feeding the bitter grass among
+their shallows, there was indeed a preparation, and _the only
+preparation possible_, for the founding of a city which was to be set
+like a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to write her history on
+the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it in their thunder,
+and to gather and give forth, in worldwide pulsation, the glory of the
+West and of the East, from the burning heart of her Fortitude and
+Splendor.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [1] Appendix 1, "The Gondolier's Cry."
+
+  [2] Appendix 2, "Our Lady of Salvation."
+
+  [3] Appendix 3, "Tides of Venice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Torcello.
+
+
+§ I. Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near
+the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher
+level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised
+here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks
+of sea. One of the feeblest of these inlets, after winding for some time
+among buried fragments of masonry, and knots of sunburnt weeds whitened
+with webs of fucus, stays itself in an utterly stagnant pool beside a
+plot of greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this mound
+is built a rude brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which
+if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder us, the door
+of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its hinges), we may command
+from it one of the most notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far
+as the eye can reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey;
+not like our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath,
+but lifeless, the color of sackcloth, with the corrupted sea-water
+soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and gleaming hither and
+thither through its snaky channels. No gathering of fantastic mists, nor
+coursing of clouds across it; but melancholy clearness of space in the
+warm sunset, oppressive, reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To
+the very horizon, on the north-east; but, to the north and west, there
+is a blue line of higher land along the border of it, and above this,
+but farther back, a misty band of mountains, touched with snow. To the
+east, the paleness and roar of the Adriatic, louder at momentary
+intervals as the surf breaks on the bars of sand; to the south, the
+widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple and pale
+green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight sky; and almost
+beneath our feet, on the same field which sustains the tower we gaze
+from, a group of four buildings, two of them little larger than cottages
+(though built of stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry), the third
+an octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little more than the flat
+red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a considerable church with
+nave and aisles, but of which, in like manner, we can see little but the
+long central ridge and lateral slopes of roof, which the sunlight
+separates in one glowing mass from the green field beneath and grey moor
+beyond. There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any
+vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a little
+company of ships becalmed on a far-away sea.
+
+§ II. Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening branches of
+the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into which they gather,
+there are a multitude of towers, dark, and scattered among square-set
+shapes of clustered palaces, a long and irregular line fretting the
+southern sky.
+
+Mother and daughter, you behold them both in their widowhood,--TORCELLO
+and VENICE.
+
+Thirteen hundred years ago, the grey moorland looked as it does this
+day, and the purple mountains stood as radiantly in the deep distances
+of evening; but on the line of the horizon, there were strange fires
+mixed with the light of sunset, and the lament of many human voices
+mixed with the fretting of the waves on their ridges of sand. The flames
+rose from the ruins of Altinum; the lament from the multitude of its
+people, seeking, like Israel of old, a refuge from the sword in the
+paths of the sea.
+
+The cattle are feeding and resting upon the site of the city that they
+left; the mower's scythe swept this day at dawn over the chief street of
+the city that they built, and the swathes of soft grass are now sending
+up their scent into the night air, the only incense that fills the
+temple of their ancient worship. Let us go down into that little space
+of meadow land.
+
+§ III. The inlet which runs nearest to the base of the campanile is not
+that by which Torcello is commonly approached. Another, somewhat
+broader, and overhung by alder copse, winds out of the main channel of
+the lagoon up to the very edge of the little meadow which was once the
+Piazza of the city, and there, stayed by a few grey stones which present
+some semblance of a quay, forms its boundary at one extremity. Hardly
+larger than an ordinary English farmyard, and roughly enclosed on each
+side by broken palings and hedges of honeysuckle and briar, the narrow
+field retires from the water's edge, traversed by a scarcely traceable
+footpath, for some forty or fifty paces, and then expanding into the
+form of a small square, with buildings on three sides of it, the fourth
+being that which opens to the water. Two of these, that on our left and
+that in front of us as we approach from the canal, are so small that
+they might well be taken for the out-houses of the farm, though the
+first is a conventual building, and the other aspires to the title of
+the "Palazzo publico," both dating as far back as the beginning of the
+fourteenth century; the third, the octagonal church of Santa Fosca, is
+far more ancient than either, yet hardly on a larger scale. Though the
+pillars of the portico which surrounds it are of pure Greek marble, and
+their capitals are enriched with delicate sculpture, they, and the
+arches they sustain, together only raise the roof to the height of a
+cattle-shed; and the first strong impression which the spectator
+receives from the whole scene is, that whatever sin it may have been
+which has on this spot been visited with so utter a desolation, it could
+not at least have been ambition. Nor will this impression be diminished
+as we approach, or enter, the larger church to which the whole group of
+building is subordinate. It has evidently been built by men in flight
+and distress,[4] who sought in the hurried erection of their island
+church such a shelter for their earnest and sorrowful worship as, on the
+one hand, could not attract the eyes of their enemies by its splendor,
+and yet, on the other, might not awaken too bitter feelings by its
+contrast with the churches which they had seen destroyed. There is
+visible everywhere a simple and tender effort to recover some of the
+form of the temples which they had loved, and to do honor to God by that
+which they were erecting, while distress and humiliation prevented the
+desire, and prudence precluded the admission, either of luxury of
+ornament or magnificence of plan. The exterior is absolutely devoid of
+decoration, with the exception only of the western entrance and the
+lateral door, of which the former has carved sideposts and architrave,
+and the latter, crosses of rich sculpture; while the massy stone
+shutters of the windows, turning on huge rings of stone, which answer
+the double purpose of stanchions and brackets, cause the whole building
+rather to resemble a refuge from Alpine storm than the cathedral of a
+populous city; and, internally, the two solemn mosaics of the eastern
+and western extremities,--one representing the Last Judgment, the other
+the Madonna, her tears falling as her hands are raised to bless,--and
+the noble range of pillars which enclose the space between, terminated
+by the high throne for the pastor and the semicircular raised seats for
+the superior clergy, are expressive at once of the deep sorrow and the
+sacred courage of men who had no home left them upon earth, but who
+looked for one to come, of men "persecuted but not forsaken, cast down
+but not destroyed."
+
+§ IV. I am not aware of any other early church in Italy which has this
+peculiar expression in so marked a degree; and it is so consistent with
+all that Christian architecture ought to express in every age (for the
+actual condition of the exiles who built the cathedral of Torcello is
+exactly typical of the spiritual condition which every Christian ought
+to recognize in himself, a state of homelessness on earth, except so far
+as he can make the Most High his habitation), that I would rather fix
+the mind of the reader on this general character than on the separate
+details, however interesting, of the architecture itself. I shall
+therefore examine these only so far as is necessary to give a clear idea
+of the means by which the peculiar expression of the building is
+attained.
+
+[Illustration: Plate I.
+               PLANS OF TORCELLO AND MURANO.]
+
+§ V. On the opposite page, the uppermost figure, 1, is a rude plan
+of the church. I do not answer for the thickness and external
+disposition of the walls, which are not to our present purpose, and
+which I have not carefully examined; but the interior arrangement is
+given with sufficient accuracy. The church is built on the usual plan of
+the Basilica[5] that is to say, its body divided into a nave and aisles
+by two rows of massive shafts, the roof of the nave being raised high
+above the aisles by walls sustained on two ranks of pillars, and pierced
+with small arched windows. At Torcello the aisles are also lighted in
+the same manner, and the nave is nearly twice their breadth.[6]
+
+[Illustration: Plate II.
+               THE ACANTHUS OF TORCELLO.]
+
+The capitals of all the great shafts are of white marble, and are among
+the best I have ever seen, as examples of perfectly calculated effect
+from every touch of the chisel. Mr. Hope calls them "indifferently
+imitated from the Corinthian:"[7] but the expression is as inaccurate as
+it is unjust; every one of them is different in design, and their
+variations are as graceful as they are fanciful. I could not, except by
+an elaborate drawing, give any idea of the sharp, dark, deep
+penetrations of the chisel into their snowy marble, but a single example
+is given in the opposite plate, fig. 1, of the nature of the changes
+effected in them from the Corinthian type. In this capital, although a
+kind of acanthus (only with rounded lobes) is indeed used for the upper
+range of leaves, the lower range is not acanthus at all, but a kind of
+vine, or at least that species of plant which stands for vine in all
+early Lombardic and Byzantine work (vide Vol. I. Appendix 8); the leaves
+are trefoiled, and the stalks cut clear so that they might be grasped
+with the hand, and cast sharp dark shadows, perpetually changing, across
+the bell of the capital behind them. I have drawn one of these vine
+plants larger in fig. 2, that the reader may see how little imitation
+of the Corinthian there is in them, and how boldly the stems of the
+leaves are detached from the ground. But there is another circumstance
+in this ornament still more noticeable. The band which encircles the
+shaft beneath the spring of the leaves is copied from the common
+classical wreathed or braided fillet, of which the reader may see
+examples on almost every building of any pretensions in modern London.
+But the medićval builders could not be content with the dead and
+meaningless scroll: the Gothic energy and love of life, mingled with the
+early Christian religious symbolism, were struggling daily into more
+vigorous expression, and they turned the wreathed band into a serpent of
+three times the length necessary to undulate round the shaft, which,
+knotting itself into a triple chain, shows at one side of the shaft its
+tail and head, as if perpetually gliding round it beneath the stalks of
+the vines. The vine, as is well known, was one of the early symbols of
+Christ, and the serpent is here typical either of the eternity of his
+dominion, or of the Satanic power subdued.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+§ VI. Nor even when the builder confines himself to the acanthus leaf
+(or to that representation of it, hereafter to be more particularly
+examined, constant in Romanesque work) can his imagination allow him to
+rest content with its accustomed position. In a common Corinthian
+capital the leaves nod forward only, thrown out on every side from the
+bell which they surround: but at the base of one of the capitals on the
+opposite side of the nave from this of the vines,[8] two leaves are
+introduced set with their sides outwards, forming spirals by curling
+back, half-closed, in the position shown in fig. 4 in Plate II., there
+represented as in a real acanthus leaf; for it will assist our future
+inquiries into the ornamentation of capitals that the reader should be
+acquainted with the form of the acanthus leaf itself. I have drawn it,
+therefore, in the two positions, figs. 3 and 4 in Plate II.; while fig.
+5 is the translation of the latter form into marble by the sculptor of
+Torcello. It is not very like the acanthus, but much liker than any
+Greek work; though still entirely conventional in its cinquefoiled
+lobes. But these are disposed with the most graceful freedom of line,
+separated at the roots by deep drill holes, which tell upon the eye far
+away like beads of jet; and changed, before they become too crowded to
+be effective, into a vigorous and simple zigzagged edge, which saves the
+designer some embarrassment in the perspective of the terminating
+spiral. But his feeling of nature was greater than his knowledge of
+perspective; and it is delightful to see how he has rooted the whole
+leaf in the strong rounded under-stem, the indication of its closing
+with its face inwards, and has thus given organization and elasticity to
+the lovely group of spiral lines; a group of which, even in the lifeless
+sea-shell, we are never weary, but which becomes yet more delightful
+when the ideas of elasticity and growth are joined to the sweet
+succession of its involution.
+
+§ VII. It is not, however, to be expected that either the mute language
+of early Christianity (however important a part of the expression of the
+building at the time of its erection), or the delicate fancies of the
+Gothic leafage springing into new life, should be read, or perceived, by
+the passing traveller who has never been taught to expect anything in
+architecture except five orders: yet he can hardly fail to be struck by
+the simplicity and dignity of the great shafts themselves; by the frank
+diffusion of light, which prevents their severity from becoming
+oppressive; by the delicate forms and lovely carving of the pulpit and
+chancel screen; and, above all, by the peculiar aspect of the eastern
+extremity of the church, which, instead of being withdrawn, as in later
+cathedrals, into a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, or contributing by
+the brilliancy of its windows to the splendor of the altar, and
+theatrical effect of the ceremonies performed there, is a simple and
+stern semicircular recess, filled beneath by three ranks of seats,
+raised one above the other, for the bishop and presbyters, that they
+might watch as well as guide the devotions of the people, and discharge
+literally in the daily service the functions of bishops or _overseers_
+of the flock of God.
+
+§ VIII. Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession;
+and first (for of the shafts enough has been said already), what is very
+peculiar to this church, its luminousness. This perhaps strikes the
+traveller more from its contrast with the excessive gloom of the Church
+of St. Mark's; but it is remarkable when we compare the Cathedral of
+Torcello with any of the contemporary basilicas in South Italy or
+Lombardic churches in the North. St. Ambrogio at Milan, St. Michele at
+Pavia, St. Zeno at Verona, St. Frediano at Lucca, St. Miniato at
+Florence, are all like sepulchral caverns compared with Torcello, where
+the slightest details of the sculptures and mosaics are visible, even
+when twilight is deepening. And there is something especially touching
+in our finding the sunshine thus freely admitted into a church built by
+men in sorrow. They did not need the darkness; they could not perhaps
+bear it. There was fear and depression upon them enough, without a
+material gloom. They sought for comfort in their religion, for tangible
+hopes and promises, not for threatenings or mysteries; and though the
+subjects chosen for the mosaics on the walls are of the most solemn
+character, there are no artificial shadows cast upon them, nor dark
+colors used in them: all is fair and bright, and intended evidently to
+be regarded in hopefulness, and not with terror.
+
+§ IX. For observe this choice of subjects. It is indeed possible that
+the walls of the nave and aisles, which are now whitewashed, may have
+been covered with fresco or mosaic, and thus have supplied a series of
+subjects, on the choice of which we cannot speculate. I do not, however,
+find record of the destruction of any such works; and I am rather
+inclined to believe that at any rate the central division of the
+building was originally decorated, as it is now, simply by mosaics
+representing Christ, the Virgin, and the apostles, at one extremity, and
+Christ coming to judgment at the other. And if so, I repeat, observe the
+significance of this choice. Most other early churches are covered with
+imagery sufficiently suggestive of the vivid interest of the builders in
+the history and occupations of the world. Symbols or representations of
+political events, portraits of living persons, and sculptures of
+satirical, grotesque, or trivial subjects are of constant occurrence,
+mingled with the more strictly appointed representations of scriptural
+or ecclesiastical history; but at Torcello even these usual, and one
+should have thought almost necessary, successions of Bible events do not
+appear. The mind of the worshipper was fixed entirely upon two great
+facts, to him the most precious of all facts,--the present mercy of
+Christ to His Church, and His future coming to judge the world. That
+Christ's mercy was, at this period, supposed chiefly to be attainable
+through the pleading of the Virgin, and that therefore beneath the
+figure of the Redeemer is seen that of the weeping Madonna in the act of
+intercession, may indeed be matter of sorrow to the Protestant beholder,
+but ought not to blind him to the earnestness and singleness of the
+faith with which these men sought their sea-solitudes; not in hope of
+founding new dynasties, or entering upon new epochs of prosperity, but
+only to humble themselves before God, and to pray that in His infinite
+mercy He would hasten the time when the sea should give up the dead
+which were in it, and Death and Hell give up the dead which were in
+them, and when they might enter into the better kingdom, "where the
+wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."
+
+§ X. Nor were the strength and elasticity of their minds, even in the
+least matters, diminished by thus looking forward to the close of all
+things. On the contrary, nothing is more remarkable than the finish and
+beauty of all the portions of the building, which seem to have been
+actually executed for the place they occupy in the present structure.
+The rudest are those which they brought with them from the mainland; the
+best and most beautiful, those which appear to have been carved for
+their island church: of these, the new capitals already noticed, and the
+exquisite panel ornaments of the chancel screen, are the most
+conspicuous; the latter form a low wall across the church between the
+six small shafts whose places are seen in the plan, and serve to enclose
+a space raised two steps above the level of the nave, destined for the
+singers, and indicated also in the plan by an open line _a b c d_. The
+bas-reliefs on this low screen are groups of peacocks and lions, two
+face to face on each panel, rich and fantastic beyond description,
+though not expressive of very accurate knowledge either of leonine or
+pavonine forms. And it is not until we pass to the back of the stair of
+the pulpit, which is connected with the northern extremity of this
+screen, that we find evidence of the haste with which the church was
+constructed.
+
+§ XI. The pulpit, however, is not among the least noticeable of its
+features. It is sustained on the four small detached shafts marked at
+_p_ in the plan, between the two pillars at the north side of the
+screen; both pillars and pulpit studiously plain, while the staircase
+which ascends to it is a compact mass of masonry (shaded in the plan),
+faced by carved slabs of marble; the parapet of the staircase being also
+formed of solid blocks like paving-stones, lightened by rich, but not
+deep, exterior carving. Now these blocks, or at least those which adorn
+the staircase towards the aisle, have been brought from the mainland;
+and, being of size and shape not easily to be adjusted to the
+proportions of the stair, the architect has cut out of them pieces of
+the size he needed, utterly regardless of the subject or symmetry of the
+original design. The pulpit is not the only place where this rough
+procedure has been permitted: at the lateral door of the church are two
+crosses, cut out of slabs of marble, formerly covered with rich
+sculpture over their whole surfaces, of which portions are left on the
+surface of the crosses; the lines of the original design being, of
+course, just as arbitrarily cut by the incisions between the arms, as
+the patterns upon a piece of silk which has been shaped anew. The fact
+is, that in all early Romanesque work, large surfaces are covered with
+sculpture for the sake of enrichment only; sculpture which indeed had
+always meaning, because it was easier for the sculptor to work with some
+chain of thought to guide his chisel, than without any; but it was not
+always intended, or at least not always hoped, that this chain of
+thought might be traced by the spectator. All that was proposed appears
+to have been the enrichment of surface, so as to make it delightful to
+the eye; and this being once understood, a decorated piece of marble
+became to the architect just what a piece of lace or embroidery is to a
+dressmaker, who takes of it such portions as she may require, with
+little regard to the places where the patterns are divided. And though
+it may appear, at first sight, that the procedure is indicative of
+bluntness and rudeness of feeling, we may perceive, upon reflection,
+that it may also indicate the redundance of power which sets little
+price upon its own exertion. When a barbarous nation builds its
+fortress-walls out of fragments of the refined architecture it has
+overthrown, we can read nothing but its savageness in the vestiges of
+art which may thus chance to have been preserved; but when the new work
+is equal, if not superior, in execution, to the pieces of the older art
+which are associated with it, we may justly conclude that the rough
+treatment to which the latter have been subjected is rather a sign of
+the hope of doing better things, than of want of feeling for those
+already accomplished. And, in general, this careless fitting of ornament
+is, in very truth, an evidence of life in the school of builders, and of
+their making a due distinction between work which is to be used for
+architectural effect, and work which is to possess an abstract
+perfection; and it commonly shows also that the exertion of design is so
+easy to them, and their fertility so inexhaustible, that they feel no
+remorse in using somewhat injuriously what they can replace with so
+slight an effort.
+
+§ XII. It appears however questionable in the present instance, whether,
+if the marbles had not been carved to his hand, the architect would have
+taken the trouble to enrich them. For the execution of the rest of the
+pulpit is studiously simple, and it is in this respect that its design
+possesses, it seems to me, an interest to the religious spectator
+greater than he will take in any other portion of the building. It is
+supported, as I said, on a group of four slender shafts; itself of a
+slightly oval form, extending nearly from one pillar of the nave to the
+next, so as to give the preacher free room for the action of the entire
+person, which always gives an unaffected impressiveness to the
+eloquence of the southern nations. In the centre of its curved front, a
+small bracket and detached shaft sustain the projection of a narrow
+marble desk (occupying the place of a cushion in a modern pulpit), which
+is hollowed out into a shallow curve on the upper surface, leaving a
+ledge at the bottom of the slab, so that a book laid upon it, or rather
+into it, settles itself there, opening as if by instinct, but without
+the least chance of slipping to the side, or in any way moving beneath
+the preacher's hands.[9] Six balls, or rather almonds, of purple marble
+veined with white are set round the edge of the pulpit, and form its
+only decoration. Perfectly graceful, but severe and almost cold in its
+simplicity, built for permanence and service, so that no single member,
+no stone of it, could be spared, and yet all are firm and uninjured as
+when they were first set together, it stands in venerable contrast both
+with the fantastic pulpits of medićval cathedrals and with the rich
+furniture of those of our modern churches. It is worth while pausing for
+a moment to consider how far the manner of decorating a pulpit may have
+influence on the efficiency of its service, and whether our modern
+treatment of this, to us all-important, feature of a church be the best
+possible.
+
+§ XIII. When the sermon is good we need not much concern ourselves about
+the form of the pulpit. But sermons cannot always be good; and I believe
+that the temper in which the congregation set themselves to listen may
+be in some degree modified by their perception of fitness or unfitness,
+impressiveness or vulgarity, in the disposition of the place appointed
+for the speaker,--not to the same degree, but somewhat in the same way,
+that they may be influenced by his own gestures or expression,
+irrespective of the sense of what he says. I believe, therefore, in the
+first place, that pulpits ought never to be highly decorated; the
+speaker is apt to look mean or diminutive if the pulpit is either on a
+very large scale or covered with splendid ornament, and if the interest
+of the sermon should flag the mind is instantly tempted to wander. I
+have observed that in almost all cathedrals, when the pulpits are
+peculiarly magnificent, sermons are not often preached from them; but
+rather, and especially if for any important purpose, from some temporary
+erection in other parts of the building: and though this may often be
+done because the architect has consulted the effect upon the eye more
+than the convenience of the ear in the placing of his larger pulpit, I
+think it also proceeds in some measure from a natural dislike in the
+preacher to match himself with the magnificence of the rostrum, lest the
+sermon should not be thought worthy of the place. Yet this will rather
+hold of the colossal sculptures, and pyramids of fantastic tracery which
+encumber the pulpits of Flemish and German churches, than of the
+delicate mosaics and ivory-like carving of the Romanesque basilicas, for
+when the form is kept simple, much loveliness of color and costliness of
+work may be introduced, and yet the speaker not be thrown into the shade
+by them.
+
+§ XIV. But, in the second place, whatever ornaments we admit ought
+clearly to be of a chaste, grave, and noble kind; and what furniture we
+employ, evidently more for the honoring of God's word than for the ease
+of the preacher. For there are two ways of regarding a sermon, either as
+a human composition, or a Divine message. If we look upon it entirely as
+the first, and require our clergymen to finish it with their utmost care
+and learning, for our better delight whether of ear or intellect, we
+shall necessarily be led to expect much formality and stateliness in its
+delivery, and to think that all is not well if the pulpit have not a
+golden fringe round it, and a goodly cushion in front of it, and if the
+sermon be not fairly written in a black book, to be smoothed upon the
+cushion in a majestic manner before beginning; all this we shall duly
+come to expect: but we shall at the same time consider the treatise thus
+prepared as something to which it is our duty to listen without
+restlessness for half an hour or three quarters, but which, when that
+duty has been decorously performed, we may dismiss from our minds in
+happy confidence of being provided with another when next it shall be
+necessary. But if once we begin to regard the preacher, whatever his
+faults, as a man sent with a message to us, which it is a matter of life
+or death whether we hear or refuse; if we look upon him as set in charge
+over many spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed to him but an
+hour or two in the seven days to speak to them; if we make some endeavor
+to conceive how precious these hours ought to be to him, a small vantage
+on the side of God after his flock have been exposed for six days
+together to the full weight of the world's temptation, and he has been
+forced to watch the thorn and the thistle springing in their hearts, and
+to see what wheat had been scattered there snatched from the wayside by
+this wild bird and the other, and at last, when breathless and weary
+with the week's labor they give him this interval of imperfect and
+languid hearing, he has but thirty minutes to get at the separate hearts
+of a thousand men, to convince them of all their weaknesses, to shame
+them for all their sins, to warn them of all their dangers, to try by
+this way and that to stir the hard fastenings of those doors where the
+Master himself has stood and knocked yet none opened, and to call at the
+openings of those dark streets where Wisdom herself hath stretched forth
+her hands and no man regarded,--thirty minutes to raise the dead
+in,--let us but once understand and feel this, and we shall look with
+changed eyes upon that frippery of gay furniture about the place from
+which the message of judgment must be delivered, which either breathes
+upon the dry bones that they may live, or, if ineffectual, remains
+recorded in condemnation, perhaps against the utterer and listener
+alike, but assuredly against one of them. We shall not so easily bear
+with the silk and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of
+oratory in the mouth of the messenger: we shall wish that his words may
+be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the place from which he
+speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people have
+gathered in their thirst.
+
+§ XV. But the severity which is so marked in the pulpit at Torcello is
+still more striking in the raised seats and episcopal throne which
+occupy the curve of the apse. The arrangement at first somewhat recalls
+to the mind that of the Roman amphitheatres; the flight of steps which
+lead up to the central throne divides the curve of the continuous steps
+or seats (it appears in the first three ranges questionable which were
+intended, for they seem too high for the one, and too low and close for
+the other), exactly as in an amphitheatre the stairs for access
+intersect the sweeping ranges of seats. But in the very rudeness of this
+arrangement, and especially in the want of all appliances of comfort
+(for the whole is of marble, and the arms of the central throne are not
+for convenience, but for distinction, and to separate it more
+conspicuously from the undivided seats), there is a dignity which no
+furniture of stalls nor carving of canopies ever could attain, and well
+worth the contemplation of the Protestant, both as sternly significative
+of an episcopal authority which in the early days of the Church was
+never disputed, and as dependent for all its impressiveness on the utter
+absence of any expression either of pride or self-indulgence.
+
+§ XVI. But there is one more circumstance which we ought to remember as
+giving peculiar significance to the position which the episcopal throne
+occupies in this island church, namely, that in the minds of all early
+Christians the Church itself was most frequently symbolized under the
+image of a ship, of which the bishop was the pilot. Consider the force
+which this symbol would assume in the imaginations of men to whom the
+spiritual Church had become an ark of refuge in the midst of a
+destruction hardly less terrible than that from which the eight souls
+were saved of old, a destruction in which the wrath of man had become as
+broad as the earth and as merciless as the sea, and who saw the actual
+and literal edifice of the Church raised up, itself like an ark in the
+midst of the waters. No marvel if with the surf of the Adriatic rolling
+between them and the shores of their birth, from which they were
+separated for ever, they should have looked upon each other as the
+disciples did when the storm came down on the Tiberias Lake, and have
+yielded ready and loving obedience to those who ruled them in His name,
+who had there rebuked the winds and commanded stillness to the sea. And
+if the stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the dominion
+of Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth conquering and
+to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the wealth of her arsenals or
+number of her armies, nor look upon the pageantry of her palaces, nor
+enter into the secrets of her councils; but let him ascend the highest
+tier of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar of Torcello, and
+then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble ribs of the
+goodly temple ship, let him repeople its veined deck with the shadows of
+its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the strength of heart
+that was kindled within them, when first, after the pillars of it had
+settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been closed against the
+angry sky that was still reddened by the fires of their
+homesteads,--first, within the shelter of its knitted walls, amidst the
+murmur of the waste of waves and the beating of the wings of the
+sea-birds round the rock that was strange to them,--rose that ancient
+hymn, in the power of their gathered voices:
+
+  THE SEA IS HIS, AND HE MADE IT:
+  AND HIS HANDS PREPARED THE DRY LAND.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [4] Appendix 4, "Date of the Duomo of Torcello."
+
+  [5] For a full account of the form and symbolical meaning of the
+    Basilica, see Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art," vol. i. p. 12. It is
+    much to be regretted that the Chevalier Bunsen's work on the
+    Basilicas of Rome is not translated into English.
+
+  [6] The measures are given in Appendix 3.
+
+  [7] Hope's "Historical Essay on Architecture" (third edition, 1840),
+    chap. ix. p. 95. In other respects Mr. Hope has done justice to this
+    building, and to the style of the early Christian churches in
+    general.
+
+  [8] A sketch has been given of this capital in my folio work.
+
+  [9] Appendix 5, "Modern Pulpits."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MURANO.
+
+
+§ I. The decay of the city of Venice is, in many respects, like that of
+an outwearied and aged human frame; the cause of its decrepitude is
+indeed at the heart, but the outward appearances of it are first at the
+extremities. In the centre of the city there are still places where some
+evidence of vitality remains, and where, with kind closing of the eyes
+to signs, too manifest even there, of distress and declining fortune,
+the stranger may succeed in imagining, for a little while, what must
+have been the aspect of Venice in her prime. But this lingering
+pulsation has not force enough any more to penetrate into the suburbs
+and outskirts of the city; the frost of death has there seized upon it
+irrevocably, and the grasp of mortal disease is marked daily by the
+increasing breadth of its belt of ruin. Nowhere is this seen more
+grievously than along the great north-eastern boundary, once occupied by
+the smaller palaces of the Venetians, built for pleasure or repose; the
+nobler piles along the grand canal being reserved for the pomp and
+business of daily life. To such smaller palaces some garden ground was
+commonly attached, opening to the water-side; and, in front of these
+villas and gardens, the lagoon was wont to be covered in the evening by
+gondolas: the space of it between this part of the city and the island
+group of Murano being to Venice, in her time of power, what its parks
+are to London; only gondolas were used instead of carriages, and the
+crowd of the population did not come out till towards sunset, and
+prolonged their pleasures far into the night, company answering to
+company with alternate singing.
+
+§ II. If, knowing this custom of the Venetians, and with a vision in
+his mind of summer palaces lining the shore, and myrtle gardens sloping
+to the sea, the traveller now seeks this suburb of Venice, he will be
+strangely and sadly surprised to find a new but perfectly desolate quay,
+about a mile in length, extending from the arsenal to the Sacca della
+Misericordia, in front of a line of miserable houses built in the course
+of the last sixty or eighty years, yet already tottering to their ruin;
+and not less to find that the principal object in the view which these
+houses (built partly in front and partly on the ruins of the ancient
+palaces) now command is a dead brick wall, about a quarter of a mile
+across the water, interrupted only by a kind of white lodge, the
+cheerfulness of which prospect is not enhanced by his finding that this
+wall encloses the principal public cemetery of Venice. He may, perhaps,
+marvel for a few moments at the singular taste of the old Venetians in
+taking their pleasure under a churchyard wall: but, on further inquiry,
+he will find that the building on the island, like those on the shore,
+is recent, that it stands on the ruins of the Church of St. Cristoforo
+della Pace; and that with a singular, because unintended, moral, the
+modern Venetians have replaced the Peace of the Christ-bearer by the
+Peace of Death, and where they once went, as the sun set daily, to their
+pleasure, now go, as the sun sets to each of them for ever, to their
+graves.
+
+§ III. Yet the power of Nature cannot be shortened by the folly, nor her
+beauty altogether saddened by the misery, of man. The broad tides still
+ebb and flow brightly about the island of the dead, and the linked
+conclave of the Alps know no decline from their old pre-eminence, nor
+stoop from their golden thrones in the circle of the horizon. So lovely
+is the scene still, in spite of all its injuries, that we shall find
+ourselves drawn there again and again at evening out of the narrow
+canals and streets of the city, to watch the wreaths of the sea-mists
+weaving themselves like mourning veils around the mountains far away,
+and listen to the green waves as they fret and sigh along the cemetery
+shore.
+
+§ IV. But it is morning now: we have a hard day's work to do at Murano,
+and our boat shoots swiftly from beneath the last bridge of Venice, and
+brings us out into the open sea and sky.
+
+The pure cumuli of cloud lie crowded and leaning against one another,
+rank beyond rank, far over the shining water, each cut away at its
+foundation by a level line, trenchant and clear, till they sink to the
+horizon like a flight of marble steps, except where the mountains meet
+them, and are lost in them, barred across by the grey terraces of those
+cloud foundations, and reduced into one crestless bank of blue, spotted
+here and there with strange flakes of wan, aerial, greenish light,
+strewed upon them like snow. And underneath is the long dark line of the
+mainland, fringed with low trees; and then the wide-waving surface of
+the burnished lagoon trembling slowly, and shaking out into forked bands
+of lengthening light the images of the towers of cloud above. To the
+north, there is first the great cemetery wall, then the long stray
+buildings of Murano, and the island villages beyond, glittering in
+intense crystalline vermilion, like so much jewellery scattered on a
+mirror, their towers poised apparently in the air a little above the
+horizon, and their reflections, as sharp and vivid and substantial as
+themselves, thrown on the vacancy between them and the sea. And thus the
+villages seem standing on the air; and, to the east, there is a cluster
+of ships that seem sailing on the land; for the sandy line of the Lido
+stretches itself between us and them, and we can see the tall white
+sails moving beyond it, but not the sea, only there is a sense of the
+great sea being indeed there, and a solemn strength of gleaming light in
+sky above.
+
+§ V. The most discordant feature in the whole scene is the cloud which
+hovers above the glass furnaces of Murano; but this we may not regret,
+as it is one of the last signs left of human exertion among the ruinous
+villages which surround us. The silent gliding of the gondola brings it
+nearer to us every moment; we pass the cemetery, and a deep sea-channel
+which separates it from Murano, and finally enter a narrow water-street,
+with a paved footpath on each side, raised three or four feet above the
+canal, and forming a kind of quay between the water and the doors of the
+houses. These latter are, for the most part, low, but built with massy
+doors and windows of marble or Istrian stone, square-set and barred with
+iron; buildings evidently once of no mean order, though now inhabited
+only by the poor. Here and there an ogee window of the fourteenth
+century, or a doorway deeply enriched with cable mouldings, shows itself
+in the midst of more ordinary features; and several houses, consisting
+of one story only carried on square pillars, forming a short arcade
+along the quay, have windows sustained on shafts of red Verona marble,
+of singular grace and delicacy. All now in vain: little care is there
+for their delicacy or grace among the rough fishermen sauntering on the
+quay with their jackets hanging loose from their shoulders, jacket and
+cap and hair all of the same dark-greenish sea-grey. But there is some
+life in the scene, more than is usual in Venice: the women are sitting
+at their doors knitting busily, and various workmen of the glass-houses
+sifting glass dust upon the pavement, and strange cries coming from one
+side of the canal to the other, and ringing far along the crowded water,
+from venders of figs and grapes, and gourds and shell-fish; cries partly
+descriptive of the eatables in question, but interspersed with others of
+a character unintelligible in proportion to their violence, and
+fortunately so if we may judge by a sentence which is stencilled in
+black, within a garland, on the whitewashed walls of nearly every other
+house in the street, but which, how often soever written, no one seems
+to regard: "Bestemme non piů. Lodate Gesů."
+
+§ VI. We push our way on between large barges laden with fresh water
+from Fusina, in round white tubs seven feet across, and complicated
+boats full of all manner of nets that look as if they could never be
+disentangled, hanging from their masts and over their sides; and
+presently pass under a bridge with the lion of St. Mark on its
+archivolt, and another on a pillar at the end of the parapet, a small
+red lion with much of the puppy in his face, looking vacantly up into
+the air (in passing we may note that, instead of feathers, his wings are
+covered with hair, and in several other points the manner of his
+sculpture is not uninteresting). Presently the canal turns a little to
+the left, and thereupon becomes more quiet, the main bustle of the
+water-street being usually confined to the first straight reach of it,
+some quarter of a mile long, the Cheapside of Murano. We pass a
+considerable church on the left, St. Pietro, and a little square
+opposite to it with a few acacia trees, and then find our boat suddenly
+seized by a strong green eddy, and whirled into the tide-way of one of
+the main channels of the lagoon, which divides the town of Murano into
+two parts by a deep stream some fifty yards over, crossed only by one
+wooden bridge. We let ourselves drift some way down the current, looking
+at the low line of cottages on the other side of it, hardly knowing if
+there be more cheerfulness or melancholy in the way the sunshine glows
+on their ruinous but whitewashed walls, and sparkles on the rushing of
+the green water by the grass-grown quay. It needs a strong stroke of the
+oar to bring us into the mouth of another quiet canal on the farther
+side of the tide-way, and we are still somewhat giddy when we run the
+head of the gondola into the sand on the left-hand side of this more
+sluggish stream, and land under the east end of the Church of San
+Donato, the "Matrice" or "Mother" Church of Murano.
+
+§ VII. It stands, it and the heavy campanile detached from it a few
+yards, in a small triangular field of somewhat fresher grass than is
+usual near Venice, traversed by a paved walk with green mosaic of short
+grass between the rude squares of its stones, bounded on one side by
+ruinous garden walls, on another by a line of low cottages, on the
+third, the base of the triangle, by the shallow canal from which we have
+just landed. Near the point of the triangular space is a simple well,
+bearing date 1502; in its widest part, between the canal and campanile,
+is a four-square hollow pillar, each side formed by a separate slab of
+stone, to which the iron hasps are still attached that once secured the
+Venetian standard.
+
+The cathedral itself occupies the northern angle of the field,
+encumbered with modern buildings, small outhouse-like chapels, and
+wastes of white wall with blank square windows, and itself utterly
+defaced in the whole body of it, nothing but the apse having been
+spared; the original plan is only discoverable by careful examination,
+and even then but partially. The whole impression and effect of the
+building are irretrievably lost, but the fragments of it are still most
+precious.
+
+We must first briefly state what is known of its history.
+
+§ VIII. The legends of the Romish Church, though generally more insipid
+and less varied than those of Paganism, deserve audience from us on this
+ground, if on no other, that they have once been sincerely believed by
+good men, and have had no ineffective agency in the foundation of the
+existent European mind. The reader must not therefore accuse me of
+trifling, when I record for him the first piece of information I have
+been able to collect respecting the cathedral of Murano: namely, that
+the emperor Otho the Great, being overtaken by a storm on the Adriatic,
+vowed, if he were preserved, to build and dedicate a church to the
+Virgin, in whatever place might be most pleasing to her; that the storm
+thereupon abated; and the Virgin appearing to Otho in a dream showed
+him, covered with red lilies, that very triangular field on which we
+were but now standing, amidst the ragged weeds and shattered pavement.
+The emperor obeyed the vision; and the church was consecrated on the
+15th of August, 957.
+
+§ IX. Whatever degree of credence we may feel disposed to attach to this
+piece of history, there is no question that a church was built on this
+spot before the close of the tenth century: since in the year 999 we
+find the incumbent of the Basilica (note this word, it is of some
+importance) di Santa Maria Plebania di Murano taking an oath of
+obedience to the Bishop of the Altinat church, and engaging at the same
+time to give the said bishop his dinner on the Domenica in Albis, when
+the prelate held a confirmation in the mother church, as it was then
+commonly called, of Murano. From this period, for more than a century, I
+can find no records of any alterations made in the fabric of the church,
+but there exist very full details of the quarrels which arose between
+its incumbents and those of San Stefano, San Cipriano, San Salvatore,
+and the other churches of Murano, touching the due obedience which their
+less numerous or less ancient brotherhoods owed to St. Mary's.
+
+These differences seem to have been renewed at the election of every new
+abbot by each of the fraternities, and must have been growing serious
+when the patriarch of Grado, Henry Dandolo, interfered in 1102, and, in
+order to seal a peace between the two principal opponents, ordered that
+the abbot of St. Stephen's should be present at the service in St.
+Mary's on the night of the Epiphany, and that the abbot of St. Mary's
+should visit him of St. Stephen's on St. Stephen's day; and that then
+the two abbots "should eat apples and drink good wine together, in peace
+and charity."[10]
+
+§ X. But even this kindly effort seems to have been without result: the
+irritated pride of the antagonists remained unsoothed by the love-feast
+of St. Stephen's day; and the breach continued to widen until the abbot
+of St. Mary's obtained a timely accession to his authority in the year
+1125. The Doge Domenico Michele, having in the second crusade secured
+such substantial advantages for the Venetians as might well
+counterbalance the loss of part of their trade with the East, crowned
+his successes by obtaining possession in Cephalonia of the body of St.
+Donato, bishop of Euroea; which treasure he having presented on his
+return to the Murano basilica, that church was thenceforward called the
+church of Sts. Mary and Donato. Nor was the body of the saint its only
+acquisition: St. Donato's principal achievement had been the destruction
+of a terrible dragon in Epirus; Michele brought home the bones of the
+dragon as well as of the saint; the latter were put in a marble
+sarcophagus, and the former hung up over the high altar.
+
+§ XI. But the clergy of St. Stefano were indomitable. At the very moment
+when their adversaries had received this formidable accession of
+strength, they had the audacity "ad onta de' replicati giuramenti, e
+dell'inveterata consuetudine,"[11] to refuse to continue in the
+obedience which they had vowed to their mother church. The matter was
+tried in a provincial council; the votaries of St. Stephen were
+condemned, and remained quiet for about twenty years, in wholesome dread
+of the authority conferred on the abbot of St. Donate, by the Pope's
+legate, to suspend any o the clergy of the island from their office if
+they refused submission. In 1172, however, they appealed to Pope
+Alexander III, and were condemned again: and we find the struggle
+renewed at every promising opportunity, during the course of the 12th
+and 13th centuries; until at last, finding St. Donate and the dragon
+together too strong for him, the abbot of St. Stefano "discovered" in
+his church the bodies of two hundred martyrs at once!--a discovery, it
+is to be remembered, in some sort equivalent in those days to that of
+California in ours. The inscription, however, on the façade of the
+church, recorded it with quiet dignity:--"MCCCLXXIV. a di XIV. di
+Aprile. Furono trovati nella presente chiesa del protomartire San
+Stefano, duecento e piů corpi de' Santi Martiri, dal Ven. Prete Matteo
+Fradello, piovano della chiesa."[12] Corner, who gives this inscription,
+which no longer exists, goes on to explain with infinite gravity, that
+the bodies in question, "being of infantile form and stature, are
+reported by tradition to have belonged to those fortunate innocents who
+suffered martyrdom under King Herod; but that when, or by whom, the
+church was enriched with so vast a treasure, is not manifested by any
+document."[13]
+
+§ XII. The issue of the struggle is not to our present purpose. We have
+already arrived at the fourteenth century without finding record of any
+effort made by the clergy of St. Mary's to maintain their influence by
+restoring or beautifying their basilica; which is the only point at
+present of importance to us. That great alterations were made in it at
+the time of the acquisition of the body of St. Donato is however highly
+probable, the mosaic pavement of the interior, which bears its date
+inscribed, 1140, being probably the last of the additions. I believe
+that no part of the ancient church can be shown to be of more recent
+date than this; and I shall not occupy the reader's time by any inquiry
+respecting the epochs or authors of the destructive modern restorations;
+the wreck of the old fabric, breaking out beneath them here and there,
+is generally distinguishable from them at a glance; and it is enough for
+the reader to know that none of these truly ancient fragments can be
+assigned to a more recent date than 1140, and that some of them may with
+probability be looked upon as remains of the shell of the first church,
+erected in the course of the latter half of the tenth century. We shall
+perhaps obtain some further reason for this belief as we examine these
+remains themselves.
+
+§ XIII. Of the body of the church, unhappily, they are few and obscure;
+but the general form and extent of the building, as shown in the plan,
+Plate I. fig. 2, are determined, first, by the breadth of the uninjured
+east end D E; secondly, by some remains of the original brickwork of the
+clerestory, and in all probability of the side walls also, though these
+have been refaced; and finally by the series of nave shafts, which are
+still perfect. The doors A and B may or may not be in their original
+positions; there must of course have been always, as now, a principal
+entrance at the west end. The ground plan is composed, like that of
+Torcello, of nave and aisles only, but the clerestory has transepts
+extending as far as the outer wall of the aisles. The semicircular apse,
+thrown out in the centre of the east end, is now the chief feature of
+interest in the church, though the nave shafts and the eastern
+extremities of the aisles, outside, are also portions of the original
+building; the latter having been modernized in the interior, it cannot
+now be ascertained whether, as is probable, the aisles had once round
+ends as well as the choir. The spaces F G form small chapels, of which G
+has a straight terminal wall behind its altar, and F a curved one,
+marked by the dotted line; the partitions which divide these chapels
+from the presbytery are also indicated by dotted lines, being modern
+work.
+
+§ XIV. The plan is drawn carefully to scale, but the relation in which
+its proportions are disposed can hardly be appreciated by the eye. The
+width of the nave from shaft to opposite shaft is 32 feet 8 inches: of
+the aisles, from the shaft to the wall, 16 feet 2 inches, or allowing 2
+inches for the thickness of the modern wainscot, 16 feet 4 inches, half
+the breadth of the nave exactly. The intervals between the shafts are
+exactly one fourth of the width of the nave, or 8 feet 2 inches, and the
+distance between the great piers which form the pseudo-transept is 24
+feet 6 inches, exactly three times the interval of the shafts. So the
+four distances are accurately in arithmetical proportion; i.e.
+
+                                  Ft. In.
+  Interval of shafts               8   2
+  Width of aisle                  16   4
+  Width of transept               24   6
+  Width of nave                   32   8
+
+The shafts average 5 feet 4 inches in circumference, as near the base as
+they can be got at, being covered with wood; and the broadest sides of
+the main piers are 4 feet 7 inches wide, their narrowest sides 3 feet 6
+inches. The distance _a c_ from the outmost angle of these piers to the
+beginning of the curve of the apse is 25 feet, and from that point the
+apse is nearly semicircular, but it is so encumbered with renaissance
+fittings that its form cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy. It
+is roofed by a concha, or semi-dome; and the external arrangement of its
+walls provides for the security of this dome by what is, in fact, a
+system of buttresses as effective and definite as that of any of the
+northern churches, although the buttresses are obtained entirely by
+adaptations of the Roman shaft and arch, the lower story being formed by
+a thick mass of wall lightened by ordinary semicircular round-headed
+niches, like those used so extensively afterwards in renaissance
+architecture, each niche flanked by a pair of shafts standing clear of
+the wall, and bearing deeply moulded arches thrown over the niche. The
+wall with its pillars thus forms a series of massy buttresses (as seen
+in the ground plan), on the top of which is an open gallery, backed by a
+thinner wall, and roofed by arches whose shafts are set above the pairs
+of shafts below. On the heads of these arches rests the roof. We have,
+therefore, externally a heptagonal apse, chiefly of rough and common
+brick, only with marble shafts and a few marble ornaments; but for that
+very reason all the more interesting, because it shows us what may be
+done, and what was done, with materials such as are now at our own
+command; and because in its proportions, and in the use of the few
+ornaments it possesses, it displays a delicacy of feeling rendered
+doubly notable by the roughness of the work in which laws so subtle are
+observed, and with which so thoughtful ornamentation is associated.
+
+§ XV. First, for its proportions: I shall have occasion in Chapter V. to
+dwell at some length on the peculiar subtlety of the early Venetian
+perception for ratios of magnitude; the relations of the sides of this
+heptagonal apse supply one of the first and most curious instances of
+it. The proportions above given of the nave and aisles might have been
+dictated by a mere love of mathematical precision; but those of the apse
+could only have resulted from a true love of harmony.
+
+In fig. 6, Plate I. the plan of this part of the church is given on a
+large scale, showing that its seven external sides are arranged on a
+line less than a semicircle, so that if the figure were completed, it
+would have sixteen sides; and it will be observed also, that the seven
+sides are arranged in four magnitudes, the widest being the central one.
+The brickwork is so much worn away, that the measures of the arches are
+not easily ascertainable, but those of the plinth on which they stand,
+which is nearly uninjured, may be obtained accurately. This plinth is
+indicated by the open line in the ground plan, and its sides measure
+respectively:
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  1st. _a b_ in plan               6    7
+  2nd. _b c_                       7    7
+  3rd. _c d_                       7    5
+  4th. _d e_ (central)             7   10
+  5th. _e f_                       7    5
+  6th  _f g_                       7    8
+  7th. _g h_                       6   10
+
+§ XVI. Now observe what subtle feeling is indicated by this delicacy of
+proportion. How fine must the perceptions of grace have been in those
+builders who could not be content without _some_ change between the
+second and third, the fifth and sixth terms of proportion, such as
+should oppose the general direction of its cadence, and yet _were_
+content with a diminution of two inches on a breadth of seven feet and a
+half! For I do not suppose that the reader will think the curious
+lessening of the third and fifth arch a matter of accident, and even if
+he did so, I shall be able to prove to him hereafter that it was not,
+but that the early builders were always desirous of obtaining some
+alternate proportion of this kind. The relations of the numbers are not
+easily comprehended in the form of feet and inches, but if we reduce the
+first four of them into inches, and then subtract some constant number,
+suppose 75, from them all, the remainders 4, 16, 14, 19, will exhibit
+the ratio of proportion in a clearer, though exaggerated form.
+
+§ XVII. The pairs of circular spots at _b_, _c_, _d_, etc., on the
+ground plan fig. 6, represent the bearing shafts, which are all of solid
+marble as well as their capitals. Their measures and various other
+particulars respecting them are given in Appendix 6. "Apse of Murano;"
+here I only wish the reader to note the coloring of their capitals.
+Those of the two single shafts in the angles (_a_, _h_) are both of deep
+purple marble; the two next pairs, _b_ and _g_, are of white marble; the
+pairs _c_ and _f_ are of purple, and _d_ and _e_ are of white: thus
+alternating with each other on each side; two white meeting in the
+centre. Now observe, _the purple capitals are all left plain; the white
+are all sculptured_. For the old builders knew that by carving the
+purple capitals they would have injured them in two ways: first, they
+would have mixed a certain quantity of grey shadow with the surface hue,
+and so adulterated the purity of the color; secondly, they would have
+drawn away the thoughts from the color, and prevented the mind from
+fixing upon it or enjoying it, by the degree of attention which the
+sculpture would have required. So they left their purple capitals full
+broad masses of color; and sculptured the white ones, which would
+otherwise have been devoid of interest.
+
+§ XVIII. But the feature which is most to be noted in this apse is a
+band of ornament, which runs round it like a silver girdle, composed of
+sharp wedges of marble, preciously inlaid, and set like jewels into the
+brickwork; above it there is another band of triangular recesses in the
+bricks, of nearly similar shape, and it seems equally strange that all
+the marbles should have fallen from it, or that it should have been
+originally destitute of them. The reader may choose his hypothesis; but
+there is quite enough left to interest us in the lower band, which is
+fortunately left in its original state, as is sufficiently proved by the
+curious niceties in the arrangement of its colors, which are assuredly
+to be attributed to the care of the first builder. A word or two, in the
+first place, respecting the means of color at his disposal.
+
+§ XIX. I stated that the building was, for the most part, composed of
+yellow brick. This yellow is very nearly pure, much more positive and
+somewhat darker than that of our English light brick, and the material
+of the brick is very good and hard, looking, in places, almost
+vitrified, and so compact as to resemble stone. Together with this brick
+occurs another of a deep full red, and more porous substance, which is
+used for decoration chiefly, while all the parts requiring strength are
+composed of the yellow brick. Both these materials are _cast into any
+shape and size_ the builder required, either into curved pieces for the
+arches, or flat tiles for filling the triangles; and, what is still more
+curious, the thickness of the yellow bricks used for the walls varies
+considerably, from two inches to four; and their length also, some of
+the larger pieces used in important positions being a foot and a half
+long.
+
+With these two kinds of brick, the builder employed five or six kinds of
+marble: pure white, and white veined with purple; a brecciated marble of
+white and black; a brecciated marble of white and deep green; another,
+deep red, or nearly of the color of Egyptian porphyry; and a grey and
+black marble, in fine layers.
+
+§ XX. The method of employing these materials will be understood at once
+by a reference to the opposite plate (Plate III.), which represents two
+portions of the lower band. I could not succeed in expressing the
+variation and chequering of color in marble, by real tints in the print;
+and have been content, therefore, to give them in line engraving. The
+different triangles are, altogether, of ten kinds:
+
+  a. Pure white marble with sculptured surface (as the third and fifth
+       in the upper series of Plate III.).
+
+  b. Cast triangle of red brick with a sculptured round-headed piece of
+       white marble inlaid (as the first and seventh of the upper
+       series, Plate III.).
+
+  c. A plain triangle of greenish black marble, now perhaps
+       considerably paler in color than when first employed (as the
+       second and sixth of the upper series of Plate III.).
+
+  d. Cast red brick triangle, with a diamond inlaid of the
+       above-mentioned black marble (as the fourth in the upper series
+       of Plate III.).
+
+  e. Cast white brick, with an inlaid round-headed piece of marble,
+       variegated with black and yellow, or white and violet (not seen
+       in the plate).
+
+  f. Occurs only once, a green-veined marble, forming the upper part of
+       the triangle, with a white piece below.
+
+  g. Occurs only once. A brecciated marble of intense black and pure
+       white, the centre of the lower range in Plate III.
+
+  h. Sculptured white marble with a triangle of veined purple marble
+       inserted (as the first, third, fifth, and seventh of the lower
+       range in Plate III.).
+
+  i. Yellow or white marble veined with purple (as the second and sixth
+       of the lower range in Plate III.).
+
+  k. Pure purple marble, not seen in this plate.
+
+[Illustration: Plate III.
+               INLAID BANDS OF MURANO.]
+
+§ XXI. The band, then, composed of these triangles, set close to each
+other in varied but not irregular relations, is thrown, like a necklace
+of precious stones, round the apse and along the ends of the aisles;
+each side of the apse taking, of course, as many triangles as its width
+permits. If the reader will look back to the measures of the sides of
+the apse, given before, p. 42, he will see that the first and seventh of
+the series, being much narrower than the rest, cannot take so many
+triangles in their band. Accordingly, they have only six each, while the
+other five sides have seven. Of these groups of seven triangles each,
+that used for the third and fifth sides of the apse is the uppermost in
+Plate III.; and that used for the centre of the apse, and of the whole
+series, is the lowermost in the same plate; _the piece of black and
+white marble being used to emphasize the centre of the chain_, exactly
+as a painter would use a dark touch for a similar purpose.
+
+§ XXII. And now, with a little trouble, we can set before the reader, at
+a glance, the arrangement of the groups along the entire extremity of
+the church.
+
+There are thirteen recesses, indicative of thirteen arches, seen in the
+ground plan, fig. 2, Plate I. Of these, the second and twelfth arches
+rise higher than the rest; so high as to break the decorated band; and
+the groups of triangles we have to enumerate are, therefore, only eleven
+in number; one above each of the eleven low arches. And of these eleven,
+the first and second, tenth and eleventh, are at the ends of the aisles;
+while the third to the ninth, inclusive, go round the apse. Thus, in the
+following table, the numerals indicate the place of each entire group
+(counting from the south to the north side of the church, or from left
+to right), and the letters indicate the species of triangle of which it
+is composed, as described in the list given above.
+
+                        6. h. i. h. g. h. i. h.
+         5. b. c. a. d. a. c. b.       7. b. c. a. d. a. c. b.
+      4. b. a. b. c. a. e. a.             8. a. e. a. c. b. a. b.
+    3. b. a. b. e. b. a.                       9. a. b. e. b. a. b.
+  2. a. b. c.                                     10. a. b. c. b.
+  1. a. b. c. b. a.                               11. b. a. c. f. a. a.
+
+The central group is put first, that it may be seen how the series on
+the two sides of the apse answer each other. It was a very curious freak
+to insert the triangle e, in the outermost place _but one_ of both the
+fourth and eighth sides of the apse, and in the outermost _but two_ in
+the third and ninth; in neither case having any balance to it in its own
+group, and the real balance being only effected on the other side of the
+apse, which it is impossible that any one should see at the same time.
+This is one of the curious pieces of system which so often occur in
+medićval work, of which the key is now lost. The groups at the ends of
+the transepts correspond neither in number nor arrangement; we shall
+presently see why, but must first examine more closely the treatment of
+the triangles themselves, and the nature of the floral sculpture
+employed upon them.
+
+[Illustration: Plate IV.
+               SCULPTURES OF MURANO.]
+
+§ XXIII. As the scale of Plate III. is necessarily small, I have given
+three of the sculptured triangles on a larger scale in Plate IV.
+opposite. Fig. 3 is one of the four in the lower series of Plate IV.,
+and figs. 4 and 5 from another group. The forms of the trefoils are here
+seen more clearly; they, and all the other portions of the design, are
+thrown out in low and flat relief, the intermediate spaces being cut out
+to the depth of about a quarter of an inch. I believe these vacant
+spaces were originally filled with a black composition, which is used in
+similar sculptures at St. Mark's, and of which I found some remains in
+an archivolt moulding here, though not in the triangles. The surface of
+the whole would then be perfectly smooth, and the ornamental form
+relieved by a ground of dark grey; but, even though this ground is lost,
+the simplicity of the method insures the visibility of all its parts at
+the necessary distance (17 or 18 feet), and the quaint trefoils have a
+crispness and freshness of effect which I found it almost impossible to
+render in a drawing. Nor let us fail to note in passing how strangely
+delightful to the human mind the trefoil always is. We have it here
+repeated five or six hundred times in the space of a few yards, and yet
+are never weary of it. In fact, there are two mystical feelings at the
+root of our enjoyment of this decoration: the one is the love of
+trinity in unity, the other that of the sense of fulness with order; of
+every place being instantly filled, and yet filled with propriety and
+ease; the leaves do not push each other, nor put themselves out of their
+own way, and yet whenever there is a vacant space, a leaf is always
+ready to step in and occupy it.
+
+§ XXIV. I said the trefoil was five or six hundred times repeated. It is
+so, but observe, it is hardly ever twice of the same size; and this law
+is studiously and resolutely observed. In the carvings _a_ and _b_ of
+the upper series, Plate III., the diminution of the leaves might indeed
+seem merely representative of the growth of the plant. But look at the
+lower: the triangles of inlaid purple marble are made much more nearly
+equilateral than those of white marble, into whose centres they are set,
+so that the leaves may continually diminish in size as the ornament
+descends at the sides. The reader may perhaps doubt the accuracy of the
+drawing on the smaller scale, but in that given larger, fig. 3, Plate
+IV., the angles are all measured, and the _purposeful_ variation of
+width in the border therefore admits of no dispute.[14] Remember how
+absolutely this principle is that of nature; the same leaf continually
+repeated, but never twice of the same size. Look at the clover under
+your feet, and then you will see what this Murano builder meant, and
+that he was not altogether a barbarian.
+
+§ XXV. Another point I wish the reader to observe is, the importance
+attached to _color_ in the mind of the designer. Note especially--for it
+is of the highest importance to see how the great principles of art are
+carried out through the whole building--that, as only the white capitals
+are sculptured below, only the white triangles are sculptured above. No
+colored triangle is touched with sculpture; note also, that in the two
+principal groups of the apse, given in Plate III., the centre of the
+group is color, not sculpture, and the eye is evidently intended to be
+drawn as much to the chequers of the stone, as to the intricacies of the
+chiselling. It will be noticed also how much more precious the lower
+series, which is central in the apse, is rendered, than the one above it
+in the plate, which flanks it: there is no brick in the lower one, and
+three kinds of variegated marble are used in it, whereas the upper is
+composed of brick, with black and white marble only; and lastly--for
+this is especially delightful--see how the workman made his chiselling
+finer where it was to go with the variegated marbles, and used a bolder
+pattern with the coarser brick and dark stone. The subtlety and
+perfection of artistical feeling in all this are so redundant, that in
+the building itself the eye can rest upon this colored chain with the
+same kind of delight that it has in a piece of the embroidery of Paul
+Veronese.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. II.]
+
+§ XXVI. Such being the construction of the lower band, that of the upper
+is remarkable only for the curious change in its proportions. The two
+are separated, as seen in the little woodcut here at the side, by a
+string-course composed of two layers of red bricks, of which the
+uppermost projects as a cornice, and is sustained by an intermediate
+course of irregular brackets, obtained by setting the thick yellow
+bricks edgeways, in the manner common to this day. But the wall above is
+carried up perpendicularly from this projection, so that the whole upper
+band is advanced to the thickness of a brick over the lower one. The
+result of this is, of course, that each side of the apse is four or five
+inches broader above than below; so that the same number of triangles
+which filled a whole side of the lower band, leave an inch or two blank
+at each angle in the upper. This would have looked awkward, if there had
+been the least appearance of its being an accidental error; so that, in
+order to draw the eye to it, and show that it is done on purpose, the
+upper triangles are made about two inches higher than the lower ones, so
+as to be much more acute in proportion and effect, and actually to
+look considerably narrower, though of the same width at the base. By
+this means they are made lighter in effect, and subordinated to the
+richly decorated series of the lower band, and the two courses, instead
+of repeating, unite with each other, and become a harmonious whole.
+
+[Illustration: Plate V.
+               Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano.]
+
+In order, however, to make still more sure that this difference in the
+height of the triangles should not escape the eye, another course of
+plain bricks is added above their points, increasing the width of the
+band by another two inches. There are five courses of bricks in the
+lower band, and it measures 1 ft. 6 in. in height: there are seven
+courses in the upper (of which six fall between the triangles), and it
+measures 1 ft. 10 in. in height, except at the extremity of the northern
+aisle, where for some mysterious reason the intermediate cornice is
+sloped upwards so as to reduce the upper triangles to the same height as
+those below. And here, finally, observe how determined the builder was
+that the one series should not be a mere imitation of the other; he
+could not now make them acute by additional height--so he here, and here
+only, _narrowed their bases_, and we have seven of them above, to six
+below.
+
+§ XXVII. We come now to the most interesting portion of the whole east
+end, the archivolt at the end of the northern aisle.
+
+It was above stated, that the band of triangles was broken by two higher
+arches at the ends of the aisles. That, however, on the northern side of
+the apse does not entirely interrupt, but lifts it, and thus forms a
+beautiful and curious archivolt, drawn opposite, in Plate V. The upper
+band of triangles cannot rise together with the lower, as it would
+otherwise break the cornice prepared to receive the second story; and
+the curious zigzag with which its triangles die away against the sides
+of the arch, exactly as waves break upon the sand, is one of the most
+curious features in the structure.
+
+It will be also seen that there is a new feature in the treatment of the
+band itself when it turns the arch. Instead of leaving the bricks
+projecting between the sculptured or colored stones, reversed triangles
+of marble are used, inlaid to an equal depth with the others in the
+brickwork, but projecting beyond them so as to produce a sharp dark line
+of zigzag at their junctions. Three of these supplementary stones have
+unhappily fallen out, so that it is now impossible to determine the full
+harmony of color in which they were originally arranged. The central
+one, corresponding to the keystone in a common arch, is, however, most
+fortunately left, with two lateral ones on the right hand, and one on
+the left.
+
+§ XXVIII. The keystone, if it may be so called, is of white marble, the
+lateral voussoirs of purple; and these are the only colored stones in
+the whole building which are sculptured; but they are sculptured in a
+way which, more satisfactorily proves that the principle above stated
+was understood by the builders, than if they had been left blank. The
+object, observe, was to make the archivolt as rich as possible; eight of
+the white sculptured marbles were used upon it in juxtaposition. Had the
+purple marbles been left altogether plain, they would have been out of
+harmony with the elaboration of the rest. It became necessary to touch
+them with sculpture as a mere sign of carefulness and finish, but at the
+same time destroying their colored surface as little as possible. _The
+ornament is merely outlined upon them with a fine incision_, as if it
+had been etched out on their surface preparatory to being carved. In two
+of them it is composed merely of three concentric lines, parallel with
+the sides of the triangle; in the third, it is a wreath of beautiful
+design, which I have drawn of larger size in fig. 2, Plate V., that the
+reader may see how completely the surface is left undestroyed by the
+delicate incisions of the chisel, and may compare the method of working
+with that employed on the white stones, two of which are given in that
+plate, figs. 4 and 5. The keystone, of which we have not yet spoken, is
+the only white stone worked with the light incision; its design not
+being capable of the kind of workmanship given to the floral ornaments,
+and requiring either to be carved in complete relief, or left as we see
+it. It is given at fig. 1 of Plate IV. The sun and moon on each side of
+the cross are, as we shall see in the fifth Chapter, constantly employed
+on the keystones of Byzantine arches.
+
+§ XXIX. We must not pass without notice the grey and green pieces of
+marble inserted at the flanks of the arch. For, observe, there was a
+difficulty in getting the forms of the triangle into anything like
+reconciliation at this point, and a medićval artist always delights in a
+difficulty: instead of concealing it, he boasts of it; and just as we
+saw above that he directed the eye to the difficulty of filling the
+expanded sides of the upper band by elongating his triangles, so here,
+having to put in a piece of stone of awkward shape, he makes that very
+stone the most conspicuous in the whole arch, on both sides, by using in
+one case a dark, cold grey; in the other a vigorous green, opposed to
+the warm red and purple and white of the stones above and beside it. The
+green and white piece on the right is of a marble, as far as I know,
+exceedingly rare. I at first thought the white fragments were inlaid, so
+sharply are they defined upon their ground. They are indeed inlaid, but
+I believe it is by nature; and that the stone is a calcareous breccia of
+great mineralogical interest. The white spots are of singular value in
+giving piquancy to the whole range of more delicate transitional hues
+above. The effect of the whole is, however, generally injured by the
+loss of the three large triangles above. I have no doubt they were
+purple, like those which remain, and that the whole arch was thus one
+zone of white, relieved on a purple ground, encircled by the scarlet
+cornices of brick, and the whole chord of color contrasted by the two
+precious fragments of grey and green at either side.
+
+§ XXX. The two pieces of carved stone inserted at each side of the arch,
+as seen at the bottom of Plate V., are of different workmanship from the
+rest; they do not match each other, and form part of the evidence which
+proves that portions of the church had been brought from the mainland.
+One bears an inscription, which, as its antiquity is confirmed by the
+shapelessness of its letters, I was much gratified by not being able to
+read; but M. Lazari, the intelligent author of the latest and best
+Venetian guide, with better skill, has given as much of it as remains,
+thus:
+
+[Illustration: T    SCEMARIEDIGENETRICISETBEATIESTEFANIMART
+               IRIEGOINDIGNVSETPECCATURDOMENICUST]
+
+I have printed the letters as they are placed in the inscription, in
+order that the reader may form some idea of the difficulty of reading
+such legends when the letters, thus thrown into one heap, are themselves
+of strange forms, and half worn away; any gaps which at all occur
+between them coming in the wrong places. There is no doubt, however, as
+to the reading of this fragment:--"T ... Sancte Marie Domini Genetricis
+et beati Estefani martiri ego indignus et peccator Domenicus T." On
+these two initial and final T's, expanding one into Templum, the other
+into Torcellanus, M. Lazari founds an ingenious conjecture that the
+inscription records the elevation of the church under a certain bishop
+Dominic of Torcello (named in the Altinat Chronicle), who flourished in
+the middle of the ninth century. If this were so, as the inscription
+occurs broken off on a fragment inserted scornfully in the present
+edifice, this edifice must be of the twelfth century, worked with
+fragments taken from the ruins of that built in the ninth. The two T's
+are, however, hardly a foundation large enough to build the church upon,
+a hundred years before the date assigned to it both by history and
+tradition (see above, § VIII.): and the reader has yet to be made aware
+of the principal fact bearing on the question.
+
+§ XXXI. Above the first story of the apse runs, as he knows already, a
+gallery under open arches, protected by a light balustrade. This
+balustrade is worked on the _outside_ with mouldings, of which I shall
+only say at present that they are of exactly the same school as the
+greater part of the work of the existing church. But the great
+horizontal pieces of stone which form the top of this balustrade are
+fragments of an older building turned inside out. They are covered with
+sculptures on the back, only to be seen by mounting into the gallery.
+They have once had an arcade of low wide arches traced on their surface,
+the spandrils filled with leafage, and archivolts enriched with studded
+chainwork and with crosses in their centres. These pieces have been used
+as waste marble by the architect of the existing apse. The small arches
+of the present balustrade are cut mercilessly through the old work, and
+the profile of the balustrade is cut out of what was once the back of
+the stone; only some respect is shown for the crosses in the old design,
+the blocks are cut so that these shall be not only left uninjured, but
+come in the centre of the balustrades.
+
+§ XXXII. Now let the reader observe carefully that this balustrade of
+Murano is a fence of other things than the low gallery round the
+deserted apse. It is a barrier between two great schools of early
+architecture. On one side it was cut by Romanesque workmen of the early
+Christian ages, and furnishes us with a distinct type of a kind of
+ornament which, as we meet with other examples of it, we shall be able
+to describe in generic terms, and to throw back behind this balustrade,
+out of our way. The _front_ of the balustrade presents us with a totally
+different condition of design, less rich, more graceful, and here shown
+in its simplest possible form. From the outside of this bar of marble we
+shall commence our progress in the study of existing Venetian
+architecture. The only question is, do we begin from the tenth or from
+the twelfth century?
+
+§ XXXIII. I was in great hopes once of being able to determine this
+positively; but the alterations in all the early buildings of Venice are
+so numerous, and the foreign fragments introduced so innumerable, that I
+was obliged to leave the question doubtful. But one circumstance must be
+noted, bearing upon it closely.
+
+In the woodcut on page 50, Fig. III., _b_ is an archivolt of Murano, _a_
+one of St. Mark's; the latter acknowledged by all historians and all
+investigators to be of the twelfth century.
+
+_All_ the twelfth century archivolts in Venice, without exception, are
+on the model of _a_, differing only in their decorations and sculpture.
+There is not one which resembles that of Murano.
+
+But the deep mouldings of Murano are almost exactly similar to those of
+St. Michele of Pavia, and other Lombard churches built, some as early as
+the seventh, others in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries.
+
+On this ground it seems to me probable that the existing apse of Murano
+is part of the original earliest church, and that the inscribed
+fragments used in it have been brought from the mainland. The
+balustrade, however, may still be later than the rest; it will be
+examined, hereafter, more carefully.[15]
+
+I have not space to give any farther account of the exterior of the
+building, though one half of what is remarkable in it remains untold. We
+must now see what is left of interest within the walls.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. III.]
+
+§ XXXIV. All hope is taken away by our first glance; for it falls on a
+range of shafts whose bases are concealed by wooden panelling, and which
+sustain arches decorated in the most approved style of Renaissance
+upholstery, with stucco roses in squares under the soffits, and egg and
+arrow mouldings on the architraves, gilded, on a ground of spotty black
+and green, with a small pink-faced and black-eyed cherub on every
+keystone; the rest of the church being for the most part concealed
+either by dirty hangings, or dirtier whitewash, or dim pictures on
+warped and wasting canvas; all vulgar, vain, and foul. Yet let us not
+turn back, for in the shadow of the apse our more careful glance shows
+us a Greek Madonna, pictured on a field of gold; and we feel giddy at
+the first step we make on the pavement, for it, also, is of Greek mosaic
+waved like the sea, and dyed like a dove's neck.
+
+§ XXXV. Nor are the original features of the rest of the edifice
+altogether indecipherable; the entire series of shafts marked in the
+ground plan on each side of the nave, from the western entrance to the
+apse, are nearly uninjured; and I believe the stilted arches they
+sustain are those of the original fabric, though the masonry is covered
+by the Renaissance stucco mouldings. Their capitals, for a wonder, are
+left bare, and appear to have sustained no farther injury than has
+resulted from the insertion of a large brass chandelier into each of
+their abaci, each chandelier carrying a sublime wax candle two inches
+thick, fastened with wire to the wall above. The due arrangement of
+these appendages, previous to festal days, can only be effected from a
+ladder set against the angle of the abacus; and ten minutes before I
+wrote this sentence, I had the privilege of watching the candlelighter
+at his work, knocking his ladder about the heads of the capitals as if
+they had given him personal offence. He at last succeeded in breaking
+away one of the lamps altogether, with a bit of the marble of the
+abacus; the whole falling in ruin to the pavement, and causing much
+consultation and clamor among a tribe of beggars who were assisting the
+sacristan with their wisdom respecting the festal arrangements.
+
+§ XXXVI. It is fortunate that the capitals themselves, being somewhat
+rudely cut, can bear this kind of treatment better than most of those in
+Venice. They are all founded on the Corinthian type, but the leaves are
+in every one different: those of the easternmost capital of the southern
+range are the best, and very beautiful, but presenting no feature of
+much interest, their workmanship being inferior to most of the
+imitations of Corinthian common at the period; much more to the rich
+fantasies which we have seen at Torcello. The apse itself, to-day (12th
+September, 1851), is not to be described; for just in front of it,
+behind the altar, is a magnificent curtain of new red velvet with a
+gilt edge and two golden tassels, held up in a dainty manner by two
+angels in the upholsterer's service; and above all, for concentration of
+effect, a star or sun, some five feet broad, the spikes of which conceal
+the whole of the figure of the Madonna except the head and hands.
+
+§ XXXVII. The pavement is however still left open, and it is of infinite
+interest, although grievously distorted and defaced. For whenever a new
+chapel has been built, or a new altar erected, the pavement has been
+broken up and readjusted so as to surround the newly inserted steps or
+stones with some appearance of symmetry; portions of it either covered or
+carried away, others mercilessly shattered or replaced by modern
+imitations, and those of very different periods, with pieces of the old
+floor left here and there in the midst of them, and worked round so as to
+deceive the eye into acceptance of the whole as ancient. The portion,
+however, which occupies the western extremity of the nave, and the parts
+immediately adjoining it in the aisles, are, I believe, in their original
+positions, and very little injured: they are composed chiefly of groups
+of peacocks, lions, stags, and griffins,--two of each in a group,
+drinking out of the same vase, or shaking claws together,--enclosed by
+interlacing bands, and alternating with chequer or star patterns, and
+here and there an attempt at representation of architecture, all worked
+in marble mosaic. The floors of Torcello and of St. Mark's are executed
+in the same manner; but what remains at Murano is finer than either, in
+the extraordinary play of color obtained by the use of variegated
+marbles. At St. Mark's the patterns are more intricate, and the pieces
+far more skilfully set together; but each piece is there commonly of one
+color: at Murano every fragment is itself variegated, and all are
+arranged with a skill and feeling not to be caught, and to be observed
+with deep reverence, for that pavement is not dateless, like the rest of
+the church; it bears its date on one of its central circles, 1140, and
+is, in my mind, one of the most precious monuments in Italy, showing thus
+early, and in those rude chequers which the bared knee of the Murano
+fisher wears in its daily bending, the beginning of that mighty spirit of
+Venetian color, which was to be consummated in Titian.
+
+§ XXXVIII. But we must quit the church for the present, for its
+garnishings are completed; the candles are all upright in their sockets,
+and the curtains drawn into festoons, and a paste-board crescent, gay
+with artificial flowers, has been attached to the capital of every
+pillar, in order, together with the gilt angels, to make the place look
+as much like Paradise as possible. If we return to-morrow, we shall find
+it filled with woful groups of aged men and women, wasted and
+fever-struck, fixed in paralytic supplication, half-kneeling,
+half-couched upon the pavement; bowed down, partly in feebleness, partly
+in a fearful devotion, with their grey clothes cast far over their
+faces, ghastly and settled into a gloomy animal misery, all but the
+glittering eyes and muttering lips.
+
+Fit inhabitants, these, for what was once the Garden of Venice, "a
+terrestrial paradise,--a place of nymphs and demi-gods!"[16]
+
+§ XXXIX. We return, yet once again, on the following day. Worshippers
+and objects of worship, the sickly crowd and gilded angels, all are
+gone; and there, far in the apse, is seen the sad Madonna standing in
+her folded robe, lifting her hands in vanity of blessing. There is
+little else to draw away our thoughts from the solitary image. An old
+wooden tablet, carved into a rude effigy of San Donato, which occupies
+the central niche in the lower part of the tribune, has an interest of
+its own, but is unconnected with the history of the older church. The
+faded frescoes of saints, which cover the upper tier of the wall of the
+apse, are also of comparatively recent date, much more the piece of
+Renaissance workmanship, shaft and entablature, above the altar, which
+has been thrust into the midst of all, and has cut away part of the feet
+of the Madonna. Nothing remains of the original structure but the
+semi-dome itself, the cornice whence it springs, which is the same as
+that used on the exterior of the church, and the border and face-arch
+which surround it. The ground of the dome is of gold, unbroken except by
+the upright Madonna, and usual inscription, M R [Greek: Theta] V. The
+figure wears a robe of blue, deeply fringed with gold, which seems to be
+gathered on the head and thrown back on the shoulders, crossing the
+breast, and falling in many folds to the ground. The under robe, shown
+beneath it where it opens at the breast, is of the same color; the
+whole, except the deep gold fringe, being simply the dress of the women
+of the time. "Le donne, anco elle del 1100, vestivano _di turchino con
+manti in spalla_, che le coprivano dinanzi e di dietro."[17]
+
+Round the dome there is a colored mosaic border; and on the edge of its
+arch, legible by the whole congregation, this inscription:
+
+  "QUOS EVA CONTRIVIT, PIA VIRGO MARIA REDEMIT;
+   HANC CUNCTI LAUDENT, QUI CRISTI MUNERE GAUDENT."[18]
+
+The whole edifice is, therefore, simply a temple to the Virgin: to her
+is ascribed the fact of Redemption, and to her its praise.
+
+§ XL. "And is this," it will be asked of me, "the time, is this the
+worship, to which you would have us look back with reverence and
+regret?" Inasmuch as redemption is ascribed to the Virgin, No. Inasmuch
+as redemption is a thing desired, believed, rejoiced in, Yes,--and Yes a
+thousand times. As far as the Virgin is worshipped in place of God, No;
+but as far as there is the evidence of worship itself, and of the sense
+of a Divine presence, Yes. For there is a wider division of men than
+that into Christian and Pagan: before we ask what a man worships, we
+have to ask whether he worships at all. Observe Christ's own words on
+this head: "God is a spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him
+in spirit, _and_ in truth." The worshipping in spirit comes first, and
+it does not necessarily imply the worshipping in truth. Therefore, there
+is first the broad division of men into Spirit worshippers and Flesh
+worshippers; and then, of the Spirit worshippers, the farther division
+into Christian and Pagan,--worshippers in Falsehood or in Truth. I
+therefore, for the moment, omit all inquiry how far the Mariolatry of
+the early church did indeed eclipse Christ, or what measure of deeper
+reverence for the Son of God was still felt through all the grosser
+forms of Madonna worship. Let that worship be taken at its worst; let
+the goddess of this dome of Murano be looked upon as just in the same
+sense an idol as the Athene of the Acropolis, or the Syrian Queen of
+Heaven; and then, on this darkest assumption, balance well the
+difference between those who worship and those who worship not;--that
+difference which there is in the sight of God, in all ages, between the
+calculating, smiling, self-sustained, self-governed man, and the
+believing, weeping, wondering, struggling, Heaven-governed man;--between
+the men who say in their hearts "there is no God," and those who
+acknowledge a God at every step, "if haply they might feel after Him and
+find Him." For that is indeed the difference which we shall find, in the
+end, between the builders of this day and the builders on that sand
+island long ago. They _did_ honor something out of themselves; they did
+believe in spiritual presence judging, animating, redeeming them; they
+built to its honor and for its habitation; and were content to pass away
+in nameless multitudes, so only that the labor of their hands might fix
+in the sea-wilderness a throne for their guardian angel. In this was
+their strength, and there was indeed a Spirit walking with them on the
+waters, though they could not discern the form thereof, though the
+Masters voice came not to them, "It is I." What their error cost them,
+we shall see hereafter; for it remained when the majesty and the
+sincerity of their worship had departed, and remains to this day.
+Mariolatry is no special characteristic of the twelfth century; on the
+outside of that very tribune of San Donato, in its central recess, is an
+image of the Virgin which receives the reverence once paid to the blue
+vision upon the inner dome. With rouged cheeks and painted brows, the
+frightful doll stands in wretchedness of rags, blackened with the smoke
+of the votive lamps at its feet; and if we would know what has been lost
+or gained by Italy in the six hundred years that have worn the marbles
+of Murano, let us consider how far the priests who set up this to
+worship, the populace who have this to adore, may be nobler than the men
+who conceived that lonely figure standing on the golden field, or than
+those to whom it seemed to receive their prayer at evening, far away,
+where they only saw the blue clouds rising out of the burning sea.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [10] "Mela, e buon vino, con pace e caritŕ," Memorie Storiche de'
+    Veneti Primi e Secondi, di Jacopo Filiasi (Padua, 1811), tom. iii.
+    cap. 23. Perhaps, in the choice of the abbot's cheer, there was some
+    occult reference to the verse of Solomon's Song: "Stay me with
+    flagons, comfort me with apples."
+
+  [11] Notizie Storiche delle Chiese di Venezia, illustrate da Flaminio
+    Corner (Padua, 1758), p. 615.
+
+  [12] "On the 14th day of April, 1374, there were found, in this
+    church of the first martyr St. Stefano, two hundred and more bodies
+    of holy martyrs, by the venerable priest, Matthew Fradello,
+    incumbent of the church."
+
+  [13] Notizie Storiche, p. 620.
+
+  [14] The intention is farther confirmed by the singular variation in
+    the breadth of the small fillet which encompasses the inner marble.
+    It is much narrower at the bottom than at the sides, so as to
+    recover the original breadth in the lower border.
+
+  [15] Its elevation is given to scale in fig. 4, Plate XIII., below.
+
+  [16] "Luogo de' ninfe e de' semidei."--_M. Andrea Calmo_, quoted by
+    Mutinelli, Annali Urbani di Venezia (Venice, 1841), p. 362.
+
+  [17] "The women, even as far back as 1100, wore dresses of blue,
+    with mantles on the shoulder, which clothed them before and
+    behind."--_Sansorino_.
+
+    It would be difficult to imagine a dress more modest and beautiful.
+    See Appendix 7.
+
+  [18]   "Whom Eve destroyed, the pious Virgin Mary redeemed;
+          All praise her, who rejoice in the Grace of Christ."
+
+    Vide Appendix 8.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ST. MARK'S.
+
+
+§ I. "And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus." If as the
+shores of Asia lessened upon his sight, the spirit of prophecy had
+entered into the heart of the weak disciple who had turned back when his
+hand was on the plough, and who had been judged, by the chiefest of
+Christ's captains, unworthy thenceforward to go forth with him to the
+work,[19] how wonderful would he have thought it, that by the lion
+symbol in future ages he was to be represented among men! how woful,
+that the war-cry of his name should so often reanimate the rage of the
+soldier, on those very plains where he himself had failed in the courage
+of the Christian, and so often dye with fruitless blood that very
+Cypriot Sea, over whose waves, in repentance and shame, he was following
+the Son of Consolation!
+
+§ II. That the Venetians possessed themselves of his body in the ninth
+century, there appears no sufficient reason to doubt, nor that it was
+principally in consequence of their having done so, that they chose him
+for their patron saint. There exists, however, a tradition that before
+he went into Egypt he had founded the Church at Aquileia, and was thus,
+in some sort, the first bishop of the Venetian isles and people. I
+believe that this tradition stands on nearly as good grounds as that of
+St. Peter having been the first bishop of Rome;[20] but, as usual, it is
+enriched by various later additions and embellishments, much resembling
+the stories told respecting the church of Murano. Thus we find it
+recorded by the Santo Padre who compiled the "Vite de' Santi spettanti
+alle Chiese di Venezia,"[21] that "St. Mark having seen the people of
+Aquileia well grounded in religion, and being called to Rome by St.
+Peter, before setting off took with him the holy bishop Hermagoras, and
+went in a small boat to the marshes of Venice. There were at that period
+some houses built upon a certain high bank called Rialto, and the boat
+being driven by the wind was anchored in a marshy place, when St. Mark,
+snatched into ecstasy, heard the voice of an angel saying to him: 'Peace
+be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest.'" The angel goes on to
+foretell the building of "una stupenda, ne piů veduta Cittŕ;" but the
+fable is hardly ingenious enough to deserve farther relation.
+
+§ III. But whether St. Mark was first bishop of Aquileia or not, St.
+Theodore was the first patron of the city; nor can he yet be considered
+as having entirely abdicated his early right, as his statue, standing on
+a crocodile, still companions the winged lion on the opposing pillar of
+the piazzetta. A church erected to this Saint is said to have occupied,
+before the ninth century, the site of St. Mark's; and the traveller,
+dazzled by the brilliancy of the great square, ought not to leave it
+without endeavoring to imagine its aspect in that early time, when it
+was a green field cloister-like and quiet,[22] divided by a small canal,
+with a line of trees on each side; and extending between the two
+churches of St. Theodore and St. Geminian, as the little piazza of
+Torcello lies between its "palazzo" and cathedral.
+
+§ IV. But in the year 813, when the seat of government was finally
+removed to the Rialto, a Ducal Palace, built on the spot where the
+present one stands, with a Ducal Chapel beside it,[23] gave a very
+different character to the Square of St. Mark; and fifteen years later,
+the acquisition of the body of the Saint, and its deposition in the
+Ducal Chapel, perhaps not yet completed, occasioned the investiture of
+that chapel with all possible splendor. St. Theodore was deposed from
+his patronship, and his church destroyed, to make room for the
+aggrandizement of the one attached to the Ducal Palace, and
+thenceforward known as "St. Mark's."[24]
+
+§ V. This first church was however destroyed by fire, when the Ducal
+Palace was burned in the revolt against Candiano, in 976. It was partly
+rebuilt by his successor, Pietro Orseolo, on a larger scale; and, with
+the assistance of Byzantine architects, the fabric was carried on under
+successive Doges for nearly a hundred years; the main building being
+completed in 1071, but its incrustation with marble not till
+considerably later. It was consecrated on the 8th of October, 1085,[25]
+according to Sansovino and the author of the "Chiesa Ducale di S.
+Marco," in 1094 according to Lazari, but certainly between 1084 and
+1096, those years being the limits of the reign of Vital Falier; I
+incline to the supposition that it was soon after his accession to the
+throne in 1085, though Sansovino writes, by mistake, Ordelafo instead of
+Vital Falier. But, at all events, before the close of the eleventh
+century the great consecration of the church took place. It was again
+injured by fire in 1106, but repaired; and from that time to the fall of
+Venice there was probably no Doge who did not in some slight degree
+embellish or alter the fabric, so that few parts of it can be
+pronounced boldly to be of any given date. Two periods of interference
+are, however, notable above the rest: the first, that in which the
+Gothic school, had superseded the Byzantine towards the close of the
+fourteenth century, when the pinnacles, upper archivolts, and window
+traceries were added to the exterior, and the great screen, with various
+chapels and tabernacle-work, to the interior; the second, when the
+Renaissance school superseded the Gothic, and the pupils of Titian and
+Tintoret substituted, over one half of the church, their own
+compositions for the Greek mosaics with which it was originally
+decorated;[26] happily, though with no good will, having left enough to
+enable us to imagine and lament what they destroyed. Of this irreparable
+loss we shall have more to say hereafter; meantime, I wish only to fix
+in the reader's mind the succession of periods of alteration as firmly
+and simply as possible.
+
+§ VI. We have seen that the main body of the church may be broadly
+stated to be of the eleventh century, the Gothic additions of the
+fourteenth, and the restored mosaics of the seventeenth. There is no
+difficulty in distinguishing at a glance the Gothic portions from the
+Byzantine; but there is considerable difficulty in ascertaining how
+long, during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
+additions were made to the Byzantine church, which cannot be easily
+distinguished from the work of the eleventh century, being purposely
+executed in the same manner. Two of the most important pieces of
+evidence on this point are, a mosaic in the south transept, and another
+over the northern door of the façade; the first representing the
+interior, the second the exterior, of the ancient church.
+
+§ VII. It has just been stated that the existing building was
+consecrated by the Doge Vital Falier. A peculiar solemnity was given to
+that act of consecration, in the minds of the Venetian people, by what
+appears to have been one of the best arranged and most successful
+impostures ever attempted by the clergy of the Romish church. The body
+of St. Mark had, without doubt, perished in the conflagration of 976;
+but the revenues of the church depended too much upon the devotion
+excited by these relics to permit the confession of their loss. The
+following is the account given by Corner, and believed to this day by
+the Venetians, of the pretended miracle by which it was concealed.
+
+"After the repairs undertaken by the Doge Orseolo, the place in which
+the body of the holy Evangelist rested had been altogether forgotten; so
+that the Doge Vital Falier was entirely ignorant of the place of the
+venerable deposit. This was no light affliction, not only to the pious
+Doge, but to all the citizens and people; so that at last, moved by
+confidence in the Divine mercy, they determined to implore, with prayer
+and fasting, the manifestation of so great a treasure, which did not now
+depend upon any human effort. A general fast being therefore proclaimed,
+and a solemn procession appointed for the 25th day of June, while the
+people assembled in the church interceded with God in fervent prayers
+for the desired boon, they beheld, with as much amazement as joy, a
+slight shaking in the marbles of a pillar (near the place where the
+altar of the Cross is now), which, presently falling to the earth,
+exposed to the view of the rejoicing people the chest of bronze in which
+the body of the Evangelist was laid."
+
+§ VIII. Of the main facts of this tale there is no doubt. They were
+embellished afterwards, as usual, by many fanciful traditions; as, for
+instance, that, when the sarcophagus was discovered, St. Mark extended
+his hand out of it, with a gold ring on one of the fingers, which he
+permitted a noble of the Dolfin family to remove; and a quaint and
+delightful story was further invented of this ring, which I shall not
+repeat here, as it is now as well known as any tale of the Arabian
+Nights. But the fast and the discovery of the coffin, by whatever means
+effected, are facts; and they are recorded in one of the best-preserved
+mosaics of the north transept, executed very certainly not long after
+the event had taken place, closely resembling in its treatment that of
+the Bayeux tapestry, and showing, in a conventional manner, the
+interior of the church, as it then was, filled by the people, first in
+prayer, then in thanksgiving, the pillar standing open before them, and
+the Doge, in the midst of them, distinguished by his crimson bonnet
+embroidered with gold, but more unmistakably by the inscription "Dux"
+over his head, as uniformly is the case in the Bayeux tapestry, and most
+other pictorial works of the period. The church is, of course, rudely
+represented, and the two upper stories of it reduced to a small scale in
+order to form a background to the figures; one of those bold pieces of
+picture history which we in our pride of perspective, and a thousand
+things besides, never dare attempt. We should have put in a column or
+two of the real or perspective size, and subdued it into a vague
+background: the old workman crushed the church together that he might
+get it all in, up to the cupolas; and has, therefore, left us some
+useful notes of its ancient form, though any one who is familiar with
+the method of drawing employed at the period will not push the evidence
+too far. The two pulpits are there, however, as they are at this day,
+and the fringe of mosaic flower-work which then encompassed the whole
+church, but which modern restorers have destroyed, all but one fragment
+still left in the south aisle. There is no attempt to represent the
+other mosaics on the roof, the scale being too small to admit of their
+being represented with any success; but some at least of those mosaics
+had been executed at that period, and their absence in the
+representation of the entire church is especially to be observed, in
+order to show that we must not trust to any negative evidence in such
+works. M. Lazari has rashly concluded that the central archivolt of St.
+Mark's _must_ be posterior to the year 1205, because it does not appear
+in the representation of the exterior of the church over the northern
+door;[27] but he justly observes that this mosaic (which is the other
+piece of evidence we possess respecting the ancient form of the
+building) cannot itself be earlier than 1205, since it represents the
+bronze horses which were brought from Constantinople in that year. And
+this one fact renders it very difficult to speak with confidence
+respecting the date of any part of the exterior of St. Mark's; for we
+have above seen that it was consecrated in the eleventh century, and yet
+here is one of its most important exterior decorations assuredly
+retouched, if not entirely added, in the thirteenth, although its style
+would have led us to suppose it had been an original part of the fabric.
+However, for all our purposes, it will be enough for the reader to
+remember that the earliest parts of the building belong to the eleventh,
+twelfth, and first part of the thirteenth century; the Gothic portions
+to the fourteenth; some of the altars and embellishments to the
+fifteenth and sixteenth; and the modern portion of the mosaics to the
+seventeenth.
+
+§ IX. This, however, I only wish him to recollect in order that I may
+speak generally of the Byzantine architecture of St. Mark's, without
+leading him to suppose the whole church to have been built and decorated
+by Greek artists. Its later portions, with the single exception of the
+seventeenth century mosaics, have been so dexterously accommodated to
+the original fabric that the general effect is still that of a Byzantine
+building; and I shall not, except when it is absolutely necessary,
+direct attention to the discordant points, or weary the reader with
+anatomical criticism. Whatever in St. Mark's arrests the eye, or affects
+the feelings, is either Byzantine, or has been modified by Byzantine
+influence; and our inquiry into its architectural merits need not
+therefore be disturbed by the anxieties of antiquarianism, or arrested
+by the obscurities of chronology.
+
+§ X. And now I wish that the reader, before I bring him into St. Mark's
+Place, would imagine himself for a little time in a quiet English
+cathedral town, and walk with me to the west front of its cathedral. Let
+us go together up the more retired street, at the end of which we can
+see the pinnacles of one of the towers, and then through the low grey
+gateway, with its battlemented top and small latticed window in the
+centre, into the inner private-looking road or close, where nothing
+goes in but the carts of the tradesmen who supply the bishop and the
+chapter, and where there are little shaven grass-plots, fenced in by
+neat rails, before old-fashioned groups of somewhat diminutive and
+excessively trim houses, with little oriel and bay windows jutting out
+here and there, and deep wooden cornices and eaves painted cream color
+and white, and small porches to their doors in the shape of
+cockle-shells, or little, crooked, thick, indescribable wooden gables
+warped a little on one side; and so forward till we come to larger
+houses, also old-fashioned, but of red brick, and with gardens behind
+them, and fruit walls, which show here and there, among the nectarines,
+the vestiges of an old cloister arch or shaft, and looking in front on
+the cathedral square itself, laid out in rigid divisions of smooth grass
+and gravel walk, yet not uncheerful, especially on the sunny side where
+the canons' children are walking with their nurserymaids. And so, taking
+care not to tread on the grass, we will go along the straight walk to
+the west front, and there stand for a time, looking up at its
+deep-pointed porches and the dark places between their pillars where
+there were statues once, and where the fragments, here and there, of a
+stately figure are still left, which has in it the likeness of a king,
+perhaps indeed a king on earth, perhaps a saintly king long ago in
+heaven; and so higher and higher up to the great mouldering wall of
+rugged sculpture and confused arcades, shattered, and grey, and grisly
+with heads of dragons and mocking fiends, worn by the rain and swirling
+winds into yet unseemlier shape, and colored on their stony scales by
+the deep russet-orange lichen, melancholy gold; and so, higher still, to
+the bleak towers, so far above that the eye loses itself among the
+bosses of their traceries, though they are rude and strong, and only
+sees like a drift of eddying black points, now closing, now scattering,
+and now settling suddenly into invisible places among the bosses and
+flowers, the crowed of restless birds that fill the whole square with
+that strange clangor of theirs, so harsh and yet so soothing, like the
+cries of birds on a solitary coast between the cliffs and sea.
+
+§ XI. Think for a little while of that scene, and the meaning of all its
+small formalisms, mixed with its serene sublimity. Estimate its
+secluded, continuous, drowsy felicities, and its evidence of the sense
+and steady performance of such kind of duties as can be regulated by the
+cathedral clock; and weigh the influence of those dark towers on all who
+have passed through the lonely square at their feet for centuries, and
+on all who have seen them rising far away over the wooded plain, or
+catching on their square masses the last rays of the sunset, when the
+city at their feet was indicated only by the mist at the bend of the
+river. And then let us quickly recollect that we are in Venice, and land
+at the extremity of the Calle Lunga San Moisč, which may be considered
+as there answering to the secluded street that led us to our English
+cathedral gateway.
+
+§ XII. We find ourselves in a paved alley, some seven feet wide where it
+is widest, full of people, and resonant with cries of itinerant
+salesmen,--a shriek in their beginning, and dying away into a kind of
+brazen ringing, all the worse for its confinement between the high
+houses of the passage along which we have to make our way. Over-head an
+inextricable confusion of rugged shutters, and iron balconies and
+chimney flues pushed out on brackets to save room, and arched windows
+with projecting sills of Istrian stone, and gleams of green leaves here
+and there where a fig-tree branch escapes over a lower wall from some
+inner cortile, leading the eye up to the narrow stream of blue sky high
+over all. On each side, a row of shops, as densely set as may be,
+occupying, in fact, intervals between the square stone shafts, about
+eight feet high, which carry the first floors: intervals of which one is
+narrow and serves as a door; the other is, in the more respectable
+shops, wainscoted to the height of the counter and glazed above, but in
+those of the poorer tradesmen left open to the ground, and the wares
+laid on benches and tables in the open air, the light in all cases
+entering at the front only, and fading away in a few feet from the
+threshold into a gloom which the eye from without cannot penetrate, but
+which is generally broken by a ray or two from a feeble lamp at the
+back of the shop, suspended before a print of the Virgin. The less pious
+shop-keeper sometimes leaves his lamp unlighted, and is contented with a
+penny print; the more religious one has his print colored and set in a
+little shrine with a gilded or figured fringe, with perhaps a faded
+flower or two on each side, and his lamp burning brilliantly. Here at
+the fruiterer's, where the dark-green water-melons are heaped upon the
+counter like cannon balls, the Madonna has a tabernacle of fresh laurel
+leaves; but the pewterer next door has let his lamp out, and there is
+nothing to be seen in his shop but the dull gleam of the studded
+patterns on the copper pans, hanging from his roof in the darkness. Next
+comes a "Vendita Frittole e Liquori," where the Virgin, enthroned in a
+very humble manner beside a tallow candle on a back shelf, presides over
+certain ambrosial morsels of a nature too ambiguous to be defined or
+enumerated. But a few steps farther on, at the regular wine-shop of the
+calle, where we are offered "Vino Nostrani a Soldi 28ˇ32," the Madonna
+is in great glory, enthroned above ten or a dozen large red casks of
+three-year-old vintage, and flanked by goodly ranks of bottles of
+Maraschino, and two crimson lamps; and for the evening, when the
+gondoliers will come to drink out, under her auspices, the money they
+have gained during the day, she will have a whole chandelier.
+
+§ XIII. A yard or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the Black Eagle,
+and, glancing as we pass through the square door of marble, deeply
+moulded, in the outer wall, we see the shadows of its pergola of vines
+resting on an ancient well, with a pointed shield carved on its side;
+and so presently emerge on the bridge and Campo San Moisč, whence to the
+entrance into St. Mark's Place, called the Bocca di Piazza (mouth of the
+square), the Venetian character is nearly destroyed, first by the
+frightful façade of San Moisč, which we will pause at another time to
+examine, and then by the modernizing of the shops as they near the
+piazza, and the mingling with the lower Venetian populace of lounging
+groups of English and Austrians. We will push fast through them into the
+shadow of the pillars at the end of the "Bocca di Piazza," and then we
+forget them all; for between those pillars there opens a great light,
+and, in the midst of it, as we advance slowly, the vast tower of St.
+Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level field of
+chequered stones; and, on each side, the countless arches prolong
+themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and irregular houses
+that pressed together above us in the dark alley had been struck back
+into sudden obedience and lovely order, and all their rude casements and
+broken walls had been transformed into arches charged with goodly
+sculpture, and fluted shafts of delicate stone.
+
+§ XIV. And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of ordered
+arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square
+seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far
+away;--a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low
+pyramid of colored light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and
+partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great
+vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of
+alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory,--sculpture fantastic
+and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates,
+and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined
+together into an endless network of buds and plumes; and, in the midst
+of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and
+leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among
+the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them,
+interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the
+branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago. And
+round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated
+stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted with
+flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the
+sunshine, Cleopatra-like, "their bluest veins to kiss"--the shadow, as
+it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation,
+as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with
+interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of
+acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the
+Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of
+language and of life--angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labors of
+men, each in its appointed season upon the earth; and above these,
+another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged
+with scarlet flowers,--a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts
+of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden
+strength, and the St. Mark's Lion, lifted on a blue field covered with
+stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break
+into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes
+and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore
+had been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid
+them with coral and amethyst.
+
+Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an interval! There
+is a type of it in the very birds that haunt them; for, instead of the
+restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak
+upper air, the St. Mark's porches are full of doves, that nestle among
+the marble foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their living
+plumes, changing at every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely,
+that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years.
+
+§ XV. And what effect has this splendor on those who pass beneath it?
+You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro, before the gateway of
+St. Mark's, and you will not see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance
+brightened by it. Priest and layman, soldier and civilian, rich and
+poor, pass by it alike regardlessly. Up to the very recesses of the
+porches, the meanest tradesmen of the city push their counters; nay, the
+foundations of its pillars are themselves the seats--not "of them that
+sell doves" for sacrifice, but of the vendors of toys and caricatures.
+Round the whole square in front of the church there is almost a
+continuous line of cafés, where the idle Venetians of the middle classes
+lounge, and read empty journals; in its centre the Austrian bands play
+during the time of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ
+notes,--the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen crowd
+thickening round them,--a crowd, which, if it had its will, would
+stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the
+porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed
+and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded
+children,--every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation
+and stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with cursing,--gamble,
+and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised
+centesimi upon the marble ledges of the church porch. And the images of
+Christ and His angels look down upon it continually.
+
+That we may not enter the church out of the midst of the horror of this,
+let us turn aside under the portico which looks towards the sea, and
+passing round within the two massive pillars brought from St. Jean
+d'Acre, we shall find the gate of the Baptistery; let us enter there.
+The heavy door closes behind us instantly, and the light, and the
+turbulence of the Piazzetta, are together shut out by it.
+
+§ XVI. We are in a low vaulted room; vaulted, not with arches, but with
+small cupolas starred with gold, and chequered with gloomy figures: in
+the centre is a bronze font charged with rich bas-reliefs, a small
+figure of the Baptist standing above it in a single ray of light that
+glances across the narrow room, dying as it falls from a window high in
+the wall, and the first thing that it strikes, and the only thing that
+it strikes brightly, is a tomb. We hardly know if it be a tomb indeed;
+for it is like a narrow couch set beside the window, low-roofed and
+curtained, so that it might seem, but that it has some height above the
+pavement, to have been drawn towards the window, that the sleeper might
+be wakened early;--only there are two angels who have drawn the curtain
+back, and are looking down upon him. Let us look also, and thank that
+gentle light that rests upon his forehead for ever, and dies away upon
+his breast.
+
+The face is of a man in middle life, but there are two deep furrows
+right across the forehead, dividing it like the foundations of a tower:
+the height of it above is bound by the fillet of the ducal cap. The
+rest of the features are singularly small and delicate, the lips sharp,
+perhaps the sharpness of death being added to that of the natural lines;
+but there is a sweet smile upon them, and a deep serenity upon the whole
+countenance. The roof of the canopy above has been blue, filled with
+stars; beneath, in the centre of the tomb on which the figure rests, is
+a seated figure of the Virgin, and the border of it all around is of
+flowers and soft leaves, growing rich and deep, as if in a field in
+summer.
+
+It is the Doge Andrea Dandolo, a man early great among the great of
+Venice; and early lost. She chose him for her king in his 36th year; he
+died ten years later, leaving behind him that history to which we owe
+half of what we know of her former fortunes.
+
+§ XVII. Look round at the room in which he lies. The floor of it is of
+rich mosaic, encompassed by a low seat of red marble, and its walls are
+of alabaster, but worn and shattered, and darkly stained with age,
+almost a ruin,--in places the slabs of marble have fallen away
+altogether, and the rugged brickwork is seen through the rents, but all
+beautiful; the ravaging fissures fretting their way among the islands
+and channelled zones of the alabaster, and the time-stains on its
+translucent masses darkened into fields of rich golden brown, like the
+color of seaweed when the sun strikes on it through deep sea. The light
+fades away into the recess of the chamber towards the altar, and the eye
+can hardly trace the lines of the bas-relief behind it of the baptism of
+Christ: but on the vaulting of the roof the figures are distinct, and
+there are seen upon it two great circles, one surrounded by the
+"Principalities and powers in heavenly places," of which Milton has
+expressed the ancient division in the single massy line,
+
+  "Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,"
+
+and around the other, the Apostles; Christ the centre of both; and upon
+the walls, again and again repeated, the gaunt figure of the Baptist, in
+every circumstance of his life and death; and the streams of the Jordan
+running down between their cloven rocks; the axe laid to the root of a
+fruitless tree that springs upon their shore. "Every tree that bringeth
+not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire." Yes,
+verily: to be baptized with fire, or to be cast therein; it is the
+choice set before all men. The march-notes still murmur through the
+grated window, and mingle with the sounding in our ears of the sentence
+of judgment, which the old Greek has written on that Baptistery wall.
+Venice has made her choice.
+
+§ XVIII. He who lies under that stony canopy would have taught her
+another choice, in his day, if she would have listened to him; but he
+and his counsels have long been forgotten by her, and the dust lies upon
+his lips.
+
+Through the heavy door whose bronze network closes the place of his
+rest, let us enter the church itself. It is lost in still deeper
+twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments before
+the form of the building can be traced; and then there opens before us a
+vast cave, hewn out into the form of a Cross, and divided into shadowy
+aisles by many pillars. Round the domes of its roof the light enters
+only through narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there a ray
+or two from some far away casement wanders into the darkness, and casts
+a narrow phosphoric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall
+in a thousand colors along the floor. What else there is of light is
+from torches, or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of
+the chapels; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered
+with alabaster, give back at every curve and angle some feeble gleaming
+to the flames; and the glories round the heads of the sculptured saints
+flash out upon us as we pass them, and sink again into the gloom. Under
+foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one
+picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and
+terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of
+prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running
+fountains and feed from vases of crystal; the passions and the pleasures
+of human life symbolized together, and the mystery of its redemption;
+for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at
+last to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every
+stone; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt round it, sometimes
+with doves beneath its arms, and sweet herbage growing forth from its
+feet; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the
+church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of
+the apse. And although in the recesses of the aisles and chapels, when
+the mist of the incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure
+traced in faint lines upon their marble, a woman standing with her eyes
+raised to heaven, and the inscription above her, "Mother of God," she is
+not here the presiding deity. It is the Cross that is first seen, and
+always, burning in the centre of the temple; and every dome and hollow
+of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised
+in power, or returning in judgment.
+
+§ XIX. Nor is this interior without effect on the minds of the people.
+At every hour of the day there are groups collected before the various
+shrines, and solitary worshippers scattered through the darker places of
+the church, evidently in prayer both deep and reverent, and, for the
+most part, profoundly sorrowful. The devotees at the greater number of
+the renowned shrines of Romanism may be seen murmuring their appointed
+prayers with wandering eyes and unengaged gestures; but the step of the
+stranger does not disturb those who kneel on the pavement of St. Mark's;
+and hardly a moment passes, from early morning to sunset, in which we
+may not see some half-veiled figure enter beneath the Arabian porch,
+cast itself into long abasement on the floor of the temple, and then
+rising slowly with more confirmed step, and with a passionate kiss and
+clasp of the arms given to the feet of the crucifix, by which the lamps
+burn always in the northern aisle, leave the church, as if comforted.
+
+§ XX. But we must not hastily conclude from this that the nobler
+characters of the building have at present any influence in fostering a
+devotional spirit. There is distress enough in Venice to bring many to
+their knees, without excitement from external imagery; and whatever
+there may be in the temper of the worship offered in St. Mark's more
+than can be accounted for by reference to the unhappy circumstances of
+the city, is assuredly not owing either to the beauty of its
+architecture or to the impressiveness of the Scripture histories
+embodied in its mosaics. That it has a peculiar effect, however slight,
+on the popular mind, may perhaps be safely conjectured from the number
+of worshippers which it attracts, while the churches of St. Paul and the
+Frari, larger in size and more central in position, are left
+comparatively empty.[28] But this effect is altogether to be ascribed to
+its richer assemblage of those sources of influence which address
+themselves to the commonest instincts of the human mind, and which, in
+all ages and countries, have been more or less employed in the support
+of superstition. Darkness and mystery; confused recesses of building;
+artificial light employed in small quantity, but maintained with a
+constancy which seems to give it a kind of sacredness; preciousness of
+material easily comprehended by the vulgar eye; close air loaded with a
+sweet and peculiar odor associated only with religious services, solemn
+music, and tangible idols or images having popular legends attached to
+them,--these, the stage properties of superstition, which have been from
+the beginning of the world, and must be to the end of it, employed by
+all nations, whether openly savage or nominally civilized, to produce a
+false awe in minds incapable of apprehending the true nature of the
+Deity, are assembled in St. Mark's to a degree, as far as I know,
+unexampled in any other European church. The arts of the Magus and the
+Brahmin are exhausted in the animation of a paralyzed Christianity; and
+the popular sentiment which these arts excite is to be regarded by us
+with no more respect than we should have considered ourselves justified
+in rendering to the devotion of the worshippers at Eleusis, Ellora, or
+Edfou.[29]
+
+§ XXI. Indeed, these inferior means of exciting religious emotion were
+employed in the ancient Church as they are at this day, but not employed
+alone. Torchlight there was, as there is now; but the torchlight
+illumined Scripture histories on the walls, which every eye traced and
+every heart comprehended, but which, during my whole residence in
+Venice, I never saw one Venetian regard for an instant. I never heard
+from any one the most languid expression of interest in any feature of
+the church, or perceived the slightest evidence of their understanding
+the meaning of its architecture; and while, therefore, the English
+cathedral, though no longer dedicated to the kind of services for which
+it was intended by its builders, and much at variance in many of its
+characters with the temper of the people by whom it is now surrounded,
+retains yet so much of its religious influence that no prominent feature
+of its architecture can be said to exist altogether in vain, we have in
+St. Mark's a building apparently still employed in the ceremonies for
+which it was designed, and yet of which the impressive attributes have
+altogether ceased to be comprehended by its votaries. The beauty which
+it possesses is unfelt, the language it uses is forgotten; and in the
+midst of the city to whose service it has so long been consecrated, and
+still filled by crowds of the descendants of those to whom it owes its
+magnificence, it stands, in reality, more desolate than the ruins
+through which the sheep-walk passes unbroken in our English valleys; and
+the writing on its marble walls is less regarded and less powerful for
+the teaching of men, than the letters which the shepherd follows with
+his finger, where the moss is lightest on the tombs in the desecrated
+cloister.
+
+§ XXII. It must therefore be altogether without reference to its present
+usefulness, that we pursue our inquiry into the merits and meaning of
+the architecture of this marvellous building; and it can only be after
+we have terminated that inquiry, conducting it carefully on abstract
+grounds, that we can pronounce with any certainty how far the present
+neglect of St. Mark's is significative of the decline of the Venetian
+character, or how far this church is to be considered as the relic of a
+barbarous age, incapable of attracting the admiration, or influencing
+the feelings of a civilized community.
+
+The inquiry before us is twofold. Throughout the first volume, I
+carefully kept the study of _expression_ distinct from that of abstract
+architectural perfection; telling the reader that in every building we
+should afterwards examine, he would have first to form a judgment of its
+construction and decorative merit, considering it merely as a work of
+art; and then to examine farther, in what degree it fulfilled its
+expressional purposes. Accordingly, we have first to judge of St. Mark's
+merely as a piece of architecture, not as a church; secondly, to
+estimate its fitness for its special duty as a place of worship, and the
+relation in which it stands, as such, to those northern cathedrals that
+still retain so much of the power over the human heart, which the
+Byzantine domes appear to have lost for ever.
+
+§ XXIII. In the two succeeding sections of this work, devoted
+respectively to the examination of the Gothic and Renaissance buildings
+in Venice, I have endeavored to analyze and state, as briefly as
+possible, the true nature of each school,--first in Spirit, then in
+Form. I wished to have given a similar analysis, in this section, of the
+nature of Byzantine architecture; but could not make my statements
+general, because I have never seen this kind of building on its native
+soil. Nevertheless, in the following sketch of the principles
+exemplified in St. Mark's, I believe that most of the leading features
+and motives of the style will be found clearly enough distinguished to
+enable the reader to judge of it with tolerable fairness, as compared
+with the better known systems of European architecture in the middle
+ages.
+
+§ XXIV. Now the first broad characteristic of the building, and the root
+nearly of every other important peculiarity in it, is its confessed
+_incrustation_. It is the purest example in Italy of the great school of
+architecture in which the ruling principle is the incrustation of brick
+with more precious materials; and it is necessary before we proceed to
+criticise any one of its arrangements, that the reader should carefully
+consider the principles which are likely to have influenced, or might
+legitimately influence, the architects of such a school, as
+distinguished from those whose designs are to be executed in massive
+materials.
+
+It is true, that among different nations, and at different times, we may
+find examples of every sort and degree of incrustation, from the mere
+setting of the larger and more compact stones by preference at the
+outside of the wall, to the miserable construction of that modern brick
+cornice, with its coating of cement, which, but the other day, in
+London, killed its unhappy workmen in its fall.[30] But just as it is
+perfectly possible to have a clear idea of the opposing characteristics
+of two different species of plants or animals, though between the two
+there are varieties which it is difficult to assign either to the one or
+the other, so the reader may fix decisively in his mind the legitimate
+characteristics of the incrusted and the massive styles, though between
+the two there are varieties which confessedly unite the attributes of
+both. For instance, in many Roman remains, built of blocks of tufa and
+incrusted with marble, we have a style, which, though truly solid,
+possesses some of the attributes of incrustation; and in the Cathedral
+of Florence, built of brick and coated with marble, the marble facing is
+so firmly and exquisitely set, that the building, though in reality
+incrusted, assumes the attributes of solidity. But these intermediate
+examples need not in the least confuse our generally distinct ideas of
+the two families of buildings: the one in which the substance is alike
+throughout, and the forms and conditions of the ornament assume or prove
+that it is so, as in the best Greek buildings, and for the most part in
+our early Norman and Gothic; and the other, in which the substance is of
+two kinds, one internal, the other external, and the system of
+decoration is founded on this duplicity, as pre-eminently in St. Mark's.
+
+§ XXV. I have used the word duplicity in no depreciatory sense. In
+chapter ii. of the "Seven Lamps," § 18, I especially guarded this
+incrusted school from the imputation of insincerity, and I must do so
+now at greater length. It appears insincere at first to a Northern
+builder, because, accustomed to build with solid blocks of freestone, he
+is in the habit of supposing the external superficies of a piece of
+masonry to be some criterion of its thickness. But, as soon as he gets
+acquainted with the incrusted style, he will find that the Southern
+builders had no intention to deceive him. He will see that every slab of
+facial marble is fastened to the next by a confessed _rivet_, and that
+the joints of the armor are so visibly and openly accommodated to the
+contours of the substance within, that he has no more right to complain
+of treachery than a savage would have, who, for the first time in his
+life seeing a man in armor, had supposed him to be made of solid steel.
+Acquaint him with the customs of chivalry, and with the uses of the coat
+of mail, and he ceases to accuse of dishonesty either the panoply or the
+knight.
+
+These laws and customs of the St. Mark's architectural chivalry it must
+be our business to develope.
+
+§ XXVI. First, consider the natural circumstances which give rise to
+such a style. Suppose a nation of builders, placed far from any quarries
+of available stone, and having precarious access to the mainland where
+they exist; compelled therefore either to build entirely with brick, or
+to import whatever stone they use from great distances, in ships of
+small tonnage, and for the most part dependent for speed on the oar
+rather than the sail. The labor and cost of carriage are just as great,
+whether they import common or precious stone, and therefore the natural
+tendency would always be to make each shipload as valuable as possible.
+But in proportion to the preciousness of the stone, is the limitation of
+its possible supply; limitation not determined merely by cost, but by
+the physical conditions of the material, for of many marbles, pieces
+above a certain size are not to be had for money. There would also be a
+tendency in such circumstances to import as much stone as possible ready
+sculptured, in order to save weight; and therefore, if the traffic of
+their merchants led them to places where there were ruins of ancient
+edifices, to ship the available fragments of them home. Out of this
+supply of marble, partly composed of pieces of so precious a quality
+that only a few tons of them could be on any terms obtained, and partly
+of shafts, capitals, and other portions of foreign buildings, the island
+architect has to fashion, as best he may, the anatomy of his edifice. It
+is at his choice either to lodge his few blocks of precious marble here
+and there among his masses of brick, and to cut out of the sculptured
+fragments such new forms as may be necessary for the observance of fixed
+proportions in the new building; or else to cut the colored stones into
+thin pieces, of extent sufficient to face the whole surface of the
+walls, and to adopt a method of construction irregular enough to admit
+the insertion of fragmentary sculptures; rather with a view of
+displaying their intrinsic beauty, than of setting them to any regular
+service in the support of the building.
+
+An architect who cared only to display his own skill, and had no respect
+for the works of others, would assuredly have chosen the former
+alternative, and would have sawn the old marbles into fragments in order
+to prevent all interference with his own designs. But an architect who
+cared for the preservation of noble work, whether his own or others',
+and more regarded the beauty of his building than his own fame, would
+have done what those old builders of St. Mark's did for us, and saved
+every relic with which he was entrusted.
+
+§ XXVII. But these were not the only motives which influenced the
+Venetians in the adoption of their method of architecture. It might,
+under all the circumstances above stated, have been a question with
+other builders, whether to import one shipload of costly jaspers, or
+twenty of chalk flints; and whether to build a small church faced with
+porphyry and paved with agate, or to raise a vast cathedral in
+freestone. But with the Venetians it could not be a question for an
+instant; they were exiles from ancient and beautiful cities, and had
+been accustomed to build with their ruins, not less in affection than in
+admiration: they had thus not only grown familiar with the practice of
+inserting older fragments in modern buildings, but they owed to that
+practice a great part of the splendor of their city, and whatever charm
+of association might aid its change from a Refuge into a Home. The
+practice which began in the affections of a fugitive nation, was
+prolonged in the pride of a conquering one; and beside the memorials of
+departed happiness, were elevated the trophies of returning victory. The
+ship of war brought home more marble in triumph than the merchant vessel
+in speculation; and the front of St. Mark's became rather a shrine at
+which to dedicate the splendor of miscellaneous spoil, than the
+organized expression of any fixed architectural law, or religious
+emotion.
+
+§ XXVIII. Thus far, however, the justification of the style of this
+church depends on circumstances peculiar to the time of its erection,
+and to the spot where it arose. The merit of its method, considered in
+the abstract, rests on far broader grounds.
+
+In the fifth chapter of the "Seven Lamps," § 14, the reader will find
+the opinion of a modern architect of some reputation, Mr. Wood, that the
+chief thing remarkable in this church "is its extreme ugliness;" and he
+will find this opinion associated with another, namely, that the works
+of the Caracci are far preferable to those of the Venetian painters.
+This second statement of feeling reveals to us one of the principal
+causes of the first; namely, that Mr. Wood had not any perception of
+color, or delight in it. The perception of color is a gift just as
+definitely granted to one person, and denied to another, as an ear for
+music; and the very first requisite for true judgment of St. Mark's, is
+the perfection of that color-faculty which few people ever set
+themselves seriously to find out whether they possess or not. For it is
+on its value as a piece of perfect and unchangeable coloring, that the
+claims of this edifice to our respect are finally rested; and a deaf man
+might as well pretend to pronounce judgment on the merits of a full
+orchestra, as an architect trained in the composition of form only, to
+discern the beauty of St. Mark's. It possesses the charm of color in
+common with the greater part of the architecture, as well as of the
+manufactures, of the East; but the Venetians deserve especial note as
+the only European people who appear to have sympathized to the full with
+the great instinct of the Eastern races. They indeed were compelled to
+bring artists from Constantinople to design the mosaics of the vaults of
+St. Mark's, and to group the colors of its porches; but they rapidly
+took up and developed, under more masculine conditions, the system of
+which the Greeks had shown them the example: while the burghers and
+barons of the North were building their dark streets and grisly castles
+of oak and sandstone, the merchants of Venice were covering their
+palaces with porphyry and gold; and at last, when her mighty painters
+had created for her a color more priceless than gold or porphyry, even
+this, the richest of her treasures, she lavished upon walls whose
+foundations were beaten by the sea; and the strong tide, as it runs
+beneath the Rialto, is reddened to this day by the reflection of the
+frescoes of Giorgione.
+
+§ XXIX. If, therefore, the reader does not care for color, I must
+protest against his endeavor to form any judgment whatever of this
+church of St. Mark's. But, if he both cares for and loves it, let him
+remember that the school of incrusted architecture is _the only one in
+which perfect and permanent chromatic decoration is possible_; and let
+him look upon every piece of jasper and alabaster given to the architect
+as a cake of very hard color, of which a certain portion is to be ground
+down or cut off, to paint the walls with. Once understand this
+thoroughly, and accept the condition that the body and availing strength
+of the edifice are to be in brick, and that this under muscular power
+of brickwork is to be clothed with the defence and the brightness of the
+marble, as the body of an animal is protected and adorned by its scales
+or its skin, and all the consequent fitnesses and laws of the structure
+will be easily discernible: These I shall state in their natural order.
+
+§ XXX. LAW I. _That the plinths and cornices used for binding the armor
+are to be light and delicate._ A certain thickness, at least two or
+three inches, must be required in the covering pieces (even when
+composed of the strongest stone, and set on the least exposed parts), in
+order to prevent the chance of fracture, and to allow for the wear of
+time. And the weight of this armor must not be trusted to cement; the
+pieces must not be merely glued to the rough brick surface, but
+connected with the mass which they protect by binding cornices and
+string courses; and with each other, so as to secure mutual support,
+aided by the rivetings, but by no means dependent upon them. And, for
+the full honesty and straight-forwardness of the work, it is necessary
+that these string courses and binding plinths should not be of such
+proportions as would fit them for taking any important part in the hard
+work of the inner structure, or render them liable to be mistaken for
+the great cornices and plinths already explained as essential parts of
+the best solid building. They must be delicate, slight, and visibly
+incapable of severer work than that assigned to them.
+
+§ XXXI. LAW II. _Science of inner structure is to be abandoned._ As the
+body of the structure is confessedly of inferior, and comparatively
+incoherent materials, it would be absurd to attempt in it any expression
+of the higher refinements of construction. It will be enough that by its
+mass we are assured of its sufficiency and strength; and there is the
+less reason for endeavoring to diminish the extent of its surface by
+delicacy of adjustment, because on the breadth of that surface we are to
+depend for the better display of the color, which is to be the chief
+source of our pleasure in the building. The main body of the work,
+therefore, will be composed of solid walls and massive piers; and
+whatever expression of finer structural science we may require, will be
+thrown either into subordinate portions of it, or entirely directed to
+the support of the external mail, where in arches or vaults it might
+otherwise appear dangerously independent of the material within.
+
+§ XXXII. LAW III. _All shafts are to be solid._ Wherever, by the
+smallness of the parts, we may be driven to abandon the incrusted
+structure at all, it must be abandoned altogether. The eye must never be
+left in the least doubt as to what is solid and what is coated. Whatever
+appears _probably_ solid, must be _assuredly_ so, and therefore it
+becomes an inviolable law that no shaft shall ever be incrusted. Not
+only does the whole virtue of a shaft depend on its consolidation, but
+the labor of cutting and adjusting an incrusted coat to it would be
+greater than the saving of material is worth. Therefore the shaft, of
+whatever size, is always to be solid; and because the incrusted
+character of the rest of the building renders it more difficult for the
+shafts to clear themselves from suspicion, they must not, in this
+incrusted style, be in any place jointed. No shaft must ever be used but
+of one block; and this the more, because the permission given to the
+builder to have his walls and piers as ponderous as he likes, renders it
+quite unnecessary for him to use shafts of any fixed size. In our Norman
+and Gothic, where definite support is required at a definite point, it
+becomes lawful to build up a tower of small stones in the shape of a
+shaft. But the Byzantine is allowed to have as much support as he wants
+from the walls in every direction, and he has no right to ask for
+further license in the structure of his shafts. Let him, by generosity
+in the substance of his pillars, repay us for the permission we have
+given him to be superficial in his walls. The builder in the chalk
+valleys of France and England may be blameless in kneading his clumsy
+pier out of broken flint and calcined lime; but the Venetian, who has
+access to the riches of Asia and the quarries of Egypt, must frame at
+least his shafts out of flawless stone.
+
+§ XXXIII. And this for another reason yet. Although, as we have said, it
+is impossible to cover the walls of a large building with color, except
+on the condition of dividing the stone into plates, there is always a
+certain appearance of meanness and niggardliness in the procedure. It is
+necessary that the builder should justify himself from this suspicion;
+and prove that it is not in mere economy or poverty, but in the real
+impossibility of doing otherwise, that he has sheeted his walls so
+thinly with the precious film. Now the shaft is exactly the portion of
+the edifice in which it is fittest to recover his honor in this respect.
+For if blocks of jasper or porphyry be inserted in the walls, the
+spectator cannot tell their thickness, and cannot judge of the
+costliness of the sacrifice. But the shaft he can measure with his eye
+in an instant, and estimate the quantity of treasure both in the mass of
+its existing substance, and in that which has been hewn away to bring it
+into its perfect and symmetrical form. And thus the shafts of all
+buildings of this kind are justly regarded as an expression of their
+wealth, and a form of treasure, just as much as the jewels or gold in
+the sacred vessels; they are, in fact, nothing else than large
+jewels,[31] the block of precious serpentine or jasper being valued
+according to its size and brilliancy of color, like a large emerald or
+ruby; only the bulk required to bestow value on the one is to be
+measured in feet and tons, and on the other in lines and carats. The
+shafts must therefore be, without exception, of one block in all
+buildings of this kind; for the attempt in any place to incrust or joint
+them would be a deception like that of introducing a false stone among
+jewellery (for a number of joints of any precious stone are of course
+not equal in value to a single piece of equal weight), and would put an
+end at once to the spectator's confidence in the expression of wealth in
+any portion of the structure, or of the spirit of sacrifice in those who
+raised it.
+
+§ XXXIV. LAW IV. _The shafts may sometimes be independent of the
+construction._ Exactly in proportion to the importance which the shaft
+assumes as a large jewel, is the diminution of its importance as a
+sustaining member; for the delight which we receive in its abstract
+bulk, and beauty of color, is altogether independent of any perception
+of its adaptation to mechanical necessities. Like other beautiful things
+in this world, its end is to _be_ beautiful; and, in proportion to its
+beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame
+emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers.
+Nay, so far from our admiration of the jewel shaft being dependent on
+its doing work for us, it is very possible that a chief part of its
+preciousness may consist in a delicacy, fragility, and tenderness of
+material, which must render it utterly unfit for hard work; and
+therefore that we shall admire it the more, because we perceive that if
+we were to put much weight upon it, it would be crushed. But, at all
+events, it is very clear that the primal object in the placing of such
+shafts must be the display of their beauty to the best advantage, and
+that therefore all imbedding of them in walls, or crowding of them into
+groups, in any position in which either their real size or any portion
+of their surface would be concealed, is either inadmissible altogether,
+or objectionable in proportion to their value; that no symmetrical or
+scientific arrangements of pillars are therefore ever to be expected in
+buildings of this kind, and that all such are even to be looked upon as
+positive errors and misapplications of materials: but that, on the
+contrary, we must be constantly prepared to see, and to see with
+admiration, shafts of great size and importance set in places where
+their real service is little more than nominal, and where the chief end
+of their existence is to catch the sunshine upon their polished sides,
+and lead the eye into delighted wandering among the mazes of their azure
+veins.
+
+§ XXXV. LAW V. _The shafts may be of variable size._ Since the value of
+each shaft depends upon its bulk, and diminishes with the diminution of
+its mass, in a greater ratio than the size itself diminishes, as in the
+case of all other jewellery, it is evident that we must not in general
+expect perfect symmetry and equality among the series of shafts, any
+more than definiteness of application; but that, on the contrary, an
+accurately observed symmetry ought to give us a kind of pain, as proving
+that considerable and useless loss has been sustained by some of the
+shafts, in being cut down to match with the rest. It is true that
+symmetry is generally sought for in works of smaller jewellery; but,
+even there, not a perfect symmetry, and obtained under circumstances
+quite different from those which affect the placing of shafts in
+architecture. First: the symmetry is usually imperfect. The stones that
+seem to match each other in a ring or necklace, appear to do so only
+because they are so small that their differences are not easily measured
+by the eye; but there is almost always such difference between them as
+would be strikingly apparent if it existed in the same proportion
+between two shafts nine or ten feet in height. Secondly: the quantity of
+stones which pass through a jeweller's hands, and the facility of
+exchange of such small objects, enable the tradesman to select any
+number of stones of approximate size; a selection, however, often
+requiring so much time, that perfect symmetry in a group of very fine
+stones adds enormously to their value. But the architect has neither the
+time nor the facilities of exchange. He cannot lay aside one column in a
+corner of his church till, in the course of traffic, he obtain another
+that will match it; he has not hundreds of shafts fastened up in
+bundles, out of which he can match sizes at his ease; he cannot send to
+a brother-tradesman and exchange the useless stones for available ones,
+to the convenience of both. His blocks of stone, or his ready hewn
+shafts, have been brought to him in limited number, from immense
+distances; no others are to be had; and for those which he does not
+bring into use, there is no demand elsewhere. His only means of
+obtaining symmetry will therefore be, in cutting down the finer masses
+to equality with the inferior ones; and this we ought not to desire him
+often to do. And therefore, while sometimes in a Baldacchino, or an
+important chapel or shrine, this costly symmetry may be necessary, and
+admirable in proportion to its probable cost, in the general fabric we
+must expect to see shafts introduced of size and proportion continually
+varying, and such symmetry as may be obtained among them never
+altogether perfect, and dependent for its charm frequently on strange
+complexities and unexpected rising and falling of weight and accent in
+its marble syllables; bearing the same relation to a rigidly chiselled
+and proportioned architecture that the wild lyric rhythm of Ćschylus or
+Pindar bears to the finished measures of Pope.
+
+§ XXXVI. The application of the principles of jewellery to the smaller
+as well as the larger blocks, will suggest to us another reason for the
+method of incrustation adopted in the walls. It often happens that the
+beauty of the veining in some varieties of alabaster is so great, that
+it becomes desirable to exhibit it by dividing the stone, not merely to
+economize its substance, but to display the changes in the disposition
+of its fantastic lines. By reversing one of two thin plates successively
+taken from the stone, and placing their corresponding edges in contact,
+a perfectly symmetrical figure may be obtained, which will enable the
+eye to comprehend more thoroughly the position of the veins. And this is
+actually the method in which, for the most part, the alabasters of St.
+Mark are employed; thus accomplishing a double good,--directing the
+spectator, in the first place, to close observation of the nature of the
+stone employed, and in the second, giving him a farther proof of the
+honesty of intention in the builder: for wherever similar veining is
+discovered in two pieces, the fact is declared that they have been cut
+from the same stone. It would have been easy to disguise the similarity
+by using them in different parts of the building; but on the contrary
+they are set edge to edge, so that the whole system of the architecture
+may be discovered at a glance by any one acquainted with the nature of
+the stones employed. Nay, but, it is perhaps answered me, not by an
+ordinary observer; a person ignorant of the nature of alabaster might
+perhaps fancy all these symmetrical patterns to have been found in the
+stone itself, and thus be doubly deceived, supposing blocks to be solid
+and symmetrical which were in reality subdivided and irregular. I grant
+it; but be it remembered, that in all things, ignorance is liable to be
+deceived, and has no right to accuse anything but itself as the source
+of the deception. The style and the words are dishonest, not which are
+liable to be misunderstood if subjected to no inquiry, but which are
+deliberately calculated to lead inquiry astray. There are perhaps no
+great or noble truths, from those of religion downwards, which present
+no mistakeable aspect to casual or ignorant contemplation. Both the
+truth and the lie agree in hiding themselves at first, but the lie
+continues to hide itself with effort, as we approach to examine it; and
+leads us, if undiscovered, into deeper lies; the truth reveals itself in
+proportion to our patience and knowledge, discovers itself kindly to our
+pleading, and leads us, as it is discovered, into deeper truths.
+
+§ XXXVII. LAW VI. _The decoration must be shallow in cutting._ The
+method of construction being thus systematized, it is evident that a
+certain style of decoration must arise out of it, based on the primal
+condition that over the greater part of the edifice there can be _no
+deep cutting_. The thin sheets of covering stones do not admit of it; we
+must not cut them through to the bricks; and whatever ornaments we
+engrave upon them cannot, therefore, be more than an inch deep at the
+utmost. Consider for an instant the enormous differences which this
+single condition compels between the sculptural decoration of the
+incrusted style, and that of the solid stones of the North, which may be
+hacked and hewn into whatever cavernous hollows and black recesses we
+choose; struck into grim darknesses and grotesque projections, and
+rugged ploughings up of sinuous furrows, in which any form or thought
+may be wrought out on any scale,--mighty statues with robes of rock and
+crowned foreheads burning in the sun, or venomous goblins and stealthy
+dragons shrunk into lurking-places of untraceable shade: think of this,
+and of the play and freedom given to the sculptor's hand and temper, to
+smite out and in, hither and thither, as he will; and then consider what
+must be the different spirit of the design which is to be wrought on
+the smooth surface of a film of marble, where every line and shadow must
+be drawn with the most tender pencilling and cautious reserve of
+resource,--where even the chisel must not strike hard, lest it break
+through the delicate stone, nor the mind be permitted in any impetuosity
+of conception inconsistent with the fine discipline of the hand.
+Consider that whatever animal or human form is to be suggested, must be
+projected on a flat surface; that all the features of the countenance,
+the folds of the drapery, the involutions of the limbs, must be so
+reduced and subdued that the whole work becomes rather a piece of fine
+drawing than of sculpture; and then follow out, until you begin to
+perceive their endlessness, the resulting differences of character which
+will be necessitated in every part of the ornamental designs of these
+incrusted churches, as compared with that of the Northern schools. I
+shall endeavor to trace a few of them only.
+
+§ XXXVIII. The first would of course be a diminution of the builder's
+dependence upon human form as a source of ornament: since exactly in
+proportion to the dignity of the form itself is the loss which it must
+sustain in being reduced to a shallow and linear bas-relief, as well as
+the difficulty of expressing it at all under such conditions. Wherever
+sculpture can be solid, the nobler characters of the human form at once
+lead the artist to aim at its representation, rather than at that of
+inferior organisms; but when all is to be reduced to outline, the forms
+of flowers and lower animals are always more intelligible, and are felt
+to approach much more to a satisfactory rendering of the objects
+intended, than the outlines of the human body. This inducement to seek
+for resources of ornament in the lower fields of creation was powerless
+in the minds of the great Pagan nations, Ninevite, Greek, or Egyptian:
+first, because their thoughts were so concentrated on their own
+capacities and fates, that they preferred the rudest suggestion of human
+form to the best of an inferior organism; secondly, because their
+constant practice in solid sculpture, often colossal, enabled them to
+bring a vast amount of science into the treatment of the lines, whether
+of the low relief, the monochrome vase, or shallow hieroglyphic.
+
+§ XXXIX. But when various ideas adverse to the representation of animal,
+and especially of human, form, originating with the Arabs and iconoclast
+Greeks, had begun at any rate to direct the builders' minds to seek for
+decorative materials in inferior types, and when diminished practice in
+solid sculpture had rendered it more difficult to find artists capable
+of satisfactorily reducing the high organisms to their elementary
+outlines, the choice of subject for surface sculpture would be more and
+more uninterruptedly directed to floral organisms, and human and animal
+form would become diminished in size, frequency, and general importance.
+So that, while in the Northern solid architecture we constantly find the
+effect of its noblest features dependent on ranges of statues, often
+colossal, and full of abstract interest, independent of their
+architectural service, in the Southern incrusted style we must expect to
+find the human form for the most part subordinate and diminutive, and
+involved among designs of foliage and flowers, in the manner of which
+endless examples had been furnished by the fantastic ornamentation of
+the Romans, from which the incrusted style had been directly derived.
+
+§ XL. Farther. In proportion to the degree in which his subject must be
+reduced to abstract outline will be the tendency in the sculptor to
+abandon naturalism of representation, and subordinate every form to
+architectural service. Where the flower or animal can be hewn into bold
+relief, there will always be a temptation to render the representation
+of it more complete than is necessary, or even to introduce details and
+intricacies inconsistent with simplicity of distant effect. Very often a
+worse fault than this is committed; and in the endeavor to give vitality
+to the stone, the original ornamental purpose of the design is
+sacrificed or forgotten. But when nothing of this kind can be attempted,
+and a slight outline is all that the sculptor can command, we may
+anticipate that this outline will be composed with exquisite grace; and
+that the richness of its ornamental arrangement will atone for the
+feebleness of its power of portraiture. On the porch of a Northern
+cathedral we may seek for the images of the flowers that grow in the
+neighboring fields, and as we watch with wonder the grey stones that
+fret themselves into thorns, and soften into blossoms, we may care
+little that these knots of ornament, as we retire from them to
+contemplate the whole building, appear unconsidered or confused. On the
+incrusted building we must expect no such deception of the eye or
+thoughts. It may sometimes be difficult to determine, from the
+involutions of its linear sculpture, what were the natural forms which
+originally suggested them: but we may confidently expect that the grace
+of their arrangement will always be complete; that there will not be a
+line in them which could be taken away without injury, nor one wanting
+which could be added with advantage.
+
+§ XLI. Farther. While the sculptures of the incrusted school will thus
+be generally distinguished by care and purity rather than force, and
+will be, for the most part, utterly wanting in depth of shadow, there
+will be one means of obtaining darkness peculiarly simple and obvious,
+and often in the sculptor's power. Wherever he can, without danger,
+leave a hollow behind his covering slabs, or use them, like glass, to
+fill an aperture in the wall, he can, by piercing them with holes,
+obtain points or spaces of intense blackness to contrast with the light
+tracing of the rest of his design. And we may expect to find this
+artifice used the more extensively, because, while it will be an
+effective means of ornamentation on the exterior of the building, it
+will be also the safest way of admitting light to the interior, still
+totally excluding both rain and wind. And it will naturally follow that
+the architect, thus familiarized with the effect of black and sudden
+points of shadow, will often seek to carry the same principle into other
+portions of his ornamentation, and by deep drill-holes, or perhaps
+inlaid portions of black color, to refresh the eye where it may be
+wearied by the lightness of the general handling.
+
+§ XLII. Farther. Exactly in proportion to the degree in which the force
+of sculpture is subdued, will be the importance attached to color as a
+means of effect or constituent of beauty. I have above stated that the
+incrusted style was the only one in which perfect or permanent color
+decoration was _possible_. It is also the only one in which a true
+system of color decoration was ever likely to be invented. In order to
+understand this, the reader must permit me to review with some care the
+nature of the principles of coloring adopted by the Northern and
+Southern nations.
+
+§ XLIII. I believe that from the beginning of the world there has never
+been a true or fine school of art in which color was despised. It has
+often been imperfectly attained and injudiciously applied, but I believe
+it to be one of the essential signs of life in a school of art, that it
+loves color; and I know it to be one of the first signs of death in the
+Renaissance schools, that they despised color.
+
+Observe, it is not now the question whether our Northern cathedrals are
+better with color or without. Perhaps the great monotone grey of Nature
+and of Time is a better color than any that the human hand can give; but
+that is nothing to our present business. The simple fact is, that the
+builders of those cathedrals laid upon them the brightest colors they
+could obtain, and that there is not, as far as I am aware, in Europe,
+any monument of a truly noble school which has not been either painted
+all over, or vigorously touched with paint, mosaic, and gilding in its
+prominent parts. Thus far Egyptians, Greeks, Goths, Arabs, and medićval
+Christians all agree: none of them, when in their right senses, ever
+think of doing without paint; and, therefore, when I said above that the
+Venetians were the only people who had thoroughly sympathized with the
+Arabs in this respect, I referred, first, to their intense love of
+color, which led them to lavish the most expensive decorations on
+ordinary dwelling-houses; and, secondly, to that perfection of the
+color-instinct in them, which enabled them to render whatever they did,
+in this kind, as just in principle as it was gorgeous in appliance. It
+is this principle of theirs, as distinguished from that of the Northern
+builders, which we have finally to examine.
+
+§ XLIV. In the second chapter of the first volume, it was noticed that
+the architect of Bourges Cathedral liked hawthorn, and that the porch of
+his cathedral was therefore decorated with a rich wreath of it; but
+another of the predilections of that architect was there unnoticed,
+namely, that he did not at all like _grey_ hawthorn, but preferred it
+green, and he painted it green accordingly, as bright as he could. The
+color is still left in every sheltered interstice of the foliage. He
+had, in fact, hardly the choice of any other color; he might have gilded
+the thorns, by way of allegorizing human life, but if they were to be
+painted at all, they could hardly be painted any tiling but green, and
+green all over. People would have been apt to object to any pursuit of
+abstract harmonies of color, which might have induced him to paint his
+hawthorn blue.
+
+§ XLV. In the same way, whenever the subject of the sculpture was
+definite, its color was of necessity definite also; and, in the hands of
+the Northern builders, it often became, in consequence, rather the means
+of explaining and animating the stories of their stone-work, than a
+matter of abstract decorative science. Flowers were painted red, trees
+green, and faces flesh-color; the result of the whole being often far
+more entertaining than beautiful. And also, though in the lines of the
+mouldings and the decorations of shafts or vaults, a richer and more
+abstract method of coloring was adopted (aided by the rapid development
+of the best principles of color in early glass-painting), the vigorous
+depths of shadow in the Northern sculpture confused the architect's eye,
+compelling him to use violent colors in the recesses, if these were to
+be seen as color at all, and thus injured his perception of more
+delicate color harmonies; so that in innumerable instances it becomes
+very disputable whether monuments even of the best times were improved
+by the color bestowed upon them, or the contrary. But, in the South, the
+flatness and comparatively vague forms of the sculpture, while they
+appeared to call for color in order to enhance their interest, presented
+exactly the conditions which would set it off to the greatest advantage;
+breadth of surface displaying even the most delicate tints in the
+lights, and faintness of shadow joining with the most delicate and
+pearly greys of color harmony; while the subject of the design being in
+nearly all cases reduced to mere intricacy of ornamental line, might be
+colored in any way the architect chose without any loss of rationality.
+Where oak-leaves and roses were carved into fresh relief and perfect
+bloom, it was necessary to paint the one green and the other red; but in
+portions of ornamentation where there was nothing which could be
+definitely construed into either an oak-leaf or a rose, but a mere
+labyrinth of beautiful lines, becoming here something like a leaf, and
+there something like a flower, the whole tracery of the sculpture might
+be left white, and grounded with gold or blue, or treated in any other
+manner best harmonizing with the colors around it. And as the
+necessarily feeble character of the sculpture called for and was ready
+to display the best arrangements of color, so the precious marbles in
+the architect's hands give him at once the best examples and the best
+means of color. The best examples, for the tints of all natural stones
+are as exquisite in quality as endless in change; and the best means,
+for they are all permanent.
+
+§ XLVI. Every motive thus concurred in urging him to the study of
+chromatic decoration, and every advantage was given him in the pursuit
+of it; and this at the very moment when, as presently to be noticed, the
+_naďveté_ of barbaric Christianity could only be forcibly appealed to by
+the help of colored pictures: so that, both externally and internally,
+the architectural construction became partly merged in pictorial effect;
+and the whole edifice is to be regarded less as a temple wherein to
+pray, than as itself a Book of Common Prayer, a vast illuminated missal,
+bound with alabaster instead of parchment, studded with porphyry pillars
+instead of jewels, and written within and without in letters of enamel
+and gold.
+
+§ XLVII. LAW VII. _That the impression of the architecture is not to be
+dependent on size._ And now there is but one final consequence to be
+deduced. The reader understands, I trust, by this time, that the claims
+of these several parts of the building upon his attention will depend
+upon their delicacy of design, their perfection of color, their
+preciousness of material, and their legendary interest. All these
+qualities are independent of size, and partly even inconsistent with it.
+Neither delicacy of surface sculpture, nor subtle gradations of color,
+can be appreciated by the eye at a distance; and since we have seen that
+our sculpture is generally to be only an inch or two in depth, and that
+our coloring is in great part to be produced with the soft tints and
+veins of natural stones, it will follow necessarily that none of the
+parts of the building can be removed far from the eye, and therefore
+that the whole mass of it cannot be large. It is not even desirable that
+it should be so; for the temper in which the mind addresses itself to
+contemplate minute and beautiful details is altogether different from
+that in which it submits itself to vague impressions of space and size.
+And therefore we must not be disappointed, but grateful, when we find
+all the best work of the building concentrated within a space
+comparatively small; and that, for the great cliff-like buttresses and
+mighty piers of the North, shooting up into indiscernible height, we
+have here low walls spread before us like the pages of a book, and
+shafts whose capitals we may touch with our hand.
+
+§ XLVIII. The due consideration of the principles above stated will
+enable the traveller to judge with more candor and justice of the
+architecture of St. Mark's than usually it would have been possible for
+him to do while under the influence of the prejudices necessitated by
+familiarity with the very different schools of Northern art. I wish it
+were in my power to lay also before the general reader some
+exemplification of the manner in which these strange principles are
+developed in the lovely building. But exactly in proportion to the
+nobility of any work, is the difficulty of conveying a just impression
+of it; and wherever I have occasion to bestow high praise, there it is
+exactly most dangerous for me to endeavor to illustrate my meaning,
+except by reference to the work itself. And, in fact, the principal
+reason why architectural criticism is at this day so far behind all
+other, is the impossibility of illustrating the best architecture
+faithfully. Of the various schools of painting, examples are accessible
+to every one, and reference to the works themselves is found sufficient
+for all purposes of criticism; but there is nothing like St. Mark's or
+the Ducal Palace to be referred to in the National Gallery, and no
+faithful illustration of them is possible on the scale of such a volume
+as this. And it is exceedingly difficult on any scale. Nothing is so
+rare in art, as far as my own experience goes, as a fair illustration of
+architecture; _perfect_ illustration of it does not exist. For all good
+architecture depends upon the adaptation of its chiselling to the effect
+at a certain distance from the eye; and to render the peculiar confusion
+in the midst of order, and uncertainty in the midst of decision, and
+mystery in the midst of trenchant lines, which are the result of
+distance, together with perfect expression of the peculiarities of the
+design, requires the skill of the most admirable artist, devoted to the
+work with the most severe conscientiousness, neither the skill nor the
+determination having as yet been given to the subject. And in the
+illustration of details, every building of any pretensions to high
+architectural rank would require a volume of plates, and those finished
+with extraordinary care. With respect to the two buildings which are the
+principal subjects of the present volume, St. Mark's and the Ducal
+Palace, I have found it quite impossible to do them the slightest
+justice by any kind of portraiture; and I abandoned the endeavor in the
+case of the latter with less regret, because in the new Crystal Palace
+(as the poetical public insist upon calling it, though it is neither a
+palace, nor of crystal) there will be placed, I believe, a noble cast of
+one of its angles. As for St. Mark's, the effort was hopeless from the
+beginning. For its effect depends not only upon the most delicate
+sculpture in every part, but, as we have just stated, eminently on its
+color also, and that the most subtle, variable, inexpressible color in
+the world,--the color of glass, of transparent alabaster, of polished
+marble, and lustrous gold. It would be easier to illustrate a crest of
+Scottish mountain, with its purple heather and pale harebells at their
+fullest and fairest, or a glade of Jura forest, with its floor of
+anemone and moss, than a single portico of St. Mark's. The fragment of
+one of its archivolts, given at the bottom of the opposite Plate, is not
+to illustrate the thing itself, but to illustrate the impossibility of
+illustration.
+
+§ XLIX. It is left a fragment, in order to get it on a larger scale; and
+yet even on this scale it is too small to show the sharp folds and
+points of the marble vine-leaves with sufficient clearness. The ground
+of it is gold, the sculpture in the spandrils is not more than an inch
+and a half deep, rarely so much. It is in fact nothing more than an
+exquisite sketching of outlines in marble, to about the same depth as in
+the Elgin frieze; the draperies, however, being filled with close folds,
+in the manner of the Byzantine pictures, folds especially necessary
+here, as large masses could not be expressed in the shallow sculpture
+without becoming insipid; but the disposition of these folds is always
+most beautiful, and often opposed by broad and simple spaces, like that
+obtained by the scroll in the hand of the prophet, seen in the plate.
+
+[Illustration: Plate VI.
+               THE VINE TREE, AND IN SERVICE.]
+
+The balls in the archivolt project considerably, and the interstices
+between their interwoven bands of marble are filled with colors like the
+illuminations of a manuscript; violet, crimson, blue, gold, and green
+alternately: but no green is ever used without an intermixture of blue
+pieces in the mosaic, nor any blue without a little centre of pale
+green; sometimes only a single piece of glass a quarter of an inch
+square, so subtle was the feeling for color which was thus to be
+satisfied.[32] The intermediate circles have golden stars set on an
+azure ground, varied in the same manner; and the small crosses seen in
+the intervals are alternately blue and subdued scarlet, with two small
+circles of white set in the golden ground above and beneath them, each
+only about half an inch across (this work, remember, being on the
+outside of the building, and twenty feet above the eye), while the blue
+crosses have each a pale green centre. Of all this exquisitely
+mingled hue, no plate, however large or expensive, could give any
+adequate conception; but, if the reader will supply in imagination to
+the engraving what he supplies to a common woodcut of a group of
+flowers, the decision of the respective merits of modern and of
+Byzantine architecture may be allowed to rest on this fragment of St.
+Mark's alone.
+
+From the vine-leaves of that archivolt, though there is no direct
+imitation of nature in them, but on the contrary a studious subjection
+to architectural purpose more particularly to be noticed hereafter, we
+may yet receive the same kind of pleasure which we have in seeing true
+vine-leaves and wreathed branches traced upon golden light; its stars
+upon their azure ground ought to make us remember, as its builder
+remembered, the stars that ascend and fall in the great arch of the sky:
+and I believe that stars, and boughs, and leaves, and bright colors are
+everlastingly lovely, and to be by all men beloved; and, moreover, that
+church walls grimly seared with squared lines, are not better nor nobler
+things than these. I believe the man who designed and the men who
+delighted in that archivolt to have been wise, happy, and holy. Let the
+reader look back to the archivolt I have already given out of the
+streets of London (Plate XIII. Vol. I.), and see what there is in it to
+make us any of the three. Let him remember that the men who design such
+work as that call St. Mark's a barbaric monstrosity, and let him judge
+between us.
+
+§ L. Some farther details of the St. Mark's architecture, and especially
+a general account of Byzantine capitals, and of the principal ones at
+the angles of the church, will be found in the following chapter.[33]
+Here I must pass on to the second part of our immediate subject, namely,
+the inquiry how far the exquisite and varied ornament of St. Mark's fits
+it, as a Temple, for its sacred purpose, and would be applicable in the
+churches of modern times. We have here evidently two questions: the
+first, that wide and continually agitated one, whether richness of
+ornament be right in churches at all; the second, whether the ornament
+of St. Mark's be of a truly ecclesiastical and Christian character.
+
+§ LI. In the first chapter of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture" I
+endeavored to lay before the reader some reasons why churches ought to
+be richly adorned, as being the only places in which the desire of
+offering a portion of all precious things to God could be legitimately
+expressed. But I left wholly untouched the question: whether the church,
+as such, stood in need of adornment, or would be better fitted for its
+purposes by possessing it. This question I would now ask the reader to
+deal with briefly and candidly.
+
+The chief difficulty in deciding it has arisen from its being always
+presented to us in an unfair form. It is asked of us, or we ask of
+ourselves, whether the sensation which we now feel in passing from our
+own modern dwelling-house, through a newly built street, into a
+cathedral of the thirteenth century, be safe or desirable as a
+preparation for public worship. But we never ask whether that sensation
+was at all calculated upon by the builders of the cathedral.
+
+§ LII. Now I do not say that the contrast of the ancient with the modern
+building, and the strangeness with which the earlier architectural forms
+fall upon the eye, are at this day disadvantageous. But I do say, that
+their effect, whatever it may be, was entirely uncalculated upon by the
+old builder. He endeavored to make his work beautiful, but never
+expected it to be strange. And we incapacitate ourselves altogether from
+fair judgment of its intention, if we forget that, when it was built, it
+rose in the midst of other work fanciful and beautiful as itself; that
+every dwelling-house in the middle ages was rich with the same ornaments
+and quaint with the same grotesques which fretted the porches or
+animated the gargoyles of the cathedral; that what we now regard with
+doubt and wonder, as well as with delight, was then the natural
+continuation, into the principal edifice of the city, of a style which
+was familiar to every eye throughout all its lanes and streets; and that
+the architect had often no more idea of producing a peculiarly
+devotional impression by the richest color and the most elaborate
+carving, than the builder of a modern meeting-house has by his
+whitewashed walls and square-cut casements.[34]
+
+§ LIII. Let the reader fix this great fact well in his mind, and then
+follow out its important corollaries. We attach, in modern days, a kind
+of sacredness to the pointed arch and the groined roof, because, while
+we look habitually out of square windows and live under flat ceilings,
+we meet with the more beautiful forms in the ruins of our abbeys. But
+when those abbeys were built, the pointed arch was used for every shop
+door, as well as for that of the cloister, and the feudal baron and
+freebooter feasted, as the monk sang, under vaulted roofs; not because
+the vaulting was thought especially appropriate to either the revel or
+psalm, but because it was then the form in which a strong roof was
+easiest built. We have destroyed the goodly architecture of our cities;
+we have substituted one wholly devoid of beauty or meaning; and then we
+reason respecting the strange effect upon our minds of the fragments
+which, fortunately, we have left in our churches, as if those churches
+had always been designed to stand out in strong relief from all the
+buildings around them, and Gothic architecture had always been, what it
+is now, a religious language, like Monkish Latin. Most readers know, if
+they would arouse their knowledge, that this was not so; but they take
+no pains to reason the matter out: they abandon themselves drowsily to
+the impression that Gothic is a peculiarly ecclesiastical style; and
+sometimes, even, that richness in church ornament is a condition or
+furtherance of the Romish religion. Undoubtedly it has become so in
+modern times: for there being no beauty in our recent architecture, and
+much in the remains of the past, and these remains being almost
+exclusively ecclesiastical, the High Church and Romanist parties have
+not been slow in availing themselves of the natural instincts which were
+deprived of all food except from this source; and have willingly
+promulgated the theory, that because all the good architecture that is
+now left is expressive of High Church or Romanist doctrines, all good
+architecture ever has been and must be so,--a piece of absurdity from
+which, though here and there a country clergyman may innocently believe
+it, I hope the common sense of the nation will soon manfully quit
+itself. It needs but little inquiry into the spirit of the past, to
+ascertain what, once for all, I would desire here clearly and forcibly
+to assert, that wherever Christian church architecture has been good and
+lovely, it has been merely the perfect development of the common
+dwelling-house architecture of the period; that when the pointed arch
+was used in the street, it was used in the church; when the round arch
+was used in the street, it was used in the church; when the pinnacle was
+set over the garret window, it was set over the belfry tower; when the
+flat roof was used for the drawing-room, it was used for the nave. There
+is no sacredness in round arches, nor in pointed; none in pinnacles, nor
+in buttresses; none in pillars, nor in traceries. Churches were larger
+than most other buildings, because they had to hold more people; they
+were more adorned than most other buildings, because they were safer
+from violence, and were the fitting subjects of devotional offering: but
+they were never built in any separate, mystical, and religious style;
+they were built in the manner that was common and familiar to everybody
+at the time. The flamboyant traceries that adorn the façade of Rouen
+Cathedral had once their fellows in every window of every house in the
+market-place; the sculptures that adorn the porches of St. Mark's had
+once their match on the walls of every palace on the Grand Canal; and
+the only difference between the church and the dwelling-house was, that
+there existed a symbolical meaning in the distribution of the parts of
+all buildings meant for worship, and that the painting or sculpture was,
+in the one case, less frequently of profane subject than in the other. A
+more severe distinction cannot be drawn: for secular history was
+constantly introduced into church architecture; and sacred history or
+allusion generally formed at least one half of the ornament of the
+dwelling-house.
+
+§ LIV. This fact is so important, and so little considered, that I must
+be pardoned for dwelling upon it at some length, and accurately marking
+the limits of the assertion I have made. I do not mean that every
+dwelling-house of medićval cities was as richly adorned and as exquisite
+in composition as the fronts of their cathedrals, but that they
+presented features of the same kind, often in parts quite as beautiful;
+and that the churches were not separated by any change of style from the
+buildings round them, as they are now, but were merely more finished and
+full examples of a universal style, rising out of the confused streets
+of the city as an oak tree does out of an oak copse, not differing in
+leafage, but in size and symmetry. Of course the quainter and smaller
+forms of turret and window necessary for domestic service, the inferior
+materials, often wood instead of stone, and the fancy of the
+inhabitants, which had free play in the design, introduced oddnesses,
+vulgarities, and variations into house architecture, which were
+prevented by the traditions, the wealth, and the skill of the monks and
+freemasons; while, on the other hand, conditions of vaulting,
+buttressing, and arch and tower building, were necessitated by the mere
+size of the cathedral, of which it would be difficult to find examples
+elsewhere. But there was nothing more in these features than the
+adaptation of mechanical skill to vaster requirements; there was nothing
+intended to be, or felt to be, especially ecclesiastical in any of the
+forms so developed; and the inhabitants of every village and city, when
+they furnished funds for the decoration of their church, desired merely
+to adorn the house of God as they adorned their own, only a little more
+richly, and with a somewhat graver temper in the subjects of the
+carving. Even this last difference is not always clearly discernible:
+all manner of ribaldry occurs in the details of the ecclesiastical
+buildings of the North, and at the time when the best of them were
+built, every man's house was a kind of temple; a figure of the Madonna,
+or of Christ, almost always occupied a niche over the principal door,
+and the Old Testament histories were curiously interpolated amidst the
+grotesques of the brackets and the gables.
+
+§ LV. And the reader will now perceive that the question respecting
+fitness of church decoration rests in reality on totally different
+grounds from those commonly made foundations of argument. So long as our
+streets are walled with barren brick, and our eyes rest continually, in
+our daily life, on objects utterly ugly, or of inconsistent and
+meaningless design, it may be a doubtful question whether the faculties
+of eye and mind which are capable of perceiving beauty, having been left
+without food during the whole of our active life, should be suddenly
+feasted upon entering a place of worship; and color, and music, and
+sculpture should delight the senses, and stir the curiosity of men
+unaccustomed to such appeal, at the moment when they are required to
+compose themselves for acts of devotion;--this, I say, may be a doubtful
+question: but it cannot be a question at all, that if once familiarized
+with beautiful form and color, and accustomed to see in whatever human
+hands have executed for us, even for the lowest services, evidence of
+noble thought and admirable skill, we shall desire to see this evidence
+also in whatever is built or labored for the house of prayer; that the
+absence of the accustomed loveliness would disturb instead of assisting
+devotion; and that we should feel it as vain to ask whether, with our
+own house full of goodly craftsmanship, we should worship God in a house
+destitute of it, as to ask whether a pilgrim whose day's journey had led
+him through fair woods and by sweet waters, must at evening turn aside
+into some barren place to pray.
+
+§ LVI. Then the second question submitted to us, whether the ornament of
+St. Mark's be truly ecclesiastical and Christian, is evidently
+determined together with the first; for, if not only the permission of
+ornament at all, but the beautiful execution of it, be dependent on our
+being familiar with it in daily life, it will follow that no style of
+noble architecture _can_ be exclusively ecclesiastical. It must be
+practised in the dwelling before it be perfected in the church, and it
+is the test of a noble style that it shall be applicable to both; for if
+essentially false and ignoble, it may be made to fit the dwelling-house,
+but never can be made to fit the church: and just as there are many
+principles which will bear the light of the world's opinion, yet will
+not bear the light of God's word, while all principles which will bear
+the test of Scripture will also bear that of practice, so in
+architecture there are many forms which expediency and convenience may
+apparently justify, or at least render endurable, in daily use, which
+will yet be found offensive the moment they are used for church service;
+but there are none good for church service, which cannot bear daily use.
+Thus the Renaissance manner of building is a convenient style for
+dwelling-houses, but the natural sense of all religious men causes them
+to turn from it with pain when it has been used in churches; and this
+has given rise to the popular idea that the Roman style is good for
+houses and the Gothic for churches. This is not so; the Roman style is
+essentially base, and we can bear with it only so long as it gives us
+convenient windows and spacious rooms; the moment the question of
+convenience is set aside, and the expression or beauty of the style is
+tried by its being used in a church, we find it fail. But because the
+Gothic and Byzantine styles are fit for churches they are not therefore
+less fit for dwellings. They are in the highest sense fit and good for
+both, nor were they ever brought to perfection except where they were
+used for both.
+
+§ LVII. But there is one character of Byzantine work which, according to
+the time at which it was employed, may be considered as either fitting
+or unfitting it for distinctly ecclesiastical purposes; I mean the
+essentially pictorial character of its decoration. We have already seen
+what large surfaces it leaves void of bold architectural features, to be
+rendered interesting merely by surface ornament or sculpture. In this
+respect Byzantine work differs essentially from pure Gothic styles,
+which are capable of filling every vacant space by features purely
+architectural, and may be rendered, if we please, altogether independent
+of pictorial aid. A Gothic church may be rendered impressive by mere
+successions of arches, accumulations of niches, and entanglements of
+tracery. But a Byzantine church requires expression and interesting
+decoration over vast plane surfaces,--decoration which becomes noble
+only by becoming pictorial; that is to say, by representing natural
+objects,--men, animals, or flowers. And, therefore, the question whether
+the Byzantine style be fit for church service in modern days, becomes
+involved in the inquiry, what effect upon religion has been or may yet
+be produced by pictorial art, and especially by the art of the
+mosaicist?
+
+§ LVIII. The more I have examined the subject the more dangerous I have
+found it to dogmatize respecting the character of the art which is
+likely, at a given period, to be most useful to the cause of religion.
+One great fact first meets me. I cannot answer for the experience of
+others, but I never yet met with a Christian whose heart was thoroughly
+set upon the world to come, and, so far as human judgment could
+pronounce, perfect and right before God, who cared about art at all. I
+have known several very noble Christian men who loved it intensely, but
+in them there was always traceable some entanglement of the thoughts
+with the matters of this world, causing them to fall into strange
+distresses and doubts, and often leading them into what they themselves
+would confess to be errors in understanding, or even failures in duty. I
+do not say that these men may not, many of them, be in very deed nobler
+than those whose conduct is more consistent; they may be more tender in
+the tone of all their feelings, and farther-sighted in soul, and for
+that very reason exposed to greater trials and fears, than those whose
+hardier frame and naturally narrower vision enable them with less effort
+to give their hands to God and walk with Him. But still, the general
+fact is indeed so, that I have never known a man who seemed altogether
+right and calm in faith, who seriously cared about art; and when
+casually moved by it, it is quite impossible to say beforehand by what
+class of art this impression will on such men be made. Very often it is
+by a theatrical commonplace, more frequently still by false sentiment. I
+believe that the four painters who have had, and still have, the most
+influence, such as it is, on the ordinary Protestant Christian mind, are
+Carlo Dolci, Guercino, Benjamin West, and John Martin. Raphael, much as
+he is talked about, is, I believe in very fact, rarely looked at by
+religious people; much less his master, or any of the truly great
+religious men of old. But a smooth Magdalen of Carlo Dolci with a tear
+on each cheek, or a Guercino Christ or St. John, or a Scripture
+illustration of West's, or a black cloud with a flash of lightning in it
+of Martin's, rarely fails of being verily, often deeply, felt for the
+time.
+
+§ LIX. There are indeed many very evident reasons for this; the chief
+one being that, as all truly great religious painters have been hearty
+Romanists, there are none of their works which do not embody, in some
+portions of them, definitely Romanist doctrines. The Protestant mind is
+instantly struck by these, and offended by them, so as to be incapable
+of entering, or at least rendered indisposed to enter, farther into the
+heart of the work, or to the discovering those deeper characters of it,
+which are not Romanist, but Christian, in the everlasting sense and
+power of Christianity. Thus most Protestants, entering for the first
+time a Paradise of Angelico, would be irrevocably offended by finding
+that the first person the painter wished them to speak to was St.
+Dominic; and would retire from such a heaven as speedily as
+possible,--not giving themselves time to discover, that whether dressed
+in black, or white, or grey, and by whatever name in the calendar they
+might be called, the figures that filled that Angelico heaven were
+indeed more saintly, and pure, and full of love in every feature, than
+any that the human hand ever traced before or since. And thus
+Protestantism, having foolishly sought for the little help it requires
+at the hand of painting from the men who embodied no Catholic doctrine,
+has been reduced to receive it from those who believed neither
+Catholicism nor Protestantism, but who read the Bible in search of the
+picturesque. We thus refuse to regard the painters who passed their
+lives in prayer, but are perfectly ready to be taught by those who spent
+them in debauchery. There is perhaps no more popular Protestant picture
+than Salvator's "Witch of Endor," of which the subject was chosen by the
+painter simply because, under the names of Saul and the Sorceress, he
+could paint a captain of banditti, and a Neapolitan hag.
+
+§ LX. The fact seems to be that strength of religious feeling is capable
+of supplying for itself whatever is wanting in the rudest suggestions of
+art, and will either, on the one hand, purify what is coarse into
+inoffensiveness, or, on the other, raise what is feeble into
+impressiveness. Probably all art, as such, is unsatisfactory to it; and
+the effort which it makes to supply the void will be induced rather by
+association and accident than by the real merit of the work submitted to
+it. The likeness to a beloved friend, the correspondence with a habitual
+conception, the freedom from any strange or offensive particularity,
+and, above all, an interesting choice of incident, will win admiration
+for a picture when the noblest efforts of religious imagination would
+otherwise fail of power. How much more, when to the quick capacity of
+emotion is joined a childish trust that the picture does indeed
+represent a fact! it matters little whether the fact be well or ill
+told; the moment we believe the picture to be true, we complain little
+of its being ill-painted. Let it be considered for a moment, whether the
+child, with its colored print, inquiring eagerly and gravely which is
+Joseph, and which is Benjamin, is not more capable of receiving a
+strong, even a sublime, impression from the rude symbol which it invests
+with reality by its own effort, than the connoisseur who admires the
+grouping of the three figures in Raphael's "Telling of the Dreams;" and
+whether also, when the human mind is in right religious tone, it has not
+always this childish power--I speak advisedly, this power--a noble one,
+and possessed more in youth than at any period of after life, but
+always, I think, restored in a measure by religion--of raising into
+sublimity and reality the rudest symbol which is given to it of
+accredited truth.
+
+§ LXI. Ever since the period of the Renaissance, however, the truth has
+not been accredited; the painter of religious subject is no longer
+regarded as the narrator of a fact, but as the inventor of an idea.[35]
+We do not severely criticise the manner in which a true history is
+told, but we become harsh investigators of the faults of an invention;
+so that in the modern religious mind, the capacity of emotion, which
+renders judgment uncertain, is joined with an incredulity which renders
+it severe; and this ignorant emotion, joined with ignorant observance of
+faults, is the worst possible temper in which any art can be regarded,
+but more especially sacred art. For as religious faith renders emotion
+facile, so also it generally renders expression simple; that is to say a
+truly religious painter will very often be ruder, quainter, simpler, and
+more faulty in his manner of working, than a great irreligious one. And
+it was in this artless utterance, and simple acceptance, on the part of
+both the workman and the beholder, that all noble schools of art have
+been cradled; it is in them that they _must_ be cradled to the end of
+time. It is impossible to calculate the enormous loss of power in modern
+days, owing to the imperative requirement that art shall be methodical
+and learned: for as long as the constitution of this world remains
+unaltered, there will be more intellect in it than there can be
+education; there will be many men capable of just sensation and vivid
+invention, who never will have time to cultivate or polish their natural
+powers. And all unpolished power is in the present state of society
+lost; in other things as well as in the arts, but in the arts
+especially: nay, in nine cases out of ten, people mistake the polish for
+the power. Until a man has passed through a course of academy
+studentship, and can draw in an approved manner with French chalk, and
+knows foreshortening, and perspective, and something of anatomy, we do
+not think he can possibly be an artist; what is worse, we are very apt
+to think that we can _make_ him an artist by teaching him anatomy, and
+how to draw with French chalk; whereas the real gift in him is utterly
+independent of all such accomplishments: and I believe there are many
+peasants on every estate, and laborers in every town, of Europe, who
+have imaginative powers of a high order, which nevertheless cannot be
+used for our good, because we do not choose to look at anything but what
+is expressed in a legal and scientific way. I believe there is many a
+village mason who, set to carve a series of Scripture or any other
+histories, would find many a strange and noble fancy in his head, and
+set it down, roughly enough indeed, but in a way well worth our having.
+But we are too grand to let him do this, or to set up his clumsy work
+when it is done; and accordingly the poor stone-mason is kept hewing
+stones smooth at the corners, and we build our church of the smooth
+square stones, and consider ourselves wise.
+
+§ LXII. I shall pursue this subject farther in another place; but I
+allude to it here in order to meet the objections of those persons who
+suppose the mosaics of St. Mark's, and others of the period, to be
+utterly barbarous as representations of religious history. Let it be
+granted that they are so; we are not for that reason to suppose they
+were ineffective in religious teaching. I have above spoken of the whole
+church as a great Book of Common Prayer; the mosaics were its
+illuminations, and the common people of the time were taught their
+Scripture history by means of them, more impressively perhaps, though
+far less fully, than ours are now by Scripture reading. They had no
+other Bible, and--Protestants do not often enough consider this--_could_
+have no other. We find it somewhat difficult to furnish our poor with
+printed Bibles; consider what the difficulty must have been when they
+could be given only in manuscript. The walls of the church necessarily
+became the poor man's Bible, and a picture was more easily read upon the
+walls than a chapter. Under this view, and considering them merely as
+the Bible pictures of a great nation in its youth, I shall finally
+invite the reader to examine the connexion and subjects of these
+mosaics; but in the meantime I have to deprecate the idea of their
+execution being in any sense barbarous. I have conceded too much to
+modern prejudice, in permitting them to be rated as mere childish
+efforts at colored portraiture: they have characters in them of a very
+noble kind; nor are they by any means devoid of the remains of the
+science of the later Roman empire. The character of the features is
+almost always fine, the expression stern and quiet, and very solemn, the
+attitudes and draperies always majestic in the single figures, and in
+those of the groups which are not in violent action;[36] while the
+bright coloring and disregard of chiaroscuro cannot be regarded as
+imperfections, since they are the only means by which the figures could
+be rendered clearly intelligible in the distance and darkness of the
+vaulting. So far am I from considering them barbarous, that I believe of
+all works of religious art whatsoever, these, and such as these, have
+been the most effective. They stand exactly midway between the debased
+manufacture of wooden and waxen images which is the support of Romanist
+idolatry all over the world, and the great art which leads the mind away
+from the religious subject to the art itself. Respecting neither of
+these branches of human skill is there, nor can there be, any question.
+The manufacture of puppets, however influential on the Romanist mind of
+Europe, is certainly not deserving of consideration as one of the fine
+arts. It matters literally nothing to a Romanist what the image he
+worships is like. Take the vilest doll that is screwed together in a
+cheap toy-shop, trust it to the keeping of a large family of children,
+let it be beaten about the house by them till it is reduced to a
+shapeless block, then dress it in a satin frock and declare it to have
+fallen from heaven, and it will satisfactorily answer all Romanist
+purposes. Idolatry,[37] it cannot be too often repeated, is no
+encourager of the fine arts. But, on the other hand, the highest
+branches of the fine arts are no encouragers either of idolatry or of
+religion. No picture of Leonardo's or Raphael's, no statue of Michael
+Angelo's, has ever been worshipped, except by accident. Carelessly
+regarded, and by ignorant persons, there is less to attract in them than
+in commoner works. Carefully regarded, and by intelligent persons, they
+instantly divert the mind from their subject to their art, so that
+admiration takes the place of devotion. I do not say that the Madonna di
+S. Sisto, the Madonna del Cardellino, and such others, have not had
+considerable religious influence on certain minds, but I say that on the
+mass of the people of Europe they have had none whatever; while by far
+the greater number of the most celebrated statues and pictures are never
+regarded with any other feelings than those of admiration of human
+beauty, or reverence for human skill. Effective religious art,
+therefore, has always lain, and I believe must always lie, between the
+two extremes--of barbarous idol-fashioning on one side, and magnificent
+craftsmanship on the other. It consists partly in missal painting, and
+such book-illustrations as, since the invention of printing, have taken
+its place; partly in glass-painting; partly in rude sculpture on the
+outsides of buildings; partly in mosaics; and partly in the frescoes and
+tempera pictures which, in the fourteenth century, formed the link
+between this powerful, because imperfect, religious art, and the
+impotent perfection which succeeded it.
+
+§ LXIII. But of all these branches the most important are the inlaying
+and mosaic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, represented in a
+central manner by these mosaics of St. Mark's. Missal-painting could
+not, from its minuteness, produce the same sublime impressions, and
+frequently merged itself in mere ornamentation of the page. Modern
+book-illustration has been so little skilful as hardly to be worth
+naming. Sculpture, though in some positions it becomes of great
+importance, has always a tendency to lose itself in architectural
+effect; and was probably seldom deciphered, in all its parts, by the
+common people, still less the traditions annealed in the purple burning
+of the painted window. Finally, tempera pictures and frescoes were often
+of limited size or of feeble color. But the great mosaics of the twelfth
+and thirteenth centuries covered the walls and roofs of the churches
+with inevitable lustre; they could not be ignored or escaped from; their
+size rendered them majestic, their distance mysterious, their color
+attractive. They did not pass into confused or inferior decorations;
+neither were they adorned with any evidences of skill or science, such
+as might withdraw the attention from their subjects. They were before
+the eyes of the devotee at every interval of his worship; vast
+shadowings forth of scenes to whose realization he looked forward, or of
+spirits whose presence he invoked. And the man must be little capable of
+receiving a religious impression of any kind, who, to this day, does not
+acknowledge some feeling of awe, as he looks up at the pale countenances
+and ghastly forms which haunt the dark roofs of the Baptisteries of
+Parma and Florence, or remains altogether untouched by the majesty of
+the colossal images of apostles, and of Him who sent apostles, that look
+down from the darkening gold of the domes of Venice and Pisa.
+
+§ LXIV. I shall, in a future portion of this work, endeavor to discover
+what probabilities there are of our being able to use this kind of art
+in modern churches; but at present it remains for us to follow out the
+connexion of the subjects represented in St. Mark's so as to fulfil our
+immediate object, and form an adequate conception of the feelings of its
+builders, and of its uses to those for whom it was built.
+
+Now there is one circumstance to which I must, in the outset, direct the
+reader's special attention, as forming a notable distinction between
+ancient and modern days. Our eyes are now familiar and wearied with
+writing; and if an inscription is put upon a building, unless it be
+large and clear, it is ten to one whether we ever trouble ourselves to
+decipher it. But the old architect was sure of readers. He knew that
+every one would be glad to decipher all that he wrote; that they would
+rejoice in possessing the vaulted leaves of his stone manuscript; and
+that the more he gave them, the more grateful would the people be. We
+must take some pains, therefore, when we enter St. Mark's, to read all
+that is inscribed, or we shall not penetrate into the feeling either of
+the builder or of his times.
+
+§ LXV. A large atrium or portico is attached to two sides of the church,
+a space which was especially reserved for unbaptized persons and new
+converts. It was thought right that, before their baptism, these persons
+should be led to contemplate the great facts of the Old Testament
+history; the history of the Fall of Man, and of the lives of Patriarchs
+up to the period of the Covenant by Moses: the order of the subjects in
+this series being very nearly the same as in many Northern churches, but
+significantly closing with the Fall of the Manna, in order to mark to
+the catechumen the insufficiency of the Mosaic covenant for
+salvation,--"Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are
+dead,"--and to turn his thoughts to the true Bread of which that manna
+was the type.
+
+§ LXVI. Then, when after his baptism he was permitted to enter the
+church, over its main entrance he saw, on looking back, a mosaic of
+Christ enthroned, with the Virgin on one side and St. Mark on the other,
+in attitudes of adoration. Christ is represented as holding a book open
+upon his knee, on which is written: "I AM THE DOOR; BY ME IF ANY MAN
+ENTER IN, HE SHALL BE SAVED." On the red marble moulding which surrounds
+the mosaic is written: "I AM THE GATE OF LIFE; LET THOSE WHO ARE MINE
+ENTER BY ME." Above, on the red marble fillet which forms the cornice of
+the west end of the church, is written, with reference to the figure of
+Christ below: "WHO HE WAS, AND FROM WHOM HE CAME, AND AT WHAT PRICE HE
+REDEEMED THEE, AND WHY HE MADE THEE, AND GAVE THEE ALL THINGS, DO THOU
+CONSIDER."
+
+Now observe, this was not to be seen and read only by the catechumen
+when he first entered the church; every one who at any time entered, was
+supposed to look back and to read this writing; their daily entrance
+into the church was thus made a daily memorial of their first entrance
+into the spiritual Church; and we shall find that the rest of the book
+which was opened for them upon its walls continually led them in the
+same manner to regard the visible temple as in every part a type of the
+invisible Church of God.
+
+§ LXVII. Therefore the mosaic of the first dome, which is over the head
+of the spectator as soon as he has entered by the great door (that door
+being the type of baptism), represents the effusion of the Holy Spirit,
+as the first consequence and seal of the entrance into the Church of
+God. In the centre of the cupola is the Dove, enthroned in the Greek
+manner, as the Lamb is enthroned, when the Divinity of the Second and
+Third Persons is to be insisted upon together with their peculiar
+offices. From the central symbol of the Holy Spirit twelve streams of
+fire descend upon the heads of the twelve apostles, who are represented
+standing around the dome; and below them, between the windows which are
+pierced in its walls, are represented, by groups of two figures for each
+separate people, the various nations who heard the apostles speak, at
+Pentecost, every man in his own tongue. Finally, on the vaults, at the
+four angles which support the cupola, are pictured four angels, each
+bearing a tablet upon the end of a rod in his hand: on each of the
+tablets of the three first angels is inscribed the word "Holy;" on that
+of the fourth is written "Lord;" and the beginning of the hymn being
+thus put into the mouths of the four angels, the words of it are
+continued around the border of the dome, uniting praise to God for the
+gift of the Spirit, with welcome to the redeemed soul received into His
+Church:
+
+    "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD OF SABAOTH:
+       HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE FULL OF THY GLORY.
+          HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST:
+  BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD."
+
+And observe in this writing that the convert is required to regard the
+outpouring of the Holy Spirit especially as a work of _sanctification_.
+It is the _holiness_ of God manifested in the giving of His Spirit to
+sanctify those who had become His children, which the four angels
+celebrate in their ceaseless praise; and it is on account of this
+holiness that the heaven and earth are said to be full of His glory.
+
+§ LXVIII. After thus hearing praise rendered to God by the angels for
+the salvation of the newly-entered soul, it was thought fittest that the
+worshipper should be led to contemplate, in the most comprehensive forms
+possible, the past evidence and the future hopes of Christianity, as
+summed up in three facts without assurance of which all faith is vain;
+namely that Christ died, that He rose again, and that He ascended into
+heaven, there to prepare a place for His elect. On the vault between the
+first and second cupolas are represented the crucifixion and
+resurrection of Christ, with the usual series of intermediate
+scenes,--the treason of Judas, the judgment of Pilate, the crowning with
+thorns, the descent into Hades, the visit of the women to the sepulchre,
+and the apparition to Mary Magdalene. The second cupola itself, which is
+the central and principal one of the church, is entirely occupied by the
+subject of the Ascension. At the highest point of it Christ is
+represented as rising into the blue heaven, borne up by four angels, and
+throned upon a rainbow, the type of reconciliation. Beneath him, the
+twelve apostles are seen upon the Mount of Olives, with the Madonna,
+and, in the midst of them, the two men in white apparel who appeared at
+the moment of the Ascension, above whom, as uttered by them, are
+inscribed the words, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into
+heaven? This Christ, the Son of God, as He is taken from you, shall so
+come, the arbiter of the earth, trusted to do judgment and justice."
+
+§ LXIX. Beneath the circle of the apostles, between the windows of the
+cupola, are represented the Christian virtues, as sequent upon the
+crucifixion of the flesh, and the spiritual ascension together with
+Christ. Beneath them, on the vaults which support the angles of the
+cupola, are placed the four Evangelists, because on their evidence our
+assurance of the fact of the ascension rests; and, finally, beneath
+their feet, as symbols of the sweetness and fulness of the Gospel which
+they declared, are represented the four rivers of Paradise, Pison,
+Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.
+
+§ LXX. The third cupola, that over the altar, represents the witness of
+the Old Testament to Christ; showing him enthroned in its centre, and
+surrounded by the patriarchs and prophets. But this dome was little seen
+by the people;[38] their contemplation was intended to be chiefly drawn to
+that of the centre of the church, and thus the mind of the worshipper was
+at once fixed on the main groundwork and hope of Christianity,--"Christ is
+risen," and "Christ shall come." If he had time to explore the minor
+lateral chapels and cupolas, he could find in them the whole series of
+New Testament history, the events of the Life of Christ, and the
+Apostolic miracles in their order, and finally the scenery of the Book
+of Revelation;[39] but if he only entered, as often the common people do
+to this hour, snatching a few moments before beginning the labor of the
+day to offer up an ejaculatory prayer, and advanced but from the main
+entrance as far as the altar screen, all the splendor of the glittering
+nave and variegated dome, if they smote upon his heart, as they might
+often, in strange contrast with his reed cabin among the shallows of the
+lagoon, smote upon it only that they might proclaim the two great
+messages--"Christ is risen," and "Christ shall come." Daily, as the
+white cupolas rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the
+shadowy campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the
+night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph,--"Christ is risen;"
+and daily, as they looked down upon the tumult of the people, deepening
+and eddying in the wide square that opened from their feet to the sea,
+they uttered above them the sentence of warning,--"Christ shall come."
+
+§ LXXXI. And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look with
+some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of
+that shrine of St. Mark's. He now perceives that it was in the hearts of
+the old Venetian people far more than a place of worship. It was at once
+a type of the Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the written word
+of God. It was to be to them, both an image of the Bride, all glorious
+within, her clothing of wrought gold; and the actual Table of the Law
+and the Testimony, written within and without. And whether honored as
+the Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the gold nor
+the crystal should be spared in the adornment of it; that, as the symbol
+of the Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper,[40]
+and the foundations of it garnished with all manner of precious stones;
+and that, as the channel of the World, that triumphant utterance of the
+Psalmist should be true of it,--"I have rejoiced in the way of thy
+testimonies, as much as in all riches?" And shall we not look with
+changed temper down the long perspective of St. Mark's Place towards the
+sevenfold gates and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what
+solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pavement of the
+populous square? Men met there from all countries of the earth, for
+traffic or for pleasure; but, above the crowd swaying for ever to and
+fro in the restlessness of avarice or thirst of delight, was seen
+perpetually the glory of the temple, attesting to them, whether they
+would hear or whether they would forbear, that there was one treasure
+which the merchantmen might buy without a price, and one delight better
+than all others, in the word and the statutes of God. Not in the
+wantonness of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the eyes or
+the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into transparent strength,
+and those arches arrayed in the colors of the iris. There is a message
+written in the dyes of them, that once was written in blood; and a sound
+in the echoes of their vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of
+heaven,--"He shall return, to do judgment and justice." The strength of
+Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this: her destruction
+found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her irrevocably,
+because she forgot it without excuse. Never had city a more glorious
+Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture
+filled their temples with confused and hardly legible imagery; but, for
+her, the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter,
+and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like
+the star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of the people were
+often in places withdrawn from religious association, subject to
+violence and to change; and on the grass of the dangerous rampart, and
+in the dust of the troubled street, there were deeds done and counsels
+taken, which, if we cannot justify, we may sometimes forgive. But the
+sins of Venice, whether in her palace or in her piazza, were done with
+the Bible at her right hand. The walls on which its testimony was
+written were separated but by a few inches of marble from those which
+guarded the secrets of her councils, or confined the victims of her
+policy. And when in her last hours she threw off all shame and all
+restraint, and the great square of the city became filled with the
+madness of the whole earth, be it remembered how much her sin was
+greater, because it was done in the face of the House of God, burning
+with the letters of His Law. Mountebank and masquer laughed their laugh,
+and went their way; and a silence has followed them, not unforetold; for
+amidst them all, through century after century of gathering vanity and
+festering guilt, that white dome of St. Mark's had uttered in the dead
+ear of Venice, "Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee
+into judgment."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [19] Acts, xiii. 13; xv. 38, 39.
+
+  [20] The reader who desires to investigate it may consult Galliciolli,
+    "Delle Memorie Venete" (Venice, 1795), tom. ii. p. 332, and the
+    authorities quoted by him.
+
+  [21] Venice, 1761, tom. i. p. 126.
+
+  [22] St. Mark's Place, "partly covered by turf, and planted with a
+    few trees; and on account of its pleasant aspect called Brollo or
+    Broglio, that is to say, Garden." The canal passed through it, over
+    which is built the bridge of the Malpassi, Galliciolli, lib. i. cap.
+    viii.
+
+  [23] My authorities for this statement are given below, in the chapter
+    on the Ducal Palace.
+
+  [24] In the Chronicles, "Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella."
+
+  [25] "To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the
+    Protector St. Mark."--_Corner_, p. 14. It is needless to trouble the
+    reader with the various authorities for the above statements: I have
+    consulted the best. The previous inscription once existing on the
+    church itself:
+
+      "Anno milleno transacto bisque trigeno
+       Desuper undecimo fuit facta primo,"
+
+    is no longer to be seen, and is conjectured by Corner, with much
+    probability, to have perished "in qualche ristauro."
+
+  [26] Signed Bartolomeus Bozza, 1634, 1647, 1656, &c.
+
+  [27] Guida di Venezia, p. 6.
+
+  [28] The mere warmth of St. Mark's in winter, which is much greater
+    than that of the other two churches above named, must, however, be
+    taken into consideration, as one of the most efficient causes of its
+    being then more frequented.
+
+  [29] I said above that the larger number of the devotees entered by
+    the "Arabian" porch; the porch, that is to say, on the north side of
+    the church, remarkable for its rich Arabian archivolt, and through
+    which access is gained immediately to the northern transept. The
+    reason is, that in that transept is the chapel of the Madonna, which
+    has a greater attraction for the Venetians than all the rest of the
+    church besides. The old builders kept their images of the Virgin
+    subordinate to those of Christ; but modern Romanism has retrograded
+    from theirs, and the most glittering portions of the whole church
+    are the two recesses behind this lateral altar, covered with silver
+    hearts dedicated to the Virgin.
+
+  [30] Vide "Builder," for October, 1851.
+
+  [31] "Quivi presso si vedi una colonna di tanta bellezza e finezza
+    che e riputato _piutosto gioia che pietra_."--_Sansovino_, of the
+    verd-antique pillar in San Jacomo dell' Orio. A remarkable piece of
+    natural history and moral philosophy, connected with this subject,
+    will be found in the second chapter of our third volume, quoted from
+    the work of a Florentine architect of the fifteenth century.
+
+  [32] The fact is, that no two tesserć of the glass are exactly of
+    the same tint, the greens being all varied with blues, the blues of
+    different depths, the reds of different clearness, so that the
+    effect of each mass of color is full of variety, like the stippled
+    color of a fruit piece.
+
+  [33] Some illustration, also, of what was said in § XXXIII. above,
+    respecting the value of the shafts of St. Mark's as large jewels,
+    will be found in Appendix 9, "Shafts of St. Mark's."
+
+  [34] See the farther notice of this subject in Vol. III. Chap. IV.
+
+  [35] I do not mean that modern Christians believe less in the
+    _facts_ than ancient Christians, but they do not believe in the
+    representation of the facts as true. We look upon the picture as
+    this or that painter's conception; the elder Christians looked upon
+    it as this or that painter's description of what had actually taken
+    place. And in the Greek Church all painting is, to this day,
+    strictly a branch of tradition. See M. Dideron's admirably written
+    introduction to his Iconographie Chrétienne, p. 7:--"Un de mes
+    compagnons s'étonnait de retrouver ŕ la Panagia de St. Luc, le saint
+    Jean Chrysostome qu'il avait dessiné dans le baptistčre de St. Marc,
+    ŕ Venise. Le costume des personnages est partout et en tout temps le
+    męme, non-seulement pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour
+    le dessin, mais jusque pour le nombre et l'épaisseur des plis."
+
+  [36] All the effects of Byzantine art to represent violent action
+    are inadequate, most of them ludicrously so, even when the
+    sculptural art is in other respects far advanced. The early Gothic
+    sculptors, on the other hand, fail in all points of refinement, but
+    hardly ever in expression of action. This distinction is of course
+    one of the necessary consequences of the difference in all respects
+    between the repose of the Eastern, and activity of the Western,
+    mind, which we shall have to trace out completely in the inquiry
+    into the nature of Gothic.
+
+  [37] Appendix 10, "Proper Sense of the word Idolatry."
+
+  [38] It is also of inferior workmanship, and perhaps later than the
+    rest. Vide Lord Lindsay, vol. i. p. 124, note.
+
+  [39] The old mosaics from the Revelation have perished, and have been
+    replaced by miserable work of the seventeenth century.
+
+  [40] Rev. xxi. 18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BYZANTINE PALACES.
+
+
+§ I. The account of the architecture of St. Mark's given in the previous
+chapter has, I trust, acquainted the reader sufficiently with the spirit
+of the Byzantine style: but he has probably, as yet, no clear idea of
+its generic forms. Nor would it be safe to define these after an
+examination of St. Mark's alone, built as it was upon various models,
+and at various periods. But if we pass through the city, looking for
+buildings which resemble St. Mark's--first, in the most important
+feature of incrustation; secondly, in the character of the
+mouldings,--we shall find a considerable number, not indeed very
+attractive in their first address to the eye, but agreeing perfectly,
+both with each other, and with the earliest portions of St. Mark's, in
+every important detail; and to be regarded, therefore, with profound
+interest, as indeed the remains of an ancient city of Venice, altogether
+different in aspect from that which now exists. From these remains we
+may with safety deduce general conclusions touching the forms of
+Byzantine architecture, as practised in Eastern Italy, during the
+eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.
+
+§ II. They agree in another respect, as well as in style. All are either
+ruins, or fragments disguised by restoration. Not one of them is
+uninjured or unaltered; and the impossibility of finding so much as an
+angle or a single story in perfect condition is a proof, hardly less
+convincing than the method of their architecture, that they were indeed
+raised during the earliest phases of the Venetian power. The mere
+fragments, dispersed in narrow streets, and recognizable by a single
+capital, or the segment of an arch, I shall not enumerate: but, of
+important remains, there are six in the immediate neighborhood of the
+Rialto, one in the Rio di Ca' Foscari, and one conspicuously placed
+opposite the great Renaissance Palace known as the Vendramin Calerghi,
+one of the few palaces still inhabited[41] and well maintained; and
+noticeable, moreover, as having a garden beside it, rich with
+evergreens, and decorated by gilded railings and white statues that cast
+long streams of snowy reflection down into the deep water. The vista of
+canal beyond is terminated by the Church of St. Geremia, another but
+less attractive work of the Renaissance; a mass of barren brickwork,
+with a dull leaden dome above, like those of our National Gallery. So
+that the spectator has the richest and meanest of the late architecture
+of Venice before him at once: the richest, let him observe, a piece of
+private luxury; the poorest, that which was given to God. Then, looking
+to the left, he will see the fragment of the work of earlier ages,
+testifying against both, not less by its utter desolation than by the
+nobleness of the traces that are still left of it.
+
+§ III. It is a ghastly ruin; whatever is venerable or sad in its wreck
+being disguised by attempts to put it to present uses of the basest
+kind. It has been composed of arcades borne by marble shafts, and walls
+of brick faced with marble: but the covering stones have been torn away
+from it like the shroud from a corpse; and its walls, rent into a
+thousand chasms, are filled and refilled with fresh brickwork, and the
+seams and hollows are choked with clay and whitewash, oozing and
+trickling over the marble,--itself blanched into dusty decay by the
+frosts of centuries. Soft grass and wandering leafage have rooted
+themselves in the rents, but they are not suffered to grow in their own
+wild and gentle way, for the place is in a sort inhabited; rotten
+partitions are nailed across its corridors, and miserable rooms
+contrived in its western wing; and here and there the weeds are
+indolently torn down, leaving their haggard fibres to struggle again
+into unwholesome growth when the spring next stirs them: and thus, in
+contest between death and life, the unsightly heap is festering to its
+fall.
+
+Of its history little is recorded, and that little futile. That it once
+belonged to the dukes of Ferrara, and was bought from them in the
+sixteenth century, to be made a general receptacle for the goods of the
+Turkish merchants, whence it is now generally known as the Fondaco, or
+Fontico, de' Turchi, are facts just as important to the antiquary, as
+that, in the year 1852, the municipality of Venice allowed its lower
+story to be used for a "deposito di Tabacchi." Neither of this, nor of
+any other remains of the period, can we know anything but what their own
+stones will tell us.
+
+§ IV. The reader will find in Appendix 11, written chiefly for the
+traveller's benefit, an account of the situation and present state of
+the other seven Byzantine palaces. Here I shall only give a general
+account of the most interesting points in their architecture.
+
+They all agree in being round-arched and incrusted with marble, but
+there are only six in which the original disposition of the parts is
+anywise traceable; namely, those distinguished in the Appendix as the
+Fondaco de' Turchi, Casa Loredan, Caso Farsetti, Rio-Foscari House,
+Terraced House, and Madonnetta House:[42] and these six agree farther in
+having continuous arcades along their entire fronts from one angle to
+the other, and in having their arcades divided, in each case, into a
+centre and wings; both by greater size in the midmost arches, and by the
+alternation of shafts in the centre, with pilasters, or with small
+shafts, at the flanks.
+
+§ V. So far as their structure can be traced, they agree also in having
+tall and few arches in their lower stories, and shorter and more
+numerous arches above: but it happens most unfortunately that in the
+only two cases in which the second stories are left the ground floors
+are modernized, and in the others where the sea stories are left the
+second stories are modernized; so that we never have more than two
+tiers of the Byzantine arches, one above the other. These, however, are
+quite enough to show the first main point on which I wish to insist,
+namely, the subtlety of the feeling for proportion in the Greek
+architects; and I hope that even the general reader will not allow
+himself to be frightened by the look of a few measurements, for, if he
+will only take the little pains necessary to compare them, he will, I am
+almost certain, find the result not devoid of interest.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. IV.]
+
+§ VI. I had intended originally to give elevations of all these palaces;
+but have not had time to prepare plates requiring so much labor and
+care. I must, therefore, explain the position of their parts in the
+simplest way in my power.
+
+The Fondaco de' Turchi has sixteen arches in its sea story, and
+twenty-six above them in its first story, the whole based on a
+magnificent foundation, built of blocks of red marble, some of them
+seven feet long by a foot and a half thick, and raised to a height of
+about five feet above high-water mark. At this level, the elevation of
+one half of the building, from its flank to the central pillars of its
+arcades, is rudely given in Fig. IV., in the previous page. It is only
+drawn to show the arrangement of the parts, as the sculptures which are
+indicated by the circles and upright oblongs between the arches are too
+delicate to be shown in a sketch three times the size of this. The
+building once was crowned with an Arabian parapet; but it was taken down
+some years since, and I am aware of no authentic representation of its
+details. The greater part of the sculptures between the arches,
+indicated in the woodcut only by blank circles, have also fallen, or
+been removed, but enough remain on the two flanks to justify the
+representation given in the diagram of their original arrangement.
+
+And now observe the dimensions. The small arches of the wings in the
+ground story, _a_, _a_, _a_, measure, in breadth, from
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  shaft to shaft                   4    5
+  interval _b_                     7    6˝
+  interval _c_                     7   11
+  intervals _d_, _e_, _f_, &c.     8    1
+
+The difference between the width of the arches _b_ and _c_ is
+necessitated by the small recess of the cornice on the left hand as
+compared with that of the great capitals; but this sudden difference of
+half a foot between the two extreme arches of the centre offended the
+builder's eye, so he diminished the next one, _unnecessarily_, two
+inches, and thus obtained the gradual cadence to the flanks, from eight
+feet down to four and a half, in a series of continually increasing
+steps. Of course the effect cannot be shown in the diagram, as the first
+difference is less than the thickness of its lines. In the upper story
+the capitals are all nearly of the same height, and there was no
+occasion for the difference between the extreme arches. Its twenty-six
+arches are placed, four small ones above each lateral three of the lower
+arcade, and eighteen larger above the central ten; thus throwing the
+shafts into all manner of relative positions, and completely confusing
+the eye in any effort to count them: but there is an exquisite symmetry
+running through their apparent confusion; for it will be seen that the
+four arches in each flank are arranged in two groups, of which one has a
+large single shaft in the centre, and the other a pilaster and two small
+shafts. The way in which the large shaft is used as an echo of those in
+the central arcade, dovetailing them, as it were, into the system of the
+pilasters,--just as a great painter, passing from one tone of color to
+another, repeats, over a small space, that which he has left,--is highly
+characteristic of the Byzantine care in composition. There are other
+evidences of it in the arrangement of the capitals, which will be
+noticed below in the seventh chapter. The lateral arches of this upper
+arcade measure 3 ft. 2 in. across, and the central 3 ft. 11 in., so that
+the arches in the building are altogether of six magnitudes.
+
+§ VII. Next let us take the Casa Loredan. The mode of arrangement of its
+pillars is precisely like that of the Fondaco de' Turchi, so that I
+shall merely indicate them by vertical lines in order to be able to
+letter the intervals. It has five arches in the centre of the lower
+story, and two in each of its wings.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                                                      Ft.  In.
+  The midmost interval, _a_, of the central five, is   6    1
+  The two on each side, _b_, _b_                       5    2
+  The two extremes, _c_, _c_                           4    9
+  Inner arches of the wings, _d_, _d_                  4    4
+  Outer arches of the wings, _e_, _e_                  4    6
+
+The gradation of these dimensions is visible at a glance; the boldest
+step being here taken nearest the centre, while in the Fondaco it is
+farthest from the centre. The first loss here is of eleven inches, the
+second of five, the third of five, and then there is a most subtle
+increase of two inches in the extreme arches, as if to contradict the
+principle of diminution, and stop the falling away of the building by
+firm resistance at its flanks.
+
+I could not get the measures of the upper story accurately, the palace
+having been closed all the time I was in Venice; but it has seven
+central arches above the five below, and three at the flanks above the
+two below, the groups being separated by double shafts.
+
+§ VIII. Again, in the Casa Farsetti, the lower story has a centre of
+five arches, and wings of two. Referring, therefore, to the last figure,
+which will answer for this palace also, the measures of the intervals
+are:
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  _a_                              8    0
+  _b_                              5   10
+  _c_                              5    4
+  _d_ and _e_                      5    3
+
+It is, however, possible that the interval _c_ and the wing arches may
+have been intended to be similar; for one of the wing arches measures 5
+ft. 4 in. We have thus a simpler proportion than any we have hitherto
+met with; only two losses taking place, the first of 2 ft. 2 in., the
+second of 6 inches.
+
+The upper story has a central group of seven arches, whose widths are 4
+ft. 1 in.
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  The next arch on each side       3    5
+  The three arches of each wing    3    6
+
+Here again we have a most curious instance of the subtlety of eye which
+was not satisfied without a third dimension, but _could_ be satisfied
+with a difference of an inch on three feet and a half.
+
+§ IX. In the Terraced House, the ground floor is modernized, but the
+first story is composed of a centre of five arches, with wings of two,
+measuring as follows:
+
+                                             Ft.  In.
+  Three midmost arches of the central group   4    0
+  Outermost arch of the central group         4    6
+  Innermost arch of the wing                  4   10
+  Outermost arch of the wing[43]              5    0
+
+Here the greatest step is towards the centre; but the increase, which is
+unusual, is towards the outside, the gain being successively six, four,
+and two inches.
+
+I could not obtain the measures of the second story, in which only the
+central group is left; but the two outermost arches are visibly larger
+than the others, thus beginning a correspondent proportion to the one
+below, of which the lateral quantities have been destroyed by
+restorations.
+
+§ X. Finally, in the Rio-Foscari House, the central arch is the
+principal feature, and the four lateral ones form one magnificent wing;
+the dimensions being from the centre to the side:
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  Central arch                     9    9
+  Second   "                       3    8
+  Third    "                       3   10
+  Fourth   "                       3   10
+  Fifth    "                       3    8
+
+The difference of two inches on nearly three feet in the two midmost
+arches being all that was necessary to satisfy the builder's eye.
+
+§ XI. I need not point out to the reader that these singular and minute
+harmonies of proportion indicate, beyond all dispute, not only that the
+buildings in which they are found are of one school, but (so far as
+these subtle coincidences of measurement can still be traced in them) in
+their original form. No modern builder has any idea of connecting his
+arches in this manner, and restorations in Venice are carried on with
+too violent hands to admit of the supposition that such refinements
+would be even noticed in the progress of demolition, much less imitated
+in heedless reproduction. And as if to direct our attention especially
+to this character, as indicative of Byzantine workmanship, the most
+interesting example of all will be found in the arches of the front of
+St. Mark's itself, whose proportions I have not noticed before, in order
+that they might here be compared with those of the contemporary palaces.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. V.]
+
+§ XII. The doors actually employed for entrance in the western façade
+are as usual five, arranged as at _a_ in the annexed woodcut, Fig. V.;
+but the Byzantine builder could not be satisfied with so simple a group,
+and he introduced, therefore, two minor arches at the extremities, as at
+_b_, by adding two small porticos which are of _no use whatever_ except
+to consummate the proportions of the façade, and themselves to exhibit
+the most exquisite proportions in arrangements of shaft and archivolt
+with which I am acquainted in the entire range of European architecture.
+
+Into these minor particulars I cannot here enter; but observe the
+dimensions of the range of arches in the façade, as thus completed by
+the flanking porticos:
+
+                                                Ft.  In.
+  The space of its central archivolt is         31    8
+        "     the two on each side, about[44]   19    8
+        "     the two succeeding, about         20    4
+        "     small arches at flanks, about      6    0
+
+[Illustration: Fig. VI.]
+
+I need not make any comment upon the subtle difference of eight inches
+on twenty feet between the second and third dimensions. If the reader
+will be at the pains to compare the whole evidence now laid before him,
+with that deduced above from the apse of Murano, he cannot but confess
+that it amounts to an irrefragable proof of an intense perception of
+harmony in the relation of quantities, on the part of the Byzantine
+architects; a perception which we have at present lost so utterly as
+hardly to be able even to conceive it. And let it not be said, as it was
+of the late discoveries of subtle curvature in the Parthenon,[45] that
+what is not to be demonstrated without laborious measurement, cannot
+have influence on the beauty of the design. The eye is continually
+influenced by what it cannot detect; nay, it is not going too far to
+say, that it is most influenced by what it detects least. Let the
+painter define, if he can, the variations of lines on which depend the
+changes of expression in the human countenance. The greater he is, the
+more he will feel their subtlety, and the intense difficulty of
+perceiving all their relations, or answering for the consequences of a
+variation of a hair's breadth in a single curve. Indeed, there is
+nothing truly noble either in color or in form, but its power depends on
+circumstances infinitely too intricate to be explained, and almost too
+subtle to be traced. And as for these Byzantine buildings, we only do
+not feel them because we do not _watch_ them; otherwise we should as
+much enjoy the variety of proportion in their arches, as we do at
+present that of the natural architecture of flowers and leaves. Any of
+us can feel in an instant the grace of the leaf group, _b_, in the
+annexed figure; and yet that grace is simply owing to its being
+proportioned like the façade of St. Mark's; each leaflet answering to an
+arch,--the smallest at the root, to those of the porticos. I have tried
+to give the proportion quite accurately in _b_; but as the difference
+between the second and third leaflets is hardly discernible on so small
+a scale, it is somewhat exaggerated in _a_.[46] Nature is often far more
+subtle in her proportions. In looking at some of the nobler species of
+lilies, full in the front of the flower, we may fancy for a moment that
+they form a symmetrical six-petaled star; but on examining them more
+closely, we shall find that they are thrown into a group of three
+magnitudes by the expansion of two of the inner petals above the stamens
+to a breadth greater than any of the four others; while the third inner
+petal, on which the stamens rest, contracts itself into the narrowest of
+the six, and the three under petals remain of one intermediate
+magnitude, as seen in the annexed figure.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. VII.]
+
+§ XIII. I must not, however, weary the reader with this subject, which
+has always been a favorite one with me, and is apt to lead too far; we
+will return to the palaces on the Grand Canal. Admitting, then, that
+their fragments are proved, by the minute correspondences of their
+arrangement, to be still in their original positions, they indicate to
+us a form, whether of palace or dwelling-house, in which there were,
+universally, central galleries, or loggias, opening into apartments on
+each wing, the amount of light admitted being immense; and the general
+proportions of the building, slender, light, and graceful in the utmost
+degree, it being in fact little more than an aggregate of shafts and
+arches. Of the interior disposition of these palaces there is in no
+instance the slightest trace left, nor am I well enough acquainted with
+the existing architecture of the East to risk any conjecture on this
+subject. I pursue the statement of the facts which still are
+ascertainable respecting their external forms.
+
+§ XIV. In every one of the buildings above mentioned, except the
+Rio-Foscari House (which has only one great entrance between its wings),
+the central arcades are sustained, at least in one story, and generally
+in both, on bold detached cylindrical shafts, with rich capitals, while
+the arches of the wings are carried on smaller shafts assisted by
+portions of wall, which become pilasters of greater or less width.
+
+And now I must remind the reader of what was pointed out above (Vol. I.
+Chap. XXVII. §§ III. XXXV. XL.), that there are two great orders of
+capitals in the world; that one of these is convex in its contour, the
+other concave; and that richness of ornament, with all freedom of fancy,
+is for the most part found in the one, and severity of ornament, with
+stern discipline of the fancy, in the other.
+
+Of these two families of capitals both occur in the Byzantine period,
+but the concave group is the longest-lived, and extends itself into the
+Gothic times. In the account which I gave of them in the first volume,
+they were illustrated by giving two portions of a simple curve, that of
+a salvia leaf. We must now investigate their characters more in detail;
+and these may be best generally represented by considering both families
+as formed upon the types of flowers,--the one upon that of the
+water-lily, the other upon that of the convolvulus. There was no
+intention in the Byzantine architects to imitate either one or the other
+of these flowers; but, as I have already so often repeated, all
+beautiful works of art must either intentionally imitate or accidentally
+resemble natural forms; and the direct comparison with the natural forms
+which these capitals most resemble, is the likeliest mode of fixing
+their distinctions in the reader's mind.
+
+The one then, the convex family, is modelled according to the commonest
+shapes of that great group of flowers which form rounded cups, like that
+of the water-lily, the leaves springing horizontally from the stalk, and
+closing together upwards. The rose is of this family, but her cup is
+filled with the luxuriance of her leaves; the crocus, campanula,
+ranunculus, anemone, and almost all the loveliest children of the field,
+are formed upon the same type.
+
+The other family resembles the convolvulus, trumpet-flower, and such
+others, in which the lower part of the bell is slender, and the lip
+curves outwards at the top. There are fewer flowers constructed on this
+than on the convex model; but in the organization of trees and of
+clusters of herbage it is seen continually. Of course, both of these
+conditions are modified, when applied to capitals, by the enormously
+greater thickness of the stalk or shaft, but in other respects the
+parallelism is close and accurate; and the reader had better at once fix
+the flower outlines in his mind,[47] and remember them as representing
+the only two orders of capitals that the world has ever seen, or can
+see.
+
+§ XV. The examples of the concave family in the Byzantine times are
+found principally either in large capitals founded on the Greek
+Corinthian, used chiefly for the nave pillars of churches, or in the
+small lateral shafts of the palaces. It appears somewhat singular that
+the pure Corinthian form should have been reserved almost exclusively
+for nave pillars, as at Torcello, Murano, and St. Mark's; it occurs,
+indeed, together with almost every other form, on the exterior of St.
+Mark's also, but never so definitely as in the nave and transept shafts.
+Of the conditions assumed by it at Torcello enough has been said; and
+one of the most delicate of the varieties occurring in St. Mark's is
+given in Plate VIII., fig. 15, remarkable for the cutting of the sharp
+thistle-like leaves into open relief, so that the light sometimes shines
+through them from behind, and for the beautiful curling of the
+extremities of the leaves outwards, joining each other at the top, as in
+an undivided flower.
+
+§ XVI. The other characteristic examples of the concave groups in the
+Byzantine times are as simple as those resulting from the Corinthian are
+rich. They occur on the _small_ shafts at the flanks of the Fondaco de'
+Turchi, the Casa Farsetti, Casa Loredan, Terraced House, and upper
+story of the Madonnetta House, in forms so exactly similar that the two
+figures 1 and 2 in Plate VIII. may sufficiently represent them all. They
+consist merely of portions cut out of the plinths or string-courses
+which run along all the faces of these palaces, by four truncations in
+the form of arrowy leaves (fig. 1, Fondaco de' Turchi), and the whole
+rounded a little at the bottom so as to fit the shaft. When they occur
+between two arches they assume the form of the group fig. 2 (Terraced
+House). Fig. 3 is from the central arches of the Casa Farsetti, and is
+only given because either it is a later restoration or a form absolutely
+unique in the Byzantine period.
+
+[Illustration: Plate VII.
+               BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONVEX GROUP.]
+
+§ XVII. The concave group, however, was not naturally pleasing to the
+Byzantine mind. Its own favorite capital was of the bold convex or
+cushion shape, so conspicuous in all the buildings of the period that I
+have devoted Plate VII., opposite, entirely to its illustration. The
+form in which it is first used is practically obtained from a square
+block laid on the head of the shaft (fig. 1, Plate VII.), by first
+cutting off the lower corners, as in fig. 2, and then rounding the
+edges, as in fig. 3; this gives us the bell stone: on this is laid a
+simple abacus, as seen in fig. 4, which is the actual form used in the
+upper arcade of Murano, and the framework of the capital is complete.
+Fig. 5 shows the general manner and effect of its decoration on the same
+scale; the other figures, 6 and 7, both from the apse of Murano, 8, from
+the Terraced House, and 9, from the Baptistery of St. Mark's, show the
+method of chiselling the surfaces in capitals of average richness, such
+as occur everywhere, for there is no limit to the fantasy and beauty of
+the more elaborate examples.
+
+§ XVIII. In consequence of the peculiar affection entertained for these
+massy forms by the Byzantines, they were apt, when they used any
+condition of capital founded on the Corinthian, to modify the concave
+profile by making it bulge out at the bottom. Fig. 1, _a_, Plate X., is
+the profile of a capital of the pure concave family; and observe, it
+needs a fillet or cord round the neck of the capital to show where it
+separates from the shaft. Fig. 4, _a_, on the other hand, is the
+profile of the pure convex group, which not only needs no such
+projecting fillet, but would be encumbered by it; while fig. 2, _a_, is
+the profile of one of the Byzantine capitals (Fondaco de' Turchi, lower
+arcade) founded on Corinthian, of which the main sweep is concave, but
+which bends below into the convex bell-shape, where it joins the shaft.
+And, lastly, fig. 3, _a_, is the profile of the nave shafts of St.
+Mark's, where, though very delicately granted, the concession to the
+Byzantine temper is twofold; first at the spring of the curve from the
+base, and secondly the top, where it again becomes convex, though the
+expression of the Corinthian bell is still given to it by the bold
+concave leaves.
+
+§ XIX. These, then, being the general modifications of Byzantine
+profiles, I have thrown together in Plate VIII., opposite, some of the
+most characteristic examples of the decoration of the concave and
+transitional types; their localities are given in the note below,[48]
+and the following are the principal points to be observed respecting
+them.
+
+The purest concave forms, 1 and 2, were never decorated in the earliest
+times, except sometimes by an incision or rib down the centre of their
+truncations on the angles.
+
+[Illustration: Plate VIII.
+               BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONCAVE GROUP.]
+
+Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 show some of the modes of application of a
+peculiarly broad-lobed acanthus leaf, very characteristic of native
+Venetian work; 4 and 5 are from the same building, two out of a group of
+four, and show the boldness of the variety admitted in the management
+even of the capitals most closely derived from the Corinthian. I never
+saw one of these Venetian capitals in all respects like another. The
+trefoils into which the leaves fall at the extremities are, however, for
+the most part similar, though variously disposed, and generally niche
+themselves one under the other, as very characteristically in fig. 7.
+The form 8 occurs in St. Mark's only, and there very frequently: 9 at
+Venice occurs, I think, in St. Mark's only; but it is a favorite early
+Lombardic form. 10, 11, and 12 are all highly characteristic. 10 occurs
+with more fantastic interweaving upon its sides in the upper stories of
+St. Mark's; 11 is derived, in the Casa Loredan, from the great lily
+capitals of St. Mark's, of which more presently. 13 and 15 are peculiar
+to St. Mark's. 14 is a lovely condition, occurring both there and in the
+Fondaco de' Turchi.
+
+The modes in which the separate portions of the leaves are executed in
+these and other Byzantine capitals, will be noticed more at length
+hereafter. Here I only wish the reader to observe two things, both with
+respect to these and the capitals of the convex family on the former
+Plate: first the Life, secondly, the Breadth, of these capitals, as
+compared with Greek forms.
+
+§ XX. I say, first, the Life. Not only is every one of these capitals
+differently fancied, but there are many of them which _have no two sides
+alike_. Fig. 5, for instance, varies on every side in the arrangement of
+the pendent leaf in its centre; fig. 6 has a different plant on each of
+its four upper angles. The birds are each cut with a different play of
+plumage in figs. 9 and 12, and the vine-leaves are every one varied in
+their position in fig. 13. But this is not all. The differences in the
+character of ornamentation between them and the Greek capitals, all show
+a greater love of nature; the leaves are, every one of them, more
+founded on realities, sketched, however rudely, more directly from the
+truth; and are continually treated in a manner which shows the mind of
+the workman to have been among the living herbage, not among Greek
+precedents. The hard outlines in which, for the sake of perfect
+intelligibility, I have left this Plate, have deprived the examples of
+the vitality of their light and shade; but the reader can nevertheless
+observe the _ideas_ of life occurring perpetually: at the top of fig.
+4, for instance, the small leaves turned sideways; in fig. 5, the formal
+volutes of the old Corinthian transformed into a branching tendril; in
+fig. 6, the bunch of grapes thrown carelessly in at the right-hand
+corner, in defiance of all symmetry; in fig. 7, the volutes knitted into
+wreaths of ivy; in fig. 14, the leaves, drifted, as it were, by a
+whirlwind round the capital by which they rise; while figs. 13 and 15
+are as completely living leaves as any of the Gothic time. These designs
+may or may not be graceful; what grace or beauty they have is not to be
+rendered in mere outline,--but they are indisputably more _natural_ than
+any Greek ones, and therefore healthier, and tending to greatness.
+
+§ XXI. In the second place, note in all these examples, the excessive
+breadth of the masses, however afterwards they may be filled with
+detail. Whether we examine the contour of the simpler convex bells, or
+those of the leaves which bend outwards from the richer and more
+Corinthian types, we find they are all outlined by grand and simple
+curves, and that the whole of their minute fretwork and thistle-work is
+cast into a gigantic mould which subdues all their multitudinous points
+and foldings to its own inevitable dominion. And the fact is, that in
+the sweeping lines and broad surfaces of these Byzantine sculptures we
+obtain, so far as I know, for the first time in the history of art, the
+germ of that unity of perfect ease in every separate part, with perfect
+subjection to an enclosing form or directing impulse, which was brought
+to its most intense expression in the compositions of the two men in
+whom the art of Italy consummated itself and expired--Tintoret and
+Michael Angelo.
+
+I would not attach too much importance to the mere habit of working on
+the rounded surface of the stone, which is often as much the result of
+haste or rudeness as of the desire for breadth, though the result
+obtained is not the less beautiful. But in the capital from the Fondaco
+de' Turchi, fig. 6, it will be seen that while the sculptor had taken
+the utmost care to make his leaves free, graceful, and sharp in effect,
+he was dissatisfied with their separation, and could not rest until he
+had enclosed them with an unbroken line, like that of a pointed arch;
+and the same thing is done in many different ways in other capitals of
+the same building, and in many of St. Mark's: but one such instance
+would have been enough to prove, if the loveliness of the profiles
+themselves did not do so, that the sculptor understood and loved the
+laws of generalization; and that the feeling which bound his prickly
+leaves, as they waved or drifted round the ridges of his capital, into
+those broad masses of unbroken flow, was indeed one with that which made
+Michael Angelo encompass the principal figure in his Creation of Adam
+with the broad curve of its cloudy drapery. It may seem strange to
+assert any connexion between so great a conception and these rudely hewn
+fragments of ruined marble; but all the highest principles of art are as
+universal as they are majestic, and there is nothing too small to
+receive their influence. They rule at once the waves of the mountain
+outline, and the sinuosities of the minutest lichen that stains its
+shattered stones.
+
+§ XXII. We have not yet spoken of the three braided and chequered
+capitals, numbered 10, 11, and 12. They are representations of a group,
+with which many most interesting associations are connected. It was
+noticed in the last chapter, that the method of covering the exterior of
+buildings with thin pieces of marble was likely to lead to a system of
+lighting the interior by minute perforation. In order to obtain both
+light and air, without admitting any unbroken body of sunshine, in warm
+countries, it became a constant habit of the Arabian architects to
+pierce minute and starlike openings in slabs of stone; and to employ the
+stones so pierced where the Gothic architects employ traceries.
+Internally, the form of stars assumed by the light as it entered[49]
+was, in itself, an exquisite decoration; but, externally, it was felt
+necessary to add some slight ornament upon the surface of the perforated
+stone; and it was soon found that, as the small perforations had a
+tendency to look scattered and spotty, the most effective treatment of
+the intermediate surfaces would be one which bound them together, and
+gave unity and repose to the pierced and disturbed stone: universally,
+therefore, those intermediate spaces were carved into the semblance of
+interwoven fillets, which alternately sank beneath and rose above each
+other as they met. This system of braided or woven ornament was not
+confined to the Arabs; it is universally pleasing to the instinct of
+mankind. I believe that nearly all early ornamentation is full of
+it,--more especially, perhaps, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon; and
+illuminated manuscripts depend upon it for their loveliest effects of
+intricate color, up to the close of the thirteenth century. There are
+several very interesting metaphysical reasons for this strange and
+unfailing delight, felt in a thing so simple. It is not often that any
+idea of utility has power to enhance the true impressions of beauty; but
+it is possible that the enormous importance of the art of weaving to
+mankind may give some interest, if not actual attractiveness, to any
+type or image of the invention to which we owe, at once, our comfort and
+our pride. But the more profound reason lies in the innate love of
+mystery and unity; in the joy that the human mind has in contemplating
+any kind of maze or entanglement, so long as it can discern, through its
+confusion, any guiding clue or connecting plan: a pleasure increased and
+solemnized by some dim feeling of the setting forth, by such symbols, of
+the intricacy, and alternate rise and fall, subjection and supremacy, of
+human fortune; the
+
+  "Weave the warp, and weave the woof,"
+
+of Fate and Time.
+
+[Illustration: Plate IX.
+               LILY CAPITAL OF ST. MARKS.]
+
+§ XXIII. But be this as it may, the fact is that we are never tired of
+contemplating this woven involution; and that, in some degree, the
+sublime pleasure which we have in watching the branches of trees, the
+intertwining of the grass, and the tracery of the higher clouds, is
+owing to it, not less than that which we receive from the fine meshes of
+the robe, the braiding of the hair, and the various glittering of the
+linked net or wreathed chain. Byzantine ornamentation, like that of
+almost all nations in a state of progress, is full of this kind of work:
+but it occurs most conspicuously, though most simply, in the minute
+traceries which surround their most solid capitals; sometimes merely in
+a reticulated veil, as in the tenth figure in the Plate, sometimes
+resembling a basket, on the edges of which are perched birds and other
+animals. The diamonded ornament in the eleventh figure is substituted
+for it in the Casa Loredan, and marks a somewhat later time and a
+tendency to the ordinary Gothic chequer; but the capitals which show it
+most definitely are those already so often spoken of as the lily
+capitals of St. Mark's, of which the northern one is carefully drawn in
+Plate IX.
+
+[Illustration: Plate X.
+               THE FOUR VENETIAN FLOWER ORDERS.]
+
+§ XXIV. These capitals, called barbarous by our architects, are without
+exception the most subtle pieces of composition in broad contour which I
+have ever met with in architecture. Their profile is given in the
+opposite Plate X. fig. 3, _b_; the inner line in the figure being that
+of the stone behind the lily, the outer that of the external network,
+taken through the side of the capital; while fig. 3, _c_ is the outer
+profile at its angle; and the reader will easily understand that the
+passing of the one of these lines into the other is productive of the
+most exquisite and wonderful series of curvatures possible within such
+compass, no two views of the capital giving the same contour. Upon these
+profoundly studied outlines, as remarkable for their grace and
+complexity as the general mass of the capital is for solid strength and
+proportion to its necessary service, the braided work is wrought with
+more than usual care; perhaps, as suggested by the Marchese Selvatico,
+with some idea of imitating those "nets of chequerwork and wreaths of
+chainwork" on the chapiters of Solomon's temple, which are, I suppose,
+the first instances on record of an ornamentation of this kind thus
+applied. The braided work encloses on each of the four sides of the
+capital a flower whose form, derived from that of the lily, though as
+usual modified, in every instance of its occurrence, in some minor
+particulars, is generally seen as represented in fig. 11 of Plate VIII.
+It is never without the two square or oblong objects at the extremity of
+the tendrils issuing from its root, set like vessels to catch the dew
+from the points of its leaves; but I do not understand their meaning.
+The abacus of the capital has already been given at _a_, Plate XVI.,
+Vol. I.; but no amount of illustrations or eulogium would be enough to
+make the reader understand the perfect beauty of the thing itself, as
+the sun steals from interstice to interstice of its marble veil, and
+touches with the white lustre of its rays at mid-day the pointed leaves
+of its thirsty lilies.
+
+In all the capitals hitherto spoken of, the form of the head of the bell
+has been square, and its varieties of outline have been obtained in the
+transition from the square of the abacus to the circular outline of the
+shafts. A far more complex series of forms results from the division of
+the bell by recesses into separate lobes or leaves, like those of a rose
+or tulip, which are each in their turn covered with flower-work or
+hollowed into reticulation. The example (fig. 10, Plate VII.) from St.
+Mark's will give some idea of the simplest of these conditions: perhaps
+the most exquisite in Venice, on the whole, is the central capital of
+the upper arcade of the Fondaco de' Turchi.
+
+Such are the principal generic conditions of the Byzantine capital; but
+the reader must always remember that the examples given are single
+instances, and those not the most beautiful but the most intelligible,
+chosen out of thousands: the designs of the capitals of St. Mark's alone
+would form a volume.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XI.
+               BYZANTINE SCULPTURE.]
+
+§ XXV. Of the archivolts which these capitals generally sustain, details
+are given in the Appendix and in the notice of Venetian doors in Chapter
+VII. In the private palaces, the ranges of archivolt are for the most
+part very simple, with dentilled mouldings; and all the ornamental
+effect is entrusted to pieces of sculpture set in the wall above or
+between the arches, in the manner shown in Plate XV., below, Chapter
+VII. These pieces of sculpture are either crosses, upright oblongs, or
+circles: of all the three forms an example is given in Plate XI.
+opposite. The cross was apparently an invariable ornament, placed either
+in the centre of the archivolt of the doorway, or in the centre of the
+first story above the windows; on each side of it the circular and
+oblong ornaments were used in various alternation. In too many instances
+the wall marbles have been torn away from the earliest Byzantine
+palaces, so that the crosses are left on their archivolts only. The best
+examples of the cross set above the windows are found in houses of the
+transitional period: one in the Campo St^a M. Formosa; another, in which
+a cross is placed between every window, is still well preserved in the
+Campo St^a Maria Mater Domini; another, on the Grand Canal, in the
+parish of the Apostoli, has two crosses, one on each side of the first
+story, and a bas-relief of Christ enthroned in the centre; and finally,
+that from which the larger cross in the Plate was taken in the house
+once belonging to Marco Polo, at San Giovanni Grisostomo.
+
+§ XXVI. This cross, though graceful and rich, and given because it
+happens to be one of the best preserved, is uncharacteristic in one
+respect; for, instead of the central rose at the meeting of the arms, we
+usually find a hand raised in the attitude of blessing, between the sun
+and moon, as in the two smaller crosses seen in the Plate. In nearly all
+representations of the Crucifixion, over the whole of Europe, at the
+period in question, the sun and the moon are introduced, one on each
+side of the cross,--the sun generally, in paintings, as a red star; but
+I do not think with any purpose of indicating the darkness at the time
+of the agony; especially because, had this been the intention, the moon
+ought not to have been visible, since it could not have been in the
+heavens during the day at the time of passover. I believe rather that
+the two luminaries are set there in order to express the entire
+dependence of the heavens and the earth upon the work of the Redemption:
+and this view is confirmed by our frequently finding the sun and moon
+set in the same manner beside the figure of Christ, as in the centre of
+the great archivolt of St. Mark's, or beside the hand signifying
+benediction, without any cross, in some other early archivolts;[50]
+while, again, not unfrequently they are absent from the symbol of the
+cross itself, and its saving power over the whole of creation is
+indicated only by fresh leaves springing from its foot, or doves feeding
+beside it; and so also, in illuminated Bibles, we find the series of
+pictures representing the Creation terminate in the Crucifixion, as the
+work by which all the families of created beings subsist, no less than
+that in sympathy with which "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth
+in pain together until now."
+
+§ XXVII. This habit of placing the symbol of the Christian faith in the
+centres of their palaces was, as I above said, universal in early
+Venice; it does not cease till about the middle of the fourteenth
+century. The other sculptures, which were set above or between the
+arches, consist almost invariably of groups of birds or beasts; either
+standing opposite to each other with a small pillar or spray of leafage
+between them, or else tearing and devouring each other. The multitude of
+these sculptures, especially of the small ones enclosed in circles, as
+figs 5 and 6, Plate XI., which are now scattered through the city of
+Venice, is enormous, but they are seldom to be seen in their original
+positions. When the Byzantine palaces were destroyed, these fragments
+were generally preserved, and inserted again in the walls of the new
+buildings, with more or less attempt at symmetry; fragments of friezes
+and mouldings being often used in the same manner; so that the mode of
+their original employment can only be seen in St. Mark's, the Fondaco
+de' Turchi, Braided House, and one or two others. The most remarkable
+point about them is, that the groups of beasts or birds on each side of
+the small pillars bear the closest possible resemblance to the group of
+Lions over the gate of Mycenć; and the whole of the ornamentation of
+that gate, as far as I can judge of it from drawings, is so like
+Byzantine sculpture, that I cannot help sometimes suspecting the
+original conjecture of the French antiquarians, that it was a work of
+the middle ages, to be not altogether indefensible. By far the best
+among the sculptures at Venice are those consisting of groups thus
+arranged; the first figure in Plate XI. is one of those used on St.
+Mark's, and, with its chain of wreathen work round it, is very
+characteristic of the finest kind, except that the immediate trunk or
+pillar often branches into luxuriant leafage, usually of the vine, so
+that the whole ornament seems almost composed from the words of Ezekiel.
+"A great eagle with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which
+had divers colors, came into Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the
+cedar: He cropped off the top of his young twigs; and _carried it into a
+city of traffic; he set it in a city of merchants_. He took also of the
+seed of the land, ... and it grew, and became a spreading vine of low
+stature, _whose branches turned towards him, and the roots thereof were
+under him_."
+
+§ XXVIII. The groups of contending and devouring animals are always much
+ruder in cutting, and take somewhat the place in Byzantine sculpture
+which the lower grotesques do in the Gothic; true, though clumsy,
+grotesques being sometimes mingled among them, as four bodies joined to
+one head in the centre;[51] but never showing any attempt at variety of
+invention, except only in the effective disposition of the light and
+shade, and in the vigor and thoughtfulness of the touches which indicate
+the plumes of the birds or foldings of the leaves. Care, however, is
+always taken to secure variety enough to keep the eye entertained, no
+two sides of these Byzantine ornaments being in all respects the same:
+for instance, in the chainwork round the first figure in Plate XI. there
+are two circles enclosing squares on the left-hand side of the arch at
+the top, but two smaller circles and a diamond on the other, enclosing
+one square, and two small circular spots or bosses; and in the line of
+chain at the bottom there is a circle on the right, and a diamond on the
+left, and so down to the working of the smallest details. I have
+represented this upper sculpture as dark, in order to give some idea of
+the general effect of these ornaments when seen in shadow against light;
+an effect much calculated upon by the designer, and obtained by the use
+of a golden ground formed of glass mosaic inserted in the hollows of the
+marble. Each square of glass has the leaf gold upon its surface
+protected by another thin film of glass above it, so that no time or
+weather can affect its lustre, until the pieces of glass are bodily torn
+from their setting. The smooth glazed surface of the golden ground is
+washed by every shower of rain, but the marble usually darkens into an
+amber color in process of time; and when the whole ornament is cast into
+shadow, the golden surface, being perfectly reflective, refuses the
+darkness, and shows itself in bright and burnished light behind the dark
+traceries of the ornament. Where the marble has retained its perfect
+whiteness, on the other hand, and is seen in sunshine, it is shown as a
+snowy tracery on a golden ground; and the alternations and intermingling
+of these two effects form one of the chief enchantments of Byzantine
+ornamentation.
+
+§ XXIX. How far the system of grounding with gold and color, universal
+in St. Mark's, was carried out in the sculptures of the private palaces,
+it is now impossible to say. The wrecks of them which remain, as above
+noticed, show few of their ornamental sculptures in their original
+position; and from those marbles which were employed in succeeding
+buildings, during the Gothic period, the fragments of their mosaic
+grounds would naturally rather have been removed than restored. Mosaic,
+while the most secure of all decorations if carefully watched and
+refastened when it loosens, may, if neglected and exposed to weather, in
+process of time disappear so as to leave no vestige of its existence.
+However this may have been, the assured facts are, that both the shafts
+of the pillars and the facing of the old building were of veined or
+variously colored marble: the capitals and sculptures were either, as
+they now appear, of pure white marble, relieved upon the veined ground;
+or, which is infinitely the more probable, grounded in the richer
+palaces with mosaic of gold, in the inferior ones with blue color; and
+only the leaves and edges of the sculpture gilded. These brighter hues
+were opposed by bands of deeper color, generally alternate russet and
+green, in the archivolts,--bands which still remain in the Casa Loredan
+and Fondaco de' Turchi, and in a house in the Corte del Remer, near the
+Rialto, as well as in St. Mark's; and by circular disks of green
+serpentine and porphyry, which, together with the circular sculptures,
+appear to have been an ornament peculiarly grateful to the Eastern mind,
+derived probably in the first instance from the suspension of shields
+upon the wall, as in the majesty of ancient Tyre. "The men of Arvad with
+thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadins were in
+thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they
+have made thy beauty perfect."[52] The sweet and solemn harmony of
+purple with various green (the same, by the by, to which the hills of
+Scotland owe their best loveliness) remained a favorite chord of color
+with the Venetians, and was constantly used even in the later palaces;
+but never could have been seen in so great perfection as when opposed to
+the pale and delicate sculpture of the Byzantine time.
+
+§ XXX. Such, then, was that first and fairest Venice which rose out of
+the barrenness of the lagoon, and the sorrow of her people; a city of
+graceful arcades and gleaming walls, veined with azure and warm with
+gold, and fretted with white sculpture like frost upon forest branches
+turned to marble. And yet, in this beauty of her youth, she was no city
+of thoughtless pleasure. There was still a sadness of heart upon her,
+and a depth of devotion, in which lay all her strength. I do not insist
+upon the probable religious signification of many of the sculptures
+which are now difficult of interpretation; but the temper which made the
+cross the principal ornament of every building is not to be
+misunderstood, nor can we fail to perceive, in many of the minor
+sculptural subjects, meanings perfectly familiar to the mind of early
+Christianity. The peacock, used in preference to every other bird, is
+the well-known symbol of the resurrection; and when drinking from a
+fountain (Plate XI. fig. 1) or from a font (Plate XI. fig. 5), is, I
+doubt not, also a type of the new life received in faithful baptism. The
+vine, used in preference to all other trees, was equally recognized as,
+in all cases, a type either of Christ himself[53] or of those who were
+in a state of visible or professed union with him. The dove, at its
+foot, represents the coming of the Comforter; and even the groups of
+contending animals had, probably, a distinct and universally apprehended
+reference to the powers of evil. But I lay no stress on these more
+occult meanings. The principal circumstance which marks the seriousness
+of the early Venetian mind is perhaps the last in which the reader would
+suppose it was traceable;--that love of bright and pure color which, in
+a modified form, was afterwards the root of all the triumph of the
+Venetian schools of painting, but which, in its utmost simplicity, was
+characteristic of the Byzantine period only; and of which, therefore, in
+the close of our review of that period, it will be well that we should
+truly estimate the significance. The fact is, we none of us enough
+appreciate the nobleness and sacredness of color. Nothing is more common
+than to hear it spoken of as a subordinate beauty,--nay, even as the
+mere source of a sensual pleasure; and we might almost believe that we
+were daily among men who
+
+  "Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
+   To them, their verdure from the fields;
+   And take the radiance from the clouds
+   With which the sun his setting shrouds."
+
+But it is not so. Such expressions are used for the most part in
+thoughtlessness; and if the speakers would only take the pains to
+imagine what the world and their own existence would become, if the blue
+were taken from the sky, and the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure
+from the leaves, and the crimson from the blood which is the life of
+man, the flush from the cheek, the darkness from the eye, the radiance
+from the hair,--if they could but see for an instant, white human
+creatures living in a white world,--they would soon feel what they owe
+to color. The fact is, that, of all God's gifts to the sight of man,
+color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. We speak rashly
+of gay color, and sad color, for color cannot at once be good and gay.
+All good color is in some degree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy,
+and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the
+most.
+
+§ XXXI. I know that this will sound strange in many ears, and will be
+especially startling to those who have considered the subject chiefly
+with reference to painting; for the great Venetian schools of color are
+not usually understood to be either pure or pensive, and the idea of its
+pre-eminence is associated in nearly every mind with the coarseness of
+Rubens, and the sensualities of Correggio and Titian. But a more
+comprehensive view of art will soon correct this impression. It will be
+discovered, in the first place, that the more faithful and earnest the
+religion of the painter, the more pure and prevalent is the system of
+his color. It will be found, in the second place, that where color
+becomes a primal intention with a painter otherwise mean or sensual, it
+instantly elevates him, and becomes the one sacred and saving element in
+his work. The very depth of the stoop to which the Venetian painters and
+Rubens sometimes condescend, is a consequence of their feeling
+confidence in the power of their color to keep them from falling. They
+hold on by it, as by a chain let down from heaven, with one hand, though
+they may sometimes seem to gather dust and ashes with the other. And, in
+the last place, it will be found that so surely as a painter is
+irreligious, thoughtless, or obscene in disposition, so surely is his
+coloring cold, gloomy, and valueless. The opposite poles of art in this
+respect are Frŕ Angelico and Salvator Rosa; of whom the one was a man
+who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed constantly, and never harbored an
+impure thought. His pictures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the
+colors of the draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a
+painted window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon a gold
+ground. Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man who spent
+his life in masquing and revelry. But his pictures are full of horror,
+and their color is for the most part gloomy grey. Truly it would seem as
+if art had so much of eternity in it, that it must take its dye from the
+close rather than the course of life:--"In such laughter the heart of
+man is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness."
+
+§ XXXII. These are no singular instances. I know no law more severely
+without exception than this of the connexion of pure color with profound
+and noble thought. The late Flemish pictures, shallow in conception and
+obscene in subject, are always sober in color. But the early religious
+painting of the Flemings is as brilliant in hue as it is holy in
+thought. The Bellinis, Francias, Peruginos painted in crimson, and blue,
+and gold. The Caraccis, Guidos, and Rembrandts in brown and grey. The
+builders of our great cathedrals veiled their casements and wrapped
+their pillars with one robe of purple splendor. The builders of the
+luxurious Renaissance left their palaces filled only with cold white
+light, and in the paleness of their native stone.[54]
+
+§ XXXIII. Nor does it seem difficult to discern a noble reason for this
+universal law. In that heavenly circle which binds the statutes of color
+upon the front of the sky, when it became the sign of the covenant of
+peace, the pure hues of divided light were sanctified to the human heart
+for ever; nor this, it would seem, by mere arbitrary appointment, but in
+consequence of the fore-ordained and marvellous constitution of those
+hues into a sevenfold, or, more strictly still, a threefold order,
+typical of the Divine nature itself. Observe also, the name Shem, or
+Splendor, given to that son of Noah in whom this covenant with mankind
+was to be fulfilled, and see how that name was justified by every one of
+the Asiatic races which descended from him. Not without meaning was the
+love of Israel to his chosen son expressed by the coat "of many colors;"
+not without deep sense of the sacredness of that symbol of purity, did
+the lost daughter of David tear it from her breast:--"With such robes
+were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled."[55] We know it
+to have been by Divine command that the Israelite, rescued from
+servitude, veiled the tabernacle with its rain of purple and scarlet,
+while the under sunshine flashed through the fall of the color from its
+tenons of gold: but was it less by Divine guidance that the Mede, as he
+struggled out of anarchy, encompassed his king with the sevenfold
+burning of the battlements of Ecbatana?--of which one circle was golden
+like the sun, and another silver like the moon; and then came the great
+sacred chord of color, blue, purple, and scarlet; and then a circle
+white like the day, and another dark, like night; so that the city rose
+like a great mural rainbow, a sign of peace amidst the contending of
+lawless races, and guarded, with color and shadow, that seemed to
+symbolize the great order which rules over Day, and Night, and Time, the
+first organization of the mighty statutes,--the law of the Medes and
+Persians, that altereth not.
+
+§ XXXIV. Let us not dream that it is owing to the accidents of tradition
+or education that those races possess the supremacy over color which has
+always been felt, though but lately acknowledged among men. However
+their dominion might be broken, their virtue extinguished, or their
+religion defiled, they retained alike the instinct and the power: the
+instinct which made even their idolatry more glorious than that of
+others, bursting forth in fire-worship from pyramid, cave, and mountain,
+taking the stars for the rulers of its fortune, and the sun for the God
+of its life; the power which so dazzled and subdued the rough crusader
+into forgetfulness of sorrow and of shame, that Europe put on the
+splendor which she had learnt of the Saracen, as her sackcloth of
+mourning for what she suffered from his sword;--the power which she
+confesses to this day, in the utmost thoughtlessness of her pride, or
+her beauty, as it treads the costly carpet, or veils itself with the
+variegated Cachemire; and in the emulation of the concourse of her
+workmen, who, but a few months back, perceived, or at least admitted,
+for the first time, the pre-eminence which has been determined from the
+birth of mankind, and on whose charter Nature herself has set a
+mysterious seal, granting to the Western races, descended from that son
+of Noah whose name was Extension, the treasures of the sullen rock, and
+stubborn ore, and gnarled forest, which were to accomplish their destiny
+across all distance of earth and depth of sea, while she matured the
+jewel in the sand, and rounded the pearl in the shell, to adorn the
+diadem of him whose name was Splendor.
+
+§ XXXV. And observe, farther, how in the Oriental mind a peculiar
+seriousness is associated with this attribute of the love of color; a
+seriousness rising out of repose, and out of the depth and breadth of
+the imagination, as contrasted with the activity, and consequent
+capability of surprise, and of laughter, characteristic of the Western
+mind: as a man on a journey must look to his steps always, and view
+things narrowly and quickly; while one at rest may command a wider view,
+though an unchanging one, from which the pleasure he receives must be
+one of contemplation, rather than of amusement or surprise. Wherever the
+pure Oriental spirit manifests itself definitely, I believe its work is
+serious; and the meeting of the influences of the Eastern and Western
+races is perhaps marked in Europe more by the dying away of the
+grotesque laughter of the Goth than by any other sign. I shall have more
+to say on this head in other places of this volume; but the point I wish
+at present to impress upon the reader is, that the bright hues of the
+early architecture of Venice were no sign of gaiety of heart, and that
+the investiture with the mantle of many colors by which she is known
+above all other cities of Italy and of Europe, was not granted to her in
+the fever of her festivity, but in the solemnity of her early and
+earnest religion. She became in after times the revel of the earth, the
+masque of Italy; and _therefore_ is she now desolate: but her glorious
+robe of gold and purple was given her when first she rose a vestal from
+the sea, not when she became drunk with the wine of her fornication.
+
+§ XXXVI. And we have never yet looked with enough reverence upon the
+separate gift which was thus bestowed upon her; we have never enough
+considered what an inheritance she has left us, in the works of those
+mighty painters who were the chief of her children. That inheritance is
+indeed less than it ought to have been, and other than it ought to have
+been; for before Titian and Tintoret arose,--the men in whom her work
+and her glory should have been together consummated,--she had already
+ceased to lead her sons in the way of truth and life, and they erred
+much, and fell short of that which was appointed for them. There is no
+subject of thought more melancholy, more wonderful, than the way in
+which God permits so often His best gifts to be trodden under foot of
+men, His richest treasures to be wasted by the moth, and the mightiest
+influences of His Spirit, given but once in the world's history, to be
+quenched and shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I do not wonder
+at what men Suffer, but I wonder often at what they Lose. We may see how
+good rises out of pain and evil; but the dead, naked, eyeless loss, what
+good comes of that? The fruit struck to the earth before its ripeness;
+the glowing life and goodly purpose dissolved away in sudden death; the
+words, half spoken, choked upon the lips with clay for ever; or,
+stranger than all, the whole majesty of humanity raised to its fulness,
+and every gift and power necessary for a given purpose, at a given
+moment, centred in one man, and all this perfected blessing permitted to
+be refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by those who need it
+most,--the city which is Not set on a hill, the candle that giveth light
+to None that are in the house:--these are the heaviest mysteries of this
+strange world, and, it seems to me, those which mark its curse the most.
+And it is true that the power with which this Venice had been entrusted,
+was perverted, when at its highest, in a thousand miserable ways; still,
+it was possessed by her alone; to her all hearts have turned which could
+be moved by its manifestation, and none without being made stronger and
+nobler by what her hand had wrought. That mighty Landscape, of dark
+mountains that guard the horizon with their purple towers, and solemn
+forests, that gather their weight of leaves, bronzed with sunshine, not
+with age, into those gloomy masses fixed in heaven, which storm and
+frost have power no more to shake, or shed;--that mighty Humanity, so
+perfect and so proud, that hides no weakness beneath the mantle, and
+gains no greatness from the diadem; the majesty of thoughtful form, on
+which the dust of gold and flame of jewels are dashed as the sea-spray
+upon the rock, and still the great Manhood seems to stand bare against
+the blue sky;--that mighty Mythology, which fills the daily walks of men
+with spiritual companionship, and beholds the protecting angels break
+with their burning presence through the arrow-flights of
+battle:--measure the compass of that field of creation, weigh the value
+of the inheritance that Venice thus left to the nations of Europe, and
+then judge if so vast, so beneficent a power could indeed have been
+rooted in dissipation or decay. It was when she wore the ephod of the
+priest, not the motley of the masquer, that the fire fell upon her from
+heaven; and she saw the first rays of it through the rain of her own
+tears, when, as the barbaric deluge ebbed from the hills of Italy, the
+circuit of her palaces, and the orb of her fortunes, rose together, like
+the Iris, painted upon the Cloud.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [41] In the year 1851, by the Duchesse de Berri.
+
+  [42] Of the Braided House and Casa Businello, described in the
+    Appendix, only the great central arcades remain.
+
+  [43] Only one wing of the first story is left. See Appendix 11.
+
+  [44] I am obliged to give these measures approximately, because,
+    this front having been studied by the builder with unusual care, not
+    one of its measures is the same as another; and the symmetries
+    between the correspondent arches are obtained by changes in the
+    depth of their mouldings and variations in their heights, far too
+    complicated for me to enter into here; so that of the two arches
+    stated as 19 ft. 8 in. in span, one is in reality 19 ft. 6˝ in., the
+    other 19 ft. 10 in., and of the two stated as 20 ft. 4 in., one is
+    20 ft. and the other 20 ft. 8 in.
+
+  [45] By Mr. Penrose.
+
+  [46] I am sometimes obliged, unfortunately, to read my woodcuts
+    backwards owing to my having forgotten to reverse them on the wood.
+
+  [47] Vide Plate X. figs. 1 and 4.
+
+  [48]
+    1. Fondaco de' Turehi, lateral        8. St. Mark's.
+         pillars.                         9. St. Mark's.
+    2. Terraced House, lateral pillars.  10. Braided House, upper arcade.
+    3. Casa Farsetti, central pillars,   11. Casa Loredan, upper arcade.
+         upper arcade.                   12. St. Mark's.
+    4. Casa Loredan, lower arcade.       13. St. Mark's.
+    5. Casa Loredan, lower arcade.       14. Fondaco de' Turchi, upper
+    6. Fondaco de' Turchi, upper arcade.       arcade.
+    7. Casa Loredan, upper arcade.       15. St. Mark's.
+
+ [49] Compare "Seven Lamps," chap. ii. § 22.
+
+ [50] Two of these are represented in the second number of my folio work
+   upon Venice.
+
+ [51] The absence of the true grotesque spirit in Byzantine work will be
+   examined in the third chapter of the third volume.
+
+ [52] Ezekiel, xxvii. 11.
+
+ [53] Perhaps this type is in no place of Scripture more touchingly used
+   than in Lamentations, i. 12, where the word "afflicted" is rendered in
+   the Vulgate "vindemiavit," "vintaged."
+
+ [54] Appendix 12, "Modern Painting on Glass."
+
+ [55] 2 Samuel, xiii. 18.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE NATURE OF GOTHIC.
+
+
+§ I. If the reader will look back to the division of our subject which
+was made in the first chapter of the first volume, he will find that we
+are now about to enter upon the examination of that school of Venetian
+architecture which forms an intermediate step between the Byzantine and
+Gothic forms; but which I find may be conveniently considered in its
+connexion with the latter style. In order that we may discern the
+tendency of each step of this change, it will be wise in the outset to
+endeavor to form some general idea of its final result. We know already
+what the Byzantine architecture is from which the transition was made,
+but we ought to know something of the Gothic architecture into which it
+led. I shall endeavor therefore to give the reader in this chapter an
+idea, at once broad and definite, of the true nature of _Gothic_
+architecture, properly so called; not of that of Venice only, but of
+universal Gothic: for it will be one of the most interesting parts of
+our subsequent inquiry, to find out how far Venetian architecture
+reached the universal or perfect type of Gothic, and how far it either
+fell short of it, or assumed foreign and independent forms.
+
+§ II. The principal difficulty in doing this arises from the fact that
+every building of the Gothic period differs in some important respect
+from every other; and many include features which, if they occurred in
+other buildings, would not be considered Gothic at all; so that all we
+have to reason upon is merely, if I may be allowed so to express it, a
+greater or less degree of _Gothicness_ in each building we examine. And
+it is this Gothicness,--the character which, according as it is found
+more or less in a building, makes it more or less Gothic,--of which I
+want to define the nature; and I feel the same kind of difficulty in
+doing so which would be encountered by any one who undertook to explain,
+for instance, the nature of Redness, without any actual red thing to
+point to, but only orange and purple things. Suppose he had only a piece
+of heather and a dead oak-leaf to do it with. He might say, the color
+which is mixed with the yellow in this oak-leaf, and with the blue in
+this heather, would be red, if you had it separate; but it would be
+difficult, nevertheless, to make the abstraction perfectly intelligible:
+and it is so in a far greater degree to make the abstraction of the
+Gothic character intelligible, because that character itself is made up
+of many mingled ideas, and can consist only in their union. That is to
+say, pointed arches do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor
+flying buttresses, nor grotesque sculptures; but all or some of these
+things, and many other things with them, when they come together so as
+to have life.
+
+§ III. Observe also, that, in the definition proposed, I shall only
+endeavor to analyze the idea which I suppose already to exist in the
+reader's mind. We all have some notion, most of us a very determined
+one, of the meaning of the term Gothic; but I know that many persons
+have this idea in their minds without being able to define it: that is
+to say, understanding generally that Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and
+St. Paul's is not, that Strasburg Cathedral is Gothic, and St. Peter's
+is not, they have, nevertheless, no clear notion of what it is that they
+recognize in the one or miss in the other, such as would enable them to
+say how far the work at Westminster or Strasburg is good and pure of its
+kind: still less to say of any non-descript building, like St. James's
+Palace or Windsor Castle, how much right Gothic element there is in it,
+and how much wanting, And I believe this inquiry to be a pleasant and
+profitable one; and that there will be found something more than
+usually interesting in tracing out this grey, shadowy, many-pinnacled
+image of the Gothic spirit within us; and discerning what fellowship
+there is between it and our Northern hearts. And if, at any point of the
+inquiry, I should interfere with any of the reader's previously formed
+conceptions, and use the term Gothic in any sense which he would not
+willingly attach to it, I do not ask him to accept, but only to examine
+and understand, my interpretation, as necessary to the intelligibility
+of what follows in the rest of the work.
+
+§ IV. We have, then, the Gothic character submitted to our analysis,
+just as the rough mineral is submitted to that of the chemist, entangled
+with many other foreign substances, itself perhaps in no place pure, or
+ever to be obtained or seen in purity for more than an instant; but
+nevertheless a thing of definite and separate nature, however
+inextricable or confused in appearance. Now observe: the chemist defines
+his mineral by two separate kinds of character; one external, its
+crystalline form, hardness, lustre, &c.; the other internal, the
+proportions and nature of its constituent atoms. Exactly in the same
+manner, we shall find that Gothic architecture has external forms, and
+internal elements. Its elements are certain mental tendencies of the
+builders, legibly expressed in it; as fancifulness, love of variety,
+love of richness, and such others. Its external forms are pointed
+arches, vaulted roofs, &c. And unless both the elements and the forms
+are there, we have no right to call the style Gothic. It is not enough
+that it has the Form, if it have not also the power and life. It is not
+enough that it has the Power, if it have not the form. We must therefore
+inquire into each of these characters successively; and determine first,
+what is the Mental Expression, and secondly, what the Material Form, of
+Gothic architecture, properly so called.
+
+1st. Mental Power or Expression. What characters, we have to discover,
+did the Gothic builders love, or instinctively express in their work, as
+distinguished from all other builders?
+
+§ V. Let us go back for a moment to our chemistry, and note that, in
+defining a mineral by its constituent parts, it is not one nor another
+of them, that can make up the mineral, but the union of all: for
+instance, it is neither in charcoal, nor in oxygen, nor in lime, that
+there is the making of chalk, but in the combination of all three in
+certain measures; they are all found in very different things from
+chalk, and there is nothing like chalk either in charcoal or in oxygen,
+but they are nevertheless necessary to its existence.
+
+So in the various mental characters which make up the soul of Gothic. It
+is not one nor another that produces it; but their union in certain
+measures. Each one of them is found in many other architectures besides
+Gothic; but Gothic cannot exist where they are not found, or, at least,
+where their place is not in some way supplied. Only there is this great
+difference between the composition of the mineral, and of the
+architectural style, that if we withdraw one of its elements from the
+stone, its form is utterly changed, and its existence as such and such a
+mineral is destroyed; but if we withdraw one of its mental elements from
+the Gothic style, it is only a little less Gothic than it was before,
+and the union of two or three of its elements is enough already to
+bestow a certain Gothicness of character, which gains in intensity as we
+add the others, and loses as we again withdraw them.
+
+§ VI. I believe, then, that the characteristic or moral elements of
+Gothic are the following, placed in the order of their importance:
+
+  1. Savageness.
+  2. Changefulness.
+  3. Naturalism.
+  4. Grotesqueness.
+  5. Rigidity.
+  6. Redundance.
+
+These characters are here expressed as belonging to the building; as
+belonging to the builder, they would be expressed thus:--1. Savageness,
+or Rudeness. 2. Love of Change. 3. Love of Nature. 4. Disturbed
+Imagination. 5, Obstinacy. 6. Generosity. And I repeat, that the
+withdrawal of any one, or any two, will not at once destroy the Gothic
+character of a building, but the removal of a majority of them will. I
+shall proceed to examine them in their order.
+
+§ VII. 1. SAVAGENESS. I am not sure when the word "Gothic" was first
+generically applied to the architecture of the North; but I presume
+that, whatever the date of its original usage, it was intended to imply
+reproach, and express the barbaric character of the nations among whom
+that architecture arose. It never implied that they were literally of
+Gothic lineage, far less that their architecture had been originally
+invented by the Goths themselves; but it did imply that they and their
+buildings together exhibited a degree of sternness and rudeness, which,
+in contradistinction to the character of Southern and Eastern nations,
+appeared like a perpetual reflection of the contrast between the Goth
+and the Roman in their first encounter. And when that fallen Roman, in
+the utmost impotence of his luxury, and insolence of his guilt, became
+the model for the imitation of civilized Europe, at the close of the
+so-called Dark ages, the word Gothic became a term of unmitigated
+contempt, not unmixed with aversion. From that contempt, by the exertion
+of the antiquaries and architects of this century, Gothic architecture
+has been sufficiently vindicated; and perhaps some among us, in our
+admiration of the magnificent science of its structure, and sacredness
+of its expression, might desire that the term of ancient reproach should
+be withdrawn, and some other, of more apparent honorableness, adopted in
+its place. There is no chance, as there is no need, of such a
+substitution. As far as the epithet was used scornfully, it was used
+falsely; but there is no reproach in the word, rightly understood; on
+the contrary, there is a profound truth, which the instinct of mankind
+almost unconsciously recognizes. It is true, greatly and deeply true,
+that the architecture of the North is rude and wild; but it is not true,
+that, for this reason, we are to condemn it, or despise. Far otherwise:
+I believe it is in this very character that it deserves our profoundest
+reverence.
+
+§ VIII. The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern
+science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount
+of knowledge, but I have never yet seen any one pictorial enough to
+enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical
+character which exists between Northern and Southern countries. We know
+the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp
+which would enable us to feel them in their fulness. We know that
+gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not
+enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's
+surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the
+district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow
+see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment,
+try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine
+the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its
+ancient promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an angry spot
+of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and
+here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its
+circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light,
+Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement
+into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten
+work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and
+flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and
+orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the
+burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under
+lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see
+the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green,
+where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and
+dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of
+the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of
+rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low
+along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth
+heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with
+a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and
+splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas,
+beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious
+pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from
+among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their
+peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron,
+sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.
+And, having once traversed in thought its gradation of the zoned iris of
+the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and
+watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life: the multitudes of
+swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread
+the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards,
+glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us
+contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of
+motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky
+plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the
+Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope
+with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then,
+submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all
+that it bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but
+rejoice at the expression by man of his own rest in the statutes of the
+lands that gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he sets
+side by side the burning gems, and smoothes with soft sculpture the
+jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise into
+a cloudless sky: but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when,
+with rough strength and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth animation
+out of the rocks which he has torn from among the moss of the moorland,
+and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged
+wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the
+northern sea; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of
+wolfish life; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds
+that shade them.
+
+There is, I repeat, no degradation, no reproach in this, but all dignity
+and honorableness; and we should err grievously in refusing either to
+recognise as an essential character of the existing architecture of the
+North, or to admit as a desirable character in that which it yet may be,
+this wildness of thought, and roughness of work; this look of mountain
+brotherhood between the cathedral and the Alp; this magnificence of
+sturdy power, put forth only the more energetically because the fine
+finger-touch was chilled away by the frosty wind, and the eye dimmed by
+the moor-mist, or blinded by the hail; this outspeaking of the strong
+spirit of men who may not gather redundant fruitage from the earth, nor
+bask in dreamy benignity of sunshine, but must break the rock for bread,
+and cleave the forest for fire, and show, even in what they did for
+their delight, some of the hard habits of the arm and heart that grew on
+them as they swung the axe or pressed the plough.
+
+§ IX. If, however, the savageness of Gothic architecture, merely as an
+expression of its origin among Northern nations, may be considered, in
+some sort, a noble character, it possesses a higher nobility still, when
+considered as an index, not of climate, but of religious principle.
+
+In the 13th and 14th paragraphs of Chapter XXI. of the first volume of
+this work, it was noticed that the systems of architectural ornament,
+properly so called, might be divided into three:--1. Servile ornament,
+in which the execution or power of the inferior workman is entirely
+subjected to the intellect of the higher:--2. Constitutional ornament,
+in which the executive inferior power is, to a certain point,
+emancipated and independent, having a will of its own, yet confessing
+its inferiority and rendering obedience to higher powers;--and 3.
+Revolutionary ornament, in which no executive inferiority is admitted at
+all. I must here explain the nature of these divisions at somewhat
+greater length.
+
+Of Servile ornament, the principal schools are the Greek, Ninevite, and
+Egyptian; but their servility is of different kinds. The Greek
+master-workman was far advanced in knowledge and power above the
+Assyrian or Egyptian. Neither he nor those for whom he worked could
+endure the appearance of imperfection in anything; and, therefore, what
+ornament he appointed to be done by those beneath him was composed of
+mere geometrical forms,--balls, ridges, and perfectly symmetrical
+foliage,--which could be executed with absolute precision by line and
+rule, and were as perfect in their way when completed, as his own figure
+sculpture. The Assyrian and Egyptian, on the contrary, less cognizant of
+accurate form in anything, were content to allow their figure sculpture
+to be executed by inferior workmen, but lowered the method of its
+treatment to a standard which every workman could reach, and then
+trained him by discipline so rigid, that there was no chance of his
+falling beneath the standard appointed. The Greek gave to the lower
+workman no subject which he could not perfectly execute. The Assyrian
+gave him subjects which he could only execute imperfectly, but fixed a
+legal standard for his imperfection. The workman was, in both systems, a
+slave.[56]
+
+§ X. But in the medićval, or especially Christian, system of ornament,
+this slavery is done away with altogether; Christianity having
+recognized, in small things as well as great, the individual value of
+every soul. But it not only recognizes its value; it confesses its
+imperfection, in only bestowing dignity upon the acknowledgment of
+unworthiness. That admission of lost power and fallen nature, which the
+Greek or Ninevite felt to be intensely painful, and, as far as might be,
+altogether refused, the Christian makes daily and hourly, contemplating
+the fact of it without fear, as tending, in the end, to God's greater
+glory. Therefore, to every spirit which Christianity summons to her
+service, her exhortation is: Do what you can, and confess frankly what
+you are unable to do; neither let your effort be shortened for fear of
+failure, nor your confession silenced for fear of shame. And it is,
+perhaps, the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of
+architecture, that they thus receive the results of the labor of
+inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfection, and betraying
+that imperfection in every touch, indulgently raise up a stately and
+unaccusable whole.
+
+§ XI. But the modern English mind has this much in common with that of
+the Greek, that it intensely desires, in all things, the utmost
+completion or perfection compatible with their nature. This is a noble
+character in the abstract, but becomes ignoble when it causes us to
+forget the relative dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer the
+perfectness of the lower nature to the imperfection of the higher; not
+considering that as, judged by such a rule, all the brute animals would
+be preferable to man, because more perfect in their functions and kind,
+and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the works of man,
+those which are more perfect in their kind are always inferior to those
+which are, in their nature, liable to more faults and shortcomings. For
+the finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness
+of it; and it is a law of this universe, that the best things shall be
+seldomest seen in their best form. The wild grass grows well and
+strongly, one year with another; but the wheat is, according to the
+greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer blight. And
+therefore, while in all things that we see, or do, we are to desire
+perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the meaner
+thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in its
+mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered
+majesty; not to prefer mean victory to honorable defeat; not to lower
+the level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency
+of success. But, above all, in our dealings with the souls of other men,
+we are to take care how we check, by severe requirement or narrow
+caution, efforts which might otherwise lead to a noble issue; and, still
+more, how we withhold our admiration from great excellences, because
+they are mingled with rough faults. Now, in the make and nature of every
+man, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual labor, there are
+some powers for better things: some tardy imagination, torpid capacity
+of emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the worst;
+and in most cases it is all our own fault that they _are_ tardy or
+torpid. But they cannot be strengthened, unless we are content to take
+them in their feebleness, and unless we prize and honor them in their
+imperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill. And this is
+what we have to do with all our laborers; to look for the _thoughtful_
+part of them, and get that out of them, whatever we lose for it,
+whatever faults and errors we are obliged to take with it. For the best
+that is in them cannot manifest itself, but in company with much error.
+Understand this clearly: You can teach a man to draw a straight line,
+and to cut one; to strike a curved line, and to carve it; and to copy
+and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and
+perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you
+ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find
+any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating;
+he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake
+in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you
+have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an
+animated tool.
+
+§ XII. And observe, you are put to stern choice in this matter. You must
+either made a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make
+both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be
+precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that
+precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like
+cog-wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must
+unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make
+cogs and compasses of themselves. All their attention and strength must
+go to the accomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the soul must be
+bent upon the finger-point, and the soul's force must fill all the
+invisible nerves that guide it, ten hours a day, that it may not err
+from its steely precision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the
+whole human being be lost at last--a heap of sawdust, so far as its
+intellectual work in this world is concerned; saved only by its Heart,
+which cannot go into the form of cogs and compasses, but expands, after
+the ten hours are over, into fireside humanity. On the other hand, if
+you will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let
+him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing;
+and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his
+roughness, all his dulness, all his incapability; shame upon shame,
+failure upon failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty
+of him also; and we know the height of it only, when we see the clouds
+settling upon him. And, whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will
+be transfiguration behind and within them.
+
+§ XIII. And now, reader, look round this English room of yours, about
+which you have been proud so often, because the work of it was so good
+and strong, and the ornaments of it so finished. Examine again all those
+accurate mouldings, and perfect polishings, and unerring adjustments of
+the seasoned wood and tempered steel. Many a time you have exulted over
+them, and thought how great England was, because her slightest work was
+done so thoroughly. Alas! if read rightly, these perfectnesses are signs
+of a slavery in our England a thousand times more bitter and more
+degrading than that of the scourged African, or helot Greek. Men may be
+beaten, chained, tormented, yoked like cattle, slaughtered like summer
+flies, and yet remain in one sense, and the best sense, free. But to
+smother their souls within them, to blight and hew into rotting pollards
+the suckling branches of their human intelligence, to make the flesh and
+skin which, after the worm's work on it, is to see God, into leathern
+thongs to yoke machinery with,--this it is to be slave-masters indeed;
+and there might be more freedom in England, though her feudal lords'
+lightest words were worth men's lives, and though the blood of the vexed
+husbandman dropped in the furrows of her fields, than there is while
+the animation of her multitudes is sent like fuel to feed the factory
+smoke, and the strength of them is given daily to be wasted into the
+fineness of a web, or racked into the exactness of a line.
+
+§ XIV. And, on the other hand, go forth again to gaze upon the old
+cathedral front, where you have smiled so often at the fantastic
+ignorance of the old sculptors: examine once more those ugly goblins,
+and formless monsters, and stern statues, anatomiless and rigid; but do
+not mock at them, for they are signs of the life and liberty of every
+workman who struck the stone; a freedom of thought, and rank in scale of
+being, such as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure; but which
+it must be the first aim of all Europe at this day to regain for her
+children.
+
+§ XV. Let me not be thought to speak wildly or extravagantly. It is
+verily this degradation of the operative into a machine, which, more
+than any other evil of the times, is leading the mass of the nations
+everywhere into vain, incoherent, destructive struggling for a freedom
+of which they cannot explain the nature to themselves. Their universal
+outcry against wealth, and against nobility, is not forced from them
+either by the pressure of famine, or the sting of mortified pride. These
+do much, and have done much in all ages; but the foundations of society
+were never yet shaken as they are at this day. It is not that men are
+ill fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make
+their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure.
+It is not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, but
+they cannot endure their own; for they feel that the kind of labor to
+which they are condemned is verily a degrading one, and makes them less
+than men. Never had the upper classes so much sympathy with the lower,
+or charity for them, as they have at this day, and yet never were they
+so much hated by them: for, of old, the separation between the noble and
+the poor was merely a wall built by law; now it is a veritable
+difference in level of standing, a precipice between upper and lower
+grounds in the field of humanity and there is pestilential air at the
+bottom of it. I know not if a day is ever to come when the nature of
+right freedom will be understood, and when men will see that to obey
+another man, to labor for him, yield reverence to him or to his place,
+is not slavery. It is often the best kind of liberty,--liberty from
+care. The man who says to one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come,
+and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and
+difficulty than the man who obeys him. The movements of the one are
+hindered by the burden on his shoulder; of the other, by the bridle on
+his lips: there is no way by which the burden may be lightened; but we
+need not suffer from the bridle if we do not champ at it. To yield
+reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal,
+is not slavery; often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live
+in this world. There is, indeed, a reverence which is servile, that is
+to say, irrational or selfish: but there is also noble reverence, that
+is to say, reasonable and loving; and a man is never so noble as when he
+is reverent in this kind; nay, even if the feeling pass the bounds of
+mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised by it. Which had, in
+reality, most of the serf nature in him,--the Irish peasant who was
+lying in wait yesterday for his landlord, with his musket muzzle thrust
+through the ragged hedge; or that old mountain servant, who, 200 years
+ago, at Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and the lives of his seven
+sons for his chief?[57]--and as each fell, calling forth his brother to
+the death, "Another for Hector!" And therefore, in all ages and all
+countries, reverence has been paid and sacrifice made by men to each
+other, not only without complaint, but rejoicingly; and famine, and
+peril, and sword, and all evil, and all shame, have been borne willingly
+in the causes of masters and kings; for all these gifts of the heart
+ennobled the men who gave, not less than the men who received them, and
+nature prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel their souls
+withering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an
+unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism,
+numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes;--this
+nature bade not,--this God blesses not,--this humanity for no long time
+is able to endure.
+
+§ XVI. We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great
+civilized invention of the division of labor; only we give it a false
+name. It is not, truly speaking, the labor that is divided; but the
+men:--Divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments and
+crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is
+left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts
+itself in making the point of a pin, or the head of a nail. Now it is a
+good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we
+could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,--sand
+of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what
+it is,--we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the
+great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than
+their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this,--that we manufacture
+everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and
+refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to
+refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our
+estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our
+myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for
+to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach to them,
+if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can be met only
+by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of
+labor are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a
+determined sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness as is
+to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally
+determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling
+labor.
+
+§ XVII. And how, it will be asked, are these products to be recognized,
+and this demand to be regulated? Easily: by the observance of three
+broad and simple rules:
+
+1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely
+necessary, in the production of which _Invention_ has no share.
+
+2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some
+practical or noble end.
+
+3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except for the sake
+of preserving record of great works.
+
+The second of these principles is the only one which directly rises out
+of the consideration of our immediate subject; but I shall briefly
+explain the meaning and extent of the first also, reserving the
+enforcement of the third for another place.
+
+1. Never encourage the manufacture of anything not necessary, in the
+production of which invention has no share.
+
+For instance. Glass beads are utterly unnecessary, and there is no
+design or thought employed in their manufacture. They are formed by
+first drawing out the glass into rods; these rods are chopped up into
+fragments of the size of beads by the human hand, and the fragments are
+then rounded in the furnace. The men who chop up the rods sit at their
+work all day, their hands vibrating with a perpetual and exquisitely
+timed palsy, and the beads dropping beneath their vibration like hail.
+Neither they, nor the men who draw out the rods, or fuse the fragments,
+have the smallest occasion for the use of any single human faculty; and
+every young lady, therefore, who buys glass beads is engaged in the
+slave-trade, and in a much more cruel one than that which we have so
+long been endeavoring to put down.
+
+But glass cups and vessels may become the subjects of exquisite
+invention; and if in buying these we pay for the invention, that is to
+say for the beautiful form, or color, or engraving, and not for mere
+finish of execution, we are doing good to humanity.
+
+§ XVIII. So, again, the cutting of precious stones, in all ordinary
+cases, requires little exertion of any mental faculty; some tact and
+judgment in avoiding flaws, and so on, but nothing to bring out the
+whole mind. Every person who wears cut jewels merely for the sake of
+their value is, therefore, a slave-driver.
+
+But the working of the goldsmith, and the various designing of grouped
+jewellery and enamel-work, may become the subject of the most noble
+human intelligence. Therefore, money spent in the purchase of
+well-designed plate, of precious engraved vases, cameos, or enamels,
+does good to humanity; and, in work of this kind, jewels may be employed
+to heighten its splendor; and their cutting is then a price paid for the
+attainment of a noble end, and thus perfectly allowable.
+
+§ XIX. I shall perhaps press this law farther elsewhere, but our
+immediate concern is chiefly with the second, namely, never to demand an
+exact finish, when it does not lead to a noble end. For observe, I have
+only dwelt upon the rudeness of Gothic, or any other kind of
+imperfectness, as admirable, where it was impossible to get design or
+thought without it. If you are to have the thought of a rough and
+untaught man, you must have it in a rough and untaught way; but from an
+educated man, who can without effort express his thoughts in an educated
+way, take the graceful expression, and be thankful. Only _get_ the
+thought, and do not silence the peasant because he cannot speak good
+grammar, or until you have taught him his grammar. Grammar and
+refinement are good things, both, only be sure of the better thing
+first. And thus in art, delicate finish is desirable from the greatest
+masters, and is always given by them. In some places Michael Angelo,
+Leonardo, Phidias, Perugino, Turner, all finished with the most
+exquisite care; and the finish they give always leads to the fuller
+accomplishment of their noble purposes. But lower men than these cannot
+finish, for it requires consummate knowledge to finish consummately, and
+then we must take their thoughts as they are able to give them. So the
+rule is simple: Always look for invention first, and after that, for
+such execution as will help the invention, and as the inventor is
+capable of without painful effort, and _no more_. Above all, demand no
+refinement of execution where there is no thought, for that is slaves'
+work, unredeemed. Rather choose rough work than smooth work, so only
+that the practical purpose be answered, and never imagine there is
+reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished by patience and
+sandpaper.
+
+§ XX. I shall only give one example, which however will show the reader
+what I mean, from the manufacture already alluded to, that of glass. Our
+modern glass is exquisitely clear in its substance, true in its form,
+accurate in its cutting. We are proud of this. We ought to be ashamed of
+it. The old Venice glass was muddy, inaccurate in all its forms, and
+clumsily cut, if at all. And the old Venetian was justly proud of it.
+For there is this difference between the English and Venetian workman,
+that the former thinks only of accurately matching his patterns, and
+getting his curves perfectly true and his edges perfectly sharp, and
+becomes a mere machine for rounding curves and sharpening edges, while
+the old Venetian cared not a whit whether his edges were sharp or not,
+but he invented a new design for every glass that he made, and never
+moulded a handle or a lip without a new fancy in it. And therefore,
+though some Venetian glass is ugly and clumsy enough, when made by
+clumsy and uninventive workmen, other Venetian glass is so lovely in its
+forms that no price is too great for it; and we never see the same form
+in it twice. Now you cannot have the finish and the varied form too. If
+the workman is thinking about his edges, he cannot be thinking of his
+design; if of his design, he cannot think of his edges. Choose whether
+you will pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose at
+the same moment whether you will make the worker a man or a grindstone.
+
+§ XXI. Nay, but the reader interrupts me,--"If the workman can design
+beautifully, I would not have him kept at the furnace. Let him be taken
+away and made a gentleman, and have a studio, and design his glass
+there, and I will have it blown and cut for him by common workmen, and
+so I will have my design and my finish too."
+
+All ideas of this kind are founded upon two mistaken suppositions: the
+first, that one man's thoughts can be, or ought to be, executed by
+another man's hands; the second, that manual labor is a degradation,
+when it is governed by intellect.
+
+On a large scale, and in work determinable by line and rule, it is
+indeed both possible and necessary that the thoughts of one man should
+be carried out by the labor of others; in this sense I have already
+defined the best architecture to be the expression of the mind of
+manhood by the hands of childhood. But on a smaller scale, and in a
+design which cannot be mathematically defined, one man's thoughts can
+never be expressed by another: and the difference between the spirit of
+touch of the man who is inventing, and of the man who is obeying
+directions, is often all the difference between a great and a common
+work of art. How wide the separation is between original and second-hand
+execution, I shall endeavor to show elsewhere; it is not so much to our
+purpose here as to mark the other and more fatal error of despising
+manual labor when governed by intellect; for it is no less fatal an
+error to despise it when thus regulated by intellect, than to value it
+for its own sake. We are always in these days endeavoring to separate
+the two; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always
+working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative;
+whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to
+be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is,
+we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other despising, his
+brother; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers, and
+miserable workers. Now it is only by labor that thought can be made
+healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy, and the two
+cannot be separated with impunity. It would be well if all of us were
+good handicraftsmen in some kind, and the dishonor of manual labor done
+away with altogether; so that though there should still be a trenchant
+distinction of race between nobles and commoners, there should not,
+among the latter, be a trenchant distinction of employment, as between
+idle and working men, or between men of liberal and illiberal
+professions. All professions should be liberal, and there should be less
+pride felt in peculiarity of employment, and more in excellence of
+achievement. And yet more, in each several profession, no master should
+be too proud to do its hardest work. The painter should grind his own
+colors; the architect work in the mason's yard with his men; the
+master-manufacturer be himself a more skilful operative than any man in
+his mills; and the distinction between one man and another be only in
+experience and skill, and the authority and wealth which these must
+naturally and justly obtain.
+
+§ XXII. I should be led far from the matter in hand, if I were to pursue
+this interesting subject. Enough, I trust, has been said to show the
+reader that the rudeness or imperfection which at first rendered the
+term "Gothic" one of reproach is indeed, when rightly understood, one of
+the most noble characters of Christian architecture, and not only a
+noble but an _essential_ one. It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is
+nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly
+noble which is _not_ imperfect. And this is easily demonstrable. For
+since the architect, whom we will suppose capable of doing all in
+perfection, cannot execute the whole with his own hands, he must either
+make slaves of his workmen in the old Greek, and present English
+fashion, and level his work to a slave's capacities, which is to degrade
+it; or else he must take his workmen as he finds them, and let them show
+their weaknesses together with their strength, which will involve the
+Gothic imperfection, but render the whole work as noble as the intellect
+of the age can make it.
+
+§ XXIII. But the principle may be stated more broadly still. I have
+confined the illustration of it to architecture, but I must not leave it
+as if true of architecture only. Hitherto I have used the words
+imperfect and perfect merely to distinguish between work grossly
+unskilful, and work executed with average precision and science; and I
+have been pleading that any degree of unskilfulness should be admitted,
+so only that the laborer's mind had room for expression. But, accurately
+speaking, no good work whatever can be perfect, and _the demand for
+perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art_.
+
+§ XXIV. This for two reasons, both based on everlasting laws. The first,
+that no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of
+failure; that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his
+powers of execution, and the latter will now and then give way in trying
+to follow it; besides that he will always give to the inferior portions
+of his work only such inferior attention as they require; and according
+to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feeling of
+dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of lassitude or
+anger with himself he will not care though the beholder be dissatisfied
+also. I believe there has only been one man who would not acknowledge
+this necessity, and strove always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end
+of his vain effort being merely that he would take ten years to a
+picture, and leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have great
+men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be
+imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be
+perfect, in its own bad way.[58]
+
+§ XXV. The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort essential
+to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body,
+that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives
+is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent.
+The foxglove blossom,--a third part bud, a third part past, a third part
+in full bloom,--is a type of the life of this world. And in all things
+that live there are certain, irregularities and deficiencies which are
+not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly
+the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no
+branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and
+to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to
+paralyse vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more
+beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that
+the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment,
+Mercy.
+
+Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any
+other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect; and let us
+be prepared for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern
+clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first
+cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of
+perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for
+greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity.
+
+Thus far then of the Rudeness or Savageness, which is the first mental
+element of Gothic architecture. It is an element in many other healthy
+architectures also, as in Byzantine and Romanesque; but true Gothic
+cannot exist without it.
+
+§ XXVI. The second mental element above named was CHANGEFULNESS, or
+Variety.
+
+I have already enforced the allowing independent operation to the
+inferior workman, simply as a duty _to him_, and as ennobling the
+architecture by rendering it more Christian. We have now to consider
+what reward we obtain for the performance of this duty, namely, the
+perpetual variety of every feature of the building.
+
+Wherever the workman is utterly enslaved, the parts of the building must
+of course be absolutely like each other; for the perfection of his
+execution can only be reached by exercising him in doing one thing, and
+giving him nothing else to do. The degree in which the workman is
+degraded may be thus known at a glance, by observing whether the several
+parts of the building are similar or not; and if, as in Greek work, all
+the capitals are alike, and all the mouldings unvaried, then the
+degradation is complete; if, as in Egyptian or Ninevite work, though the
+manner of executing certain figures is always the same, the order of
+design is perpetually varied, the degradation is less total; if, as in
+Gothic work, there is perpetual change both in design and execution, the
+workman must have been altogether set free.
+
+§ XXVII. How much the beholder gains from the liberty of the laborer may
+perhaps be questioned in England, where one of the strongest instincts
+in nearly every mind is that Love of Order which makes us desire that
+our house windows should pair like our carriage horses, and allows us
+to yield our faith unhesitatingly to architectural theories which fix a
+form for everything and forbid variation from it. I would not impeach
+love of order: it is one of the most useful elements of the English
+mind; it helps us in our commerce and in all purely practical matters;
+and it is in many cases one of the foundation stones of morality. Only
+do not let us suppose that love of order is love of art. It is true that
+order, in its highest sense, is one of the necessities of art, just as
+time is a necessity of music; but love of order has no more to do with
+our right enjoyment of architecture or painting, than love of
+punctuality with the appreciation of an opera. Experience, I fear,
+teaches us that accurate and methodical habits in daily life are seldom
+characteristic of those who either quickly perceive, or richly possess,
+the creative powers of art; there is, however, nothing inconsistent
+between the two instincts, and nothing to hinder us from retaining our
+business habits, and yet fully allowing and enjoying the noblest gifts
+of Invention. We already do so, in every other branch of art except
+architecture, and we only do _not_ so there because we have been taught
+that it would be wrong. Our architects gravely inform us that, as there
+are four rules of arithmetic, there are five orders of architecture; we,
+in our simplicity, think that this sounds consistent, and believe them.
+They inform us also that there is one proper form for Corinthian
+capitals, another for Doric, and another for Ionic. We, considering that
+there is also a proper form for the letters A, B, and C, think that this
+also sounds consistent, and accept the proposition. Understanding,
+therefore, that one form of the said capitals is proper, and no other,
+and having a conscientious horror of all impropriety, we allow the
+architect to provide us with the said capitals, of the proper form, in
+such and such a quantity, and in all other points to take care that the
+legal forms are observed; which having done, we rest in forced
+confidence that we are well housed.
+
+§ XXVIII. But our higher instincts are not deceived. We take no pleasure
+in the building provided for us, resembling that which we take in a new
+book or a new picture. We may be proud of its size, complacent in its
+correctness, and happy in its convenience. We may take the same pleasure
+in its symmetry and workmanship as in a well-ordered room, or a skilful
+piece of manufacture. And this we suppose to be all the pleasure that
+architecture was ever intended to give us. The idea of reading a
+building as we would read Milton or Dante, and getting the same kind of
+delight out of the stones as out of the stanzas, never enters our minds
+for a moment. And for good reason:--There is indeed rhythm in the
+verses, quite as strict as the symmetries or rhythm of the architecture,
+and a thousand times more beautiful, but there is something else than
+rhythm. The verses were neither made to order, nor to match, as the
+capitals were; and we have therefore a kind of pleasure in them other
+than a sense of propriety. But it requires a strong effort of common
+sense to shake ourselves quit of all that we have been taught for the
+last two centuries, and wake to the perception of a truth just as simple
+and certain as it is new: that great art, whether expressing itself in
+words, colors, or stones, does _not_ say the same thing over and over
+again; that the merit of architectural, as of every other art, consists
+in its saying new and different things; that to repeat itself is no more
+a characteristic of genius in marble than it is of genius in print; and
+that we may, without offending any laws of good taste, require of an
+architect, as we do of a novelist, that he should be not only correct,
+but entertaining.
+
+Yet all this is true, and self-evident; only hidden from us, as many
+other self-evident things are, by false teaching. Nothing is a great
+work of art, for the production of which either rules or models can be
+given. Exactly so far as architecture works on known rules, and from
+given models, it is not an art, but a manufacture; and it is, of the two
+procedures, rather less rational (because more easy) to copy capitals or
+mouldings from Phidias, and call ourselves architects, than to copy
+heads and hands from Titian, and call ourselves painters.
+
+§ XXIX. Let us then understand at once, that change or variety is as
+much a necessity to the human heart and brain in buildings as in books;
+that there is no merit, though there is some occasional use, in
+monotony; and that we must no more expect to derive either pleasure or
+profit from an architecture whose ornaments are of one pattern, and
+whose pillars are of one proportion, than we should out of a universe in
+which the clouds were all of one shape, and the trees all of one size.
+
+§ XXX. And this we confess in deeds, though not in words. All the
+pleasure which the people of the nineteenth century take in art, is in
+pictures, sculpture, minor objects of virtů, or medićval architecture,
+which we enjoy under the term picturesque: no pleasure is taken anywhere
+in modern buildings, and we find all men of true feeling delighting to
+escape out of modern cities into natural scenery: hence, as I shall
+hereafter show, that peculiar love of landscape which is characteristic
+of the age. It would be well, if, in all other matters, we were as ready
+to put up with what we dislike, for the sake of compliance with
+established law, as we are in architecture.
+
+§ XXXI. How so debased a law ever came to be established, we shall see
+when we come to describe the Renaissance schools: here we have only to
+note, as the second most essential element of the Gothic spirit, that it
+broke through that law wherever it found it in existence; it not only
+dared, but delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle;
+and invented a series of forms of which the merit was, not merely that
+they were new, but that they were _capable of perpetual novelty_. The
+pointed arch was not merely a bold variation from the round, but it
+admitted of millions of variations in itself; for the proportions of a
+pointed arch are changeable to infinity, while a circular arch is always
+the same. The grouped shaft was not merely a bold variation from the
+single one, but it admitted of millions of variations in its grouping,
+and in the proportions resultant from its grouping. The introduction of
+tracery was not only a startling change in the treatment of window
+lights, but admitted endless changes in the interlacement of the tracery
+bars themselves. So that, while in all living Christian architecture the
+love of variety exists, the Gothic schools exhibited that love in
+culminating energy; and their influence, wherever it extended itself,
+may be sooner and farther traced by this character than by any other;
+the tendency to the adoption of Gothic types being always first shown by
+greater irregularity and richer variation in the forms of the
+architecture it is about to supersede, long before the appearance of the
+pointed arch or of any other recognizable _outward_ sign of the Gothic
+mind.
+
+§ XXXII. We must, however, herein note carefully what distinction there
+is between a healthy and a diseased love of change; for as it was in
+healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly
+in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed. In
+order to understand this clearly, it will be necessary to consider the
+different ways in which change and monotony are presented to us in
+nature; both having their use, like darkness and light, and the one
+incapable of being enjoyed without the other: change being most
+delightful after some prolongation of monotony, as light appears most
+brilliant after the eyes have been for some time closed.
+
+§ XXXIII. I believe that the true relations of monotony and change may
+be most simply understood by observing them in music. We may therein
+notice, first, that there is a sublimity and majesty in monotony which
+there is not in rapid or frequent variation. This is true throughout all
+nature. The greater part of the sublimity of the sea depends on its
+monotony; so also that of desolate moor and mountain scenery; and
+especially the sublimity of motion, as in the quiet, unchanged fall and
+rise of an engine beam. So also there is sublimity in darkness which
+there is not in light.
+
+§ XXXIV. Again, monotony after a certain time, or beyond a certain
+degree, becomes either uninteresting or intolerable, and the musician is
+obliged to break it in one or two ways: either while the air or passage
+is perpetually repeated, its notes are variously enriched and
+harmonized; or else, after a certain number of repeated passages, an
+entirely new passage is introduced, which is more or less delightful
+according to the length of the previous monotony. Nature, of course,
+uses both these kinds of variation perpetually. The sea-waves,
+resembling each other in general mass, but none like its brother in
+minor divisions and curves, are a monotony of the first kind; the great
+plain, broken by an emergent rock or clump of trees, is a monotony of
+the second.
+
+§ XXXV. Farther: in order to the enjoyment of the change in either case,
+a certain degree of patience is required from the hearer or observer. In
+the first case, he must be satisfied to endure with patience the
+recurrence of the great masses of sound or form, and to seek for
+entertainment in a careful watchfulness of the minor details. In the
+second case, he must bear patiently the infliction of the monotony for
+some moments, in order to feel the full refreshment of the change. This
+is true even of the shortest musical passage in which the element of
+monotony is employed. In cases of more majestic monotony, the patience
+required is so considerable that it becomes a kind of pain,--a price
+paid for the future pleasure.
+
+§ XXXVI. Again: the talent of the composer is not in the monotony, but
+in the changes: he may show feeling and taste by his use of monotony in
+certain places or degrees; that is to say, by his _various_ employment
+of it; but it is always in the new arrangement or invention that his
+intellect is shown, and not in the monotony which relieves it.
+
+Lastly: if the pleasure of change be too often repeated, it ceases to be
+delightful, for then change itself becomes monotonous, and we are driven
+to seek delight in extreme and fantastic degrees of it. This is the
+diseased love of change of which we have above spoken.
+
+§ XXXVII. From these facts we may gather generally that monotony is, and
+ought to be, in itself painful to us, just as darkness is; that an
+architecture which is altogether monotonous is a dark or dead
+architecture; and, of those who love it, it may be truly said, "they
+love darkness rather than light." But monotony in certain measure, used
+in order to give value to change, and, above all, that _transparent_
+monotony which, like the shadows of a great painter, suffers all manner
+of dimly suggested form to be seen through the body of it, is an
+essential in architectural as in all other composition; and the
+endurance of monotony has about the same place in a healthy mind that
+the endurance of darkness has: that is to say, as a strong intellect
+will have pleasure in the solemnities of storm and twilight, and in the
+broken and mysterious lights that gleam among them, rather than in mere
+brilliancy and glare, while a frivolous mind will dread the shadow and
+the storm; and as a great man will be ready to endure much darkness of
+fortune in order to reach greater eminence of power or felicity, while
+an inferior man will not pay the price; exactly in like manner a great
+mind will accept, or even delight in, monotony which would be wearisome
+to an inferior intellect, because it has more patience and power of
+expectation, and is ready to pay the full price for the great future
+pleasure of change. But in all cases it is not that the noble nature
+loves monotony, any more than it loves darkness or pain. But it can bear
+with it, and receives a high pleasure in the endurance or patience, a
+pleasure necessary to the well-being of this world; while those who will
+not submit to the temporary sameness, but rush from one change to
+another, gradually dull the edge of change itself, and bring a shadow
+and weariness over the whole world from which there is no more escape.
+
+§ XXXVIII. From these general uses of variety in the economy of the
+world, we may at once understand its use and abuse in architecture. The
+variety of the Gothic schools is the more healthy and beautiful, because
+in many cases it is entirely unstudied, and results, not from the mere
+love of change, but from practical necessities. For in one point of view
+Gothic is not only the best, but the _only rational_ architecture, as
+being that which can fit itself most easily to all services, vulgar or
+noble. Undefined in its slope of roof, height of shaft, breadth of arch,
+or disposition of ground plan, it can shrink into a turret, expand into
+a hall, coil into a staircase, or spring into a spire, with undegraded
+grace and unexhausted energy; and whenever it finds occasion for change
+in its form or purpose, it submits to it without the slightest sense of
+loss either to its unity or majesty,--subtle and flexible like a fiery
+serpent, but ever attentive to the voice of the charmer. And it is one
+of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they never suffered
+ideas of outside symmetries and consistencies to interfere with the real
+use and value of what they did. If they wanted a window, they opened
+one; a room, they added one; a buttress, they built one; utterly
+regardless of any established conventionalities of external appearance,
+knowing (as indeed it always happened) that such daring interruptions of
+the formal plan would rather give additional interest to its symmetry
+than injure it. So that, in the best times of Gothic, a useless window
+would rather have been opened in an unexpected place for the sake of the
+surprise, than a useful one forbidden for the sake of symmetry. Every
+successive architect, employed upon a great work, built the pieces he
+added in his own way, utterly regardless of the style adopted by his
+predecessors; and if two towers were raised in nominal correspondence at
+the sides of a cathedral front, one was nearly sure to be different from
+the other, and in each the style at the top to be different from the
+style at the bottom.[59]
+
+§ XXXIX. These marked variations were, however, only permitted as part
+of the great system of perpetual change which ran through every member
+of Gothic design, and rendered it as endless a field for the beholder's
+inquiry, as for the builder's imagination: change, which in the best
+schools is subtle and delicate, and rendered more delightful by
+intermingling of a noble monotony; in the more barbaric schools is
+somewhat fantastic and redundant; but, in all, a necessary and constant
+condition of the life of the school. Sometimes the variety is in one
+feature, sometimes in another; it may be in the capitals or crockets, in
+the niches or the traceries, or in all together, but in some one or
+other of the features it will be found always. If the mouldings are
+constant, the surface sculpture will change; if the capitals are of a
+fixed design, the traceries will change; if the traceries are
+monotonous, the capitals will change; and if even, as in some fine
+schools, the early English for example, there is the slightest
+approximation to an unvarying type of mouldings, capitals, and floral
+decoration, the variety is found in the disposition of the masses, and
+in the figure sculpture.
+
+§ XL. I must now refer for a moment, before we quit the consideration of
+this, the second mental element of Gothic, to the opening of the third
+chapter of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," in which the distinction
+was drawn (§ 2) between man gathering and man governing; between his
+acceptance of the sources of delight from nature, and his developement
+of authoritative or imaginative power in their arrangement: for the two
+mental elements, not only of Gothic, but of all good architecture, which
+we have just been examining, belong to it, and are admirable in it,
+chiefly as it is, more than any other subject of art, the work of man,
+and the expression of the average power of man. A picture or poem is
+often little more than a feeble utterance of man's admiration of
+something out of himself; but architecture approaches more to a creation
+of his own, born of his necessities, and expressive of his nature. It is
+also, in some sort, the work of the whole race, while the picture or
+statue are the work of one only, in most cases more highly gifted than
+his fellows. And therefore we may expect that the first two elements of
+good architecture should be expressive of some great truths commonly
+belonging to the whole race, and necessary to be understood or felt by
+them in all their work that they do under the sun. And observe what they
+are: the confession of Imperfection and the confession of Desire of
+Change. The building of the bird and the bee needs not express anything
+like this. It is perfect and unchanging. But just because we are
+something better than birds or bees, our building must confess that we
+have not reached the perfection we can imagine, and cannot rest in the
+condition we have attained. If we pretend to have reached either
+perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work.
+God's work only may express that; but ours may never have that sentence
+written upon it,--"And behold, it was very good." And, observe again,
+it is not merely as it renders the edifice a book of various knowledge,
+or a mine of precious thought, that variety is essential to its
+nobleness. The vital principle is not the love of _Knowledge_, but the
+love of _Change_. It is that strange _disquietude_ of the Gothic spirit
+that is its greatness; that restlessness of the dreaming mind, that
+wanders hither and thither among the niches, and flickers feverishly
+around the pinnacles, and frets and fades in labyrinthine knots and
+shadows along wall and roof, and yet is not satisfied, nor shall be
+satisfied. The Greek could stay in his triglyph furrow, and be at peace;
+but the work of the Gothic heart is fretwork still, and it can neither
+rest in, nor from, its labor, but must pass on, sleeplessly, until its
+love of change shall be pacified for ever in the change that must come
+alike on them that wake and them that sleep.
+
+§ XLI. The third constituent element of the Gothic mind was stated to be
+NATURALISM; that is to say, the love of natural objects for their own
+sake, and the effort to represent them frankly, unconstrained by
+artistical laws.
+
+This characteristic of the style partly follows in necessary connexion
+with those named above. For, so soon as the workman is left free to
+represent what subjects he chooses, he must look to the nature that is
+round him for material, and will endeavor to represent it as he sees it,
+with more or less accuracy according to the skill he possesses, and with
+much play of fancy, but with small respect for law. There is, however, a
+marked distinction between the imaginations of the Western and Eastern
+races, even when both are left free; the Western, or Gothic, delighting
+most in the representation of facts, and the Eastern (Arabian, Persian,
+and Chinese) in the harmony of colors and forms. Each of these
+intellectual dispositions has its particular forms of error and abuse,
+which, though I have often before stated, I must here again briefly
+explain; and this the rather, because the word Naturalism is, in one of
+its senses, justly used as a term of reproach, and the questions
+respecting the real relations of art and nature are so many and so
+confused throughout all the schools of Europe at this day, that I
+cannot clearly enunciate any single truth without appearing to admit, in
+fellowship with it, some kind of error, unless the reader will bear with
+me in entering into such an analysis of the subject as will serve us for
+general guidance.
+
+§ XLII. We are to remember, in the first place, that the arrangement of
+colors and lines is an art analogous to the composition[60] of music,
+and entirely independent of the representation of facts. Good coloring
+does not necessarily convey the image of anything but itself. It
+consists in certain proportions and arrangements of rays of light, but
+not in likenesses to anything. A few touches of certain greys and
+purples laid by a master's hand on white paper, will be good coloring;
+as more touches are added beside them, we may find out that they were
+intended to represent a dove's neck, and we may praise, as the drawing
+advances, the perfect imitation of the dove's neck. But the good
+coloring does not consist in that imitation, but in the abstract
+qualities and relations of the grey and purple.
+
+In like manner, as soon as a great sculptor begins to shape his work out
+of the block, we shall see that its lines are nobly arranged, and of
+noble character. We may not have the slightest idea for what the forms
+are intended, whether they are of man or beast, of vegetation or
+drapery. Their likeness to anything does not affect their nobleness.
+They are magnificent forms, and that is all we need care to know of
+them, in order to say whether the workman is a good or bad sculptor.
+
+§ XLIII. Now the noblest art is an exact unison of the abstract value,
+with the imitative power, of forms and colors. It is the noblest
+composition, used to express the noblest facts. But the human mind
+cannot in general unite the two perfections: it either pursues the fact
+to the neglect of the composition, or pursues the composition to the
+neglect of the fact.
+
+§ XLIV. And it is intended by the Deity that it _should_ do this; the
+best art is not always wanted. Facts are often wanted without art, as in
+a geological diagram; and art often without facts, as in a Turkey
+carpet. And most men have been made capable of giving either one or the
+other, but not both; only one or two, the very highest, can give both.
+
+Observe then. Men are universally divided, as respects their artistical
+qualifications, into three great classes; a right, a left, and a centre.
+On the right side are the men of facts, on the left the men of
+design,[61] in the centre the men of both.
+
+The three classes of course pass into each other by imperceptible
+gradations. The men of facts are hardly ever altogether without powers
+of design; the men of design are always in some measure cognizant of
+facts; and as each class possesses more or less of the powers of the
+opposite one, it approaches to the character of the central class. Few
+men, even in that central rank, are so exactly throned on the summit of
+the crest that they cannot be perceived to incline in the least one way
+or the other, embracing both horizons with their glance. Now each of
+these classes has, as I above said, a healthy function in the world, and
+correlative diseases or unhealthy functions; and, when the work of
+either of them is seen in its morbid condition, we are apt to find fault
+with the class of workmen, instead of finding fault only with the
+particular abuse which has perverted their action.
+
+§ XLV. Let us first take an instance of the healthy action of the three
+classes on a simple subject, so as fully to understand the distinction
+between them, and then we shall more easily examine the corruptions to
+which they are liable. Fig. 1 in Plate VI. is a spray of vine with a
+bough of cherry-tree, which I have outlined from nature as accurately as
+I could, without in the least endeavoring to compose or arrange the
+form. It is a simple piece of fact-work, healthy and good as such, and
+useful to any one who wanted to know plain truths about tendrils of
+vines, but there is no attempt at design in it. Plate XIX., below,
+represents a branch of vine used to decorate the angle of the Ducal
+Palace. It is faithful as a representation of vine, and yet so designed
+that every leaf serves an architectural purpose, and could not be spared
+from its place without harm. This is central work; fact and design
+together. Fig. 2 in Plate VI. is a spandril from St. Mark's, in which
+the forms of the vine are dimly suggested, the object of the design
+being merely to obtain graceful lines and well proportioned masses upon
+the gold ground. There is not the least attempt to inform the spectator
+of any facts about the growth of the vine; there are no stalks or
+tendrils,--merely running bands with leaves emergent from them, of which
+nothing but the outline is taken from the vine, and even that
+imperfectly. This is design, unregardful of facts.
+
+Now the work is, in all these three cases, perfectly healthy. Fig. 1 is
+not bad work because it has not design, nor Fig. 2 bad work because it
+has not facts. The object of the one is to give pleasure through truth,
+and of the other to give pleasure through composition. And both are
+right.
+
+What, then, are the diseased operations to which the three classes of
+workmen are liable?
+
+§ XLVI. Primarily, two; affecting the two inferior classes:
+
+1st, When either of those two classes Despises the other:
+
+2nd, When either of the two classes Envies the other; producing,
+therefore, four forms of dangerous error.
+
+First, when the men of facts despise design. This is the error of the
+common Dutch painters, of merely imitative painters of still life,
+flowers, &c., and other men who, having either the gift of accurate
+imitation or strong sympathies with nature, suppose that all is done
+when the imitation is perfected or sympathy expressed. A large body of
+English landscapists come into this class, including most clever
+sketchers from nature, who fancy that to get a sky of true tone, and a
+gleam of sunshine or sweep of shower faithfully expressed, is all that
+can be required of art. These men are generally themselves answerable
+for much of their deadness of feeling to the higher qualities of
+composition. They probably have not originally the high gifts of design,
+but they lose such powers as they originally possessed by despising, and
+refusing to study, the results of great power of design in others. Their
+knowledge, as far as it goes, being accurate, they are usually
+presumptuous and self-conceited, and gradually become incapable of
+admiring anything but what is like their own works. They see nothing in
+the works of great designers but the faults, and do harm almost
+incalculable in the European society of the present day by sneering at
+the compositions of the greatest men of the earlier ages,[62] because
+they do not absolutely tally with their own ideas of "Nature."
+
+§ XLVII. The second form of error is when the men of design despise
+facts. All noble design must deal with facts to a certain extent, for
+there is no food for it but in nature. The best colorist invents best by
+taking hints from natural colors; from birds, skies, or groups of
+figures. And if, in the delight of inventing fantastic color and form
+the truths of nature are wilfully neglected, the intellect becomes
+comparatively decrepit, and that state of art results which we find
+among the Chinese. The Greek designers delighted in the facts of the
+human form, and became great in consequence; but the facts of lower
+nature were disregarded by them, and their inferior ornament became,
+therefore, dead and valueless.
+
+§ XLVIII. The third form of error is when the men of facts envy design:
+that is to say, when, having only imitative powers, they refuse to
+employ those powers upon the visible world around them; but, having been
+taught that composition is the end of art, strive to obtain the
+inventive powers which nature has denied them, study nothing but the
+works of reputed designers, and perish in a fungous growth of plagiarism
+and laws of art.
+
+Here was the great error of the beginning of this century; it is the
+error of the meanest kind of men that employ themselves in painting, and
+it is the most fatal of all, rendering those who fall into it utterly
+useless, incapable of helping the world with either truth or fancy,
+while, in all probability, they deceive it by base resemblances of both,
+until it hardly recognizes truth or fancy when they really exist.
+
+§ XLIX. The fourth form of error is when the men of design envy facts;
+that is to say, when the temptation of closely imitating nature leads
+them to forget their own proper ornamental function, and when they lose
+the power of the composition for the sake of graphic truth; as, for
+instance, in the hawthorn moulding so often spoken of round the porch of
+Bourges Cathedral, which, though very lovely, might perhaps, as we saw
+above, have been better, if the old builder, in his excessive desire to
+make it look like hawthorn, had not painted it green.
+
+§ L. It is, however, carefully to be noted, that the two morbid
+conditions to which the men of facts are liable are much more dangerous
+and harmful than those to which the men of design are liable. The morbid
+state of men of design injures themselves only; that of the men of facts
+injures the whole world. The Chinese porcelain-painter is, indeed, not
+so great a man as he might be, but he does not want to break everything
+that is not porcelain; but the modern English fact-hunter, despising
+design, wants to destroy everything that does not agree with his own
+notions of truth, and becomes the most dangerous and despicable of
+iconoclasts, excited by egotism instead of religion. Again: the Bourges
+sculptor, painting his hawthorns green, did indeed somewhat hurt the
+effect of his own beautiful design, but did not prevent any one from
+loving hawthorn: but Sir George Beaumont, trying to make Constable paint
+grass brown _instead_ of green, was setting himself between Constable
+and nature, blinding the painter, and blaspheming the work of God.
+
+§ LI. So much, then, of the diseases of the inferior classes, caused by
+their envying or despising each other. It is evident that the men of the
+central class cannot be liable to any morbid operation of this kind,
+they possessing the powers of both.
+
+But there is another order of diseases which affect all the three
+classes, considered with respect to their pursuit of facts. For observe,
+all the three classes are in some degree pursuers of facts; even the men
+of design not being in any case altogether independent of external
+truth. Now, considering them _all_ as more or less searchers after
+truth, there is another triple division to be made of them. Everything
+presented to them in nature has good and evil mingled in it: and
+artists, considered as searchers after truth, are again to be divided
+into three great classes, a right, a left, and a centre. Those on the
+right perceive, and pursue, the good, and leave the evil: those in the
+centre, the greatest, perceive and pursue the good and evil together,
+the whole thing as it verily is: those on the left perceive and pursue
+the evil, and leave the good.
+
+§ LII. The first class, I say, take the good and leave the evil. Out of
+whatever is presented to them, they gather what it has of grace, and
+life, and light, and holiness, and leave all, or at least as much as
+possible, of the rest undrawn. The faces of their figures express no
+evil passions; the skies of their landscapes are without storm; the
+prevalent character of their color is brightness, and of their
+chiaroscuro fulness of light. The early Italian and Flemish painters,
+Angelico and Hemling, Perugino, Francia, Raffaelle in his best time,
+John Bellini, and our own Stothard, belong eminently to this class.
+
+§ LIII. The second, or greatest class, render all that they see in
+nature unhesitatingly, with a kind of divine grasp and government of the
+whole, sympathizing with all the good, and yet confessing, permitting,
+and bringing good out of the evil also. Their subject is infinite as
+nature, their color equally balanced between splendor and sadness,
+reaching occasionally the highest degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro
+equally balanced between light and shade.
+
+The principal men of this class are Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Giotto,
+Tintoret, and Turner. Raffaelle in his second time, Titian, and Rubens
+are transitional; the first inclining to the eclectic, and the last two
+to the impure class, Raffaelle rarely giving all the evil, Titian and
+Rubens rarely all the good.
+
+§ LIV. The last class perceive and imitate evil only. They cannot draw
+the trunk of a tree without blasting and shattering it, nor a sky except
+covered with stormy clouds: they delight in the beggary and brutality of
+the human race; their color is for the most part subdued or lurid, and
+the greatest spaces of their pictures are occupied by darkness.
+
+Happily the examples of this class are seldom seen in perfection.
+Salvator Rosa and Caravaggio are the most characteristic: the other men
+belonging to it approach towards the central rank by imperceptible
+gradations, as they perceive and represent more and more of good. But
+Murillo, Zurbaran, Camillo Procaccini, Rembrandt, and Teniers, all
+belong naturally to this lower class.
+
+§ LV. Now, observe: the three classes into which artists were previously
+divided, of men of fact, men of design, and men of both, are all of
+Divine institution; but of these latter three, the last is in no wise of
+Divine institution. It is entirely human, and the men who belong to it
+have sunk into it by their own faults. They are, so far forth, either
+useless or harmful men. It is indeed good that evil should be
+occasionally represented, even in its worst forms, but never that it
+should be taken delight in: and the mighty men of the central class will
+always give us all that is needful of it; sometimes, as Hogarth did,
+dwelling upon it bitterly as satirists,--but this with the more effect,
+because they will neither exaggerate it, nor represent it mercilessly,
+and without the atoning points that all evil shows to a Divinely guided
+glance, even at its deepest. So then, though the third class will
+always, I fear, in some measure exist, the two necessary classes are
+only the first two; and this is so far acknowledged by the general sense
+of men, that the basest class has been confounded with the second; and
+painters have been divided commonly only into two ranks, now known, I
+believe, throughout Europe by the names which they first received in
+Italy, "Puristi and Naturalisti." Since, however, in the existing state
+of things, the degraded or evil-loving class, though less defined than
+that of the Puristi, is just as vast as it is indistinct, this division
+has done infinite dishonor to the great faithful painters of nature: and
+it has long been one of the objects I have had most at heart to show
+that, in reality, the Purists, in their sanctity, are less separated
+from these natural painters than the Sensualists in their foulness; and
+that the difference, though less discernible, is in reality greater,
+between the man who pursues evil for its own sake, and him who bears
+with it for the sake of truth, than between this latter and the man who
+will not endure it at all.
+
+§ LVI. Let us, then, endeavor briefly to mark the real relations of
+these three vast ranks of men, whom I shall call, for convenience in
+speaking of them, Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists; not that these
+terms express their real characters, but I know no word, and cannot coin
+a convenient one, which would accurately express the opposite of Purist;
+and I keep the terms Purist and Naturalist in order to comply, as far as
+possible, with the established usage of language on the Continent. Now,
+observe: in saying that nearly everything presented to us in nature has
+mingling in it of good and evil, I do not mean that nature is
+conceivably improvable, or that anything that God has made could be
+called evil, if we could see far enough into its uses, but that, with
+respect to immediate effects or appearances, it may be so, just as the
+hard rind or bitter kernel of a fruit may be an evil to the eater,
+though in the one is the protection of the fruit, and in the other its
+continuance. The Purist, therefore, does not mend nature, but receives
+from nature and from God that which is good for him; while the
+Sensualist fills himself "with the husks that the swine did eat."
+
+The three classes may, therefore, be likened to men reaping wheat, of
+which the Purists take the fine flour, and the Sensualists the chaff and
+straw, but the Naturalists take all home, and make their cake of the
+one, and their couch of the other.
+
+§ LVII. For instance. We know more certainly every day that whatever
+appears to us harmful in the universe has some beneficent or necessary
+operation; that the storm which destroys a harvest brightens the
+sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that the volcano which buries a
+city preserves a thousand from destruction. But the evil is not for the
+time less fearful, because we have learned it to be necessary; and we
+easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which
+would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and create in
+its imagination a world of which the peace should be unbroken, in which
+the sky should not darken nor the sea rage, in which the leaf should not
+change nor the blossom wither. That man is greater, however, who
+contemplates with an equal mind the alternations of terror and of
+beauty; who, not rejoicing less beneath the sunny sky, can bear also to
+watch the bars of twilight narrowing on the horizon; and, not less
+sensible to the blessing of the peace of nature, can rejoice in the
+magnificence of the ordinances by which that peace is protected and
+secured. But separated from both by an immeasurable distance would be
+the man who delighted in convulsion and disease for their own sake; who
+found his daily food in the disorder of nature mingled with the
+suffering of humanity; and watched joyfully at the right hand of the
+Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as well as to accuse, while the
+corners of the House of feasting were struck by the wind from the
+wilderness.
+
+§ LVIII. And far more is this true, when the subject of contemplation is
+humanity itself. The passions of mankind are partly protective, partly
+beneficent, like the chaff and grain of the corn; but none without their
+use, none without nobleness when seen in balanced unity with the rest
+of the spirit which they are charged to defend. The passions of which
+the end is the continuance of the race; the indignation which is to arm
+it against injustice, or strengthen it to resist wanton injury; and the
+fear[63] which lies at the root of prudence, reverence, and awe, are all
+honorable and beautiful, so long as man is regarded in his relations to
+the existing world. The religious Purist, striving to conceive him
+withdrawn from those relations, effaces from the countenance the traces
+of all transitory passion, illumines it with holy hope and love, and
+seals it with the serenity of heavenly peace; he conceals the forms of
+the body by the deep-folded garment, or else represents them under
+severely chastened types, and would rather paint them emaciated by the
+fast, or pale from the torture, than strengthened by exertion, or
+flushed by emotion. But the great Naturalist takes the human being in
+its wholeness, in its mortal as well as its spiritual strength. Capable
+of sounding and sympathizing with the whole range of its passions, he
+brings one majestic harmony out of them all; he represents it fearlessly
+in all its acts and thoughts, in its haste, its anger, its sensuality,
+and its pride, as well as in its fortitude or faith, but makes it noble
+in them all; he casts aside the veil from the body, and beholds the
+mysteries of its form like an angel looking down on an inferior
+creature: there is nothing which he is reluctant to behold, nothing that
+he is ashamed to confess; with all that lives, triumphing, falling, or
+suffering, he claims kindred, either in majesty or in mercy, yet
+standing, in a sort, afar off, unmoved even in the deepness of his
+sympathy; for the spirit within him is too thoughtful to be grieved, too
+brave to be appalled, and too pure to be polluted.
+
+§ LIX. How far beneath these two ranks of men shall we place, in the
+scale of being, those whose pleasure is only in sin or in suffering; who
+habitually contemplate humanity in poverty or decrepitude, fury or
+sensuality; whose works are either temptations to its weakness, or
+triumphs over its ruin, and recognize no other subjects for thought or
+admiration than the subtlety of the robber, the rage of the soldier, or
+the joy of the Sybarite. It seems strange, when thus definitely stated,
+that such a school should exist. Yet consider a little what gaps and
+blanks would disfigure our gallery and chamber walls, in places that we
+have long approached with reverence, if every picture, every statue,
+were removed from them, of which the subject was either the vice or the
+misery of mankind, portrayed without any moral purpose: consider the
+innumerable groups having reference merely to various forms of passion,
+low or high; drunken revels and brawls among peasants, gambling or
+fighting scenes among soldiers, amours and intrigues among every class,
+brutal battle pieces, banditti subjects, gluts of torture and death in
+famine, wreck, or slaughter, for the sake merely of the
+excitement,--that quickening and suppling of the dull spirit that cannot
+be gained for it but by bathing it in blood, afterward to wither back
+into stained and stiffened apathy; and then that whole vast false heaven
+of sensual passion, full of nymphs, satyrs, graces, goddesses, and I
+know not what, from its high seventh circle in Correggio's Antiope, down
+to the Grecized ballet-dancers and smirking Cupids of the Parisian
+upholsterer. Sweep away all this, remorselessly, and see how much art we
+should have left.
+
+§ LX. And yet these are only the grossest manifestations of the tendency
+of the school. There are subtler, yet not less certain, signs of it in
+the works of men who stand high in the world's list of sacred painters.
+I doubt not that the reader was surprised when I named Murillo among the
+men of this third rank. Yet, go into the Dulwich Gallery, and meditate
+for a little over that much celebrated picture of the two beggar boys,
+one eating lying on the ground, the other standing beside him. We have
+among our own painters one who cannot indeed be set beside Murillo as a
+painter of Madonnas, for he is a pure Naturalist, and, never having seen
+a Madonna, does not paint any; but who, as a painter of beggar or
+peasant boys, may be set beside Murillo, or any one else,--W. Hunt. He
+loves peasant boys, because he finds them more roughly and picturesquely
+dressed, and more healthily colored, than others. And he paints all
+that he sees in them fearlessly; all the health and humor, and
+freshness, and vitality, together with such awkwardness and stupidity,
+and what else of negative or positive harm there may be in the creature;
+but yet so that on the whole we love it, and find it perhaps even
+beautiful, or if not, at least we see that there is capability of good
+in it, rather than of evil; and all is lighted up by a sunshine and
+sweet color that makes the smock-frock as precious as cloth of gold. But
+look at those two ragged and vicious vagrants that Murillo has gathered
+out of the street. You smile at first, because they are eating so
+naturally, and their roguery is so complete. But is there anything else
+than roguery there, or was it well for the painter to give his time to
+the painting of those repulsive and wicked children? Do you feel moved
+with any charity towards children as you look at them? Are we the least
+more likely to take any interest in ragged schools, or to help the next
+pauper child that comes in our way, because the painter has shown us a
+cunning beggar feeding greedily? Mark the choice of the act. He might
+have shown hunger in other ways, and given interest to even this act of
+eating, by making the face wasted, or the eye wistful. But he did not
+care to do this. He delighted merely in the disgusting manner of eating,
+the food filling the cheek; the boy is not hungry, else he would not
+turn round to talk and grin as he eats.
+
+§ LXI. But observe another point in the lower figure. It lies so that
+the sole of the foot is turned towards the spectator; not because it
+would have lain less easily in another attitude, but that the painter
+may draw, and exhibit, the grey dust engrained in the foot. Do not call
+this the painting of nature: it is mere delight in foulness. The lesson,
+if there be any, in the picture, is not one whit the stronger. We all
+know that a beggar's bare foot cannot be clean; there is no need to
+thrust its degradation into the light, as if no human imagination were
+vigorous enough for its conception.
+
+§ LXII. The position of the Sensualists, in treatment of landscape, is
+less distinctly marked than in that of the figure: because even the
+wildest passions of nature are noble: but the inclination is manifested
+by carelessness in marking generic form in trees and flowers: by their
+preferring confused and irregular arrangements of foliage or foreground
+to symmetrical and simple grouping; by their general choice of such
+picturesqueness as results from decay, disorder, and disease, rather
+than of that which is consistent with the perfection of the things in
+which it is found; and by their imperfect rendering of the elements of
+strength and beauty in all things. I propose to work out this subject
+fully in the last volume of "Modern Painters;" but I trust that enough
+has been here said to enable the reader to understand the relations of
+the three great classes of artists, and therefore also the kinds of
+morbid condition into which the two higher (for the last has no other
+than a morbid condition) are liable to fall. For, since the function of
+the Naturalists is to represent, as far as may be, the whole of nature,
+and the Purists to represent what is absolutely good for some special
+purpose or time, it is evident that both are liable to error from
+shortness of sight, and the last also from weakness of judgment. I say,
+in the first place, both may err from shortness of sight, from not
+seeing all that there is in nature; seeing only the outsides of things,
+or those points of them which bear least on the matter in hand. For
+instance, a modern continental Naturalist sees the anatomy of a limb
+thoroughly, but does not see its color against the sky, which latter
+fact is to a painter far the more important of the two. And because it
+is always easier to see the surface than the depth of things, the full
+sight of them requiring the highest powers of penetration, sympathy, and
+imagination, the world is full of vulgar Naturalists: not Sensualists,
+observe, not men who delight in evil; but men who never see the deepest
+good, and who bring discredit on all painting of Nature by the little
+that they discover in her. And the Purist, besides being liable to this
+same shortsightedness, is liable also to fatal errors of judgment; for
+he may think that good which is not so, and that the highest good which
+is the least. And thus the world is full of vulgar Purists,[64] who
+bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and
+this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative
+of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or
+narrowness of understanding of the ends of things: the greatest men
+being, in all times of art, Naturalists, without any exception; and the
+greatest Purists being those who approach nearest to the Naturalists, as
+Benozzo Gozzoli and Perugino. Hence there is a tendency in the
+Naturalists to despise the Purists, and in the Purists to be offended
+with the Naturalists (not understanding them, and confounding them with
+the Sensualists); and this is grievously harmful to both.
+
+§ LXIII. Of the various forms of resultant mischief it is not here the
+place to speak: the reader may already be somewhat wearied with a
+statement which has led us apparently so far from our immediate subject.
+But the digression was necessary, in order that I might clearly define
+the sense in which I use the word Naturalism when I state it to be the
+third most essential characteristic of Gothic architecture. I mean that
+the Gothic builders belong to the central or greatest rank in _both_ the
+classifications of artists which we have just made; that, considering
+all artists as either men of design, men of facts, or men of both, the
+Gothic builders were men of both; and that again, considering all
+artists as either Purists, Naturalists, or Sensualists, the Gothic
+builders were Naturalists.
+
+§ LXIV. I say first, that the Gothic builders were of that central class
+which unites fact with design; but that the part of the work which was
+more especially their own was the truthfulness. Their power of
+artistical invention or arrangement was not greater than that of
+Romanesque and Byzantine workmen: by those workmen they were taught the
+principles, and from them received their models, of design; but to the
+ornamental feeling and rich fancy of the Byzantine the Gothic builder
+added a love of _fact_ which is never found in the South. Both Greek and
+Roman used conventional foliage in their ornament, passing into
+something that was not foliage at all, knotting itself into strange
+cup-like buds or clusters, and growing out of lifeless rods instead of
+stems; the Gothic sculptor received these types, at first, as things
+that ought to be, just as we have a second time received them; but he
+could not rest in them. He saw there was no veracity in them, no
+knowledge, no vitality. Do what he would, he could not help liking the
+true leaves better; and cautiously, a little at a time, he put more of
+nature into his work, until at last it was all true, retaining,
+nevertheless, every valuable character of the original well-disciplined
+and designed arrangement.[65]
+
+§ LXV. Nor is it only in external and visible subject that the Gothic
+workman wrought for truth: he is as firm in his rendering of imaginative
+as of actual truth; that is to say, when an idea would have been by a
+Roman, or Byzantine, symbolically represented, the Gothic mind realizes
+it to the utmost. For instance, the purgatorial fire is represented in
+the mosaic of Torcello (Romanesque) as a red stream, longitudinally
+striped like a riband, descending out of the throne of Christ, and
+gradually extending itself to envelope the wicked. When we are once
+informed what this means, it is enough for its purpose; but the Gothic
+inventor does not leave the sign in need of interpretation. He makes the
+fire as like real fire as he can; and in the porch of St. Maclou at
+Rouen the sculptured flames burst out of the Hades gate, and flicker up,
+in writhing tongues of stone, through the interstices of the niches, as
+if the church itself were on fire. This is an extreme instance, but it
+is all the more illustrative of the entire difference in temper and
+thought between the two schools of art, and of the intense love of
+veracity which influenced the Gothic design.
+
+§ LXVI. I do not say that this love of veracity is always healthy in its
+operation. I have above noticed the errors into which it falls from
+despising design; and there is another kind of error noticeable in the
+instance just given, in which the love of truth is too hasty, and seizes
+on a surface truth instead of an inner one. For in representing the
+Hades fire, it is not the mere _form_ of the flame which needs most to
+be told, but its unquenchableness, its Divine ordainment and limitation,
+and its inner fierceness, not physical and material, but in being the
+expression of the wrath of God. And these things are not to be told by
+imitating the fire that flashes out of a bundle of sticks. If we think
+over his symbol a little, we shall perhaps find that the Romanesque
+builder told more truth in that likeness of a blood-red stream, flowing
+between definite shores and out of God's throne, and expanding, as if
+fed by a perpetual current, into the lake wherein the wicked are cast,
+than the Gothic builder in those torch-flickerings about his niches. But
+this is not to our immediate purpose; I am not at present to insist upon
+the faults into which the love of truth was led in the later Gothic
+times, but on the feeling itself, as a glorious and peculiar
+characteristic of the Northern builders. For, observe, it is not, even
+in the above instance, love of truth, but want of thought, which
+_causes_ the fault. The love of truth, as such, is good, but when it is
+misdirected by thoughtlessness or over-excited by vanity, and either
+seizes on facts of small value, or gathers them chiefly that it may
+boast of its grasp and apprehension, its work may well become dull or
+offensive. Yet let us not, therefore, blame the inherent love of facts,
+but the incautiousness of their selection, and impertinence of their
+statement.
+
+§ LXVII. I said, in the second place, that Gothic work, when referred to
+the arrangement of all art, as purist, naturalist, or sensualist, was
+naturalist. This character follows necessarily on its extreme love of
+truth, prevailing over the sense of beauty, and causing it to take
+delight in portraiture of every kind, and to express the various
+characters of the human countenance and form, as it did the varieties of
+leaves and the ruggedness of branches. And this tendency is both
+increased and ennobled by the same Christian humility which we saw
+expressed in the first character of Gothic work, its rudeness. For as
+that resulted from a humility which confessed the imperfection of the
+_workman_, so this naturalist portraiture is rendered more faithful by
+the humility which confesses the imperfection of the _subject_. The
+Greek sculptor could neither bear to confess his own feebleness, nor to
+tell the faults of the forms that he portrayed. But the Christian
+workman, believing that all is finally to work together for good, freely
+confesses both, and neither seeks to disguise his own roughness of work,
+nor his subject's roughness of make. Yet this frankness being joined,
+for the most part, with depth of religious feeling in other directions,
+and especially with charity, there is sometimes a tendency to Purism in
+the best Gothic sculpture; so that it frequently reaches great dignity
+of form and tenderness of expression, yet never so as to lose the
+veracity of portraiture, wherever portraiture is possible: not exalting
+its kings into demi-gods, nor its saints into archangels, but giving
+what kingliness and sanctity was in them, to the full, mixed with due
+record of their faults; and this in the most part with a great
+indifference like that of Scripture history, which sets down, with
+unmoved and unexcusing resoluteness, the virtues and errors of all men
+of whom it speaks, often leaving the reader to form his own estimate of
+them, without an indication of the judgment of the historian. And this
+veracity is carried out by the Gothic sculptors in the minuteness and
+generality, as well as the equity, of their delineation: for they do not
+limit their art to the portraiture of saints and kings, but introduce
+the most familiar scenes and most simple subjects; filling up the
+backgrounds of Scripture histories with vivid and curious
+representations of the commonest incidents of daily life, and availing
+themselves of every occasion in which, either as a symbol, or an
+explanation of a scene or time, the things familiar to the eye of the
+workman could be introduced and made of account. Hence Gothic sculpture
+and painting are not only full of valuable portraiture of the greatest
+men, but copious records of all the domestic customs and inferior arts
+of the ages in which it flourished.[66]
+
+§ LXVIII. There is, however, one direction in which the Naturalism of
+the Gothic workmen is peculiarly manifested; and this direction is even
+more characteristic of the school than the Naturalism itself; I mean
+their peculiar fondness for the forms of Vegetation. In rendering the
+various circumstances of daily life, Egyptian and Ninevite sculpture is
+as frank and as diffuse as the Gothic. From the highest pomps of state
+or triumphs of battle, to the most trivial domestic arts and amusements,
+all is taken advantage of to fill the field of granite with the
+perpetual interest of a crowded drama; and the early Lombardic and
+Romanesque sculpture is equally copious in its description of the
+familiar circumstances of war and the chase. But in all the scenes
+portrayed by the workmen of these nations, vegetation occurs only as an
+explanatory accessory; the reed is introduced to mark the course of the
+river, or the tree to mark the covert of the wild beast, or the ambush
+of the enemy, but there is no especial interest in the forms of the
+vegetation strong enough to induce them to make it a subject of separate
+and accurate study. Again, among the nations who followed the arts of
+design exclusively, the forms of foliage introduced were meagre and
+general, and their real intricacy and life were neither admired nor
+expressed. But to the Gothic workman the living foliage became a subject
+of intense affection, and he struggled to render all its characters with
+as much accuracy as was compatible with the laws of his design and the
+nature of his material, not unfrequently tempted in his enthusiasm to
+transgress the one and disguise the other.
+
+§ LXIX. There is a peculiar significancy in this, indicative both of
+higher civilization and gentler temperament, than had before been
+manifested in architecture. Rudeness, and the love of change, which we
+have insisted upon as the first elements of Gothic, are also elements
+common to all healthy schools. But here is a softer element mingled with
+them, peculiar to the Gothic itself. The rudeness or ignorance which
+would have been painfully exposed in the treatment of the human form,
+are still not so great as to prevent the successful rendering of the
+wayside herbage; and the love of change, which becomes morbid and
+feverish in following the haste of the hunter, and the rage of the
+combatant, is at once soothed and satisfied as it watches the wandering
+of the tendril, and the budding of the flower. Nor is this all: the new
+direction of mental interest marks an infinite change in the means and
+the habits of life. The nations whose chief support was in the chase,
+whose chief interest was in the battle, whose chief pleasure was in the
+banquet, would take small care respecting the shapes of leaves and
+flowers; and notice little in the forms of the forest trees which
+sheltered them, except the signs indicative of the wood which would make
+the toughest lance, the closest roof, or the clearest fire. The
+affectionate observation of the grace and outward character of
+vegetation is the sure sign of a more tranquil and gentle existence,
+sustained by the gifts, and gladdened by the splendor, of the earth. In
+that careful distinction of species, and richness of delicate and
+undisturbed organization, which characterize the Gothic design, there is
+the history of rural and thoughtful life, influenced by habitual
+tenderness, and devoted to subtle inquiry; and every discriminating and
+delicate touch of the chisel, as it rounds the petal or guides the
+branch, is a prophecy of the developement of the entire body of the
+natural sciences, beginning with that of medicine, of the recovery of
+literature, and the establishment of the most necessary principles of
+domestic wisdom and national peace.
+
+§ LXX. I have before alluded to the strange and vain supposition, that
+the original conception of Gothic architecture had been derived from
+vegetation,--from the symmetry of avenues, and the interlacing of
+branches. It is a supposition which never could have existed for a
+moment in the mind of any person acquainted with early Gothic; but,
+however idle as a theory, it is most valuable as a testimony to the
+character of the perfected style. It is precisely because the reverse of
+this theory is the fact, because the Gothic did not arise out of, but
+develope itself into, a resemblance to vegetation, that this resemblance
+is so instructive as an indication of the temper of the builders. It was
+no chance suggestion of the form of an arch from the bending of a bough,
+but a gradual and continual discovery of a beauty in natural forms which
+could be more and more perfectly transferred into those of stone, that
+influenced at once the heart of the people, and the form of the edifice.
+The Gothic architecture arose in massy and mountainous strength,
+axe-hewn, and iron-bound, block heaved upon block by the monk's
+enthusiasm and the soldier's force; and cramped and stanchioned into
+such weight of grisly wall, as might bury the anchoret in darkness, and
+beat back the utmost storm of battle, suffering but by the same narrow
+crosslet the passing of the sunbeam, or of the arrow. Gradually, as that
+monkish enthusiasm became more thoughtful, and as the sound of war
+became more and more intermittent beyond the gates of the convent or the
+keep, the stony pillar grew slender and the vaulted roof grew light,
+till they had wreathed themselves into the semblance of the summer woods
+at their fairest, and of the dead field-flowers, long trodden down in
+blood, sweet monumental statues were set to bloom for ever, beneath the
+porch of the temple, or the canopy of the tomb.
+
+§ LXXI. Nor is it only as a sign of greater gentleness or refinement of
+mind, but as a proof of the best possible direction of this refinement,
+that the tendency of the Gothic to the expression of vegetative life is
+to be admired. That sentence of Genesis, "I have given thee every green
+herb for meat," like all the rest of the book, has a profound symbolical
+as well as a literal meaning. It is not merely the nourishment of the
+body, but the food of the soul, that is intended. The green herb is, of
+all nature, that which is most essential to the healthy spiritual life
+of man. Most of us do not need fine scenery; the precipice and the
+mountain peak are not intended to be seen by all men,--perhaps their
+power is greatest over those who are unaccustomed to them. But trees,
+and fields, and flowers were made for all, and are necessary for all.
+God has connected the labor which is essential to the bodily sustenance,
+with the pleasures which are healthiest for the heart; and while He made
+the ground stubborn, He made its herbage fragrant, and its blossoms
+fair. The proudest architecture that man can build has no higher honor
+than to bear the image and recall the memory of that grass of the field
+which is, at once, the type and the support of his existence; the goodly
+building is then most glorious when it is sculptured into the likeness
+of the leaves of Paradise; and the great Gothic spirit, as we showed it
+to be noble in its disquietude, is also noble in its hold of nature; it
+is, indeed, like the dove of Noah, in that she found no rest upon the
+face of the waters,--but like her in this also, "LO, IN HER MOUTH WAS AN
+OLIVE BRANCH, PLUCKED OFF."
+
+§ LXXII. The fourth essential element of the Gothic mind was above
+stated to be the sense of the GROTESQUE; but I shall defer the endeavor
+to define this most curious and subtle character until we have occasion
+to examine one of the divisions of the Renaissance schools, which was
+morbidly influenced by it (Vol. III. Chap. III.). It is the less
+necessary to insist upon it here, because every reader familiar with
+Gothic architecture must understand what I mean, and will, I believe,
+have no hesitation in admitting that the tendency to delight in
+fantastic and ludicrous, as well as in sublime, images, is a universal
+instinct of the Gothic imagination.
+
+§ LXXIII. The fifth element above named was RIGIDITY; and this character
+I must endeavor carefully to define, for neither the word I have used,
+nor any other that I can think of, will express it accurately. For I
+mean, not merely stable, but _active_ rigidity; the peculiar energy
+which gives tension to movement, and stiffness to resistance, which
+makes the fiercest lightning forked rather than curved, and the stoutest
+oak-branch angular rather than bending, and is as much seen in the
+quivering of the lance as in the glittering of the icicle.
+
+§ LXXIV. I have before had occasion (Vol. I. Chap. XIII. § VII.) to note
+some manifestations of this energy or fixedness; but it must be still
+more attentively considered here, as it shows itself throughout the
+whole structure and decoration of Gothic work. Egyptian and Greek
+buildings stand, for the most part, by their own weight and mass, one
+stone passively incumbent on another: but in the Gothic vaults and
+traceries there is a stiffness analogous to that of the bones of a limb,
+or fibres of a tree; an elastic tension and communication of force from
+part to part, and also a studious expression of this throughout every
+visible line of the building. And, in like manner, the Greek and
+Egyptian ornament is either mere surface engraving, as if the face of
+the wall had been stamped with a seal, or its lines are flowing, lithe,
+and luxuriant; in either case, there is no expression of energy in
+framework of the ornament itself. But the Gothic ornament stands out in
+prickly independence, and frosty fortitude, jutting into crockets, and
+freezing into pinnacles; here starting up into a monster, there
+germinating into a blossom; anon knitting itself into a branch,
+alternately thorny, bossy, and bristly, or writhed into every form of
+nervous entanglement; but, even when most graceful, never for an instant
+languid, always quickset; erring, if at all, ever on the side of
+brusquerie.
+
+§ LXXV. The feelings or habits in the workman which give rise to this
+character in the work, are more complicated and various than those
+indicated by any other sculptural expression hitherto named. There is,
+first, the habit of hard and rapid working; the industry of the tribes
+of the North, quickened by the coldness of the climate, and giving an
+expression of sharp energy to all they do (as above noted, Vol. I. Chap.
+XIII. § VII.), as opposed to the languor of the Southern tribes, however
+much of fire there may be in the heart of that languor, for lava itself
+may flow languidly. There is also the habit of finding enjoyment in the
+signs of cold, which is never found, I believe, in the inhabitants of
+countries south of the Alps. Cold is to them an unredeemed evil, to be
+suffered, and forgotten as soon as may be; but the long winter of the
+North forces the Goth (I mean the Englishman, Frenchman, Dane, or
+German), if he would lead a happy life at all, to find sources of
+happiness in foul weather as well as fair, and to rejoice in the
+leafless as well as in the shady forest. And this we do with all our
+hearts; finding perhaps nearly as much contentment by the Christmas fire
+as in the summer sunshine, and gaining health and strength on the
+ice-fields of winter, as well as among the meadows of spring. So that
+there is nothing adverse or painful to our feelings in the cramped and
+stiffened structure of vegetation checked by cold; and instead of
+seeking, like the Southern sculptor, to express only the softness of
+leafage nourished in all tenderness, and tempted into all luxuriance by
+warm winds and glowing rays, we find pleasure in dwelling upon the
+crabbed, perverse, and morose animation of plants that have known little
+kindness from earth or heaven, but, season after season, have had their
+best efforts palsied by frost, their brightest buds buried under snow,
+and their goodliest limbs lopped by tempest.
+
+§ LXXVI. There are many subtle sympathies and affections which join to
+confirm the Gothic mind in this peculiar choice of subject; and when we
+add to the influence of these, the necessities consequent upon the
+employment of a rougher material, compelling the workman to seek for
+vigor of effect, rather than refinement of texture or accuracy of form,
+we have direct and manifest causes for much of the difference between
+the northern and southern cast of conception: but there are indirect
+causes holding a far more important place in the Gothic heart, though
+less immediate in their influence on design. Strength of will,
+independence of character, resoluteness of purpose, impatience of undue
+control, and that general tendency to set the individual reason against
+authority, and the individual deed against destiny, which, in the
+Northern tribes, has opposed itself throughout all ages to the languid
+submission, in the Southern, of thought to tradition, and purpose to
+fatality, are all more or less traceable in the rigid lines, vigorous
+and various masses, and daringly projecting and independent structure of
+the Northern Gothic ornament: while the opposite feelings are in like
+manner legible in the graceful and softly guided waves and wreathed
+bands, in which Southern decoration is constantly disposed; in its
+tendency to lose its independence, and fuse itself into the surface of
+the masses upon which it is traced; and in the expression seen so often,
+in the arrangement of those masses themselves, of an abandonment of
+their strength to an inevitable necessity, or a listless repose.
+
+§ LXXVII. There is virtue in the measure, and error in the excess, of
+both these characters of mind, and in both of the styles which they have
+created; the best architecture, and the best temper, are those which
+unite them both; and this fifth impulse of the Gothic heart is therefore
+that which needs most caution in its indulgence. It is more definitely
+Gothic than any other, but the best Gothic building is not that which is
+_most_ Gothic: it can hardly be too frank in its confession of rudeness,
+hardly too rich in its changefulness, hardly too faithful in its
+naturalism; but it may go too far in its rigidity, and, like the great
+Puritan spirit in its extreme, lose itself either in frivolity of
+division, or perversity of purpose.[67] It actually did so in its later
+times; but it is gladdening to remember that in its utmost nobleness,
+the very temper which has been thought most adverse to it, the
+Protestant spirit of self-dependence and inquiry, was expressed in its
+every line. Faith and aspiration there were, in every Christian
+ecclesiastical building, from the first century to the fifteenth; but
+the moral habits to which England in this age owes the kind of greatness
+that she has,--the habits of philosophical investigation, of accurate
+thought, of domestic seclusion and independence, of stern self-reliance,
+and sincere upright searching into religious truth,--were only traceable
+in the features which were the distinctive creation of the Gothic
+schools, in the veined foliage, and thorny fretwork, and shadowy niche,
+and buttressed pier, and fearless height of subtle pinnacle and crested
+tower, sent like an "unperplexed question up to Heaven."[68]
+
+§ LXXVIII. Last, because the least essential, of the constituent
+elements of this noble school, was placed that of REDUNDANCE,--the
+uncalculating bestowal of the wealth of its labor. There is, indeed,
+much Gothic, and that of the best period, in which this element is
+hardly traceable, and which depends for its effect almost exclusively on
+loveliness of simple design and grace of uninvolved proportion: still,
+in the most characteristic buildings, a certain portion of their effect
+depends upon accumulation of ornament; and many of those which have most
+influence on the minds of men, have attained it by means of this
+attribute alone. And although, by careful study of the school, it is
+possible to arrive at a condition of taste which shall be better
+contented by a few perfect lines than by a whole façade covered with
+fretwork, the building which only satisfies such a taste is not to be
+considered the best. For the very first requirement of Gothic
+architecture being, as we saw above, that it shall both admit the aid,
+and appeal to the admiration, of the rudest as well as the most refined
+minds, the richness of the work is, paradoxical as the statement may
+appear, a part of its humility. No architecture is so haughty as that
+which is simple; which refuses to address the eye, except in a few clear
+and forceful lines; which implies, in offering so little to our regards,
+that all it has offered is perfect; and disdains, either by the
+complexity or the attractiveness of its features, to embarrass our
+investigation, or betray us into delight. That humility, which is the
+very life of the Gothic school, is shown not only in the imperfection,
+but in the accumulation, of ornament. The inferior rank of the workman
+is often shown as much in the richness, as the roughness, of his work;
+and if the co-operation of every hand, and the sympathy of every heart,
+are to be received, we must be content to allow the redundance which
+disguises the failure of the feeble, and wins the regard of the
+inattentive. There are, however, far nobler interests mingling, in the
+Gothic heart, with the rude love of decorative accumulation: a
+magnificent enthusiasm, which feels as if it never could do enough to
+reach the fulness of its ideal; an unselfishness of sacrifice, which
+would rather cast fruitless labor before the altar than stand idle in
+the market; and, finally, a profound sympathy with the fulness and
+wealth of the material universe, rising out of that Naturalism whose
+operation we have already endeavored to define. The sculptor who sought
+for his models among the forest leaves, could not but quickly and deeply
+feel that complexity need not involve the loss of grace, nor richness
+that of repose; and every hour which he spent in the study of the minute
+and various work of Nature, made him feel more forcibly the barrenness
+of what was best in that of man: nor is it to be wondered at, that,
+seeing her perfect and exquisite creations poured forth in a profusion
+which conception could not grasp nor calculation sum, he should think
+that it ill became him to be niggardly of his own rude craftsmanship;
+and where he saw throughout the universe a faultless beauty lavished on
+measureless spaces of broidered field and blooming mountain, to grudge
+his poor and imperfect labor to the few stones that he had raised one
+upon another, for habitation or memorial. The years of his life passed
+away before his task was accomplished; but generation succeeded
+generation with unwearied enthusiasm, and the cathedral front was at
+last lost in the tapestry of its traceries, like a rock among the
+thickets and herbage of spring.
+
+§ LXXIX. We have now, I believe, obtained a view approaching to
+completeness of the various moral or imaginative elements which composed
+the inner spirit of Gothic architecture. We have, in the second place,
+to define its outward form.
+
+Now, as the Gothic spirit is made up of several elements, some of which
+may, in particular examples, be wanting, so the Gothic form is made up
+of minor conditions of form, some of which may, in particular examples,
+be imperfectly developed.
+
+We cannot say, therefore, that a building is either Gothic or not Gothic
+in form, any more than we can in spirit. We can only say that it is more
+or less Gothic, in proportion to the number of Gothic forms which it
+unites.
+
+§ LXXX. There have been made lately many subtle and ingenious endeavors
+to base the definition of Gothic form entirely upon the roof-vaulting;
+endeavors which are both forced and futile: for many of the best Gothic
+buildings in the world have roofs of timber, which have no more
+connexion with the main structure of the walls of the edifice than a hat
+has with that of the head it protects; and other Gothic buildings are
+merely enclosures of spaces, as ramparts and walls, or enclosures of
+gardens or cloisters, and have no roofs at all, in the sense in which
+the word "roof" is commonly accepted. But every reader who has ever
+taken the slightest interest in architecture must know that there is a
+great popular impression on this matter, which maintains itself stiffly
+in its old form, in spite of all ratiocination and definition; namely,
+that a flat lintel from pillar to pillar is Grecian, a round arch Norman
+or Romanesque, and a pointed arch Gothic.
+
+And the old popular notion, as far as it goes, is perfectly right, and
+can never be bettered. The most striking outward feature in all Gothic
+architecture is, that it is composed of pointed arches, as in Romanesque
+that it is in like manner composed of round; and this distinction would
+be quite as clear, though the roofs were taken off every cathedral in
+Europe. And yet, if we examine carefully into the real force and meaning
+of the term "roof" we shall perhaps be able to retain the old popular
+idea in a definition of Gothic architecture which shall also express
+whatever dependence that architecture has upon true forms of roofing.
+
+§ LXXXI. In Chap. XIII. of the first volume, the reader will remember
+that roofs were considered as generally divided into two parts; the roof
+proper, that is to say, the shell, vault, or ceiling, internally
+visible; and the roof-mask, which protects this lower roof from the
+weather. In some buildings these parts are united in one framework; but,
+in most, they are more or less independent of each other, and in nearly
+all Gothic buildings there is considerable interval between them.
+
+Now it will often happen, as above noticed, that owing to the nature of
+the apartments required, or the materials at hand, the roof proper may
+be flat, coved, or domed, in buildings which in their walls employ
+pointed arches, and are, in the straitest sense of the word, Gothic in
+all other respects. Yet so far forth as the roofing alone is concerned,
+they are not Gothic unless the pointed arch be the principal form
+adopted either in the stone vaulting or the timbers of the roof proper.
+
+I shall say then, in the first place, that "Gothic architecture is that
+which uses, if possible, the pointed arch in the roof proper." This is
+the first step in our definition.
+
+§ LXXXII. Secondly. Although there may be many advisable or necessary
+forms for the lower roof or ceiling, there is, in cold countries exposed
+to rain and snow, only one advisable form for the roof-mask, and that is
+the gable, for this alone will throw off both rain and snow from all
+parts of its surface as speedily as possible. Snow can lodge on the top
+of a dome, not on the ridge of a gable. And thus, as far as roofing is
+concerned, the gable is a far more essential feature of Northern
+architecture than the pointed vault, for the one is a thorough
+necessity, the other often a graceful conventionality: the gable occurs
+in the timber roof of every dwelling-house and every cottage, but not
+the vault; and the gable built on a polygonal or circular plan, is the
+origin of the turret and spire;[69] and all the so-called aspiration of
+Gothic architecture is, as above noticed (Vol. I. Chap. XII. § VI.),
+nothing more than its developement. So that we must add to our
+definition another clause, which will be, at present, by far the most
+important, and it will stand thus: "Gothic architecture is that which
+uses the pointed arch for the roof proper, and the gable for the
+roof-mask."
+
+§ LXXXIII. And here, in passing, let us notice a principle as true in
+architecture as in morals. It is not the _compelled_, but the _wilful_,
+transgression of law which corrupts the character. Sin is not in the
+act, but in the choice. It is a law for Gothic architecture, that it
+shall use the pointed arch for its roof proper; but because, in many
+cases of domestic building, this becomes impossible for want of room
+(the whole height of the apartment being required everywhere), or in
+various other ways inconvenient, flat ceilings may be used, and yet the
+Gothic shall not lose its purity. But in the roof-mask, there can be no
+necessity nor reason for a change of form: the gable is the best; and if
+any other--dome, or bulging crown, or whatsoever else--be employed at
+all, it must be in pure caprice, and wilful transgression of law. And
+wherever, therefore, this is done, the Gothic has lost its character; it
+is pure Gothic no more.
+
+§ LXXXIV. And this last clause of the definition is to be more strongly
+insisted upon, because it includes multitudes of buildings, especially
+domestic, which are Gothic in spirit, but which we are not in the habit
+of embracing in our general conception of Gothic architecture;
+multitudes of street dwelling-houses and straggling country farm-houses,
+built with little care for beauty, or observance of Gothic laws in
+vaults or windows, and yet maintaining their character by the sharp and
+quaint gables of the roofs. And, for the reason just given, a house is
+far more Gothic which has square windows, and a boldly gabled roof, than
+the one which has pointed arches for the windows, and a domed or flat
+roof. For it often happened in the best Gothic times, as it must in all
+times, that it was more easy and convenient to make a window square than
+pointed; not but that, as above emphatically stated, the richness of
+church architecture was also found in domestic; and systematically "when
+the pointed arch was used in the church it was used in the street," only
+in all times there were cases in which men could not build as they
+would, and were obliged to construct their doors or windows in the
+readiest way; and this readiest way was then, in small work, as it will
+be to the end of time, to put a flat stone for a lintel and build the
+windows as in Fig. VIII.; and the occurrence of such windows in a
+building or a street will not un-Gothicize them, so long as the bold
+gable roof be retained, and the spirit of the work be visibly Gothic in
+other respects. But if the roof be wilfully and conspicuously of any
+other form than the gable,--if it be domed, or Turkish, or Chinese,--the
+building has positive corruption mingled with its Gothic elements, in
+proportion to the conspicuousness of the roof; and, if not absolutely
+un-Gothicized, can maintain its character only by such vigor of vital
+Gothic energy in other parts as shall cause the roof to be forgotten,
+thrown off like an eschar from the living frame. Nevertheless, we must
+always admit that it _may_ be forgotten, and that if the Gothic seal be
+indeed set firmly on the walls, we are not to cavil at the forms
+reserved for the tiles and leads. For, observe, as our definition at
+present stands, being understood of large roofs only, it will allow a
+conical glass-furnace to be a Gothic building, but will _not_ allow so
+much, either of the Duomo of Florence, or the Baptistery of Pisa. We
+must either mend it, therefore, or understand it in some broader sense.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. VIII.]
+
+§ LXXXV. And now, if the reader will look back to the fifth paragraph of
+Chap. III. Vol. I., he will find that I carefully extended my definition
+of a roof so as to include more than is usually understood by the term.
+It was there said to be the covering of a space, _narrow or wide_. It
+does not in the least signify, with respect to the real nature of the
+covering, whether the space protected be two feet wide, or ten; though
+in the one case we call the protection an arch, in the other a vault or
+roof. But the real point to be considered is, the manner in which this
+protection stands, and not whether it is narrow or broad. We call the
+vaulting of a bridge "an arch," because it is narrow with respect to the
+river it crosses; but if it were built above us on the ground, we should
+call it a waggon vault, because then we should feel the breadth of it.
+The real question is the nature of the curve, not the extent of space
+over which it is carried: and this is more the case with respect to
+Gothic than to any other architecture; for, in the greater number of
+instances, the form of the roof is entirely dependent on the ribs; the
+domical shells being constructed in all kinds of inclinations, quite
+undeterminable by the eye, and all that is definite in their character
+being fixed by the curves of the ribs.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. IX.]
+
+§ LXXXVI. Let us then consider our definition as including the narrowest
+arch, or tracery bar, as well as the broadest roof, and it will be
+nearly a perfect one. For the fact is, that all good Gothic is nothing
+more than the developement, in various ways, and on every conceivable
+scale, of the group formed by the _pointed arch for the bearing line_
+below, and _the gable for the protecting line_ above; and from the huge,
+gray, shaly slope of the cathedral roof, with its elastic pointed vaults
+beneath, to the slight crown-like points that enrich the smallest niche
+of its doorway, one law and one expression will be found in all. The
+modes of support and of decoration are infinitely various, but the real
+character of the building, in all good Gothic, depends upon the single
+lines of the gable over the pointed arch, Fig. IX., endlessly rearranged
+or repeated. The larger woodcut, Fig. X., represents three
+characteristic conditions of the treatment of the group: _a_, from a
+tomb at Verona (1328); _b_, one of the lateral porches at Abbeville;
+_c_, one of the uppermost points of the great western façade of Rouen
+Cathedral; both these last being, I believe, early work of the fifteenth
+century. The forms of the pure early English and French Gothic are too
+well known to need any notice; my reason will appear presently for
+choosing, by way of example, these somewhat rare conditions.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. X.]
+
+§ LXXXVII. But, first, let us try whether we cannot get the forms of the
+other great architectures of the world broadly expressed by relations of
+the same lines into which we have compressed the Gothic. We may easily
+do this if the reader will first allow me to remind him of the true
+nature of the pointed arch, as it was expressed in § X. Chap. X. of the
+first volume. It was said there, that it ought to be called a "curved
+gable," for, strictly speaking, an "arch" cannot be "pointed." The
+so-called pointed arch ought always to be considered as a gable, with
+its sides curved in order to enable them to bear pressure from without.
+Thus considering it, there are but three ways in which an interval
+between piers can be bridged,--the three ways represented by A, B, and
+C, Fig. XI.,[70] on page 213,--A, the lintel; B, the round arch; C, the
+gable. All the architects in the world will never discover any other
+ways of bridging a space than these three; they may vary the curve of
+the arch, or curve the sides of the gable, or break them; but in doing
+this they are merely modifying or subdividing, not adding to the generic
+forms.
+
+§ LXXXVIII. Now there are three good architectures in the world, and
+there never can be more, correspondent to each of these three simple
+ways of covering in a space, which is the original function of all
+architectures. And those three architectures are _pure_ exactly in
+proportion to the simplicity and directness with which they express the
+condition of roofing on which they are founded. They have many
+interesting varieties, according to their scale, manner of decoration,
+and character of the nations by whom they are practised, but all their
+varieties are finally referable to the three great heads:--
+
+  A, Greek: Architecture of the Lintel.
+  B, Romanesque: Architecture of the Round Arch.
+  C, Gothic: Architecture of the Gable.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XI.]
+
+The three names, Greek, Romanesque, and Gothic, are indeed inaccurate
+when used in this vast sense, because they imply national limitations;
+but the three architectures may nevertheless not unfitly receive their
+names from those nations by whom they were carried to the highest
+perfections. We may thus briefly state their existing varieties.
+
+§ LXXXIX. A. GREEK: Lintel Architecture. The worst of the three; and,
+considered with reference to stone construction, always in some measure
+barbarous. Its simplest type is Stonehenge; its most refined, the
+Parthenon; its noblest, the Temple of Karnak.
+
+In the hands of the Egyptian, it is sublime; in those of the Greek,
+pure; in those of the Roman, rich; and in those of the Renaissance
+builder, effeminate.
+
+B. ROMANESQUE: Round-arch Architecture. Never thoroughly developed until
+Christian times. It falls into two great branches, Eastern and Western,
+or Byzantine and Lombardic; changing respectively in process of time,
+with certain helps from each other, into Arabian Gothic and Teutonic
+Gothic. Its most perfect Lombardic type is the Duomo of Pisa; its most
+perfect Byzantine type (I believe), St. Mark's at Venice. Its highest
+glory is, that it has no corruption. It perishes in giving birth to
+another architecture as noble as itself.
+
+C. GOTHIC: Architecture of the Gable. The daughter of the Romanesque;
+and, like the Romanesque, divided into two great branches, Western and
+Eastern, or pure Gothic and Arabian Gothic; of which the latter is
+called Gothic, only because it has many Gothic forms, pointed arches,
+vaults, &c., but its spirit remains Byzantine, more especially in the
+form of the roof-mask, of which, with respect to these three great
+families, we have next to determine the typical form.
+
+§ XC. For, observe, the distinctions we have hitherto been stating,
+depend on the form of the stones first laid from pier to pier; that is
+to say, of the simplest condition of roofs proper. Adding the relations
+of the roof-mask to these lines, we shall have the perfect type of form
+for each school.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XII.]
+
+In the Greek, the Western Romanesque, and Western Gothic, the roof-mask
+is the gable: in the Eastern Romanesque, and Eastern Gothic, it is the
+dome: but I have not studied the roofing of either of these last two
+groups, and shall not venture to generalize them in a diagram. But the
+three groups, in the hands of the Western builders, may be thus simply
+represented: _a_, Fig. XII., Greek;[71] _b_, Western Romanesque; _c_,
+Western, or true, Gothic.
+
+Now, observe, first, that the relation of the roof-mask to the roof
+proper, in the Greek type, forms that pediment which gives its most
+striking character to the temple, and is the principal recipient of its
+sculptural decoration. The relation of these lines, therefore, is just
+as important in the Greek as in the Gothic schools.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XIII.]
+
+§ XCI. Secondly, the reader must observe the difference of steepness in
+the Romanesque and Gothic gables. This is not an unimportant
+distinction, nor an undecided one. The Romanesque gable does not pass
+gradually into the more elevated form; there is a great gulf between the
+two; the whole effect of all Southern architecture being dependent upon
+the use of the flat gable, and of all Northern upon that of the acute. I
+need not here dwell upon the difference between the lines of an Italian
+village, or the flat tops of most Italian towers, and the peaked gables
+and spires of the North, attaining their most fantastic developement, I
+believe, in Belgium: but it may be well to state the law of separation,
+namely, that a Gothic gable _must_ have all its angles acute, and a
+Romanesque one _must_ have the upper one obtuse: or, to give the reader
+a simple practical rule, take any gable, _a_ or _b_, Fig. XIII., and
+strike a semicircle on its base; if its top rises above the semicircle,
+as at _b_, it is a Gothic gable; if it falls beneath it, a Romanesque
+one; but the best forms in each group are those which are distinctly
+steep, or distinctly low. In the figure _f_ is, perhaps, the average of
+Romanesque slope, and _g_ of Gothic.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XIV.]
+
+§ XCII. But although we do not find a transition from one school into
+the other in the slope of the gables, there is often a confusion between
+the two schools in the association of the gable with the arch below it.
+It has just been stated that the pure Romanesque condition is the round
+arch under the low gable, _a_, Fig. XIV., and the pure Gothic condition
+is the pointed arch under the high gable, _b_. But in the passage from
+one style to the other, we sometimes find the two conditions reversed;
+the pointed arch under a low gable, as _d_, or the round arch under a
+high gable, as _c_. The form _d_ occurs in the tombs of Verona, and _c_
+in the doors of Venice.
+
+§ XCIII. We have thus determined the relation of Gothic to the other
+architectures of the world, as far as regards the main lines of its
+construction; but there is still one word which needs to be added to our
+definition of its form, with respect to a part of its decoration, which
+rises out of that construction. We have seen that the first condition of
+its form is, that it shall have pointed arches. When Gothic is perfect,
+therefore, it will follow that the pointed arches must be built in the
+strongest possible manner.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XV.]
+
+Now, if the reader will look back to Chapter XI. of Vol. I., he will
+find the subject of the masonry of the pointed arch discussed at length,
+and the conclusion deduced, that of all possible forms of the pointed
+arch (a certain weight of material being given), that generically
+represented at _e_, Fig. XV., is the strongest. In fact, the reader can
+see in a moment that the weakness of the pointed arch is in its flanks,
+and that by merely thickening them gradually at this point all chance of
+fracture is removed. Or, perhaps, more simply still:--Suppose a gable
+built of stone, as at _a_, and pressed upon from without by a weight in
+the direction of the arrow, clearly it would be liable to fall in, as at
+_b_. To prevent this, we make a pointed arch of it, as at _c_; and now
+it cannot fall inwards, but if pressed upon from above may give way
+outwards, as at _d_. But at last we build as at _e_, and now it can
+neither fall out nor in.
+
+§ XCIV. The forms of arch thus obtained, with a pointed projection
+called a cusp on each side, must for ever be delightful to the human
+mind, as being expressive of the utmost strength and permanency
+obtainable with a given mass of material. But it was not by any such
+process of reasoning, nor with any reference to laws of construction,
+that the cusp was originally invented. It is merely the special
+application to the arch of the great ornamental system of FOLIATION; or
+the adaptation of the forms of leafage which has been above insisted
+upon as the principal characteristic of Gothic Naturalism. This love of
+foliage was exactly proportioned, in its intensity, to the increase of
+strength in the Gothic spirit: in the Southern Gothic it is _soft_
+leafage that is most loved; in the Northern _thorny_ leafage. And if we
+take up any Northern illuminated manuscript of the great Gothic time, we
+shall find every one of its leaf ornaments surrounded by a thorny
+structure laid round it in gold or in color; sometimes apparently copied
+faithfully from the prickly developement of the root of the leaf in the
+thistle, running along the stems and branches exactly as the thistle
+leaf does along its own stem, and with sharp spines proceeding from the
+points, as in Fig. XVI. At other times, and for the most part in work in
+the thirteenth century, the golden ground takes the form of pure and
+severe cusps, sometimes enclosing the leaves, sometimes filling up the
+forks of the branches (as in the example fig. 1, Plate I. Vol. III.),
+passing imperceptibly from the distinctly vegetable condition (in which
+it is just as certainly representative of the thorn, as other parts of
+the design are of the bud, leaf, and fruit) into the crests on the
+necks, or the membranous sails of the wings, of serpents, dragons, and
+other grotesques, as in Fig. XVII., and into rich and vague fantasies of
+curvature; among which, however, the pure cusped system of the pointed
+arch is continually discernible, not accidentally, but designedly
+indicated, and connecting itself with the literally architectural
+portions of the design.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XVI.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XVII.]
+
+§ XCV. The system, then, of what is called Foliation, whether simple, as
+in the cusped arch, or complicated, as in tracery, rose out of this love
+of leafage; not that the form of the arch is intended to _imitate_ a
+leaf, but _to be invested with the same characters of beauty which the
+designer had discovered in the leaf_. Observe, there is a wide
+difference between these two intentions. The idea that large Gothic
+structure, in arches and roofs, was intended to imitate vegetation is,
+as above noticed, untenable for an instant in the front of facts. But
+the Gothic builder perceived that, in the leaves which he copied for his
+minor decorations, there was a peculiar beauty, arising from certain
+characters of curvature in outline, and certain methods of subdivision
+and of radiation in structure. On a small scale, in his sculptures and
+his missal-painting, he copied the leaf or thorn itself; on a large
+scale he adopted from it its abstract sources of beauty, and gave the
+same kinds of curvatures and the same species of subdivision to the
+outline of his arches, so far as was consistent with their strength,
+never, in any single instance, suggesting the resemblance to leafage by
+_irregularity_ of outline, but keeping the structure perfectly simple,
+and, as we have seen, so consistent with the best principles of masonry,
+that in the finest Gothic designs of arches, which are always _single_
+cusped (the cinquefoiled arch being licentious, though in early work
+often very lovely), it is literally impossible, without consulting the
+context of the building, to say whether the cusps have been added for
+the sake of beauty or of strength; nor, though in medićval architecture
+they were, I believe, assuredly first employed in mere love of their
+picturesque form, am I absolutely certain that their earliest invention
+was not a structural effort. For the earliest cusps with which I am
+acquainted are those used in the vaults of the great galleries of the
+Serapeum, discovered in 1850 by M. Maniette at Memphis, and described by
+Colonel Hamilton in a paper read in February last before the Royal
+Society of Literature.[72] The roofs of its galleries were admirably
+shown in Colonel Hamilton's drawings made to scale upon the spot, and
+their profile is a cusped round arch, perfectly pure and simple; but
+whether thrown into this form for the sake of strength or of grace, I am
+unable to say.
+
+§ XCVI. It is evident, however, that the structural advantage of the
+cusp is available only in the case of arches on a comparatively small
+scale. If the arch becomes very large, the projections under the flanks
+must become too ponderous to be secure; the suspended weight of stone
+would be liable to break off, and such arches are therefore never
+constructed with heavy cusps, but rendered secure by general mass of
+masonry; and what additional _appearance_ of support may be thought
+necessary (sometimes a considerable degree of _actual_ support) is given
+by means of tracery.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XVIII.]
+
+§ XCVII. Of what I stated in the second chapter of the "Seven Lamps"
+respecting the nature of tracery, I need repeat here only this much,
+that it began in the use of penetrations through the stone-work of
+windows or walls, cut into forms which looked like stars when seen from
+within, and like leaves when seen from without: the name foil or feuille
+being universally applied to the separate lobes of their extremities,
+and the pleasure received from them being the same as that which we feel
+in the triple, quadruple, or other radiated leaves of vegetation, joined
+with the perception of a severely geometrical order and symmetry. A few
+of the most common forms are represented, unconfused by exterior
+mouldings, in Fig. XVIII., and the best traceries are nothing more than
+close clusters of such forms, with mouldings following their outlines.
+
+§ XCVIII. The term "foliated," therefore, is equally descriptive of the
+most perfect conditions both of the simple arch and of the traceries by
+which, in later Gothic, it is filled; and this foliation is an essential
+character of the style. No Gothic is either good or characteristic which
+is not foliated either in its arches or apertures. Sometimes the bearing
+arches are foliated, and the ornamentation above composed of figure
+sculpture; sometimes the bearing arches are plain, and the ornamentation
+above them is composed of foliated apertures. But the element of
+foliation _must_ enter somewhere, or the style is imperfect. And our
+final definition of Gothic will, therefore, stand thus:--
+
+"_Foliated_ Architecture, which uses the pointed arch for the roof
+proper, and the gable for the roof-mask."
+
+§ XCIX. And now there is but one point more to be examined, and we have
+done.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XIX.]
+
+Foliation, while it is the most distinctive and peculiar, is also the
+easiest method of decoration which Gothic architecture possesses; and,
+although in the disposition of the proportions and forms of foils, the
+most noble imagination may be shown, yet a builder without imagination
+at all, or any other faculty of design, can produce some effect upon the
+mass of his work by merely covering it with foolish foliation. Throw any
+number of crossing lines together at random, as in Fig. XIX., and fill
+their squares and oblong openings with quatrefoils and cinquefoils, and
+you will immediately have what will stand, with most people, for very
+satisfactory Gothic. The slightest possible acquaintance with existing
+forms will enable any architect to vary his patterns of foliation with
+as much ease as he would those of a kaleidoscope, and to produce a
+building which the present European public will think magnificent,
+though there may not be, from foundation to coping, one ray of
+invention, or any other intellectual merit, in the whole mass of it. But
+floral decoration, and the disposition of mouldings, require some skill
+and thought; and, if they are to be agreeable at all, must be verily
+invented, or accurately copied. They cannot be drawn altogether at
+random, without becoming so commonplace as to involve detection: and
+although, as I have just said, the noblest imagination may be shown in
+the dispositions of traceries, there is far more room for its play and
+power when those traceries are associated with floral or animal
+ornament; and it is probable, _ŕ priori_, that, wherever true invention
+exists, such ornament will be employed in profusion.
+
+§ C. Now, all Gothic may be divided into two vast schools, one early,
+the other late;[73] of which the former, noble, inventive, and
+progressive, uses the element of foliation moderately, that of floral
+and figure sculpture decoration profusely; the latter, ignoble,
+uninventive, and declining, uses foliation immoderately, floral and
+figure sculpture subordinately. The two schools touch each other at that
+instant of momentous change, dwelt upon in the "Seven Lamps," chap, ii.,
+a period later or earlier in different districts, but which may be
+broadly stated as the middle of the fourteenth century; both styles
+being, of course, in their highest excellence at the moment when they
+meet, the one ascending to the point of junction, the one declining from
+it, but, at first, not in any marked degree, and only showing the
+characters which justify its being above called, generically, ignoble,
+as its declension reaches steeper slope.
+
+§ CI. Of these two great schools, the first uses foliation only in large
+and simple masses, and covers the minor members, cusps, &c., of that
+foliation, with various sculpture. The latter decorates foliation itself
+with minor foliation, and breaks its traceries into endless and
+lace-like subdivision of tracery.
+
+A few instances will explain the difference clearly. Fig. 2, Plate XII.,
+represents half of an eight-foiled aperture from Salisbury; where the
+element of foliation is employed in the larger disposition of the starry
+form; but in the decoration of the cusp it has entirely disappeared, and
+the ornament is floral.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XII.
+               LINEAR AND SURFACE GOTHIC.]
+
+But in fig. 1, which is part of a fringe round one of the later windows
+in Rouen Cathedral, the foliation is first carried boldly round the
+arch, and then each cusp of it divided into other forms of foliation.
+The two larger canopies of niches below, figs. 5 and 6, are respectively
+those seen at the flanks of the two uppermost examples of gabled Gothic
+in Fig. X., p. 213. Those examples were there chosen in order also to
+illustrate the distinction in the character of ornamentation which we
+are at present examining; and if the reader will look back to them, and
+compare their methods of treatment, he will at once be enabled to fix
+that distinction clearly in his mind. He will observe that in the
+uppermost the element of foliation is scrupulously confined to the
+bearing arches of the gable, and of the lateral niches, so that, on any
+given side of the monument, only three foliated arches are discernible.
+All the rest of the ornamentation is "bossy sculpture," set on the broad
+marble surface. On the point of the gable are set the shield and
+dog-crest of the Scalas, with its bronze wings, as of a dragon, thrown
+out from it on either side; below, an admirably sculptured oak-tree
+fills the centre of the field; beneath it is the death of Abel, Abel
+lying dead upon his face on one side, Cain opposite, looking up to
+heaven in terror: the border of the arch is formed of various leafage,
+alternating with the scala shield; and the cusps are each filled by one
+flower, and two broad flowing leaves. The whole is exquisitely relieved
+by color; the ground being of pale red Verona marble, and the statues
+and foliage of white Carrara marble, inlaid.
+
+§ CII. The figure below it, _b_, represents the southern lateral door
+of the principal church in Abbeville: the smallness of the scale
+compelled me to make it somewhat heavier in the lines of its traceries
+than it is in reality, but the door itself is one of the most exquisite
+pieces of flamboyant Gothic in the world; and it is interesting to see
+the shield introduced here, at the point of the gable, in exactly the
+same manner as in the upper example, and with precisely the same
+purpose,--to stay the eye in its ascent, and to keep it from being
+offended by the sharp point of the gable, the reversed angle of the
+shield being so energetic as completely to balance the upward tendency
+of the great convergent lines. It will be seen, however, as this example
+is studied, that its other decorations are altogether different from
+those of the Veronese tomb; that, here, the whole effect is dependent on
+mere multiplications of similar lines of tracery, sculpture being hardly
+introduced except in the seated statue under the central niche, and,
+formerly, in groups filling the shadowy hollows under the small niches
+in the archivolt, but broken away in the Revolution. And if now we turn
+to Plate XII., just passed, and examine the heads of the two lateral
+niches there given from each of these monuments on a larger scale, the
+contrast will be yet more apparent. The one from Abbeville (fig. 5),
+though it contains much floral work of the crisp Northern kind in its
+finial and crockets, yet depends for all its effect on the various
+patterns of foliation with which its spaces are filled; and it is so cut
+through and through that it is hardly stronger than a piece of lace:
+whereas the pinnacle from Verona depends for its effect on one broad
+mass of shadow, boldly shaped into the trefoil in its bearing arch; and
+there is no other trefoil on that side of the niche. All the rest of its
+decoration is floral, or by almonds and bosses; and its surface of stone
+is unpierced, and kept in broad light, and the mass of it thick and
+strong enough to stand for as many more centuries as it has already
+stood, scatheless, in the open street of Verona. The figures 3 and 4,
+above each niche, show how the same principles are carried out into the
+smallest details of the two edifices, 3 being the moulding which
+borders the gable at Abbeville, and 4, that in the same position at
+Verona; and as thus in all cases the distinction in their treatment
+remains the same, the one attracting the eye to broad sculptured
+_surfaces_, the other to involutions of intricate _lines_, I shall
+hereafter characterize the two schools, whenever I have occasion to
+refer to them, the one as Surface-Gothic, the other as Linear-Gothic.
+
+§ CIII. Now observe: it is not, at present, the question, whether the
+form of the Veronese niche, and the design of its flower-work, be as
+good as they might have been; but simply, which of the two architectural
+principles is the greater and better. And this we cannot hesitate for an
+instant in deciding. The Veronese Gothic is strong in its masonry,
+simple in its masses, but perpetual in its variety. The late French
+Gothic is weak in masonry, broken in mass, and repeats the same idea
+continually. It is very beautiful, but the Italian Gothic is the nobler
+style.
+
+§ CIV. Yet, in saying that the French Gothic repeats one idea, I mean
+merely that it depends too much upon the foliation of its traceries. The
+disposition of the traceries themselves is endlessly varied and
+inventive; and indeed, the mind of the French workman was, perhaps, even
+richer in fancy than that of the Italian, only he had been taught a less
+noble style. This is especially to be remembered with respect to the
+subordination of figure sculpture above noticed as characteristic of the
+later Gothic.
+
+It is not that such sculpture is wanting; on the contrary, it is often
+worked into richer groups, and carried out with a perfection of
+execution, far greater than those which adorn the earlier buildings:
+but, in the early work, it is vigorous, prominent, and essential to the
+beauty of the whole; in the late work it is enfeebled, and shrouded in
+the veil of tracery, from which it may often be removed with little harm
+to the general effect.[74]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XX.]
+
+§ CV. Now the reader may rest assured that no principle of art is more
+absolute than this,--that a composition from which anything can be
+removed without doing mischief is always so far forth inferior. On this
+ground, therefore, if on no other, there can be no question, for a
+moment, which of the two schools is the greater; although there are many
+most noble works in the French traceried Gothic, having a sublimity of
+their own dependent on their extreme richness and grace of line, and for
+which we may be most grateful to their builders. And, indeed, the
+superiority of the Surface-Gothic cannot be completely felt, until we
+compare it with the more degraded Linear schools, as, for instance, with
+our own English Perpendicular. The ornaments of the Veronese niche,
+which we have used for our example, are by no means among the best of
+their school, yet they will serve our purpose for such a comparison.
+That of its pinnacle is composed of a single upright flowering plant, of
+which the stem shoots up through the centres of the leaves, and bears a
+pendent blossom, somewhat like that of the imperial lily. The leaves are
+thrown back from the stem with singular grace and freedom, and
+foreshortened, as if by a skilful painter, in the shallow marble relief.
+Their arrangement is roughly shown in the little woodcut at the side
+(Fig. XX.); and if the reader will simply try the experiment for
+himself,--first, of covering a piece of paper with crossed lines, as if
+for accounts, and filling all the interstices with any foliation that
+comes into his head, as in Figure XIX. above; and then, of trying to
+fill the point of a gable with a piece of leafage like that in Figure
+XX. above, putting the figure itself aside,--he will presently find that
+more thought and invention are required to design this single minute
+pinnacle, than to cover acres of ground with English perpendicular.
+
+§ CVI. We have now, I believe, obtained a sufficiently accurate
+knowledge both of the spirit and form of Gothic architecture; but it
+may, perhaps, be useful to the general reader, if, in conclusion, I set
+down a few plain and practical rules for determining, in every instance,
+whether a given building be good Gothic or not, and, if not Gothic,
+whether its architecture is of a kind which will probably reward the
+pains of careful examination.
+
+§ CVII. First. Look if the roof rises in a steep gable, high above the
+walls. If it does not do this, there is something wrong; the building is
+not quite pure Gothic, or has been altered.
+
+§ CVIII. Secondly. Look if the principal windows and doors have pointed
+arches with gables over them. If not pointed arches, the building is not
+Gothic; if they have not any gables over them, it is either not pure, or
+not first-rate.
+
+If, however, it has the steep roof, the pointed arch, and gable all
+united, it is nearly certain to be a Gothic building of a very fine
+time.
+
+§ CIX. Thirdly. Look if the arches are cusped, or apertures foliated. If
+the building has met the first two conditions, it is sure to be foliated
+somewhere; but, if not everywhere, the parts which are unfoliated are
+imperfect, unless they are large bearing arches, or small and sharp
+arches in groups, forming a kind of foliation by their own multiplicity,
+and relieved by sculpture and rich mouldings. The upper windows, for
+instance, in the east end of Westminster Abbey are imperfect for want of
+foliation. If there be no foliation anywhere, the building is assuredly
+imperfect Gothic.
+
+§ CX. Fourthly. If the building meets all the first three conditions,
+look if its arches in general, whether of windows and doors, or of minor
+ornamentation, are carried on _true shafts with bases and capitals_. If
+they are, then the building is assuredly of the finest Gothic style. It
+may still, perhaps, be an imitation, a feeble copy, or a bad example of
+a noble style; but the manner of it, having met all these four
+conditions, is assuredly first-rate.
+
+If its apertures have not shafts and capitals, look if they are plain
+openings in the walls, studiously simple, and unmoulded at the sides;
+as, for instance, the arch in Plate XIX. Vol. I. If so, the building may
+still be of the finest Gothic, adapted to some domestic or military
+service. But if the sides of the window be moulded, and yet there are no
+capitals at the spring of the arch, it is assuredly of an inferior
+school.
+
+This is all that is necessary to determine whether the building be of a
+fine Gothic style. The next tests to be applied are in order to discover
+whether it be good architecture or not: for it may be very impure
+Gothic, and yet very noble architecture; or it may be very pure Gothic,
+and yet, if a copy, or originally raised by an ungifted builder, very
+bad architecture.
+
+If it belong to any of the great schools of color, its criticism becomes
+as complicated, and needs as much care, as that of a piece of music, and
+no general rules for it can be given; but if not--
+
+§ CXI. First. See if it looks as if it had been built by strong men; if
+it has the sort of roughness, and largeness, and nonchalance, mixed in
+places with the exquisite tenderness which seems always to be the
+sign-manual of the broad vision, and massy power of men who can see
+_past_ the work they are doing, and betray here and there something like
+disdain for it. If the building has this character, it is much already
+in its favor; it will go hard but it proves a noble one. If it has not
+this, but is altogether accurate, minute, and scrupulous in its
+workmanship, it must belong to either the very best or the very worst of
+schools: the very best, in which exquisite design is wrought out with
+untiring and conscientious care, as in the Giottesque Gothic; or the
+very worst, in which mechanism has taken the place of design. It is more
+likely, in general, that it should belong to the worst than the best: so
+that, on the whole, very accurate workmanship is to be esteemed a bad
+sign; and if there is nothing remarkable about the building but its
+precision, it may be passed at once with contempt.
+
+§ CXII. Secondly. Observe if it be irregular, its different parts
+fitting themselves to different purposes, no one caring what becomes of
+them, so that they do their work. If one part always answers accurately
+to another part, it is sure to be a bad building; and the greater and
+more conspicuous the irregularities, the greater the chances are that it
+is a good one. For instance, in the Ducal Palace, of which a rough
+woodcut is given in Chap. VIII., the general idea is sternly
+symmetrical; but two windows are lower than the rest of the six; and if
+the reader will count the arches of the small arcade as far as to the
+great balcony, he will find it is not in the centre, but set to the
+right-hand side by the whole width of one of those arches. We may be
+pretty sure that the building is a good one; none but a master of his
+craft would have ventured to do this.
+
+§ CXIII. Thirdly. Observe if all the traceries, capitals, and other
+ornaments are of perpetually varied design. If not, the work is
+assuredly bad.
+
+§ CXIV. Lastly. _Read_ the sculpture. Preparatory to reading it, you
+will have to discover whether it is legible (and, if legible, it is
+nearly certain to be worth reading). On a good building, the sculpture
+is _always_ so set, and on such a scale, that at the ordinary distance
+from which the edifice is seen, the sculpture shall be thoroughly
+intelligible and interesting. In order to accomplish this, the uppermost
+statues will be ten or twelve feet high, and the upper ornamentation
+will be colossal, increasing in fineness as it descends, till on the
+foundation it will often be wrought as if for a precious cabinet in a
+king's chamber; but the spectator will not notice that the upper
+sculptures are colossal. He will merely feel that he can see them
+plainly, and make them all out at his ease.
+
+And, having ascertained this, let him set himself to read them.
+Thenceforward the criticism of the building is to be conducted precisely
+on the same principles as that of a book; and it must depend on the
+knowledge, feeling, and not a little on the industry and perseverance of
+the reader, whether, even in the case of the best works, he either
+perceive them to be great, or feel them to be entertaining.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [56] The third kind of ornament, the Renaissance, is that in which
+    the inferior detail becomes principal, the executor of every minor
+    portion being required to exhibit skill and possess knowledge as
+    great as that which is possessed by the master of the design; and in
+    the endeavor to endow him with this skill and knowledge, his own
+    original power is overwhelmed, and the whole building becomes a
+    wearisome exhibition of well-educated imbecility. We must fully
+    inquire into the nature of this form of error, when we arrive at the
+    examination of the Renaissance schools.
+
+  [57] Vide Preface to "Fair Maid of Perth."
+
+  [58] The Elgin marbles are supposed by many persons to be "perfect."
+    In the most important portions they indeed approach perfection, but
+    only there. The draperies are unfinished, the hair and wool of the
+    animals are unfinished, and the entire bas-reliefs of the frieze are
+    roughly cut.
+
+  [59] In the eighth chapter we shall see a remarkable instance of
+    this sacrifice of symmetry to convenience in the arrangement of the
+    windows of the Ducal Palace.
+
+  [60] I am always afraid to use this word "Composition;" it is so
+    utterly misused in the general parlance respecting art. Nothing is
+    more common than to hear divisions of art into "form, composition,
+    and color," or "light and shade and composition," or "sentiment and
+    composition," or it matters not what else and composition; the
+    speakers in each case attaching a perfectly different meaning to the
+    word, generally an indistinct one, and always a wrong one.
+    Composition is, in plain English, "putting together," and it means
+    the putting together of lines, of forms, of colors, of shades, or of
+    ideas. Painters compose in color, compose in thought, compose in
+    form, and compose in effect: the word being of use merely in order
+    to express a scientific, disciplined, and inventive arrangement of
+    any of these, instead of a merely natural or accidental one.
+
+  [61] Design is used in this place as expressive of the power to
+    arrange lines and colors nobly. By facts, I mean facts perceived by
+    the eye and mind, not facts accumulated by knowledge. See the
+    chapter on Roman Renaissance (Vol. III. Chap. II.) for this
+    distinction.
+
+  [62] "Earlier," that is to say, pre-Raphaelite ages. Men of this
+    stamp will praise Claude, and such other comparatively debased
+    artists; but they cannot taste the work of the thirteenth century.
+
+  [63] Not selfish fear, caused by want of trust in God, or of
+    resolution in the soul.
+
+  [64] I reserve for another place the full discussion of this
+    interesting subject, which here would have led me too far; but it
+    must be noted, in passing, that this vulgar Purism, which rejects
+    truth, not because it is vicious, but because it is humble, and
+    consists not in choosing what is good, but in disguising what is
+    rough, extends itself into every species of art. The most definite
+    instance of it is the dressing of characters of peasantry in an
+    opera or ballet scene; and the walls of our exhibitions are full of
+    works of art which "exalt nature" in the same way, not by revealing
+    what is great in the heart, but by smoothing what is coarse in the
+    complexion. There is nothing, I believe, so vulgar, so hopeless, so
+    indicative of an irretrievably base mind, as this species of Purism.
+    Of healthy Purism carried to the utmost endurable length in this
+    direction, exalting the heart first, and the features with it,
+    perhaps the most characteristic instance I can give is Stothard's
+    vignette to "Jorasse," in Rogers's Italy; at least it would be so if
+    it could be seen beside a real group of Swiss girls. The poems of
+    Rogers, compared with those of Crabbe, are admirable instances of
+    the healthiest Purism and healthiest Naturalism in poetry. The first
+    great Naturalists of Christian art were Orcagna and Giotto.
+
+  [65] The reader will understand this in a moment by glancing at Plate
+    XX., the last in this volume, where the series 1 to 12 represents
+    the change in one kind of leaf, from the Byzantine to the perfect
+    Gothic.
+
+  [66] The best art either represents the facts of its own day, or, if
+    facts of the past, expresses them with accessories of the time in
+    which the work was done. All good art, representing past events, is
+    therefore full of the most frank anachronism, and always _ought_ to
+    be. No painter has any business to be an antiquarian. We do not want
+    his impressions or suppositions respecting things that are past. We
+    want his clear assertions respecting things present.
+
+  [67] See the account of the meeting at Talla Linns, in 1682, given
+    in the fourth chapter of the "Heart of Midlothian." At length they
+    arrived at the conclusion that "they who owned (or allowed) such
+    names as Monday, Tuesday, January, February, and so forth, served
+    themselves heirs to the same if not greater punishment than had been
+    denounced against the idolaters of old."
+
+  [68] See the beautiful description of Florence in Elizabeth Browning's
+    "Casa Guidi Windows," which is not only a noble poem, but the only
+    book I have seen which, favoring the Liberal cause in Italy, gives a
+    just account of the incapacities of the modern Italian.
+
+  [69] Salisbury spire is only a tower with a polygonal gabled roof of
+    stone, and so also the celebrated spires of Caen and Coutances.
+
+  [70] Or by the shaded portions of Fig. XXIX. Vol. I.
+
+  [71] The reader is not to suppose that Greek architecture had always,
+    or often, flat ceilings, because I call its lintel the roof proper.
+    He must remember I always use these terms of the first simple
+    arrangements of materials that bridge a space; bringing in the real
+    roof afterwards, if I can. In the case of Greek temples it would be
+    vain to refer their structure to the real roof, for many were
+    hypćthral, and without a roof at all. I am unfortunately more
+    ignorant of Egyptian roofing than even of Arabian, so that I cannot
+    bring this school into the diagram; but the gable appears to have
+    been magnificently used for a bearing roof. Vide Mr. Fergusson's
+    section of the Pyramid of Geezeh, "Principles of Beauty in Art,"
+    Plate I., and his expressions of admiration of Egyptian roof
+    masonry, page 201.
+
+  [72] See 'Athenćum,' March 5th, 1853.
+
+  [73] Late, and chiefly confined to Northern countries, so that the
+    two schools may be opposed either as Early and Late Gothic, or (in
+    the fourteenth century) as Southern and Northern Gothic.
+
+  [74] In many of the best French Gothic churches, the groups of figures
+    have been all broken away at the Revolution, without much harm to
+    the picturesqueness, though with grievous loss to the historical
+    value of the architecture: whereas, if from the niche at Verona we
+    were to remove its floral ornaments, and the statue beneath it,
+    nothing would remain but a rude square trefoiled shell, utterly
+    valueless, or even ugly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GOTHIC PALACES.
+
+
+§ I. The buildings out of the remnants of which we have endeavored to
+recover some conception of the appearance of Venice during the Byzantine
+period, contribute hardly anything at this day to the effect of the
+streets of the city. They are too few and too much defaced to attract
+the eye or influence the feelings. The charm which Venice still
+possesses, and which for the last fifty years has rendered it the
+favorite haunt of all the painters of picturesque subject, is owing to
+the effect of the palaces belonging to the period we have now to
+examine, mingled with those of the Renaissance.
+
+This effect is produced in two different ways. The Renaissance palaces
+are not more picturesque in themselves than the club-houses of Pall
+Mall; but they become delightful by the contrast of their severity and
+refinement with the rich and rude confusion of the sea life beneath
+them, and of their white and solid masonry with the green waves. Remove
+from beneath them the orange sails of the fishing boats, the black
+gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough crews of the
+barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green water along their
+foundations, and the Renaissance palaces possess no more interest than
+those of London or Paris. But the Gothic palaces are picturesque in
+themselves, and wield over us an independent power. Sea and sky, and
+every other accessory might be taken away from them, and still they
+would be beautiful and strange. They are not less striking in the
+loneliest streets of Padua and Vicenza (where many were built during the
+period of the Venetian authority in those cities) than in the most
+crowded thoroughfares of Venice itself; and if they could be
+transported into the midst of London, they would still not altogether
+lose their power over the feelings.
+
+§ II. The best proof of this is in the perpetual attractiveness of all
+pictures, however poor in skill, which have taken for their subject the
+principal of these Gothic buildings, the Ducal Palace. In spite of all
+architectural theories and teachings, the paintings of this building are
+always felt to be delightful; we cannot be wearied by them, though often
+sorely tried; but we are not put to the same trial in the case of the
+palaces of the Renaissance. They are never drawn singly, or as the
+principal subject, nor can they be. The building which faces the Ducal
+Palace on the opposite side of the Piazzetta is celebrated among
+architects, but it is not familiar to our eyes; it is painted only
+incidentally, for the completion, not the subject, of a Venetian scene;
+and even the Renaissance arcades of St. Mark's Place, though frequently
+painted, are always treated as a mere avenue to its Byzantine church and
+colossal tower. And the Ducal Palace itself owes the peculiar charm
+which we have hitherto felt, not so much to its greater size as compared
+with other Gothic buildings, or nobler design (for it never yet has been
+rightly drawn), as to its comparative isolation. The other Gothic
+structures are as much injured by the continual juxtaposition of the
+Renaissance palaces, as the latter are aided by it; they exhaust their
+own life by breathing it into the Renaissance coldness: but the Ducal
+Palace stands comparatively alone, and fully expresses the Gothic power.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXI.]
+
+§ III. And it is just that it should be so seen, for it is the original
+of nearly all the rest. It is not the elaborate and more studied
+developement of a national style, but the great and sudden invention of
+one man, instantly forming a national style, and becoming the model for
+the imitation of every architect in Venice for upwards of a century. It
+was the determination of this one fact which occupied me the greater
+part of the time I spent in Venice. It had always appeared to me most
+strange that there should be in no part of the city any incipient or
+imperfect types of the form of the Ducal Palace; it was difficult to
+believe that so mighty a building had been the conception of one man,
+not only in disposition and detail, but in style; and yet impossible,
+had it been otherwise, but that some early examples of approximate
+Gothic form must exist. There is not one. The palaces built between the
+final cessation of the Byzantine style, about 1300, and the date of the
+Ducal Palace (1320-1350), are all completely distinct in character, so
+distinct that I at first intended the account of them to form a separate
+section of this volume; and there is literally _no_ transitional form
+between them and the perfection of the Ducal Palace. Every Gothic
+building in Venice which resembles the latter is a copy of it. I do not
+mean that there was no Gothic in Venice before the Ducal Palace, but
+that the mode of its application to domestic architecture had not been
+determined. The real root of the Ducal Palace is the apse of the church
+of the Frari. The traceries of that apse, though earlier and ruder in
+workmanship, are nearly the same in mouldings, and precisely the same in
+treatment (especially in the placing of the lions' heads), as those of
+the great Ducal Arcade; and the originality of thought in the architect
+of the Ducal Palace consists in his having adapted those traceries, in a
+more highly developed and finished form, to civil uses. In the apse of
+the church they form narrow and tall window lights, somewhat more
+massive than those of Northern Gothic, but similar in application: the
+thing to be done was to adapt these traceries to the forms of domestic
+building necessitated by national usage. The early palaces consisted, as
+we have seen, of arcades sustaining walls faced with marble, rather
+broad and long than elevated. This form was kept for the Ducal Palace;
+but instead of round arches from shaft to shaft, the Frari traceries
+were substituted, with two essential modifications. Besides being
+enormously increased in scale and thickness, that they might better bear
+the superincumbent weight, the quatrefoil, which in the Frari windows is
+above the arch, as at _a_, Fig. XXI., on previous page, was, in the
+Ducal Palace, put between the arches, as at _b_; the main reason for
+this alteration being that the bearing power of the arches, which was
+now to be trusted with the weight of a wall forty feet high,[75] was
+thus thrown _between_ the quatrefoils, instead of under them, and
+thereby applied at far better advantage. And, in the second place, the
+joints of the masonry were changed. In the Frari (as often also in St.
+John and St. Paul's) the tracery is formed of two simple cross bars or
+slabs of stone, pierced into the requisite forms, and separated by a
+horizontal joint, just on a level with the lowest cusp of the
+quatrefoils, as seen in Fig. XXI., _a_. But at the Ducal Palace the
+horizontal joint is in the centre of the quatrefoils, and two others are
+introduced beneath it at right angles to the run of the mouldings, as
+seen in Fig. XXI., _b_.[76] The Ducal Palace builder was sternly
+resolute in carrying out this rule of masonry. In the traceries of the
+large upper windows, where the cusps are cut through as in the
+quatrefoil Fig. XXII., the lower cusp is left partly solid, as at _a_,
+merely that the joint _a b_ may have its right place and direction.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXII.]
+
+§ IV. The ascertaining the formation of the Ducal Palace traceries from
+those of the Frari, and its priority to all other buildings which
+resemble it in Venice, rewarded me for a great deal of uninteresting
+labor in the examination of mouldings and other minor features of the
+Gothic palaces, in which alone the internal evidence of their date was
+to be discovered, there being no historical records whatever respecting
+them. But the accumulation of details on which the complete proof of the
+fact depends, could not either be brought within the compass of this
+volume, or be made in anywise interesting to the general reader. I shall
+therefore, without involving myself in any discussion, give a brief
+account of the developement of Gothic design in Venice, as I believe it
+to have taken place. I shall possibly be able at some future period so
+to compress the evidence on which my conviction rests, as to render it
+intelligible to the public, while, in the meantime, some of the more
+essential points of it are thrown together in the Appendix, and in the
+history of the Ducal Palace given in the next chapter.
+
+§ V. According, then, to the statement just made, the Gothic
+architecture of Venice is divided into two great periods: one, in which,
+while various irregular Gothic tendencies are exhibited, no consistent
+type of domestic building was developed; the other, in which a formed
+and consistent school of domestic architecture resulted from the direct
+imitation of the great design of the Ducal Palace. We must deal with
+these two periods separately; the first of them being that which has
+been often above alluded to, under the name of the transitional period.
+
+We shall consider in succession the general form, the windows, doors,
+balconies, and parapets, of the Gothic palaces belonging to each of
+these periods.
+
+§ VI. First. General Form.
+
+We have seen that the wrecks of the Byzantine palaces consisted merely
+of upper and lower arcades surrounding cortiles; the disposition of the
+interiors being now entirely changed, and their original condition
+untraceable. The entrances to these early buildings are, for the most
+part, merely large circular arches, the central features of their
+continuous arcades: they do not present us with definitely separated
+windows and doors.
+
+But a great change takes place in the Gothic period. These long arcades
+break, as it were, into pieces, and coagulate into central and lateral
+windows, and small arched doors, pierced in great surfaces of brick
+wall. The sea story of a Byzantine palace consists of seven, nine, or
+more arches in a continuous line; but the sea story of a Gothic palace
+consists of a door and one or two windows on each side, as in a modern
+house. The first story of a Byzantine palace consists of, perhaps,
+eighteen or twenty arches, reaching from one side of the house to the
+other; the first story of a Gothic palace consists of a window of four
+or five lights in the centre, and one or two single windows on each
+side. The germ, however, of the Gothic arrangement is already found in
+the Byzantine, where, as we have seen, the arcades, though continuous,
+are always composed of a central mass and two wings of smaller arches.
+The central group becomes the door or the middle light of the Gothic
+palace, and the wings break into its lateral windows.
+
+§ VII. But the most essential difference in the entire arrangement, is
+the loss of the unity of conception which, regulated Byzantine
+composition. How subtle the sense of gradation which disposed the
+magnitudes of the early palaces we have seen already, but I have not
+hitherto noticed that the Byzantine work was centralized in its
+ornamentation as much as in its proportions. Not only were the lateral
+capitals and archivolts kept comparatively plain, while the central ones
+were sculptured, but the midmost piece of sculpture, whatever it might
+be,--capital, inlaid circle, or architrave,--was always made superior to
+the rest. In the Fondaco de' Turchi, for instance, the midmost capital
+of the upper arcade is the key to the whole group, larger and more
+studied than all the rest; and the lateral ones are so disposed as to
+answer each other on the opposite sides, thus, A being put for the
+central one,
+
+  F E B C +A+ C B E F,
+
+a sudden break of the system being admitted in one unique capital at the
+extremity of the series.
+
+§ VIII. Now, long after the Byzantine arcades had been contracted into
+windows, this system of centralization was more or less maintained; and
+in all the early groups of windows of five lights the midmost capital is
+different from the two on each side of it, which always correspond. So
+strictly is this the case, that whenever the capitals of any group of
+windows are not centralized in this manner, but are either entirely like
+each other, or all different, so as to show no correspondence, it is a
+certain proof, even if no other should exist, of the comparative
+lateness of the building.
+
+In every group of windows in Venice which I was able to examine, and
+which were centralized in this manner, I found evidence in their
+mouldings of their being _anterior_ to the Ducal Palace. That palace did
+away with the subtle proportion and centralization of the Byzantine. Its
+arches are of equal width, and its capitals are all different and
+ungrouped; some, indeed, are larger than the rest, but this is not for
+the sake of proportion, only for particular service when more weight is
+to be borne. But, among other evidences of the early date of the sea
+façade of that building, is one subtle and delicate concession to the
+system of centralization which is finally closed. The capitals of the
+upper arcade are, as I said, all different, and show no arranged
+correspondence with each other; but _the central one is of pure Parian
+marble_, while all the others are of Istrian stone.
+
+The bold decoration of the central window and balcony above, in the
+Ducal Palace, is only a peculiar expression of the principality of the
+central window, which was characteristic of the Gothic period not less
+than of the Byzantine. In the private palaces the central windows become
+of importance by their number of lights; in the Ducal Palace such an
+arrangement was, for various reasons, inconvenient, and the central
+window, which, so far from being more important than the others, is
+every way inferior in design to the two at the eastern extremity of the
+façade, was nevertheless made the leading feature by its noble canopy
+and balcony.
+
+§ IX. Such being the principal differences in the general conception of
+the Byzantine and Gothic palaces, the particulars in the treatment of
+the latter are easily stated. The marble facings are gradually removed
+from the walls; and the bare brick either stands forth confessed boldly,
+contrasted with the marble shafts and archivolts of the windows, or it
+is covered with stucco painted in fresco, of which more hereafter. The
+Ducal Palace, as in all other respects, is an exact expression of the
+middle point in the change. It still retains marble facing; but instead
+of being disposed in slabs as in the Byzantine times, it is applied in
+solid bricks or blocks of marble, 11˝ inches long, by 6 inches high.
+
+The stories of the Gothic palaces are divided by string courses,
+considerably bolder in projection than those of the Byzantines, and more
+highly decorated; and while the angles of the Byzantine palaces are
+quite sharp and pure, those of the Gothic palaces are wrought into a
+chamfer, filled by small twisted shafts which have capitals under the
+cornice of each story.
+
+§ X. These capitals are little observed in the general effect, but the
+shafts are of essential importance in giving an aspect of firmness to
+the angle; a point of peculiar necessity in Venice, where, owning to the
+various convolutions of the canals, the angles of the palaces are not
+only frequent, but often necessarily _acute_, every inch of ground being
+valuable. In other cities, the appearance as well as the assurance of
+stability can always be secured by the use of massy stones, as in the
+fortress palaces of Florence; but it must have been always desirable at
+Venice to build as lightly as possible, in consequence of the
+comparative insecurity of the foundations. The early palaces were, as we
+have seen, perfect models of grace and lightness, and the Gothic, which
+followed, though much more massive in the style of its details, never
+admitted more weight into its structure than was absolutely necessary
+for its strength, Hence, every Gothic palace has the appearance of
+enclosing as many rooms, and attaining as much strength, as is possible,
+with a minimum quantity of brick and stone. The traceries of the
+windows, which in Northern Gothic only support the _glass_, at Venice
+support the _building_; and thus the greater ponderousness of the
+_traceries_ is only an indication of the greater lightness of the
+_structure_. Hence, when the Renaissance architects give their opinions
+as to the stability of the Ducal Palace when injured by fire, one of
+them, Christofore Sorte, says, that he thinks it by no means laudable
+that the "Serenissimo Dominio" of the Venetian senate "should live in a
+palace built in the air."[77] And again, Andrea della Valle says,
+that[78] "the wall of the saloon is thicker by fifteen inches than the
+shafts below it, projecting nine inches within, and six without,
+_standing as if in the air_, above the piazza;"[79] and yet this wall is
+so nobly and strongly knit together, that Rusconi, though himself
+altogether devoted to the Renaissance school, declares that the fire
+which had destroyed the whole interior of the palace had done this wall
+no more harm than the bite of a fly to an elephant. "Troveremo che el
+danno che ha patito queste muraglie sarŕ conforme alla beccatura d' una
+mosca fatta ad un elefante."[80]
+
+§ XI. And so in all the other palaces built at the time, consummate
+strength was joined with a lightness of form and sparingness of material
+which rendered it eminently desirable that the eye should be convinced,
+by every possible expedient, of the stability of the building; and these
+twisted pillars at the angles are not among the least important means
+adopted for this purpose, for they seem to bind the walls together as a
+cable binds a chest. In the Ducal Palace, where they are carried up the
+angle of an unbroken wall forty feet high, they are divided into
+portions, gradually diminishing in length towards the top, by circular
+bands or rings, set with the nail-head or dog-tooth ornament, vigorously
+projecting, and giving the column nearly the aspect of the stalk of a
+reed; its diminishing proportions being exactly arranged as they are by
+Nature in all jointed plants. At the top of the palace, like the
+wheat-stalk branching into the ear of corn, it expands into a small
+niche with a pointed canopy, which joins with the fantastic parapet in
+at once relieving, and yet making more notable by its contrast, the
+weight of massy wall below. The arrangement is seen in the woodcut,
+Chap. VIII.; the angle shafts being slightly exaggerated in thickness,
+together with their joints, as otherwise they would hardly have been
+intelligible on so small a scale.
+
+The Ducal Palace is peculiar in these niches at the angles, which
+throughout the rest of the city appear on churches only; but some may
+perhaps have been removed by restorations, together with the parapets
+with which they were associated.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXIII.]
+
+§ XII. Of these roof parapets of Venice, it has been already noticed
+that the examples which remain differ from those of all other cities of
+Italy in their purely ornamental character. (Chap. I. § XII.) They are
+not battlements, properly so-called; still less machicolated cornices,
+such as crown the fortress palaces of the great mainland nobles; but
+merely adaptations of the light and crown-like ornaments which crest the
+walls of the Arabian mosque. Nor are even these generally used on the
+main walls of the palaces themselves. They occur on the Ducal Palace,
+on the Casa d' Oro, and, some years back, were still standing on the
+Fondaco de' Turchi; but the majority of the Gothic Palaces have the
+plain dog-tooth cornice under the tiled projecting roof (Vol. I. Chap.
+XIV. § IV.); and the highly decorated parapet is employed only on the
+tops of walls which surround courts or gardens, and which, without such
+decoration, would have been utterly devoid of interest. Fig. XXIII.
+represents, at _b_, part of a parapet of this kind which surrounds the
+courtyard of a palace in the Calle del Bagatin, between San G.
+Grisostomo, and San Canzian: the whole is of brick, and the mouldings
+peculiarly sharp and varied; the height of each separate pinnacle being
+about four feet, crowning a wall twelve or fifteen feet high: a piece of
+the moulding which surrounds the quatrefoil is given larger in the
+figure at _a_, together with the top of the small arch below, having the
+common Venetian dentil round it, and a delicate little moulding with
+dog-tooth ornament to carry the flanks of the arch. The moulding of the
+brick is throughout sharp and beautiful in the highest degree. One of
+the most curious points about it is the careless way in which the curved
+outlines of the pinnacles are cut into the plain brickwork, with no
+regard whatever to the places of its joints. The weather of course wears
+the bricks at the exposed joints, and jags the outline a little; but the
+work has stood, evidently from the fourteenth century, without
+sustaining much harm.
+
+§ XIII. This parapet may be taken as a general type of the
+_wall_-parapet of Venice in the Gothic period; some being much less
+decorated, and others much more richly: the most beautiful in Venice is
+in the little Calle, opening on the Campo and Traghetto San Samuele; it
+has delicately carved devices in stone let into each pinnacle.
+
+The parapets of the palaces themselves were lighter and more fantastic,
+consisting of narrow lance-like spires of marble, set between the
+broader pinnacles, which were in such cases generally carved into the
+form of a fleur-de-lis: the French word gives the reader the best idea
+of the form, though he must remember that this use of the lily for the
+parapets has nothing to do with France, but is the carrying out of the
+Byzantine system of floral ornamentation, which introduced the outline
+of the lily everywhere; so that I have found it convenient to call its
+most beautiful capitals, the _lily_ capitals of St. Mark's. But the
+occurrence of this flower, more distinctly than usual, on the
+battlements of the Ducal Palace, was the cause of some curious political
+speculation in the year 1511, when a piece of one of these battlements
+was shaken down by the great earthquake of that year. Sanuto notes in
+his diary that "the piece that fell was just that which bore the lily,"
+and records sundry sinister anticipations, founded on this important
+omen, of impending danger to the adverse French power. As there happens,
+in the Ducal Palace, to be a joint in the pinnacles which exactly
+separates the "part which bears the lily" from that which is fastened to
+the cornice, it is no wonder that the omen proved fallacious.
+
+§ XIV. The decorations of the parapet were completed by attaching gilded
+balls of metal to the extremities of the leaves of the lilies, and of
+the intermediate spires, so as literally to form for the wall a diadem
+of silver touched upon the points with gold; the image being rendered
+still more distinct in the Casa d' Oro, by variation in the height of
+the pinnacles, the highest being in the centre of the front.
+
+Very few of these light roof parapets now remain; they are, of course,
+the part of the building which dilapidation first renders it necessary
+to remove. That of the Ducal Palace, however, though often, I doubt not,
+restored, retains much of the ancient form, and is exceedingly
+beautiful, though it has no appearance from below of being intended for
+protection, but serves only, by its extreme lightness, to relieve the
+eye when wearied by the breadth of wall beneath; it is nevertheless a
+most serviceable defence for any person walking along the edge of the
+roof. It has some appearance of insecurity, owing to the entire
+independence of the pieces of stone composing it, which, though of
+course fastened by iron, look as if they stood balanced on the cornice
+like the pillars of Stonehenge; but I have never heard of its having
+been disturbed by anything short of an earthquake; and, as we have
+seen, even the great earthquake of 1511, though it much injured the
+Gorne, or battlements at the Casa d' Oro, and threw down several statues
+at St. Mark's,[81] only shook one lily from the brow of the Ducal
+Palace.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXIV.]
+
+§ XV. Although, however, these light and fantastic forms appear to have
+been universal in the battlements meant primarily for decoration, there
+was another condition of parapet altogether constructed for the
+protection of persons walking on the roofs or in the galleries of the
+churches, and from these more substantial and simple defences, the
+BALCONIES, to which the Gothic palaces owe half of their picturesque
+effect, were immediately derived; the balcony being, in fact, nothing
+more than a portion of such roof parapets arranged round a projecting
+window-sill sustained on brackets, as in the central example of the
+annexed figure. We must, therefore, examine these defensive balustrades
+and the derivative balconies consecutively.
+
+§ XVI. Obviously, a parapet with an unbroken edge, upon which the arm
+may rest (a condition above noticed, Vol. I. p. 157., as essential to
+the proper performance of its duty), can be constructed only in one of
+three ways. It must either be (1) of solid stone, decorated, if at all,
+by mere surface sculpture, as in the uppermost example in Fig. XXIV.,
+above; or (2) pierced into some kind of tracery, as in the second; or
+(3) composed of small pillars carrying a level bar of stone, as in the
+third; this last condition being, in a diseased and swollen form,
+familiar to us in the balustrades of our bridges.[82]
+
+§ XVII. (1.) Of these three kinds, the first, which is employed for the
+pulpit at Torcello and in the nave of St. Mark's, whence the uppermost
+example is taken, is beautiful when sculpture so rich can be employed
+upon it; but it is liable to objection, first, because it is heavy and
+unlike a parapet when seen from below; and, secondly, because it is
+inconvenient in use. The position of leaning over a balcony becomes
+cramped and painful if long continued, unless the foot can be sometimes
+advanced _beneath_ the ledge on which the arm leans, i. e. between the
+balusters or traceries, which of course cannot be done in the solid
+parapet: it is also more agreeable to be able to see partially down
+through the penetrations, than to be obliged to lean far over the edge.
+The solid parapet was rarely used in Venice after the earlier ages.
+
+§ XVIII. (2.) The Traceried Parapet is chiefly used in the Gothic of the
+North, from which the above example, in the Casa Contarini Fasan, is
+directly derived. It is, when well designed, the richest and most
+beautiful of all forms, and many of the best buildings of France and
+Germany are dependent for half their effect upon it; its only fault
+being a slight tendency to fantasticism. It was never frankly received
+in Venice, where the architects had unfortunately returned to the
+Renaissance forms before the flamboyant parapets were fully developed in
+the North; but, in the early stage of the Renaissance, a kind of pierced
+parapet was employed, founded on the old Byzantine interwoven
+traceries; that is to say, the slab of stone was pierced here and there
+with holes, and then an interwoven pattern traced on the surface round
+them. The difference in system will be understood in a moment by
+comparing the uppermost example in the figure at the side, which is a
+Northern parapet from the Cathedral of Abbeville, with the lowest, from
+a secret chamber in the Casa Foscari. It will be seen that the Venetian
+one is far more simple and severe, yet singularly piquant, the black
+penetrations telling sharply on the plain broad surface. Far inferior in
+beauty, it has yet one point of superiority to that of Abbeville, that
+it proclaims itself more definitely to be stone. The other has rather
+the look of lace.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXV.]
+
+The intermediate figure is a panel of the main balcony of the Ducal
+Palace, and is introduced here as being an exactly transitional
+condition between the Northern and Venetian types. It was built when the
+German Gothic workmen were exercising considerable influence over those
+in Venice, and there was some chance of the Northern parapet introducing
+itself. It actually did so, as above shown, in the Casa Contarini Fasan,
+but was for the most part stoutly resisted and kept at bay by the
+Byzantine form, the lowest in the last figure, until that form itself
+was displaced by the common, vulgar, Renaissance baluster; a grievous
+loss, for the severe pierced type was capable of a variety as endless as
+the fantasticism of our own Anglo-Saxon manuscript ornamentation.
+
+§ XIX. (3.) The Baluster Parapet. Long before the idea of tracery had
+suggested itself to the minds either of Venetian or any other
+architects, it had, of course, been necessary to provide protection for
+galleries, edges of roofs, &c.; and the most natural form in which such
+protection could be obtained was that of a horizontal bar or hand-rail,
+sustained upon short shafts or balusters, as in Fig. XXIV. p. 243. This
+form was, above all others, likely to be adopted where variations of
+Greek or Roman pillared architecture were universal in the larger masses
+of the building; the parapet became itself a small series of columns,
+with capitals and architraves; and whether the cross-bar laid upon them
+should be simply horizontal, and in contact with their capitals, or
+sustained by mimic arches, round or pointed, depended entirely on the
+system adopted in the rest of the work. Where the large arches were
+round, the small balustrade arches would be so likewise; where those
+were pointed, these would become so in sympathy with them.
+
+§ XX. Unfortunately, wherever a balcony or parapet is used in an
+inhabited house, it is, of course, the part of the structure which first
+suffers from dilapidation, as well as that of which the security is most
+anxiously cared for. The main pillars of a casement may stand for
+centuries unshaken under the steady weight of the superincumbent wall,
+but the cement and various insetting of the balconies are sure to be
+disturbed by the irregular pressures and impulses of the persons leaning
+on them; while, whatever extremity of decay may be allowed in other
+parts of the building, the balcony, as soon as it seems dangerous, will
+assuredly be removed or restored. The reader will not, if he considers
+this, be surprised to hear that, among all the remnants of the Venetian
+domestic architecture of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
+centuries, there is not a single instance of the original balconies
+being preserved. The palace mentioned below (§ XXXII.), in the piazza of
+the Rialto, has, indeed, solid slabs of stone between its shafts, but I
+cannot be certain that they are of the same period; if they are, this is
+the only existing example of the form of protection employed for
+casements during this transitional period, and it cannot be reasoned
+from as being the general one.
+
+§ XXI. It is only, therefore, in the churches of Torcello, Murano, and
+St. Mark's, that the ancient forms of gallery defence may still be seen.
+At Murano, between the pillars of the apse, a beautiful balustrade is
+employed, of which a single arch is given in the Plate opposite, fig. 4,
+with its section, fig. 5.; and at St. Mark's, a noble round-arched
+parapet, with small pillars of precisely the same form as those of
+Murano, but shorter, and bound at the angles into groups of four by the
+serpentine knot so often occurring in Lombardic work, runs round the
+whole exterior of the lower story of the church, and round great part of
+its interior galleries, alternating with the more fantastic form, fig.
+6. In domestic architecture, the remains of the original balconies begin
+to occur first in the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the
+round arch had entirely disappeared; and the parapet consists, almost
+without exception, of a series of small trefoiled arches, cut boldly
+through a bar of stone which rests upon the shafts, at first very
+simple, and generally adorned with a cross at the point of each arch, as
+in fig. 7 in the last Plate, which gives the angle of such a balcony on
+a large scale; but soon enriched into the beautiful conditions, figs. 2
+and 3, and sustained on brackets formed of lions' heads, as seen in the
+central example of their entire effect, fig. 1.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XIII.
+               BALCONIES.]
+
+§ XXII. In later periods, the round arches return; then the interwoven
+Byzantine form; and finally, as above noticed, the common English or
+classical balustrade; of which, however, exquisite examples, for grace
+and variety of outline, are found designed in the backgrounds of Paul
+Veronese. I could willingly follow out this subject fully, but it is
+impossible to do so without leaving Venice; for the chief city of Italy,
+as far as regards the strict effect of the balcony, is Verona; and if we
+were once to lose ourselves among the sweet shadows of its lonely
+streets, where the falling branches of the flowers stream like fountains
+through the pierced traceries of the marble, there is no saying whether
+we might soon be able to return to our immediate work. Yet before
+leaving the subject of the balcony[83] altogether, I must allude, for a
+moment, to the peculiar treatment of the iron-work out of which it is
+frequently wrought on the mainland of Italy--never in Venice. The iron
+is always wrought, not cast, beaten first into thin leaves, and then cut
+either into strips or bands, two or three inches broad, which are bent
+into various curves to form the sides of the balcony, or else into
+actual leafage, sweeping and free, like the leaves of nature, with which
+it is richly decorated. There is no end to the variety of design, no
+limit to the lightness and flow of the forms, which the workman can
+produce out of iron treated in this manner; and it is very nearly as
+impossible for any metal-work, so handled, to be poor, or ignoble in
+effect, as it is for cast metal-work to be otherwise.
+
+§ XXIII. We have next to examine those features of the Gothic palaces in
+which the transitions of their architecture are most distinctly
+traceable; namely, the arches of the windows and doors.
+
+It has already been repeatedly stated, that the Gothic style had formed
+itself completely on the mainland, while the Byzantines still retained
+their influence at Venice; and that the history of early Venetian Gothic
+is therefore not that of a school taking new forms independently of
+external influence, but the history of the struggle of the Byzantine
+manner with a contemporary style quite as perfectly organized as itself,
+and far more energetic. And this struggle is exhibited partly in the
+gradual change of the Byzantine architecture into other forms, and
+partly by isolated examples of genuine Gothic taken prisoner, as it
+were, in the contest; or rather entangled among the enemy's forces, and
+maintaining their ground till their friends came up to sustain them. Let
+us first follow the steps of the gradual change, and then give some
+brief account of the various advanced guards and forlorn hopes of the
+Gothic attacking force.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XIV.
+               THE ORDERS OF VENETIAN ARCHES.]
+
+§ XXIV. The uppermost shaded series of six forms of windows in Plate
+XIV., opposite, represents, at a glance, the modifications of this
+feature in Venetian palaces, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century.
+Fig. 1 is Byzantine, of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; figs. 2
+and 3 transitional, of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries;
+figs. 4 and 5 pure Gothic, of the thirteenth, fourteenth and early
+fifteenth; and fig. 6. late Gothic, of the fifteenth century,
+distinguished by its added finial. Fig. 4 is the longest-lived of all
+these forms: it occurs first in the thirteenth century; and, sustaining
+modifications only in its mouldings, is found also in the middle of the
+fifteenth.
+
+I shall call these the six orders[84] of Venetian windows, and when I
+speak of a window of the fourth, second, or sixth order, the reader will
+only have to refer to the numerals at the top of Plate XIV.
+
+Then the series below shows the principal forms found in each period,
+belonging to each several order; except 1 _b_ to 1 _c_, and the two
+lower series, numbered 7 to 16, which are types of Venetian doors.
+
+§ XXV. We shall now be able, without any difficulty, to follow the
+course of transition, beginning with the first order, 1 and 1 _a_, in
+the second row. The horse-shoe arch, 1 _b_, is the door-head commonly
+associated with it, and the other three in the same row occur in St.
+Mark's exclusively; 1 _c_ being used in the nave, in order to give a
+greater appearance of lightness to its great lateral arcades, which at
+first the spectator supposes to be round-arched, but he is struck by a
+peculiar grace and elasticity in the curves for which he is unable to
+account, until he ascends into the galleries whence the true form of the
+arch is discernible. The other two--1 _d_, from the door of the
+southern transept, and 1 _c_, from that of the treasury,--sufficiently
+represent a group of fantastic forms derived from the Arabs, and of
+which the exquisite decoration is one of the most important features in
+St. Mark's. Their form is indeed permitted merely to obtain more fantasy
+in the curves of this decoration.[85] The reader can see in a moment,
+that, as pieces of masonry, or bearing arches, they are infirm or
+useless, and therefore never could be employed in any building in which
+dignity of structure was the primal object. It is just because structure
+is _not_ the primal object in St. Mark's, because it has no severe
+weights to bear, and much loveliness of marble and sculpture to exhibit,
+that they are therein allowable. They are of course, like the rest of
+the building, built of brick and faced with marble, and their inner
+masonry, which must be very ingenious, is therefore not discernible.
+They have settled a little, as might have been expected, and the
+consequence is, that there is in every one of them, except the upright
+arch of the treasury, a small fissure across the marble of the flanks.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXVI.]
+
+§ XXVI. Though, however, the Venetian builders adopted these Arabian
+forms of arch where grace of ornamentation was their only purpose, they
+saw that such arrangements were unfit for ordinary work; and there is no
+instance, I believe, in Venice, of their having used any of them for a
+dwelling-house in the truly Byzantine period. But so soon as the Gothic
+influence began to be felt, and the pointed arch forced itself upon
+them, their first concession to its attack was the adoption, in
+preference to the round arch, of the form 3 _a_ (Plate XIV., above); the
+point of the Gothic arch forcing itself up, as it were, through the top
+of the semicircle which it was soon to supersede.
+
+§ XXVII. The woodcut above, Fig. XXVI., represents the door and two of
+the lateral windows of a house in the Corte del Remer, facing the Grand
+Canal, in the parish of the Apostoli. It is remarkable as having its
+great entrance on the first floor, attained by a bold flight of steps,
+sustained on pure _pointed_ arches wrought in brick. I cannot tell if
+these arches are contemporary with the building, though it must always
+have had an access of the kind. The rest of its aspect is Byzantine,
+except only that the rich sculptures of its archivolt show in combats of
+animals, beneath the soffit, a beginning of the Gothic fire and energy.
+The moulding of its plinth is of a Gothic profile,[86] and the windows
+are pointed, not with a reversed curve, but in a pure straight gable,
+very curiously contrasted with the delicate bending of the pieces of
+marble armor cut for the shoulders of each arch. There is a two-lighted
+window, such as that seen in the vignette, on each side of the door,
+sustained in the centre by a basket-worked Byzantine capital: the mode
+of covering the brick archivolt with marble, both in the windows and
+doorway, is precisely like that of the true Byzantine palaces.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXVII.]
+
+§ XXVIII. But as, even on a small scale, these arches are weak, if
+executed in brickwork, the appearance of this sharp point in the outline
+was rapidly accompanied by a parallel change in the method of building;
+and instead of constructing the arch of brick and coating it with
+marble, the builders formed it of three pieces of hewn stone inserted
+in the wall, as in Fig. XXVII. Not, however, at first in this perfect
+form. The endeavor to reconcile the grace of the reversed arch with the
+strength of the round one, and still to build in brick, ended at first
+in conditions such as that represented at _a_, Fig. XXVIII., which is a
+window in the Calle del Pistor, close to the church of the Apostoli, a
+very interesting and perfect example. Here, observe, the poor round arch
+is still kept to do all the hard work, and the fantastic ogee takes its
+pleasure above, in the form of a moulding merely, a chain of bricks cast
+to the required curve. And this condition, translated into stone-work,
+becomes a window of the second order (_b_5, Fig. XXVIII., or 2, in Plate
+XIV.); a form perfectly strong and serviceable, and of immense
+importance in the transitional architecture of Venice.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXVIII.]
+
+§ XXIX. At _b_, Fig. XXVIII., as above, is given one of the earliest and
+simplest occurrences of the second order window (in a double group,
+exactly like the brick transitional form _a_), from a most important
+fragment of a defaced house in the Salizzada San Liň, close to the
+Merceria. It is associated with a fine _pointed_ brick arch,
+indisputably of contemporary work, towards the close of the thirteenth
+century, and it is shown to be later than the previous example, _a_, by
+the greater developement of its mouldings. The archivolt profile,
+indeed, is the simpler of the two, not having the sub-arch; as in the
+brick example; but the other mouldings are far more developed. Fig.
+XXIX. shows at 1 the arch profiles, at 2 the capital profiles, at 3 the
+basic-plinth profiles, of each window, _a_ and _b_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXIX.]
+
+§ XXX. But the second order window soon attained nobler developement. At
+once simple, graceful, and strong, it was received into all the
+architecture of the period, and there is hardly a street in Venice which
+does not exhibit some important remains of palaces built with this form
+of window in many stories, and in numerous groups. The most extensive
+and perfect is one upon the Grand Canal in the parish of the Apostoli,
+near the Rialto, covered with rich decoration, in the Byzantine manner,
+between the windows of its first story; but not completely
+characteristic of the transitional period, because still retaining the
+dentil in the arch mouldings, while the transitional houses all have the
+simple roll. Of the fully established type, one of the most extensive
+and perfect examples is in a court in the Calle di Rimedio, close to the
+Ponte dell' Angelo, near St. Mark's Place. Another looks out upon a
+small square garden, one of the few visible in the centre of Venice,
+close by the Corte Salviati (the latter being known to every cicerone as
+that from which Bianca Capello fled). But, on the whole, the most
+interesting to the traveller is that of which I have given a vignette
+opposite.
+
+But for this range of windows, the little piazza SS. Apostoli would be
+one of the least picturesque in Venice; to those, however, who seek it
+on foot, it becomes geographically interesting from the extraordinary
+involution of the alleys leading to it from the Rialto. In Venice, the
+straight road is usually by water, and the long road by land; but the
+difference of distance appears, in this case, altogether inexplicable.
+Twenty or thirty strokes of the oar will bring a gondola from the foot
+of the Rialto to that of the Ponte SS. Apostoli; but the unwise
+pedestrian, who has not noticed the white clue beneath his feet,[87] may
+think himself fortunate, if, after a quarter of an hour's wandering
+among the houses behind the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, he finds himself
+anywhere in the neighborhood of the point he seeks. With much patience,
+however, and modest following of the guidance of the marble thread, he
+will at last emerge over a steep bridge into the open space of the
+Piazza, rendered cheerful in autumn by a perpetual market of
+pomegranates, and purple gourds, like enormous black figs; while the
+canal, at its extremity, is half-blocked up by barges laden with vast
+baskets of grapes as black as charcoal, thatched over with their own
+leaves.
+
+Looking back, on the other side of this canal, he will see the windows
+represented in Plate XV., which, with the arcade of pointed arches
+beneath them, are the remains of the palace once belonging to the
+unhappy doge, Marino Faliero.
+
+The balcony is, of course, modern, and the series of windows has been of
+greater extent, once terminated by a pilaster on the left hand, as well
+as on the right; but the terminal arches have been walled up. What
+remains, however, is enough, with its sculptured birds and dragons, to
+give the reader a very distinct idea of the second order window in its
+perfect form. The details of the capitals, and other minor portions, if
+these interest him, he will find given in the final Appendix.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XV.
+               WINDOWS OF THE SECOND ORDER.
+               CASA FALIER.]
+
+§ XXXI. The advance of the Gothic spirit was, for a few years, checked
+by this compromise between the round and pointed arch. The truce,
+however, was at last broken, in consequence of the discovery that the
+keystone would do duty quite as well in the form _b_ as in the form _a_,
+Fig. XXX., and the substitution of _b_, at the head of the arch, gives
+us the window of the third order, 3 _b_, 3 _d_, and 3 _e_, in Plate XIV.
+The forms 3 _a_ and 3 _c_ are exceptional; the first occurring, as we
+have seen, in the Corte del Remer, and in one other palace on the Grand
+Canal, close to the Church of St. Eustachio; the second only, as far as
+I know, in one house on the Canna-Reggio, belonging to the true Gothic
+period. The other three examples, 3 _b_, 3 _d_, 3 _e_, are generally
+characteristic of the third order; and it will be observed that they
+differ not merely in mouldings, but in slope of sides, and this latter
+difference is by far the most material. For in the example 3 _b_ there
+is hardly any true Gothic expression; it is still the pure Byzantine
+arch, with a point thrust up through it: but the moment the flanks
+slope, as in 3 _d_, the Gothic expression is definite, and the entire
+school of the architecture is changed.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXX.]
+
+This slope of the flanks occurs, first, in so slight a degree as to be
+hardly perceptible, and gradually increases until, reaching the form 3
+_e_ at the close of the thirteenth century, the window is perfectly
+prepared for a transition into the fifth order.
+
+§ XXXII. The most perfect examples of the third order in Venice are the
+windows of the ruined palace of Marco Querini, the father-in-law of
+Bajamonte Tiepolo, in consequence of whose conspiracy against the
+government this palace was ordered to be razed in 1310; but it was only
+partially ruined, and was afterwards used as the common shambles. The
+Venetians have now made a poultry market of the lower story (the
+shambles being removed to a suburb), and a prison of the upper, though
+it is one of the most important and interesting monuments in the city,
+and especially valuable as giving us a secure date for the central form
+of these very rare transitional windows. For, as it was the palace of
+the father-in-law of Bajamonte, and the latter was old enough to assume
+the leadership of a political faction in 1280,[88] the date of the
+accession to the throne of the Doge Pietro Gradenigo, we are secure of
+this palace having been built not later than the middle of the
+thirteenth century. Another example, less refined in workmanship, but,
+if possible, still more interesting, owing to the variety of its
+capitals, remains in the little piazza opening to the Rialto, on the St.
+Mark's side of the Grand Canal. The house faces the bridge, and its
+second story has been built in the thirteenth century, above a still
+earlier Byzantine cornice remaining, or perhaps introduced from some
+other ruined edifice, in the walls of the first floor. The windows of
+the second story are of pure third order; four of them are represented
+above, with their flanking pilaster, and capitals varying constantly in
+the form of the flower or leaf introduced between their volutes.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXI.]
+
+§ XXXIII. Another most important example exists in the lower story of
+the Casa Sagredo, on the Grand Canal, remarkable as having the early
+upright form (3 _b_, Plate XIV.) with a somewhat late moulding. Many
+others occur in the fragmentary ruins in the streets: but the two
+boldest conditions which I found in Venice are those of the
+Chapter-House of the Frari, in which the Doge Francesco Dandolo was
+buried circa 1339; and those of the flank of the Ducal Palace itself
+absolutely corresponding with those of the Frari, and therefore of
+inestimable value in determining the date of the palace. Of these more
+hereafter.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XVI.
+               WINDOWS OF THE FOURTH ORDER.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXII.]
+
+§ XXXIV. Contemporarily with these windows of the second and third
+orders, those of the fourth (4 _a_ and 4 _b_, in Plate XIV.) occur, at
+first in pairs, and with simple mouldings, precisely similar to those of
+the second order, but much more rare, as in the example at the side,
+Fig. XXXII., from the Salizada San Liň; and then, enriching their
+mouldings as shown in the continuous series 4 _c_, 4 _d_, of Plate XIV.,
+associate themselves with the fifth order windows of the perfect Gothic
+period. There is hardly a palace in Venice without some example, either
+early or late, of these fourth order windows; but the Plate opposite
+(XVI.) represents one of their purest groups at the close of the
+thirteenth century, from a house on the Grand Canal, nearly opposite the
+Church of the Scalzi. I have drawn it from the side, in order that the
+great depth of the arches may be seen, and the clear detaching of the
+shafts from the sheets of glass behind. The latter, as well as the
+balcony, are comparatively modern; but there is no doubt that if glass
+were used in the old window, it was set behind the shafts, at the same
+depth. The entire modification of the interiors of all the Venetian
+houses by recent work has however prevented me from entering into any
+inquiry as to the manner in which the ancient glazing was attached to
+the interiors of the windows.
+
+The fourth order window is found in great richness and beauty at Verona,
+down to the latest Gothic times, as well as in the earliest, being then
+more frequent than any other form. It occurs, on a grand scale, in the
+old palace of the Scaligers, and profusely throughout the streets of the
+city. The series 4 _a_ to 4 _e_, Plate XIV., shows its most ordinary
+conditions and changes of arch-line: 4 _a_ and 4 _b_ are the early
+Venetian forms; 4 _c_, later, is general at Venice; 4 _d_, the best and
+most piquant condition, owing to its fantastic and bold projection of
+cusp, is common to Venice and Verona; 4 _e_ is early Veronese.
+
+§ XXXV. The reader will see at once, in descending to the fifth row in
+Plate XIV., representing the windows of the fifth order, that they are
+nothing more than a combination of the third and fourth. By this union
+they become the nearest approximation to a perfect Gothic form which
+occurs characteristically at Venice; and we shall therefore pause on the
+threshold of this final change, to glance back upon, and gather
+together, those fragments of purer pointed architecture which were above
+noticed as the forlorn hopes of the Gothic assault.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXIII.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXIV.]
+
+The little Campiello San Rocco is entered by a sotto-portico behind the
+church of the Frari. Looking back, the upper traceries of the
+magnificent apse are seen towering above the irregular roofs and
+chimneys of the little square; and our lost Prout was enabled to bring
+the whole subject into an exquisitely picturesque composition, by the
+fortunate occurrence of four quaint trefoiled windows in one of the
+houses on the right. Those trefoils are among the most ancient efforts
+of Gothic art in Venice. I have given a rude sketch of them in Fig.
+XXXIII. They are built entirely of brick, except the central shaft
+and capital, which are of Istrian stone. Their structure is the simplest
+possible; the trefoils being cut out of the radiating bricks which form
+the pointed arch, and the edge or upper limit of that pointed arch
+indicated by a roll moulding formed of cast bricks, in length of about a
+foot, and ground at the bottom so as to meet in one, as in Fig. XXXIV.
+The capital of the shaft is one of the earliest transitional forms;[89]
+and observe the curious following out, even in this minor instance, of
+the great law of centralization above explained with respect to the
+Byzantine palaces. There is a central shaft, a pilaster on each side,
+and then the wall. The pilaster has, by way of capital, a square flat
+brick, projecting a little, and cast, at the edge, into the form of the
+first type of all cornices (_a_, p. 63, Vol. I.; the reader ought to
+glance back at this passage, if he has forgotten it); and the shafts and
+pilasters all stand, without any added bases, on a projecting plinth of
+the same simple profile. These windows have been much defaced; but I
+have not the least doubt that their plinths are the original ones: and
+the whole group is one of the most valuable in Venice, as showing the
+way in which the humblest houses, in the noble times, followed out the
+system of the larger palaces, as far as they could, in their rude
+materials. It is not often that the dwellings of the lower orders are
+preserved to us from the thirteenth century.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XVII.
+               WINDOWS OF THE EARLY GOTHIC PALACES.]
+
+§ XXXVI. In the two upper lines of the opposite Plate (XVII.), I have
+arranged some of the more delicate and finished examples of Gothic work
+of this period. Of these, fig. 4 is taken from the outer arcade of San
+Fermo of Verona, to show the condition of mainland architecture, from
+which all these Venetian types were borrowed. This arch, together with
+the rest of the arcade, is wrought in fine stone, with a band of inlaid
+red brick, the whole chiselled and fitted with exquisite precision, all
+Venetian work being coarse in comparison. Throughout the streets of
+Verona, arches and windows of the thirteenth century are of continual
+occurrence, wrought, in this manner, with brick and stone; sometimes
+the brick alternating with the stones of the arch, as in the finished
+example given in Plate XIX. of the first volume, and there selected in
+preference to other examples of archivolt decoration, because furnishing
+a complete type of the master school from which the Venetian Gothic is
+derived.
+
+§ XXXVII. The arch from St. Fermo, however, fig. 4, Plate XVII.,
+corresponds more closely, in its entire simplicity, with the little
+windows from the Campiello San Rocco; and with the type 5 set beside it
+in Plate XVII., from a very ancient house in the Corte del Forno at
+Santa Marina (all in brick); while the upper examples, 1 and 2, show the
+use of the flat but highly enriched architrave, for the connection of
+which with Byzantine work see the final Appendix, Vol. III., under the
+head "Archivolt." These windows (figs. 1 and 2, Plate XVII.) are from a
+narrow alley in a part of Venice now exclusively inhabited by the lower
+orders, close to the arsenal;[90] they are entirely wrought in brick,
+with exquisite mouldings, not cast, but _moulded in the clay by the
+hand_, so that there is not one piece of the arch like another; the
+pilasters and shafts being, as usual, of stone.
+
+§ XXXVIII. And here let me pause for a moment, to note what one should
+have thought was well enough known in England,--yet I could not perhaps
+touch upon anything less considered,--the real use of brick. Our fields
+of good clay were never given us to be made into oblong morsels of one
+size. They were given us that we might play with them, and that men who
+could not handle a chisel, might knead out of them some expression of
+human thought. In the ancient architecture of the clay districts of
+Italy, every possible adaptation of the material is found exemplified:
+from the coarsest and most brittle kinds, used in the mass of the
+structure, to bricks for arches and plinths, cast in the most perfect
+curves, and of almost every size, strength, and hardness; and moulded
+bricks, wrought into flower-work and tracery as fine as raised patterns
+upon china. And, just as many of the finest works of the Italian
+sculptors were executed in porcelain, many of the best thoughts of their
+architects are expressed in brick, or in the softer material of terra
+cotta; and if this were so in Italy, where there is not one city from
+whose towers we may not descry the blue outline of Alp or Apennine,
+everlasting quarries of granite or marble, how much more ought it to be
+so among the fields of England! I believe that the best academy for her
+architects, for some half century to come, would be the brick-field; for
+of this they may rest assured, that till they know how to use clay, they
+will never know how to use marble.
+
+§ XXXIX. And now observe, as we pass from fig. 2 to fig. 3, and from
+fig. 5 to fig. 6, in Plate XVII., a most interesting step of transition.
+As we saw above, § XIV., the round arch yielding to the Gothic, by
+allowing a point to emerge at its summit, so here we have the Gothic
+conceding something to the form which had been assumed by the round; and
+itself slightly altering its outline so as to meet the condescension of
+the round arch half way. At page 137 of the first volume, I have drawn
+to scale one of these minute concessions of the pointed arch, granted at
+Verona out of pure courtesy to the Venetian forms, by one of the purest
+Gothic ornaments in the world; and the small window here, fig. 6, is a
+similar example at Venice itself, from the Campo Santa Maria Mater
+Domini, where the reversed curve at the head of the pointed arch is just
+perceptible and no more. The other examples, figs. 3 and 7, the first
+from a small but very noble house in the Merceria, the second from an
+isolated palace at Murano, show more advanced conditions of the reversed
+curve, which, though still employing the broad decorated architrave of
+the earlier examples, are in all other respects prepared for the
+transition to the simple window of the fifth order.
+
+§ XL. The next example, the uppermost of the three lower series in Plate
+XVII., shows this order in its early purity; associated with
+intermediate decorations like those of the Byzantines, from a palace
+once belonging to the Erizzo family, near the Arsenal. The ornaments
+appear to be actually of Greek workmanship (except, perhaps, the two
+birds over the central arch, which are bolder, and more free in
+treatment), and built into the Gothic fronts; showing, however, the
+early date of the whole by the manner of their insertion, corresponding
+exactly with that employed in the Byzantine palaces, and by the covering
+of the intermediate spaces with sheets of marble, which, however,
+instead of being laid over the entire wall, are now confined to the
+immediate spaces between and above the windows, and are bounded by a
+dentil moulding.
+
+In the example below this the Byzantine ornamentation has vanished, and
+the fifth order window is seen in its generic form, as commonly employed
+throughout the early Gothic period. Such arcades are of perpetual
+occurrence; the one in the Plate was taken from a small palace on the
+Grand Canal, nearly opposite the Casa Foscari. One point in it deserves
+especial notice, the increased size of the lateral window as compared
+with the rest: a circumstance which occurs in a great number of the
+groups of windows belonging to this period, and for which I have never
+been able to account.
+
+§ XLI. Both these figures have been most carefully engraved; and the
+uppermost will give the reader a perfectly faithful idea of the general
+effect of the Byzantine sculptures, and of the varied alabaster among
+which they are inlaid, as well as of the manner in which these pieces
+are set together, every joint having been drawn on the spot: and the
+transition from the embroidered and silvery richness of this
+architecture, in which the Byzantine ornamentation was associated with
+the Gothic form of arch, to the simplicity of the pure Gothic arcade as
+seen in the lower figure, is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the
+history of Venetian art. If it had occurred suddenly, and at an earlier
+period, it might have been traced partly to the hatred of the Greeks,
+consequent upon the treachery of Manuel Comnenus,[91] and the fatal war
+to which it led; but the change takes place gradually, and not till a
+much later period. I hoped to have been able to make some careful
+inquiries into the habits of domestic life of the Venetians before and
+after the dissolution of their friendly relations with Constantinople;
+but the labor necessary for the execution of my more immediate task has
+entirely prevented this: and I must be content to lay the succession of
+the architectural styles plainly before the reader, and leave the
+collateral questions to the investigation of others; merely noting this
+one assured fact, that _the root of all that is greatest in Christian
+art is struck in the thirteenth century_; that the temper of that
+century is the life-blood of all manly work thenceforward in Europe; and
+I suppose that one of its peculiar characteristics was elsewhere, as
+assuredly in Florence, a singular simplicity in domestic life:
+
+  "I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad
+   In leathern girdle, and a clasp of bone;
+   And, with no artful coloring on her cheeks,
+   His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw
+   Of Verli and of Vecchio, well content
+   With unrobed jerkin, and their good dames handling
+   The spindle and the flax....
+   One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it
+   With sounds that lulled the parents' infancy;
+   Another, with her maidens, drawing off
+   The tresses from the distaff, lectured them
+   Old tales of Troy, and Fesole, and Rome."[92]
+
+§ XLII. Such, then, is the simple fact at Venice, that from the
+beginning of the thirteenth century there is found a singular increase
+of simplicity in all architectural ornamentation; the rich Byzantine
+capitals giving place to a pure and severe type hereafter to be
+described,[93] and the rich sculptures vanishing from the walls, nothing
+but the marble facing remaining. One of the most interesting examples of
+this transitional state is a palace at San Severo, just behind the Casa
+Zorzi. This latter is a Renaissance building, utterly worthless in every
+respect, but known to the Venetian Ciceroni; and by inquiring for it,
+and passing a little beyond it down the Fondamenta San Severo, the
+traveller will see, on the other side of the canal, a palace which the
+Ciceroni never notice, but which is unique in Venice for the
+magnificence of the veined purple alabasters with which it has been
+decorated, and for the manly simplicity of the foliage of its capitals.
+Except in these, it has no sculpture whatever, and its effect is
+dependent entirely on color. Disks of green serpentine are inlaid on the
+field of purple alabaster; and the pillars are alternately of red marble
+with white capitals, and of white marble with red capitals. Its windows
+appear of the third order; and the back of the palace, in a small and
+most picturesque court, shows a group of windows which are, perhaps, the
+most superb examples of that order in Venice. But the windows to the
+front have, I think, been of the fifth order, and their cusps have been
+cut away.
+
+§ XLIII. When the Gothic feeling began more decidedly to establish
+itself, it evidently became a question with the Venetian builders, how
+the intervals between the arches, now left blank by the abandonment of
+the Byzantine sculptures, should be enriched in accordance with the
+principles of the new school. Two most important examples are left of
+the experiments made at this period: one at the Ponte del Forner, at San
+Cassano, a noble house in which the spandrils of the windows are filled
+by the emblems of the four Evangelists, sculptured in deep relief, and
+touching the edges of the arches with their expanded wings; the other
+now known as the Palazzo Cicogna, near the church of San Sebastiano, in
+the quarter called "of the Archangel Raphael," in which a large space of
+wall above the windows is occupied by an intricate but rude tracery of
+involved quatrefoils. Of both these palaces I purposed to give drawings
+in my folio work; but I shall probably be saved the trouble by the
+publication of the beautiful calotypes lately made at Venice of both;
+and it is unnecessary to represent them here, as they are unique in
+Venetian architecture, with the single exception of an unimportant
+imitation of the first of them in a little by-street close to the Campo
+Sta. Maria Formosa. For the question as to the mode of decorating the
+interval between the arches was suddenly and irrevocably determined by
+the builder of the Ducal Palace, who, as we have seen, taking his first
+idea from the traceries of the Frari, and arranging those traceries as
+best fitted his own purpose, designed the great arcade (the lowest of
+the three in Plate XVII.), which thenceforward became the established
+model for every work of importance in Venice. The palaces built on this
+model, however, most of them not till the beginning of the fifteenth
+century, belong properly to the time of the Renaissance; and what little
+we have to note respecting them may be more clearly stated in connexion
+with other facts characteristic of that period.
+
+§ XLIV. As the examples in Plate XVII. are necessarily confined to the
+upper parts of the windows, I have given in the Plate opposite
+(XVIII[94]) examples of the fifth order window, both in its earliest and
+in its fully developed form, completed from base to keystone. The upper
+example is a beautiful group from a small house, never of any size or
+pretension, and now inhabited only by the poor, in the Campiello della
+Strope, close to the Church of San Giacomo de Lorio. It is remarkable
+for its excessive purity of curve, and is of very early date, its
+mouldings being simpler than usual.[95] The lower example is from the
+second story of a palace belonging to the Priuli family, near San
+Lorenzo, and shows one feature to which our attention has not hitherto
+been directed, namely, the penetration of the cusp, leaving only a
+silver thread of stone traced on the darkness of the window. I need not
+say that, in this condition, the cusp ceases to have any constructive
+use, and is merely decorative, but often exceedingly beautiful. The
+steps of transition from the early solid cusp to this slender thread are
+noticed in the final Appendix, under the head "Tracery Bars;" the
+commencement of the change being in the thinning of the stone, which is
+not cut through until it is thoroughly emaciated. Generally speaking,
+the condition in which the cusp is found is a useful test of age, when
+compared with other points; the more solid it is, the more ancient: but
+the massive form is often found associated with the perforated, as late
+as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In the Ducal Palace, the
+lower or bearing traceries have the solid cusp, and the upper traceries
+of the windows, which are merely decorative., have the perforated cusp,
+both with exquisite effect.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XVIII.
+               WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER.]
+
+§ XLV. The smaller balconies between the great shafts in the lower
+example in Plate XVIII. are original and characteristic: not so the
+lateral one of the detached window, which has been restored; but by
+imagining it to be like that represented in fig. 1, Plate XIII., above,
+which is a perfect window of the finest time of the fifth order, the
+reader will be enabled to form a complete idea of the external
+appearance of the principal apartments in the house of a noble of
+Venice, at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
+
+§ XLVI. Whether noble, or merchant, or, as frequently happened, both,
+every Venetian appears, at this time, to have raised his palace or
+dwelling-house upon one type. Under every condition of importance,
+through every variation of size, the forms and mode of decoration of all
+the features were universally alike; not servilely alike, but
+fraternally; not with the sameness of coins cast from one mould, but
+with the likeness of the members of one family. No fragment of the
+period is preserved, in which the windows, be they few or many, a group
+of three or an arcade of thirty, have not the noble cusped arch of the
+fifth order. And they are especially to be noted by us at this day,
+because these refined and richly ornamented forms were used in the
+habitations of a nation as laborious, as practical, as brave, and as
+prudent as ourselves; and they were built at a time when that nation was
+struggling with calamities and changes threatening its existence almost
+every hour. And, farther, they are interesting because perfectly
+applicable to modern habitation. The refinement of domestic life appears
+to have been far advanced in Venice from her earliest days; and the
+remains of her Gothic palaces are, at this day, the most delightful
+residences in the city, having undergone no change in external form, and
+probably having been rather injured than rendered more convenient by the
+modifications which poverty and Renaissance taste, contending with the
+ravages of time, have introduced in the interiors. So that, in Venice,
+and the cities grouped around it, Vicenza, Padua, and Verona, the
+traveller may ascertain, by actual experience, the effect which would be
+produced upon the comfort or luxury of daily life by the revival of the
+Gothic school of architecture. He can still stand upon the marble
+balcony in the soft summer air, and feel its smooth surface warm from
+the noontide as he leans on it in the twilight; he can still see the
+strong sweep of the unruined traceries drawn on the deep serenity of the
+starry sky, and watch the fantastic shadows of the clustered arches
+shorten in the moonlight on the chequered floor; or he may close the
+casements fitted to their unshaken shafts against such wintry winds as
+would have made an English house vibrate to its foundation, and, in
+either case, compare their influence on his daily home feeling with that
+of the square openings in his English wall.
+
+§ XLVII. And let him be assured, if he find there is more to be enjoyed
+in the Gothic window, there is also more to be trusted. It is the best
+and strongest building, as it is the most beautiful. I am not now
+speaking of the particular form of Venetian Gothic, but of the general
+strength of the pointed arch as opposed to that of the level lintel of
+the square window; and I plead for the introduction of the Gothic form
+into our domestic architecture, not merely because it is lovely, but
+because it is the only form of faithful, strong, enduring, and honorable
+building, in such materials as come daily to our hands. By increase of
+scale and cost, it is possible to build, in any style, what will last
+for ages; but only in the Gothic is it possible to give security and
+dignity to work wrought with imperfect means and materials. And I trust
+that there will come a time when the English people may see the folly of
+building basely and insecurely. It is common with those architects
+against whose practice my writings have hitherto been directed, to call
+them merely theoretical and imaginative. I answer, that there is not a
+single principle asserted either in the "Seven Lamps" or here, but is of
+the simplest, sternest veracity, and the easiest practicability; that
+buildings, raised as I would have them, would stand unshaken for a
+thousand years; and the buildings raised by the architects who oppose
+them will not stand for one hundred and fifty, they sometimes do not
+stand for an hour. There is hardly a week passes without some
+catastrophe brought about by the base principles of modern building;
+some vaultless floor that drops the staggering crowd through the jagged
+rents of its rotten timbers; some baseless bridge that is washed away by
+the first wave of a summer flood; some fungous wall of nascent
+rottenness that a thunder-shower soaks down with its workmen into a heap
+of slime and death.[96] These we hear of, day by day: yet these indicate
+but the thousandth part of the evil. The portion of the national income
+sacrificed in mere bad building, in the perpetual repairs, and swift
+condemnation and pulling down of ill-built shells of houses, passes all
+calculation. And the weight of the penalty is not yet felt; it will tell
+upon our children some fifty years hence, when the cheap work, and
+contract work, and stucco and plaster work, and bad iron work, and all
+the other expedients of modern rivalry, vanity, and dishonesty, begin to
+show themselves for what they are.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXV.]
+
+§ XLVIII. Indeed, dishonesty and false economy will no more build safely
+in Gothic than in any other style: but of all forms which we could
+possibly employ, to be framed hastily and out of bad materials, the
+common square window is the worst; and its level head of brickwork (_a_,
+Fig. XXXV.) is the weakest way of covering a space. Indeed, in the
+hastily heaped shells of modern houses, there may be seen often even a
+worse manner of placing the bricks, as at _b_, supporting them by a bit
+of lath till the mortar dries; but even when worked with the utmost
+care, and having every brick tapered into the form of a voussoir and
+accurately fitted, I have seen such a window-head give way, and a wide
+fissure torn through all the brickwork above it, two years after it was
+built; while the pointed arch of the Veronese Gothic, wrought in brick
+also, occurs at every corner of the streets of the city, untouched since
+the thirteenth century, and without a single flaw.
+
+§ XLIX. Neither can the objection, so often raised against the pointed
+arch, that it will not admit the convenient adjustment of modern sashes
+and glass, hold for an instant. There is not the smallest necessity,
+because the arch is pointed, that the aperture should be so. The work of
+the arch is to sustain the building above; when this is once done
+securely, the pointed head of it may be filled in any way we choose. In
+the best cathedral doors it is always filled by a shield of solid stone;
+in many early windows of the best Gothic it is filled in the same
+manner, the introduced slab of stone becoming a field for rich
+decoration; and there is not the smallest reason why lancet windows,
+used in bold groups, with each pointed arch filled by a sculptured
+tympanum, should not allow as much light to enter, and in as convenient
+a way, as the most luxuriously glazed square windows of our brick
+houses. Give the groups of associated lights bold gabled canopies;
+charge the gables with sculpture and color; and instead of the base and
+almost useless Greek portico, letting the rain and wind enter it at
+will, build the steeply vaulted and completely sheltered Gothic porch;
+and on all these fields for rich decoration let the common workman carve
+what he pleases, to the best of his power, and we may have a school of
+domestic architecture in the nineteenth century, which will make our
+children grateful to us, and proud of us, till the thirtieth.
+
+§ L. There remains only one important feature to be examined, the
+entrance gate or door. We have already observed that the one seems to
+pass into the other, a sign of increased love of privacy rather than of
+increased humility, as the Gothic palaces assume their perfect form. In
+the Byzantine palaces the entrances appear always to have been rather
+great gates than doors, magnificent semicircular arches opening to the
+water, and surrounded by rich sculpture in the archivolts. One of these
+entrances is seen in the small woodcut above, Fig. XXV., and another has
+been given carefully in my folio work: their sculpture is generally of
+grotesque animals scattered among leafage, without any definite meaning;
+but the great outer entrance of St. Mark's, which appears to have been
+completed some time after the rest of the fabric, differs from all
+others in presenting a series of subjects altogether Gothic in feeling,
+selection, and vitality of execution, and which show the occult entrance
+of the Gothic spirit before it had yet succeeded in effecting any
+modification of the Byzantine forms. These sculptures represent the
+months of the year employed in the avocations usually attributed to them
+throughout the whole compass of the middle ages, in Northern
+architecture and manuscript calendars, and at last exquisitely versified
+by Spenser. For the sake of the traveller in Venice, who should examine
+this archivolt carefully, I shall enumerate these sculptures in their
+order, noting such parallel representations as I remember in other work.
+
+§ LI. There are four successive archivolts, one within the other,
+forming the great central entrance of St. Mark's. The first is a
+magnificent external arch, formed of obscure figures mingled among
+masses of leafage, as in ordinary Byzantine work; within this there is a
+hemispherical dome, covered with modern mosaic; and at the back of this
+recess the other three archivolts follow consecutively, two sculptured,
+one plain; the one with which we are concerned is the outermost.
+
+It is carved both on its front and under-surface or soffit; on the front
+are seventeen female figures bearing scrolls, from which the legends are
+unfortunately effaced. These figures were once gilded on a dark blue
+ground, as may still be seen in Gentile Bellini's picture of St. Mark's
+in the Accademia delle Belle Arti. The sculptures of the months are on
+the under-surface, beginning at the bottom on the left hand of the
+spectator as he enters, and following in succession round the archivolt;
+separated, however, into two groups, at its centre, by a beautiful
+figure of the youthful Christ, sitting in the midst of a slightly
+hollowed sphere covered with stars to represent the firmament, and with
+the attendant sun and moon, set one on each side to rule over the day
+and over the night.
+
+§ LII. The months are personified as follows:--
+
+1. JANUARY, _Carrying home a noble tree on his shoulders, the leafage of
+which nods forwards, and falls nearly to his feet._ Superbly cut. This
+is a rare representation of him. More frequently he is represented as
+the two-headed Janus, sitting at a table, drinking at one mouth and
+eating at the other. Sometimes as an old man, warming his feet at a
+fire, and drinking from a bowl; though this type is generally reserved
+for February. Spenser, however, gives the same symbol as that on St.
+Mark's:
+
+     "Numbd with holding all the day
+  An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood."
+
+His sign, Aquarius, is obscurely indicated in the archivolt by some wavy
+lines representing water, unless the figure has been broken away.
+
+2. FEBRUARY. _Sitting in a carved chair, warming his bare feet at a
+blazing fire._ Generally, when he is thus represented, there is a pot
+hung over the fire, from the top of the chimney. Sometimes he is pruning
+trees, as in Spenser:
+
+               "Yet had he by his side
+  His plough and harnesse fit to till the ground,
+  And tooles to prune the trees."
+
+Not unfrequently, in the calendars, this month is represented by a
+female figure carrying candles, in honor of the Purification of the
+Virgin.
+
+His sign, Pisces, is prominently carved above him.
+
+3. MARCH. Here, as almost always in Italy, _a warrior_: the Mars of the
+Latins being of course, in medićval work, made representative of the
+military power of the place and period; and thus, at Venice, having the
+winged Lion painted upon his shield. In Northern work, however, I think
+March is commonly employed in pruning trees; or, at least, he is so
+when that occupation is left free for him by February's being engaged
+with the ceremonies of Candlemas. Sometimes, also, he is reaping a low
+and scattered kind of grain; and by Spenser, who exactly marks the
+junction of medićval and classical feeling, his military and
+agricultural functions are united, while also, in the Latin manner, he
+is made the first of the months.
+
+  "First sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent,
+   And armed strongly, rode upon a Ram,
+   The same which over Hellespontus swam;
+   Yet in his hand a spade he also bent,
+   And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame,[97]
+   Which on the earth he strowed as he went."
+
+His sign, the Ram, is very superbly carved above him in the archivolt.
+
+4. APRIL. Here, _carrying a sheep upon his shoulder_. A rare
+representation of him. In Northern work he is almost universally
+gathering flowers, or holding them triumphantly in each hand. The
+Spenserian mingling of this medićval image with that of his being wet
+with showers, and wanton with love, by turning his zodiacal sign,
+Taurus, into the bull of Europa, is altogether exquisite.
+
+  "Upon a Bull he rode, the same which led
+   Europa floting through the Argolick fluds:
+   His horns were gilden all with golden studs,
+   And garnished with garlonds goodly dight
+   Of all the fairest flowres and freshest buds
+   Which th' earth brings forth; and _wet he seemed in sight
+   With waves, through which he waded for his love's delight_."
+
+5. MAY _is seated, while two young maidens crown him with flowers._ A
+very unusual representation, even in Italy; where, as in the North, he
+is almost always riding out hunting or hawking, sometimes playing on a
+musical instrument. In Spenser, this month is personified as "the
+fayrest mayd on ground," borne on the shoulders of the Twins.
+
+In this archivolt there are only two heads to represent the zodiacal
+sign.
+
+The summer and autumnal months are always represented in a series of
+agricultural occupations, which, of course, vary with the locality in
+which they occur; but generally in their order only. Thus, if June is
+mowing, July is reaping; if July is mowing, August is reaping; and so
+on. I shall give a parallel view of some of these varieties presently;
+but, meantime, we had better follow the St Mark's series, as it is
+peculiar in some respects.
+
+6. JUNE. _Reaping._ The corn and sickle sculptured with singular care
+and precision, in bold relief, and the zodiacal sign, the Crab, above,
+also worked with great spirit. Spenser puts plough irons into his hand.
+Sometimes he is sheep-shearing; and, in English and northern French
+manuscripts, carrying a kind of fagot or barrel, of the meaning of which
+I am not certain.
+
+7. JULY. _Mowing._ A very interesting piece of sculpture, owing to the
+care with which the flowers are wrought out among the long grass. I do
+not remember ever finding July but either reaping or mowing. Spenser
+works him hard, and puts him to both labors:
+
+  "Behinde his backe a sithe, and by his side
+   Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide."
+
+8. AUGUST. Peculiarly represented in this archivolt, _sitting in a
+chair, with his head upon his hand, as if asleep; the Virgin_ (the
+zodiacal sign) _above him, lifting up her hand_. This appears to be a
+peculiarly Italian version of the proper employment of August. In
+Northern countries he is generally threshing, or gathering grapes.
+Spenser merely clothes him with gold, and makes him lead forth
+
+             "the righteous Virgin, which of old
+  Lived here on earth, and plenty made abound."
+
+9. SEPTEMBER. _Bearing home grapes in a basket._ Almost always sowing,
+in Northern work. By Spenser, with his usual exquisite ingenuity,
+employed in gathering in the general harvest, and _portioning it out
+with the Scales_, his zodiacal sign.
+
+10. OCTOBER. _Wearing a conical hat, and digging busily with a long
+spade._ In Northern work he is sometimes a vintager, sometimes beating
+the acorns out of an oak to feed swine. When September is vintaging,
+October is generally sowing. Spenser employs him in the harvest both of
+vine and olive.
+
+11. NOVEMBER. _Seems to be catching small birds in a net._ I do not
+remember him so employed elsewhere. He is nearly always killing pigs;
+sometimes beating the oak for them; with Spenser, fatting them.
+
+12. DECEMBER. _Killing swine._ It is hardly ever that this employment is
+not given to one or other of the terminal months of the year. If not so
+engaged, December is usually putting new loaves into the oven; sometimes
+killing oxen. Spenser properly makes him feasting and drinking instead
+of January.
+
+§ LIII. On the next page I have given a parallel view of the employment
+of the months from some Northern manuscripts, in order that they may be
+more conveniently compared with the sculptures of St. Mark's, in their
+expression of the varieties of climate and agricultural system. Observe
+that the letter (f.) in some of the columns, opposite the month of May,
+means that he has a falcon on his fist; being, in those cases,
+represented as riding out, in high exultation, on a caparisoned white
+horse. A series nearly similar to that of St. Mark's occurs on the door
+of the Cathedral of Lucca, and on that of the Baptistery of Pisa; in
+which, however, if I recollect rightly, February is fishing, and May has
+something resembling an umbrella in his hand, instead of a hawk. But, in
+all cases, the figures are treated with the peculiar spirit of the
+Gothic sculptors; and this archivolt is the first expression of that
+spirit which is to be found in Venice.
+
+   SECOND PERIOD
+
+ +---------+--------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+ |         |              |   MS. French. |   MS. French. |   MS. French. |
+ |         | St. Mark's.  |   Late 13th   |   Late 13th   |   Late 13th   |
+ |         |              |    Century    |    Century    |    Century    |
+ |---------+--------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |January  |Carrying wood.|Janus feasting.|Janus feasting.|Drinking and   |
+ |         |              |               |               | stirring fire.|
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |February |Warming feet. |Warming feet.  |Warming feet.  |Pruning.       |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |March    |Going to war. |Pruning.       |Pruning.       |Striking       |
+ |         |              |               |               | with axe.     |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |April    |Carrying      |Gathering      |Gathering      |Gathering      |
+ |         | sheep.       | flowers.      | flowers.      | flowers.      |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |May      |Crowned with  |Riding (f.).   |Riding (f.).   |Playing        |
+ |         | flowers.     |               |               | violin.       |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |June     |Reaping.      |Mowing.        |Mowing.        |Gathering large|
+ |         |              |               |               | red flowers.  |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |July     |Mowing.       |Reaping.       |Reaping.       |Mowing.        |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |August   |Asleep.       |Threshing.     |Gathering      |Reaping.       |
+ |         |              |               | grapes.       |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |September|Carrying      |Sowing.        |Sowing.        |Drinking wine. |
+ |         | grapes.      |               |               |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |October  |Digging.      |Gathering      |Beating oak.   |Sowing.        |
+ |         |              | grapes.       |               |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |November |Catching      |Beating oak.   |Killing swine. |Killing swine. |
+ |         | birds.       |               |               |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |December |Killing swine.|Killing swine. |Baking.        |Killing oxen.  |
+ +---------+--------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+
+ +---------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+ |         |    MS. French.    |   MS. English.    |   MS. Flemish.   |
+ |         |Early 14th Century.|Early 15th Century.|  15th Century.   |
+ |---------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------|
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |January  |Warming feet.      | Janus feasting.   |Feasting          |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |February |Bearing candles.   | Warming feet.     |Warming hands.    |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |March    |Pruning.           | Carrying candles. |Reaping.          |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |April    |Gathering flowers. | Pruning.          |Gathering flowers.|
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |May      |Riding (f.).       | Riding (f.).      |Riding with lady  |
+ |         |                   |                   | on pillion.      |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |June     |Carrying (fagots?) | Carrying fagots.  |Sheep-shearing.   |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |July     |Mowing.            | Mowing.           |Mowing.           |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |August   |Reaping.           | Reaping.          |Reaping.          |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |September|Threshing.         | Threshing.        |Sowing.           |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |October  |Sowing.            | Sowing.           |Beating oak.      |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |November |Killing swine.     | Killing swine.    |Pressing (grapes?)|
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |December |Baking.            | Baking.           |Killing swine.    |
+ +---------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+
+§ LIV. In the private palaces, the entrances soon admitted some
+concession to the Gothic form also. They pass through nearly the same
+conditions of change as the windows, with these three differences:
+first, that no arches of the fantastic fourth order occur in any
+doorways; secondly, that the pure pointed arch occurs earlier, and much
+oftener, in doorways than in window-heads; lastly, that the entrance
+itself, if small, is nearly always square-headed in the earliest
+examples, without any arch above, but afterwards the arch is thrown
+across above the lintel. The interval between the two, or tympanum, is
+filled with sculpture, or closed by iron bars, with sometimes a
+projecting gable, to form a porch, thrown over the whole, as in the
+perfect example, 7 _a_, Plate XIV., above. The other examples in the two
+lower lines, 6 and 7, of that Plate are each characteristic of an
+enormous number of doors, variously decorated, from the thirteenth to
+the close of the fifteenth century. The particulars of their mouldings
+are given in the final Appendix.
+
+§ LV. It was useless, on the small scale of this Plate, to attempt any
+delineation of the richer sculptures with which the arches are filled;
+so that I have chosen for it the simplest examples I could find of the
+forms to be illustrated: but, in all the more important instances, the
+door-head is charged either with delicate ornaments and inlaid patterns
+in variously colored brick, or with sculptures, consisting always of the
+shield or crest of the family, protected by an angel. Of these more
+perfect doorways I have given three examples carefully, in my folio
+work; but I must repeat here one part of the account of their subjects
+given in its text, for the convenience of those to whom the larger work
+may not be accessible.
+
+§ LVI. "In the earlier ages, all agree thus far, that the name of the
+family is told, and together with it there is always an intimation that
+they have placed their defence and their prosperity in God's hands;
+frequently accompanied with some general expression of benediction to
+the person passing over the threshold. This is the general theory of an
+old Venetian doorway;--the theory of modern doorways remains to be
+explained: it may be studied to advantage in our rows of new-built
+houses, or rather of new-built house, changeless for miles together,
+from which, to each inhabitant, we allot his proper quantity of windows,
+and a Doric portico. The Venetian carried out his theory very simply. In
+the centre of the archivolt we find almost invariably, in the older
+work, the hand between the sun and moon in the attitude of blessing,
+expressing the general power and presence of God, the source of light.
+On the tympanum is the shield of the family. Venetian heraldry requires
+no beasts for supporters, but usually prefers angels, neither the
+supporters nor crests forming any necessary part of Venetian bearings.
+Sometimes, however, human figures, or grotesques, are substituted; but,
+in that case, an angel is almost always introduced above the shield,
+bearing a globe in his left hand, and therefore clearly intended for the
+'Angel of the Lord,' or, as it is expressed elsewhere, the 'Angel of His
+Presence.' Where elaborate sculpture of this kind is inadmissible, the
+shield is merely represented as suspended by a leather thong; and a
+cross is introduced above the archivolt. The Renaissance architects
+perceived the irrationality of all this, cut away both crosses and
+angels, and substituted heads of satyrs, which were the proper presiding
+deities of Venice in the Renaissance periods, and which in our own
+domestic institutions, we have ever since, with much piety and sagacity,
+retained."
+
+§ LVII. The habit of employing some religious symbol, or writing some
+religious legend, over the door of the house, does not entirely
+disappear until far into the period of the Renaissance. The words "Peace
+be to this house" occur on one side of a Veronese gateway, with the
+appropriate and veracious inscription S.P.Q.R., on a Roman standard, on
+the other; and "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," is
+written on one of the doorways of a building added at the flank of the
+Casa Barbarigo, in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. It seems to be
+only modern Protestantism which is entirely ashamed of _all_ symbols and
+words that appear in anywise like a confession of faith.
+
+§ LVIII. This peculiar feeling is well worthy of attentive analysis. It
+indeed, in most cases, hardly deserves the name of a feeling; for the
+meaningless doorway is merely an ignorant copy of heathen models: but
+yet, if it were at this moment proposed to any of us, by our architects,
+to remove the grinning head of a satyr, or other classical or Palladian
+ornament, from the keystone of the door, and to substitute for it a
+cross, and an inscription testifying our faith, I believe that most
+persons would shrink from the proposal with an obscure and yet
+overwhelming sense that things would be sometimes done, and thought,
+within the house which would make the inscription on its gate a base
+hypocrisy. And if so, let us look to it, whether that strong reluctance
+to utter a definite religious profession, which so many of us feel, and
+which, not very carefully examining into its dim nature, we conclude to
+be modesty, or fear of hypocrisy, or other such form of amiableness, be
+not, in very deed, neither less nor more than Infidelity; whether
+Peter's "I know not the man" be not the sum and substance of all these
+misgivings and hesitations; and whether the shamefacedness which we
+attribute to sincerity and reverence, be not such shamefacedness as may
+at last put us among those of whom the Son of Man shall be ashamed.
+
+§ LIX. Such are the principal circumstances to be noted in the external
+form and details of the Gothic palaces; of their interior arrangements
+there is little left unaltered. The gateways which we have been
+examining almost universally lead, in the earlier palaces, into a long
+interior court, round which the mass of the palace is built; and in
+which its first story is reached by a superb external staircase,
+sustained on four or five pointed arches gradually increasing as they
+ascend, both in height and span,--this change in their size being, so
+far as I remember, peculiar to Venice, and visibly a consequence of the
+habitual admission of arches of different sizes in the Byzantine
+façades. These staircases are protected by exquisitely carved parapets,
+like those of the outer balconies, with lions or grotesque heads set on
+the angles, and with true projecting balconies on their landing-places.
+In the centre of the court there is always a marble well; and these
+wells furnish some of the most superb examples of Venetian sculpture. I
+am aware only of one remaining from the Byzantine period; it is
+octagonal, and treated like the richest of our Norman fonts: but the
+Gothic wells of every date, from the thirteenth century downwards, are
+innumerable, and full of beauty, though their form is little varied;
+they being, in almost every case, treated like colossal capitals of
+pillars, with foliage at the angles, and the shield of the family upon
+their sides.
+
+§ LX. The interior apartments always consist of one noble hall on the
+first story, often on the second also, extending across the entire depth
+of the house, and lighted in front by the principal groups of its
+windows, while smaller apartments open from it on either side. The
+ceilings, where they remain untouched, are of bold horizontal beams,
+richly carved and gilded; but few of these are left from the true Gothic
+times, the Venetian interiors having, in almost every case, been
+remodelled by the Renaissance architects. This change, _however_, for
+once, we cannot regret, as the walls and ceilings, when so altered, were
+covered with the noblest works of Veronese, Titian, and Tintoret; nor
+the interior walls only, but, as before noticed, often the exteriors
+also. Of the color decorations of the Gothic exteriors I have,
+therefore, at present taken no notice, as it will be more convenient to
+embrace this subject in one general view of the systems of coloring of
+the Venetian palaces, when we arrive at the period of its richest
+developement.[98] The details, also, of most interest, respecting the
+forms and transitional decoration of their capitals, will be given in
+the final Appendix to the next volume, where we shall be able to include
+in our inquiry the whole extent of the Gothic period; and it remains for
+us, therefore, at present, only to review the history, fix the date, and
+note the most important particulars in the structure of the building
+which at once consummates and embodies the entire system of the Gothic
+architecture of Venice,--the DUCAL PALACE.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [75] 38 ft. 2 in., without its cornice, which is 10 inches deep, and
+    sustains pinnacles of stone 7 feet high. I was enabled to get the
+    measures by a scaffolding erected in 1851 to repair the front.
+
+  [76] I believe the necessary upper joint is vertical, through the
+    uppermost lobe of the quatrefoil, as in the figure; but I have lost
+    my memorandum of this joint.
+
+  [77] "Dice, che non lauda per alcun modo di metter questo Serenissimo
+    Dominio in tanto pericolo d' habitar un palazzo fabricato in
+    aria."--_Pareri di XV. Architetti, con illustrazioni dell' Abbate
+    Giuseppe Cadorin_ (Venice, 1838), p. 104.
+
+  [78] "Il muro della sala č piů grosso delle colonne sott' esso piedi
+    uno e onze tre, et posto in modo che onze sei sta come in aere sopra
+    la piazza, et onze nove dentro."--_Pareri di XV. Architetti_, p. 47.
+
+  [79] Compare "Seven Lamps," chap. iii. § 7.
+
+  [80] Pareri, above quoted, p. 21.
+
+  [81] It is a curious proof how completely, even so early as the
+    beginning of the sixteenth century, the Venetians had lost the habit
+    of _reading_ the religious art of their ancient churches, that
+    Sanuto, describing this injury, says, that "four of the _Kings_ in
+    marble fell from their pinnacles above the front, at St. Mark's
+    church;" and presently afterwards corrects his mistake, and
+    apologises for it thus: "These were four saints, St. Constantine,
+    St. Demetrius, St. George, and St. Theodore, all Greek saints. _They
+    look like Kings_." Observe the perfect, because unintentional,
+    praise given to the old sculptor.
+
+    I quote the passage from the translation of these precious diaries
+    of Sanuto, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, a translation which I hope
+    will some day become a standard book in English libraries.
+
+  [82] I am not speaking here of iron balconies. See below, § XXII.
+
+  [83] A Some details respecting the mechanical structure of the
+    Venetian balcony are given in the final Appendix.
+
+  [84] I found it convenient in my own memoranda to express them
+    simply as fourths, seconds, &c. But "order" is an excellent word for
+    any known group of forms, whether of windows, capitals, bases,
+    mouldings, or any other architectural feature, provided always that
+    it be not understood in any wise to imply preëminence or isolation
+    in these groups. Thus I may rationally speak of the six orders of
+    Venetian windows, provided I am ready to allow a French architect to
+    speak of the six or seven, or eight, or seventy or eighty, orders of
+    Norman windows, if so many are distinguishable; and so also we may
+    rationally speak, for the sake of intelligibility, of the five
+    orders of Greek pillars, provided only we understand that there may
+    be five millions of orders as good or better, of pillars _not_
+    Greek.
+
+  [85] Or in their own curves; as, on a small scale, in the balustrade
+    fig. 6, Plate XIII., above.
+
+  [86] For all details of this kind, the reader is referred to the
+    final Appendix in Vol. III.
+
+  [87] Two threads of white marble, each about an inch wide, inlaid in
+    the dark grey pavement, indicate the road to the Rialto from the
+    farthest extremity of the north quarter of Venice. The peasant or
+    traveller, lost in the intricacy of the pathway in this portion of
+    the city, cannot fail, after a few experimental traverses, to cross
+    these white lines, which thenceforward he has nothing to do but to
+    follow, though their capricious sinuosities will try his patience
+    not a little.
+
+  [88] An account of the conspiracy of Bajamonte may be found in
+    almost any Venetian history; the reader may consult Mutinelli,
+    Annali Urbani, lib. iii.
+
+  [89] See account of series of capitals in final Appendix.
+
+  [90] If the traveller desire to find them (and they are worth
+    seeking), let him row from the Fondamenta S. Biagio down the Rio
+    della Tana, and look, on his right, for a low house with windows in
+    it like those in the woodcut No. XXXI. above, p. 256. Let him go in
+    at the door of the portico in the middle of this house, and he will
+    find himself in a small alley, with the windows in question on each
+    side of him.
+
+  [91] The bitterness of feeling with which the Venetians must have
+    remembered this, was probably the cause of their magnificent heroism
+    in the final siege of the city under Dandolo, and, partly, of the
+    excesses which disgraced their victory. The conduct of the allied
+    army of the Crusaders on this occasion cannot, however, be brought
+    in evidence of general barbarism in the thirteenth century: first,
+    because the masses of the crusading armies were in great part
+    composed of the refuse of the nations of Europe; and secondly,
+    because such a mode of argument might lead us to inconvenient
+    conclusions respecting ourselves, so long as the horses of the
+    Austrian cavalry are stabled in the cloister of the convent which
+    contains the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci. See Appendix 3, Vol.
+    III.: "Austrian Government in Italy."
+
+  [92] It is generally better to read ten lines of any poet in the
+    original language, however painfully, than ten cantos of a
+    translation. But an exception may be made in favor of Cary's Dante.
+    If no poet ever was liable to lose more in translation, none was
+    ever so carefully translated; and I hardly know whether most to
+    admire the rigid fidelity, or the sweet and solemn harmony, of
+    Cary's verse. There is hardly a fault in the fragment quoted above,
+    except the word "lectured," for Dante's beautiful "favoleggiava;"
+    and even in this case, joining the first words of the following
+    line, the translation is strictly literal. It is true that the
+    conciseness and the rivulet-like melody of Dante must continually be
+    lost; but if I could only read English, and had to choose, for a
+    library narrowed by poverty, between Cary's Dante and our own
+    original Milton, I should choose Cary without an instant's pause.
+
+  [93] See final Appendix, Vol. III., under head "Capitals."
+
+  [94] This Plate is not from a drawing of mine. It has been engraved
+    by Mr. Armytage, with great skill, from two daguerreotypes.
+
+  [95] Vide final Appendix, under head "Archivolt."
+
+  [96] "On Thursday, the 20th, the front walls of two of the new
+    houses now building in Victoria Street, Westminster, fell to the
+    ground.... The roof was on, _and a massive compo cornice_ was put up
+    at top, as well as dressings to the upper windows. The roof is
+    formed by girders and 4˝-brick arches in cement, covered with
+    asphalt to form a flat. The failure is attributed _to the quantity
+    of rain which has fallen_. Others suppose that some of the girders
+    were defective, and gave way, carrying the walls with
+    them."--_Builder_, for January 29th, 1853. The rest of this volume
+    might be filled with such notices, if we sought for them.
+
+  [97] "Ysame," collected together.
+
+  [98] Vol. III. Chap. I. I have had considerable difficulty in the
+    arrangement of these volumes, so as to get the points bearing upon
+    each other grouped in consecutive and intelligible order.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE DUCAL PALACE.
+
+
+§ I. It was stated in the commencement of the preceding chapter that the
+Gothic art of Venice was separated by the building of the Ducal Palace
+into two distinct periods; and that in all the domestic edifices which
+were raised for half a century after its completion, their
+characteristic and chiefly effective portions were more or less directly
+copied from it. The fact is, that the Ducal Palace was the great work of
+Venice at this period, itself the principal effort of her imagination,
+employing her best architects in its masonry, and her best painters in
+its decoration, for a long series of years; and we must receive it as a
+remarkable testimony to the influence which it possessed over the minds
+of those who saw it in its progress, that, while in the other cities of
+Italy every palace and church was rising in some original and daily more
+daring form, the majesty of this single building was able to give pause
+to the Gothic imagination in its full career; stayed the restlessness of
+innovation in an instant, and forbade the powers which had created it
+thenceforth to exert themselves in new directions, or endeavor to summon
+an image more attractive.
+
+§ II. The reader will hardly believe that while the architectural
+invention of the Venetians was thus lost, Narcissus-like, in
+self-contemplation, the various accounts of the progress of the building
+thus admired and beloved are so confused as frequently to leave it
+doubtful to what portion of the palace they refer; and that there is
+actually, at the time being, a dispute between the best Venetian
+antiquaries, whether the main façade of the palace be of the fourteenth
+or fifteenth century. The determination of this question is of course
+necessary before we proceed to draw any conclusions from the style of
+the work; and it cannot be determined without a careful review of the
+entire history of the palace, and of all the documents relating to it. I
+trust that this review may not be found tedious,--assuredly it will not
+be fruitless,--bringing many facts before us, singularly illustrative of
+the Venetian character.
+
+§ III. Before, however, the reader can enter upon any inquiry into the
+history of this building, it is necessary that he should be thoroughly
+familiar with the arrangement and names of its principal parts, as it at
+present stands; otherwise he cannot comprehend so much as a single
+sentence of any of the documents referring to it. I must do what I can,
+by the help of a rough plan and bird's-eye view, to give him the
+necessary topographical knowledge:
+
+Fig. XXXVI. opposite is a rude ground plan of the buildings round St.
+Mark's Place; and the following references will clearly explain their
+relative positions:
+
+  A. St. Mark's Place.
+  B. Piazzetta.
+  P. V. Procuratie Vecchie.
+  P. N. (opposite) Procuratie Nuove.
+  P. L. Libreria Vecchia.
+  I. Piazzetta de' Leoni.
+  T. Tower of St. Mark.
+  F F. Great Façade of St. Mark's Church.
+  M. St. Mark's. (It is so united with the Ducal Palace, that the
+       separation cannot be indicated in the plan, unless all the walls
+       had been marked, which would have confused the whole.)
+  D D D. Ducal Palace.                          g s. Giant's stair.
+  C. Court of Ducal Palace.                     J. Judgment angle.
+  c. Porta della Carta.                         a. Fig-tree angle.
+  p p. Ponte della Paglia (Bridge of Straw).
+  S. Ponte de' Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs).
+  R R. Riva de' Schiavoni.
+
+The reader will observe that the Ducal Palace is arranged somewhat in
+the form of a hollow square, of which one side faces the Piazzetta, B,
+and another the quay called the Riva de' Schiavoni, R R; the third is on
+the dark canal called the "Rio del Palazzo," and the fourth joins the
+Church of St. Mark.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXVI.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXVII.]
+
+Of this fourth side, therefore, nothing can be seen. Of the other three
+sides we shall have to speak constantly; and they will be respectively
+called, that towards the Piazzetta, the "Piazzetta Façade;" that towards
+the Riva de' Schiavoni, the "Sea Façade;" and that towards the Rio del
+Palazzo, the "Rio Façade." This Rio, or canal, is usually looked upon by
+the traveller with great respect, or even horror, because it passes
+under the Bridge of Sighs. It is, however, one of the principal
+thoroughfares of the city; and the bridge and its canal together occupy,
+in the mind of a Venetian, very much the position of Fleet Street and
+Temple Bar in that of a Londoner,--at least, at the time when Temple Bar
+was occasionally decorated with human heads. The two buildings closely
+resemble each other in form.
+
+§ IV. We must now proceed to obtain some rough idea of the appearance
+and distribution of the palace itself; but its arrangement will be
+better understood by supposing ourselves raised some hundred and fifty
+feet above the point in the lagoon in front of it, so as to get a
+general view of the Sea Façade and Rio Façade (the latter in very steep
+perspective), and to look down into its interior court. Fig. XXXVII.
+roughly represents such a view, omitting all details on the roofs, in
+order to avoid confusion. In this drawing we have merely to notice that,
+of the two bridges seen on the right, the uppermost, above the black
+canal, is the Bridge of Sighs; the lower one is the Ponte della Paglia,
+the regular thoroughfare from quay to quay, and, I believe, called the
+Bridge of Straw, because the boats which brought straw from the mainland
+used to sell it at this place. The corner of the palace, rising above
+this bridge, and formed by the meeting of the Sea Façade and Rio Façade,
+will always be called the Vine angle, because it is decorated by a
+sculpture of the drunkenness of Noah. The angle opposite will be called
+the Fig-tree angle, because it is decorated by a sculpture of the Fall
+of Man. The long and narrow range of building, of which the roof is seen
+in perspective behind this angle, is the part of the palace fronting the
+Piazzetta; and the angle under the pinnacle most to the left of the two
+which terminate it will be called, for a reason presently to be stated,
+the Judgment angle. Within the square formed by the building is seen its
+interior court (with one of its wells), terminated by small and
+fantastic buildings of the Renaissance period, which face the Giant's
+Stair, of which the extremity is seen sloping down on the left.
+
+§ V. The great façade which fronts the spectator looks southward. Hence
+the two traceried windows lower than the rest, and to the right of the
+spectator, may be conveniently distinguished as the "Eastern Windows."
+There are two others like them, filled with tracery, and at the same
+level, which look upon the narrow canal between the Ponte della Paglia
+and the Bridge of Sighs: these we may conveniently call the "Canal
+Windows." The reader will observe a vertical line in this dark side of
+the palace, separating its nearer and plainer wall from a long
+four-storied range of rich architecture. This more distant range is
+entirely Renaissance: its extremity is not indicated, because I have no
+accurate sketch of the small buildings and bridges beyond it, and we
+shall have nothing whatever to do with this part of the palace in our
+present inquiry. The nearer and undecorated wall is part of the older
+palace, though much defaced by modern opening of common windows,
+refittings of the brickwork, &c.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXVIII.]
+
+§ VI. It will be observed that the façade is composed of a smooth mass
+of wall, sustained on two tiers of pillars, one above the other. The
+manner in which these support the whole fabric will be understood at
+once by the rough section, fig. XXXVIII., which is supposed to be taken
+right through the palace to the interior court, from near the middle of
+the Sea Façade. Here _a_ and _d_ are the rows of shafts, both in the
+inner court and on the Façade, which carry the main walls; _b_, _c_ are
+solid walls variously strengthened with pilasters. A, B, C are the three
+stories of the interior of the palace.
+
+The reader sees that it is impossible for any plan to be more simple,
+and that if the inner floors and walls of the stories A, B were
+removed, there could be left merely the form of a basilica,--two high
+walls, carried on ranges of shafts, and roofed by a low gable.
+
+The stories A, B are entirely modernized, and divided into confused
+ranges of small apartments, among which what vestiges remain of ancient
+masonry are entirely undecipherable, except by investigations such as I
+have had neither the time nor, as in most cases they would involve the
+removal of modern plastering, the opportunity, to make. With the
+subdivisions of this story, therefore, I shall not trouble the reader;
+but those of the great upper story, C, are highly important.
+
+§ VII. In the bird's-eye view above, fig. XXXVII., it will be noticed
+that the two windows on the right are lower than the other four of the
+façade. In this arrangement there is one of the most remarkable
+instances I know of the daring sacrifice of symmetry to convenience,
+which was noticed in Chap. VII. as one of the chief noblenesses of the
+Gothic schools.
+
+The part of the palace in which the two lower windows occur, we shall
+find, was first built, and arranged in four stories in order to obtain
+the necessary number of apartments. Owing to circumstances, of which we
+shall presently give an account, it became necessary, in the beginning
+of the fourteenth century, to provide another large and magnificent
+chamber for the meeting of the senate. That chamber was added at the
+side of the older building; but, as only one room was wanted, there was
+no need to divide the added portion into two stories. The entire height
+was given to the single chamber, being indeed not too great for just
+harmony with its enormous length and breadth. And then came the question
+how to place the windows, whether on a line with the two others, or
+above them.
+
+The ceiling of the new room was to be adorned by the paintings of the
+best masters in Venice, and it became of great importance to raise the
+light near that gorgeous roof, as well as to keep the tone of
+illumination in the Council Chamber serene; and therefore to introduce
+light rather in simple masses than in many broken streams. A modern
+architect, terrified at the idea of violating external symmetry, would
+have sacrificed both the pictures and the peace of the council. He would
+have placed the larger windows at the same level with the other two, and
+have introduced above them smaller windows, like those of the upper
+story in the older building, as if that upper story had been continued
+along the façade. But the old Venetian thought of the honor of the
+paintings, and the comfort of the senate, before his own reputation. He
+unhesitatingly raised the large windows to their proper position with
+reference to the interior of the chamber, and suffered the external
+appearance to take care of itself. And I believe the whole pile rather
+gains than loses in effect by the variation thus obtained in the spaces
+of wall above and below the windows.
+
+§ VIII. On the party wall, between the second and third windows, which
+faces the eastern extremity of the Great Council Chamber, is painted the
+Paradise of Tintoret; and this wall will therefore be hereafter called
+the "Wall of the Paradise."
+
+In nearly the centre of the Sea Façade, and between the first and second
+windows of the Great Council Chamber, is a large window to the ground,
+opening on a balcony, which is one of the chief ornaments of the palace,
+and will be called in future the "Sea Balcony."
+
+The façade which looks on the Piazetta is very nearly like this to the
+Sea, but the greater part of it was built in the fifteenth century, when
+people had become studious of their symmetries. Its side windows are all
+on the same level. Two light the west end of the Great Council Chamber,
+one lights a small room anciently called the Quarantia Civil Nuova; the
+other three, and the central one, with a balcony like that to the Sea,
+light another large chamber, called Sala del Scrutinio, or "Hall of
+Enquiry," which extends to the extremity of the palace above the Porta
+della Carta.
+
+§ IX. The reader is now well enough acquainted with the topography of
+the existing building, to be able to follow the accounts of its history.
+
+
+We have seen above, that there were three principal styles of Venetian
+architecture; Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance.
+
+The Ducal Palace, which was the great work of Venice, was built
+successively in the three styles. There was a Byzantine Ducal Palace, a
+Gothic Ducal Palace, and a Renaissance Ducal Palace. The second
+superseded the first totally; a few stones of it (if indeed so much) are
+all that is left. But the third superseded the second in part only, and
+the existing building is formed by the union of the two.
+
+We shall review the history of each in succession.[99]
+
+1st. The BYZANTINE PALACE.
+
+In the year of the death of Charlemagne, 813,[100] the Venetians
+determined to make the island of Rialto the seat of the government and
+capital of their state. Their Doge, Angelo or Agnello Participazio,
+instantly took vigorous means for the enlargement of the small group of
+buildings which were to be the nucleus of the future Venice. He
+appointed persons to superintend the raising of the banks of sand, so as
+to form more secure foundations, and to build wooden bridges over the
+canals. For the offices of religion, he built the Church of St. Mark;
+and on, or near, the spot where the Ducal Palace now stands, he built a
+palace for the administration of the government.[101]
+
+The history of the Ducal Palace therefore begins with the birth of
+Venice, and to what remains of it, at this day, is entrusted the last
+representation of her power.
+
+§ X. Of the exact position and form of this palace of Participazio
+little is ascertained. Sansovino says that it was "built near the Ponte
+della Paglia, and answeringly on the Grand Canal,"[102] towards San
+Giorgio; that is to say, in the place now occupied by the Sea Façade;
+but this was merely the popular report of his day. We know, however,
+positively, that it was somewhere upon the site of the existing palace;
+and that it had an important front towards the Piazzetta, with which, as
+we shall see hereafter, the present palace at one period was
+incorporated. We know, also, that it was a pile of some magnificence,
+from the account given by Sagornino of the visit paid by the Emperor
+Otho the Great, to the Doge Pietro Orseolo II. The chronicler says that
+the Emperor "beheld carefully all the beauty of the palace;"[103] and
+the Venetian historians express pride in the building's being worthy of
+an emperor's examination. This was after the palace had been much
+injured by fire in the revolt against Candiano IV.,[104] and just
+repaired, and richly adorned by Orseolo himself, who is spoken of by
+Sagornino as having also "adorned the chapel of the Ducal Palace" (St.
+Mark's) with ornaments of marble and gold.[105] There can be no doubt
+whatever that the palace at this period resembled and impressed the
+other Byzantine edifices of the city, such as the Fondaco de Turchi,
+&c., whose remains have been already described; and that, like them, it
+was covered with sculpture, and richly adorned with gold and color.
+
+§ XI. In the year 1106, it was for the second time injured by fire,[106]
+but repaired before 1116, when it received another emperor, Henry V. (of
+Germany), and was again honored by imperial praise.[107] Between 1173
+and the close of the century, it seems to have been again repaired and
+much enlarged by the Doge Sebastian Ziani. Sansovino says that this Doge
+not only repaired it, but "enlarged it in every direction;"[108] and,
+after this enlargement, the palace seems to have remained untouched for
+a hundred years, until, in the commencement of the fourteenth century,
+the works of the Gothic Palace were begun. As, therefore, the old
+Byzantine building was, at the time when those works first interfered
+with it, in the form given to it by Ziani, I shall hereafter always
+speak of it as the _Ziani_ Palace; and this the rather, because the only
+chronicler whose words are perfectly clear respecting the existence of
+part of this palace so late as the year 1422, speaks of it as built by
+Ziani. The old "palace, of which half remains to this day, was built, as
+we now see it, by Sebastian Ziani."[109]
+
+So far, then, of the Byzantine Palace.
+
+§ XII. 2nd. The GOTHIC PALACE. The reader, doubtless, recollects that
+the important change in the Venetian government which gave stability to
+the aristocratic power took place about the year 1297,[110] under the
+Doge Pietro Gradenigo, a man thus characterized by Sansovino:--"A prompt
+and prudent man, of unconquerable determination and great eloquence, who
+laid, so to speak, the foundations of the eternity of this republic, by
+the admirable regulations which he introduced into the government."
+
+We may now, with some reason, doubt of their admirableness; but their
+importance, and the vigorous will and intellect of the Doge, are not to
+be disputed. Venice was in the zenith of her strength, and the heroism
+of her citizens was displaying itself in every quarter of the
+world.[111] The acquiescence in the secure establishment of the
+aristocratic power was an expression, by the people, of respect for the
+families which had been chiefly instrumental in raising the commonwealth
+to such a height of prosperity.
+
+The Serrar del Consiglio fixed the numbers of the Senate within certain
+limits, and it conferred upon them a dignity greater than they had ever
+before possessed. It was natural that the alteration in the character of
+the assembly should be attended by some change in the size, arrangement,
+or decoration of the chamber in which they sat.
+
+We accordingly find it recorded by Sansovino, that "in 1301 another
+saloon was begun on the Rio del Palazzo, _under the Doge Gradenigo_, and
+finished in 1309, _in which year the Grand Council first sat in
+it_."[112] In the first year, therefore, of the fourteenth century, the
+Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was begun; and as the Byzantine Palace
+was, in its foundation, coeval with that of the state, so the Gothic
+Palace was, in its foundation, coeval with that of the aristocratic
+power. Considered as the principal representation of the Venetian school
+of architecture, the Ducal Palace is the Parthenon of Venice, and
+Gradenigo its Pericles.
+
+§ XIII. Sansovino, with a caution very frequent among Venetian
+historians, when alluding to events connected with the Serrar del
+Consiglio, does not specially mention the cause for the requirement of
+the new chamber; but the Sivos Chronicle is a little more distinct in
+expression. "In 1301, it was determined to build a great saloon _for the
+assembling_ of the Great Council, and the room was built which is _now_
+called the Sala del Scrutinio."[113] _Now_, that is to say, at the time
+when the Sivos Chronicle was written; the room has long ago been
+destroyed, and its name given to another chamber on the opposite side of
+the palace: but I wish the reader to remember the date 1301, as marking
+the commencement of a great architectural epoch, in which took place the
+first appliance of the energy of the aristocratic power, and of the
+Gothic style, to the works of the Ducal Palace. The operations then
+begun were continued, with hardly an interruption, during the whole
+period of the prosperity of Venice. We shall see the new buildings
+consume, and take the place of, the Ziani Palace, piece by piece: and
+when the Ziani Palace was destroyed, they fed upon themselves; being
+continued round the square, until, in the sixteenth century, they
+reached the point where they had been begun in the fourteenth, and
+pursued the track they had then followed some distance beyond the
+junction; destroying or hiding their own commencement, as the serpent,
+which is the type of eternity, conceals its tail in its jaws.
+
+§ XIV. We cannot, therefore, _see_ the extremity, wherein lay the sting
+and force of the whole creature,--the chamber, namely, built by the Doge
+Gradenigo; but the reader must keep that commencement and the date of it
+carefully in his mind. The body of the Palace Serpent will soon become
+visible to us.
+
+The Gradenigo Chamber was somewhere on the Rio Façade, behind the
+present position of the Bridge of Sighs; i.e. about the point marked on
+the roof by the dotted lines in the woodcut; it is not known whether low
+or high, but probably on a first story. The great façade of the Ziani
+Palace being, as above mentioned, on the Piazzetta, this chamber was as
+far back and out of the way as possible; secrecy and security being
+obviously the points first considered.
+
+§ XV. But the newly constituted Senate had need of other additions to
+the ancient palace besides the Council Chamber. A short, but most
+significant, sentence is added to Sansovino's account of the
+construction of that room. "There were, _near_ _it_," he says, "the
+Cancellaria, and the _Gheba_ or _Gabbia_, afterwards called the Little
+Tower."[114]
+
+Gabbia means a "cage;" and there can be no question that certain
+apartments were at this time added at the top of the palace and on the
+Rio Façade, which were to be used as prisons. Whether any portion of the
+old Torresella still remains is a doubtful question; but the apartments
+at the top of the palace, in its fourth story, were still used for
+prisons as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century.[115] I wish
+the reader especially to notice that a separate tower or range of
+apartments was built for this purpose, in order to clear the government
+of the accusations so constantly made against them, by ignorant or
+partial historians, of wanton cruelty to prisoners. The stories commonly
+told respecting the "piombi" of the Ducal Palace are utterly false.
+Instead of being, as usually reported, small furnaces under the leads of
+the palace, they were comfortable rooms, with good flat roofs of larch,
+and carefully ventilated.[116] The new chamber, then, and the prisons,
+being built, the Great Council first sat in their retired chamber on the
+Rio in the year 1309.
+
+§ XVI. Now, observe the significant progress of events. They had no
+sooner thus established themselves in power than they were disturbed by
+the conspiracy of the Tiepolos, in the year 1310. In consequence of that
+conspiracy the Council of Ten was created, still under the Doge
+Gradenigo; who, having finished his work and left the aristocracy of
+Venice armed with this terrible power, died in the year 1312, some say
+by poison. He was succeeded by the Doge Marino Giorgio, who reigned
+only one year; and then followed the prosperous government of John
+Soranzo. There is no mention of any additions to the Ducal Palace during
+his reign, but he was succeeded by that Francesco Dandolo, the
+sculptures on whose tomb, still existing in the cloisters of the Salute,
+may be compared by any traveller with those of the Ducal Palace. Of him
+it is recorded in the Savina Chronicle: "This Doge also had the great
+gate built which is at the entry of the palace, above which is his
+statue kneeling, with the gonfalon in hand, before the feet of the Lion
+of St. Mark's."[117]
+
+§ XVII. It appears, then, that after the Senate had completed their
+Council Chamber and the prisons, they required a nobler door than that
+of the old Ziani Palace for their Magnificences to enter by. This door
+is twice spoken of in the government accounts of expenses, which are
+fortunately preserved,[118] in the following terms:--
+
+"1335, June 1. We, Andrew Dandolo and Mark Loredano, procurators of
+   St. Mark's, have paid to Martin the stone-cutter and his
+   associates[119] ... for a stone of which the lion is made which is
+   put over the gate of the palace."
+
+"1344, November 4. We have paid thirty-five golden ducats for making
+   gold leaf, to gild the lion which is over the door of the palace
+   stairs."
+
+The position of this door is disputed, and is of no consequence to the
+reader, the door itself having long ago disappeared, and been replaced
+by the Porta della Carta.
+
+§ XVIII. But before it was finished, occasion had been discovered for
+farther improvements. The Senate found their new Council Chamber
+inconveniently small, and, about thirty years after its completion,
+began to consider where a larger and more magnificent one might be
+built. The government was now thoroughly established, and it was
+probably felt that there was some meanness in the retired position, as
+well as insufficiency in the size, of the Council Chamber on the Rio.
+The first definite account which I find of their proceedings, under
+these circumstances, is in the Caroldo Chronicle:[120]
+
+"1340. On the 28th of December, in the preceding year, Master Marco
+Erizzo, Nicolo Soranzo, and Thomas Gradenigo, were chosen to examine
+where a new saloon might be built in order to assemble therein the
+Greater Council.... On the 3rd of June, 1341, the Great Council elected
+two procurators of the work of this saloon, with a salary of eighty
+ducats a year."
+
+It appears from the entry still preserved in the Archivio, and quoted by
+Cadorin, that it was on the 28th of December, 1340, that the
+commissioners appointed to decide on this important matter gave in their
+report to the Grand Council, and that the decree passed thereupon for
+the commencement of a new Council Chamber on the Grand Canal.[121]
+
+_The room then begun is the one now in existence_, and its building
+involved the building of all that is best and most beautiful in the
+present Ducal Palace, the rich arcades of the lower stories being all
+prepared for sustaining this Sala del Gran Consiglio.
+
+§ XIX. In saying that it is the same now in existence, I do not mean
+that it has undergone no alterations; as we shall see hereafter, it has
+been refitted again and again, and some portions of its walls rebuilt;
+but in the place and form in which it first stood, it still stands; and
+by a glance at the position which its windows occupy, as shown in fig.
+XXXVII. above, the reader will see at once that whatever can be known
+respecting the design of the Sea Façade, must be gleaned out of the
+entries which refer to the building of this Great Council Chamber.
+
+Cadorin quotes two of great importance, to which we shall return in due
+time, made during the progress of the work in 1342 and 1344; then one of
+1349, resolving that the works at the Ducal Palace, which had been
+discontinued during the plague, should be resumed; and finally one in
+1362, which speaks of the Great Council Chamber as having been neglected
+and suffered to fall into "great desolation," and resolves that it shall
+be forthwith completed.[122]
+
+The interruption had not been caused by the plague only, but by the
+conspiracy of Faliero, and the violent death of the master builder.[123]
+The work was resumed in 1362, and completed within the next three years,
+at least so far as that Guariento was enabled to paint his Paradise on
+the walls;[124] so that the building must, at any rate, have been roofed
+by this time. Its decorations and fittings, however, were long in
+completion; the paintings on the roof being only executed in 1400.[125]
+They represented the heavens covered with stars,[126] this being, says
+Sansovino, the bearings of the Doge Steno. Almost all ceilings and
+vaults were at this time in Venice covered with stars, without any
+reference to armorial bearings; but Steno claims, under his noble title
+of Stellifer, an important share in completing the chamber, in an
+inscription upon two square tablets, now inlaid in the walls on each
+side of the great window towards the sea:
+
+  "MILLE QUADRINGENTI CURREBANT QUATUOR ANNI
+   HOC OPUS ILLUSTRIS MICHAEL DUX STELLIFER AUXIT."
+
+And in fact it is to this Doge that we owe the beautiful balcony of that
+window, though the work above it is partly of more recent date; and I
+think the tablets bearing this important inscription have been taken out
+and reinserted in the newer masonry. The labor of these final
+decorations occupied a total period of sixty years. The Grand Council
+sat in the finished chamber for the first time in 1423. In that year the
+Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was completed. It had taken, to build it,
+the energies of the entire period which I have above described as the
+central one of her life.
+
+§ XX. 3rd. The RENAISSANCE PALACE. I must go back a step or two, in
+order to be certain that the reader understands clearly the state of the
+palace in 1423. The works of addition or renovation had now been
+proceeding, at intervals, during a space of a hundred and twenty-three
+years. Three generations at least had been accustomed to witness the
+gradual advancement of the form of the Ducal Palace into more stately
+symmetry, and to contrast the works of sculpture and painting with which
+it was decorated,--full of the life, knowledge, and hope of the
+fourteenth century,--with the rude Byzantine chiselling of the palace of
+the Doge Ziani. The magnificent fabric just completed, of which the new
+Council Chamber was the nucleus, was now habitually known in Venice as
+the "Palazzo Nuovo;" and the old Byzantine edifice, now ruinous, and
+more manifest in its decay by its contrast with the goodly stones of the
+building which had been raised at its side, was of course known as the
+"Palazzo Vecchio."[127] That fabric, however, still occupied the
+principal position in Venice. The new Council Chamber had been erected
+by the side of it towards the Sea; but there was not then the wide quay
+in front, the Riva dei Schiavoni, which now renders the Sea Façade as
+important as that to the Piazzetta. There was only a narrow walk
+between the pillars and the water; and the _old_ palace of Ziani still
+faced the Piazzetta, and interrupted, by its decrepitude, the
+magnificence of the square where the nobles daily met. Every increase of
+the beauty of the new palace rendered the discrepancy between it and the
+companion building more painful; and then began to arise in the minds of
+all men a vague idea of the necessity of destroying the old palace, and
+completing the front of the Piazzetta with the same splendor as the Sea
+Façade. But no such sweeping measure of renovation had been contemplated
+by the Senate when they first formed the plan of their new Council
+Chamber. First a single additional room, then a gateway, then a larger
+room; but all considered merely as necessary additions to the palace,
+not as involving the entire reconstruction of the ancient edifice. The
+exhaustion of the treasury, and the shadows upon the political horizon,
+rendered it more than imprudent to incur the vast additional expense
+which such a project involved; and the Senate, fearful of itself, and
+desirous to guard against the weakness of its own enthusiasm, passed a
+decree, like the effort of a man fearful of some strong temptation to
+keep his thoughts averted from the point of danger. It was a decree, not
+merely that the old palace should not be rebuilt, but that no one should
+_propose_ rebuilding it. The feeling of the desirableness of doing so
+was too strong to permit fair discussion, and the Senate knew that to
+bring forward such a motion was to carry it.
+
+§ XXI. The decree, thus passed in order to guard against their own
+weakness, forbade any one to speak of rebuilding the old palace under
+the penalty of a thousand ducats. But they had rated their own
+enthusiasm too low: there was a man among them whom the loss of a
+thousand ducats could not deter from proposing what he believed to be
+for the good of the state.
+
+Some excuse was given him for bringing forward the motion, by a fire
+which occurred in 1419, and which injured both the church of St. Mark's,
+and part of the old palace fronting the Piazzetta. What followed, I
+shall relate in the words of Sanuto.[128]
+
+§ XXII. "Therefore they set themselves with all diligence and care to
+repair and adorn sumptuously, first God's house; but in the Prince's
+house things went on more slowly, _for it did not please the Doge[129]
+to restore it in the form in which it was before_; and they could not
+rebuild it altogether in a better manner, so great was the parsimony of
+these old fathers; because it was forbidden by laws, which condemned in
+a penalty of a thousand ducats any one who should propose to throw down
+the _old_ palace, and to rebuild it more richly and with greater
+expense. But the Doge, who was magnanimous, and who desired above all
+things what was honorable to the city, had the thousand ducats carried
+into the Senate Chamber, and then proposed that the palace should be
+rebuilt; saying: that, 'since the late fire had ruined in great part the
+Ducal habitation (not only his own private palace, but all the places
+used for public business) this occasion was to be taken for an
+admonishment sent from God, that they ought to rebuild the palace more
+nobly, and in a way more befitting the greatness to which, by God's
+grace, their dominions had reached; and that his motive in proposing
+this was neither ambition, nor selfish interest: that, as for ambition,
+they might have seen in the whole course of his life, through so many
+years, that he had never done anything for ambition, either in the city,
+or in foreign business; but in all his actions had kept justice first in
+his thoughts, and then the advantage of the state, and the honor of the
+Venetian name: and that, as far as regarded his private interest, if it
+had not been for this accident of the fire, he would never have thought
+of changing anything in the palace into either a more sumptuous or a
+more honorable form; and that during the many years in which he had
+lived in it, he had never endeavored to make any change, but had always
+been content with it, as his predecessors had left it; and that he knew
+well that, if they took in hand to build it as he exhorted and besought
+them, being now very old, and broken down with many toils, God would
+call him to another life before the walls were raised a pace from the
+ground. And that therefore they might perceive that he did not advise
+them to raise this building for his own convenience, but only for the
+honor of the city and its Dukedom; and that the good of it would never
+be felt by him, but by his successors.' Then he said, that 'in order, as
+he had always done, to observe the laws,... he had brought with him the
+thousand ducats which had been appointed as the penalty for proposing
+such a measure, so that he might prove openly to all men that it was not
+his own advantage that he sought, but the dignity of the state.'" There
+was no one (Sanuto goes on to tell us) who ventured, or desired, to
+oppose the wishes of the Doge; and the thousand ducats were unanimously
+devoted to the expenses of the work. "And they set themselves with much
+diligence to the work; and the palace was begun in the form and manner
+in which it is at present seen; but, as Mocenigo had prophesied, not
+long after, he ended his life, and not only did not see the work brought
+to a close, but hardly even begun."
+
+§ XXIII. There are one or two expressions in the above extracts which,
+if they stood alone, might lead the reader to suppose that the whole
+palace had been thrown down and rebuilt. We must however remember, that,
+at this time, the new Council Chamber, which had been one hundred years
+in building, was actually unfinished, the council had not yet sat in it;
+and it was just as likely that the Doge should then propose to destroy
+and rebuild it, as in this year, 1853, it is that any one should propose
+in our House of Commons to throw down the new Houses of Parliament,
+under the title of the "old palace," and rebuild _them_.
+
+§ XXIV. The manner in which Sanuto expresses himself will at once be
+seen to be perfectly natural, when it is remembered that although we now
+speak of the whole building as the "Ducal Palace," it consisted, in the
+minds of the old Venetians, of four distinct buildings. There were in it
+the palace, the state prisons, the senate-house, and the offices of
+public business; in other words, it was Buckingham Palace, the Tower of
+olden days, the Houses of Parliament, and Downing Street, all in one;
+and any of these four portions might be spoken of, without involving an
+allusion to any other. "Il Palazzo" was the Ducal residence, which, with
+most of the public offices, Mocenigo _did_ propose to pull down and
+rebuild, and which was actually pulled down and rebuilt. But the new
+Council Chamber, of which the whole façade to the Sea consisted, never
+entered into either his or Sanuto's mind for an instant, as necessarily
+connected with the Ducal residence.
+
+I said that the new Council Chamber, at the time when Mocenigo brought
+forward his measure, had never yet been used. It was in the year
+1422[130] that the decree passed to rebuild the palace: Mocenigo died in
+the following year,[131] and Francesco Foscari was elected in his room.
+The Great Council Chamber was used for the first time on the day when
+Foscari entered the Senate as Doge,--the 3rd of April, 1423, according
+to the Caroldo Chronicle;[132] the 23rd, which is probably correct, by
+an anonymous MS., No. 60, in the Correr Museum;[133]--and, the following
+year, on the 27th of March, the first hammer was lifted up against the
+old palace of Ziani.[134]
+
+§ XXV. That hammer stroke was the first act of the period properly
+called the "Renaissance." It was the knell of the architecture of
+Venice,--and of Venice herself.
+
+The central epoch of her life was past; the decay had already begun: I
+dated its commencement above (Ch. I. Vol. 1.) from the death of
+Mocenigo. A year had not yet elapsed since that great Doge had been
+called to his account: his patriotism, always sincere, had been in this
+instance mistaken; in his zeal for the honor of future Venice, he had
+forgotten what was due to the Venice of long ago. A thousand palaces
+might be built upon her burdened islands, but none of them could take
+the place, or recall the memory, of that which was first built upon her
+unfrequented shore. It fell; and, as if it had been the talisman of her
+fortunes, the city never flourished again.
+
+§ XXVI. I have no intention of following out, in their intricate
+details, the operations which were begun under Foscari and continued
+under succeeding Doges till the palace assumed its present form, for I
+am not in this work concerned, except by occasional reference, with the
+architecture of the fifteenth century: but the main facts are the
+following. The palace of Ziani was destroyed; the existing façade to the
+Piazzetta built, so as both to continue and to resemble, in most
+particulars, the work of the Great Council Chamber. It was carried back
+from the Sea as far as the Judgment angle; beyond which is the Porta
+della Carta, begun in 1439, and finished in two years, under the Doge
+Foscari;[135] the interior buildings connected with it were added by the
+Doge Christopher Moro (the Othello of Shakspeare)[136] in 1462.
+
+§ XXVII. By reference to the figure the reader will see that we have now
+gone the round of the palace, and that the new work of 1462 was close
+upon the first piece of the Gothic palace, the _new_ Council Chamber of
+1301. Some remnants of the Ziani Palace were perhaps still left between
+the two extremities of the Gothic Palace; or, as is more probable, the
+last stones of it may have been swept away after the fire of 1419, and
+replaced by new apartments for the Doge. But whatever buildings, old or
+new, stood on this spot at the time of the completion of the Porta della
+Carta were destroyed by another great fire in 1479, together with so
+much of the palace on the Rio that, though the saloon of Gradenigo, then
+known as the Sala de' Pregadi, was not destroyed, it became necessary to
+reconstruct the entire façades of the portion of the palace behind the
+Bridge of Sighs, both towards the court and canal. This work was
+entrusted to the best Renaissance architects of the close of the
+fifteenth and opening of the sixteenth centuries; Antonio Ricci
+executing the Giant's staircase, and on his absconding with a large sum
+of the public money, Pietro Lombardo taking his place. The whole work
+must have been completed towards the middle of the sixteenth century.
+The architects of the palace, advancing round the square and led by
+fire, had more than reached the point from which they had set out; and
+the work of 1560 was joined to the work of 1301-1340, at the point
+marked by the conspicuous vertical line in Figure XXXVII. on the Rio
+Façade.
+
+§ XXVIII. But the palace was not long permitted to remain in this
+finished form. Another terrific fire, commonly called the great fire,
+burst out in 1574, and destroyed the inner fittings and all the precious
+pictures of the Great Council Chamber, and of all the upper rooms on the
+Sea Façade, and most of those on the Rio Façade, leaving the building a
+mere shell, shaken and blasted by the flames. It was debated in the
+Great Council whether the ruin should not be thrown down, and an
+entirely new palace built in its stead. The opinions of all the leading
+architects of Venice were taken, respecting the safety of the walls, or
+the possibility of repairing them as they stood. These opinions, given
+in writing, have been preserved, and published by the Abbé Cadorin, in
+the work already so often referred to; and they form one of the most
+important series of documents connected with the Ducal Palace.
+
+I cannot help feeling some childish pleasure in the accidental
+resemblance to my own name in that of the architect whose opinion was
+first given in favor of the ancient fabric, Giovanni Rusconi. Others,
+especially Palladio, wanted to pull down the old palace, and execute
+designs of their own; but the best architects in Venice, and to his
+immortal honor, chiefly Francesco Sansovino, energetically pleaded for
+the Gothic pile, and prevailed. It was successfully repaired, and
+Tintoret painted his noblest picture on the wall from which the Paradise
+of Guariento had withered before the flames.
+
+§ XXIX. The repairs necessarily undertaken at this time were however
+extensive, and interfere in many directions with the earlier work of the
+palace: still the only serious alteration in its form was the
+transposition of the prisons, formerly at the top of the palace, to the
+other side of the Rio del Palazzo; and the building of the Bridge of
+Sighs, to connect them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The
+completion of this work brought the whole edifice into its present form;
+with the exception of alterations in doors, partitions, and staircases
+among the inner apartments, not worth noticing, and such barbarisms and
+defacements as have been suffered within the last fifty years, by, I
+suppose, nearly every building of importance in Italy.
+
+§ XXX. Now, therefore, we are liberty to examine some of the details of
+the Ducal Palace, without any doubt about their dates. I shall not,
+however, give any elaborate illustrations of them here, because I could
+not do them justice on the scale of the page of this volume, or by means
+of line engraving. I believe a new era is opening to us in the art of
+illustration,[137] and that I shall be able to give large figures of the
+details of the Ducal Palace at a price which will enable every person
+who is interested in the subject to possess them; so that the cost and
+labor of multiplying illustrations here would be altogether wasted. I
+shall therefore direct the reader's attention only to points of interest
+as can be explained in the text.
+
+§ XXXI. First, then, looking back to the woodcut at the beginning of
+this chapter, the reader will observe that, as the building was very
+nearly square on the ground plan, a peculiar prominence and importance
+were given to its angles, which rendered it necessary that they should
+be enriched and softened by sculpture. I do not suppose that the fitness
+of this arrangement will be questioned; but if the reader will take the
+pains to glance over any series of engravings of church towers or other
+four-square buildings in which great refinement of form has been
+attained, he will at once observe how their effect depends on some
+modification of the sharpness of the angle, either by groups of
+buttresses, or by turrets and niches rich in sculpture. It is to be
+noted also that this principle of breaking the angle is peculiarly
+Gothic, arising partly out of the necessity of strengthening the flanks
+of enormous buildings, where composed of imperfect materials, by
+buttresses or pinnacles; partly out of the conditions of Gothic warfare,
+which generally required a tower at the angle; partly out of the natural
+dislike of the meagreness of effect in buildings which admitted large
+surfaces of wall, if the angle were entirely unrelieved. The Ducal
+Palace, in its acknowledgment of this principle, makes a more definite
+concession to the Gothic spirit than any of the previous architecture of
+Venice. No angle, up to the time of its erection, had been otherwise
+decorated than by a narrow fluted pilaster of red marble, and the
+sculpture was reserved always, as in Greek and Roman work, for the plane
+surfaces of the building, with, as far as I recollect, two exceptions
+only, both in St. Mark's; namely, the bold and grotesque gargoyle on its
+north-west angle, and the angels which project from the four inner
+angles under the main cupola; both of these arrangements being plainly
+made under Lombardic influence. And if any other instances occur, which
+I may have at present forgotten, I am very sure the Northern influence
+will always be distinctly traceable in them.
+
+§ XXXII. The Ducal Palace, however, accepts the principle in its
+completeness, and throws the main decoration upon its angles. The
+central window, which looks rich and important in the woodcut, was
+entirely restored in the Renaissance time, as we have seen, under the
+Doge Steno; so that we have no traces of its early treatment; and the
+principal interest of the older palace is concentrated in the angle
+sculpture, which is arranged in the following manner. The pillars of the
+two bearing arcades are much enlarged in thickness at the angles, and
+their capitals increased in depth, breadth, and fulness of subject;
+above each capital, on the angle of the wall, a sculptural subject is
+introduced, consisting, in the great lower arcade, of two or more
+figures of the size of life; in the upper arcade, of a single angel
+holding a scroll: above these angels rise the twisted pillars with their
+crowning niches, already noticed in the account of parapets in the
+seventh chapter; thus forming an unbroken line of decoration from the
+ground to the top of the angle.
+
+§ XXXIII. It was before noticed that one of the corners of the palace
+joins the irregular outer buildings connected with St. Mark's, and is
+not generally seen. There remain, therefore, to be decorated, only the
+three angles, above distinguished as the Vine angle, the Fig-tree angle,
+and the Judgment angle; and at these we have, according to the
+arrangement just explained,--
+
+First, Three great bearing capitals (lower arcade).
+
+Secondly, Three figure subjects of sculpture above them (lower arcade).
+
+Thirdly, Three smaller bearing capitals (upper arcade).
+
+Fourthly, Three angels above them (upper arcade).
+
+Fifthly, Three spiral shafts with niches.
+
+§ XXXIV. I shall describe the bearing capitals hereafter, in their
+order, with the others of the arcade; for the first point to which the
+reader's attention ought to be directed is the choice of subject in the
+great figure sculptures above them. These, observe, are the very corner
+stones of the edifice, and in them we may expect to find the most
+important evidences of the feeling, as well as of the skill, of the
+builder. If he has anything to say to us of the purpose with which he
+built the palace, it is sure to be said here; if there was any lesson
+which he wished principally to teach to those for whom he built, here
+it is sure to be inculcated; if there was any sentiment which they
+themselves desired to have expressed in the principal edifice of their
+city, this is the place in which we may be secure of finding it legibly
+inscribed.
+
+§ XXXV. Now the first two angles, of the Vine and Fig-tree, belong to
+the old, or true Gothic, Palace; the third angle belongs to the
+Renaissance imitation of it: therefore, at the first two angles, it is
+the Gothic spirit which is going to speak to us; and, at the third, the
+Renaissance spirit.
+
+The reader remembers, I trust, that the most characteristic sentiment of
+all that we traced in the working of the Gothic heart, was the frank
+confession of its own weakness; and I must anticipate, for a moment, the
+results of our inquiry in subsequent chapters, so far as to state that
+the principal element in the Renaissance spirit, is its firm confidence
+in its own wisdom.
+
+Hear, then, the two spirits speak for themselves.
+
+The first main sculpture of the Gothic Palace is on what I have called
+the angle of the Fig-tree:
+
+Its subject is the FALL OF MAN.
+
+The second sculpture is on the angle of the Vine:
+
+Its subject is the DRUNKENNESS OF NOAH.
+
+The Renaissance sculpture is on the Judgment angle:
+
+Its subject is the JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.
+
+It is impossible to overstate, or to regard with too much admiration,
+the significance of this single fact. It is as if the palace had been
+built at various epochs, and preserved uninjured to this day, for the
+sole purpose of teaching us the difference in the temper of the two
+schools.
+
+§ XXXVI. I have called the sculpture on the Fig-tree angle the principal
+one; because it is at the central bend of the palace, where it turns to
+the Piazzetta (the façade upon the Piazzetta being, as we saw above, the
+more important one in ancient times). The great capital, which sustains
+this Fig-tree angle, is also by far more elaborate than the head of the
+pilaster under the Vine angle, marking the preëminence of the former in
+the architect's mind. It is impossible to say which was first executed,
+but that of the Fig-tree angle is somewhat rougher in execution, and
+more stiff in the design of the figures, so that I rather suppose it to
+have been the earliest completed.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XIX.
+               LEAFAGE OF THE VINE ANGLE.]
+
+§ XXXVII. In both the subjects, of the Fall and the Drunkenness, the
+tree, which forms the chiefly decorative portion of the sculpture,--fig
+in the one case, vine in the other,--was a necessary adjunct. Its trunk,
+in both sculptures, forms the true outer angle of the palace; boldly cut
+separate from the stone-work behind, and branching out above the figures
+so as to enwrap each side of the angle, for several feet, with its deep
+foliage. Nothing can be more masterly or superb than the sweep of this
+foliage on the Fig-tree angle; the broad leaves lapping round the
+budding fruit, and sheltering from sight, beneath their shadows, birds
+of the most graceful form and delicate plumage. The branches are,
+however, so strong, and the masses of stone hewn into leafage so large,
+that, notwithstanding the depth of the undercutting, the work remains
+nearly uninjured; not so at the Vine angle, where the natural delicacy
+of the vine-leaf and tendril having tempted the sculptor to greater
+effort, he has passed the proper limits of his art, and cut the upper
+stems so delicately that half of them have been broken away by the
+casualties to which the situation of the sculpture necessarily exposes
+it. What remains is, however, so interesting in its extreme refinement,
+that I have chosen it for the subject of the opposite illustration
+rather than the nobler masses of the fig-tree, which ought to be
+rendered on a larger scale. Although half of the beauty of the
+composition is destroyed by the breaking away of its central masses,
+there is still enough in the distribution of the variously bending
+leaves, and in the placing of the birds on the lighter branches, to
+prove to us the power of the designer. I have already referred to this
+Plate as a remarkable instance of the Gothic Naturalism; and, indeed, it
+is almost impossible for the copying of nature to be carried farther
+than in the fibres of the marble branches, and the careful finishing of
+the tendrils: note especially the peculiar expression of the knotty
+joints of the vine in the light branch which rises highest. Yet only
+half the finish of the work can be seen in the Plate: for, in several
+cases, the sculptor has shown the under sides of the leaves turned
+boldly to the light, and has literally _carved every rib and vein upon
+them, in relief_; not merely the main ribs which sustain the lobes of
+the leaf, and actually project in nature, but the irregular and sinuous
+veins which chequer the membranous tissues between them, and which the
+sculptor has represented conventionally as relieved like the others, in
+order to give the vine leaf its peculiar tessellated effect upon the
+eye.
+
+§ XXXVIII. As must always be the case in early sculpture, the figures
+are much inferior to the leafage; yet so skilful in many respects, that
+it was a long time before I could persuade myself that they had indeed
+been wrought in the first half of the fourteenth century. Fortunately,
+the date is inscribed upon a monument in the Church of San Simeon
+Grande, bearing a recumbent statue of the saint, of far finer
+workmanship, in every respect, than those figures of the Ducal Palace,
+yet so like them, that I think there can be no question that the head of
+Noah was wrought by the sculptor of the palace in emulation of that of
+the statue of St. Simeon. In this latter sculpture, the face is
+represented in death; the mouth partly open, the lips thin and sharp,
+the teeth carefully sculptured beneath; the face full of quietness and
+majesty, though very ghastly; the hair and beard flowing in luxuriant
+wreaths, disposed with the most masterly freedom, yet severity, of
+design, far down upon the shoulders; the hands crossed upon the body,
+carefully studied, and the veins and sinews perfectly and easily
+expressed, yet without any attempt at extreme finish or display of
+technical skill. This monument bears date 1317,[138] and its sculptor
+was justly proud of it; thus recording his name:
+
+  "CELAVIT MARCUS OPUS HOC INSIGNE ROMANIS,
+     LAUDIBUS NON PARCUS EST SUA DIGNA MANUS."
+
+§ XXXIX. The head of the Noah on the Ducal Palace, evidently worked in
+emulation of this statue, has the same profusion of flowing hair and
+beard, but wrought in smaller and harder curls; and the veins on the
+arms and breast are more sharply drawn, the sculptor being evidently
+more practised in keen and fine lines of vegetation than in those of the
+figure; so that, which is most remarkable in a workman of this early
+period, he has failed in telling his story plainly, regret and wonder
+being so equally marked on the features of all the three brothers that
+it is impossible to say which is intended for Ham. Two of the heads of
+the brothers are seen in the Plate; the third figure is not with the
+rest of the group, but set at a distance of about twelve feet, on the
+other side of the arch which springs from the angle capital.
+
+§ XL. It may be observed, as a farther evidence of the date of the
+group, that, in the figures of all the three youths, the feet are
+protected simply by a bandage arranged in crossed folds round the ankle
+and lower part of the limb; a feature of dress which will be found in
+nearly every piece of figure sculpture in Venice, from the year 1300 to
+1380, and of which the traveller may see an example within three hundred
+yards of this very group, in the bas-reliefs on the tomb of the Doge
+Andrea Dandolo (in St. Mark's), who died in 1354.
+
+§ XLI. The figures of Adam and Eve, sculptured on each side of the
+Fig-tree angle, are more stiff than those of Noah and his sons, but are
+better fitted for their architectural service; and the trunk of the
+tree, with the angular body of the serpent writhed around it, is more
+nobly treated as a terminal group of lines than that of the vine.
+
+The Renaissance sculptor of the figures of the Judgment of Solomon has
+very nearly copied the fig-tree from this angle, placing its trunk
+between the executioner and the mother, who leans forward to stay his
+hand. But, though the whole group is much more free in design than those
+of the earlier palace, and in many ways excellent in itself, so that it
+always strikes the eye of a careless observer more than the others, it
+is of immeasurably inferior spirit in the workmanship; the leaves of the
+tree, though far more studiously varied in flow than those of the
+fig-tree from which they are partially copied, have none of its truth to
+nature; they are ill set on the stems, bluntly defined on the edges, and
+their curves are not those of growing leaves, but of wrinkled drapery.
+
+§ XLII. Above these three sculptures are set, in the upper arcade, the
+statues of the archangels Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel: their positions
+will be understood by reference to the lowest figure in Plate XVII.,
+where that of Raphael above the Vine angle is seen on the right. A
+diminutive figure of Tobit follows at his feet, and he bears in his hand
+a scroll with this inscription:
+
+  EFICE Q
+  SOFRE
+  TUR AFA
+  EL REVE
+  RENDE
+  QUIETU
+
+i.e. Effice (qućso?) fretum, Raphael reverende, quietum.[139] I could
+not decipher the inscription on the scroll borne by the angel Michael;
+and the figure of Gabriel, which is by much the most beautiful feature
+of the Renaissance portion of the palace, has only in its hand the
+Annunciation lily.
+
+§ XLIII. Such are the subjects of the main sculptures decorating the
+angles of the palace; notable, observe, for their simple expression of
+two feelings, the consciousness of human frailty, and the dependence
+upon Divine guidance and protection: this being, of course, the general
+purpose of the introduction of the figures of the angels; and, I
+imagine, intended to be more particularly conveyed by the manner in
+which the small figure of Tobit follows the steps of Raphael, just
+touching the hem of his garment. We have next to examine the course of
+divinity and of natural history embodied by the old sculpture in the
+great series of capitals which support the lower arcade of the palace;
+and which, being at a height of little more than eight feet above the
+eye, might be read, like the pages of a book, by those (the noblest men
+in Venice) who habitually walked beneath the shadow of this great arcade
+at the time of their first meeting each other for morning converse.
+
+§ XLIV. The principal sculptures of the capitals consist of
+personifications of the Virtues and Vices, the favorite subjects of
+decorative art, at this period, in all the cities of Italy; and there is
+so much that is significant in the various modes of their distinction
+and general representation, more especially with reference to their
+occurrence as expressions of praise to the dead in sepulchral
+architecture, hereafter to be examined, that I believe the reader may
+both happily and profitably rest for a little while beneath the first
+vault of the arcade, to review the manner in which these symbols of the
+virtues were first invented by the Christian imagination, and the
+evidence they generally furnish of the state of religious feeling in
+those by whom they were recognised.
+
+§ XLV. In the early ages of Christianity, there was little care taken to
+analyze character. One momentous question was heard over the whole
+world,--Dost thou believe in the Lord with all thine heart? There was
+but one division among men,--the great unatoneable division between the
+disciple and adversary. The love of Christ was all, and in all; and in
+proportion to the nearness of their memory of His person and teaching,
+men understood the infinity of the requirements of the moral law, and
+the manner in which it alone could be fulfilled. The early Christians
+felt that virtue, like sin, was a subtle universal thing, entering into
+every act and thought, appearing outwardly in ten thousand diverse
+ways, diverse according to the separate framework of every heart in
+which it dwelt; but one and the same always in its proceeding from the
+love of God, as sin is one and the same in proceeding from hatred of
+God. And in their pure, early, and practical piety, they saw there was
+no need for codes of morality, or systems of metaphysics. Their virtue
+comprehended everything, entered into everything; it was too vast and
+too spiritual to be defined; but there was no need of its definition.
+For through faith, working by love, they knew that all human excellence
+would be developed in due order; but that, without faith, neither reason
+could define, nor effort reach, the lowest phase of Christian virtue.
+And therefore, when any of the Apostles have occasion to describe or
+enumerate any forms of vice or virtue by name, there is no attempt at
+system in their words. They use them hurriedly and energetically,
+heaping the thoughts one upon another, in order as far as possible to
+fill the reader's mind with a sense of the infinity both of crime and of
+righteousness. Hear St. Paul describe sin: "Being filled with all
+unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness;
+full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters,
+haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things,
+disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers,
+without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." There is evidently
+here an intense feeling of the universality of sin; and in order to
+express it, the Apostle hurries his words confusedly together, little
+caring about their order, as knowing all the vices to be indissolubly
+connected one with another. It would be utterly vain to endeavor to
+arrange his expressions as if they had been intended for the ground of
+any system, or to give any philosophical definition of the vices.[140]
+So also hear him speaking of virtue: "Rejoice in the Lord. Let your
+moderation be known unto all men. Be careful for nothing, but in
+everything let your requests be made known unto God; and whatsoever
+things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are
+pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
+report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on
+these things." Observe, he gives up all attempt at definition; he leaves
+the definition to every man's heart, though he writes so as to mark the
+overflowing fulness of his own vision of virtue. And so it is in all
+writings of the Apostles; their manner of exhortation, and the kind of
+conduct they press, vary according to the persons they address, and the
+feeling of the moment at which they write, and never show any attempt at
+logical precision. And, although the words of their Master are not thus
+irregularly uttered, but are weighed like fine gold, yet, even in His
+teaching, there is no detailed or organized system of morality; but the
+command only of that faith and love which were to embrace the whole
+being of man: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the
+prophets." Here and there an incidental warning against this or that
+more dangerous form of vice or error, "Take heed and beware of
+covetousness," "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees;" here and there a
+plain example of the meaning of Christian love, as in the parables of
+the Samaritan and the Prodigal, and His own perpetual example: these
+were the elements of Christ's constant teaching; for the Beatitudes,
+which are the only approximation to anything like a systematic
+statement, belong to different conditions and characters of individual
+men, not to abstract virtues. And all early Christians taught in the
+same manner. They never cared to expound the nature of this or that
+virtue; for they knew that the believer who had Christ, had all. Did he
+need fortitude? Christ was his rock: Equity? Christ was his
+righteousness: Holiness? Christ was his sanctification: Liberty? Christ
+was his redemption: Temperance? Christ was his ruler: Wisdom? Christ was
+his light: Truthfulness? Christ was the truth: Charity? Christ was love.
+
+§ XLVI. Now, exactly in proportion as the Christian religion became less
+vital, and as the various corruptions which time and Satan brought into
+it were able to manifest themselves, the person and offices of Christ
+were less dwelt upon, and the virtues of Christians more. The Life of
+the Believer became in some degree separated from the Life of Christ;
+and his virtue, instead of being a stream flowing forth from the throne
+of God, and descending upon the earth, began to be regarded by him as a
+pyramid upon earth, which he had to build up, step by step, that from
+the top of it he might reach the Heavens. It was not possible to measure
+the waves of the water of life, but it was perfectly possible to measure
+the bricks of the Tower of Babel; and gradually, as the thoughts of men
+were withdrawn from their Redeemer, and fixed upon themselves, the
+virtues began to be squared, and counted, and classified, and put into
+separate heaps of firsts and seconds; some things being virtuous
+cardinally, and other things virtuous only north-north-west. It is very
+curious to put in close juxtaposition the words of the Apostles and of
+some of the writers of the fifteenth century touching sanctification.
+For instance, hear first St. Paul to the Thessalonians: "The very God of
+peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and
+body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
+Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it." And then the
+following part of a prayer which I translate from a MS. of the fifteenth
+century: "May He (the Holy Spirit) govern the five Senses of my body;
+may He cause me to embrace the Seven Works of Mercy, and firmly to
+believe and observe the Twelve Articles of the Faith and the Ten
+Commandments of the Law, and defend me from the Seven Mortal Sins, even
+to the end."
+
+§ XLVII. I do not mean that this quaint passage is generally
+characteristic of the devotion of the fifteenth century: the very prayer
+out of which it is taken is in other parts exceedingly beautiful:[141]
+but the passage is strikingly illustrative of the tendency of the later
+Romish Church, more especially in its most corrupt condition, just
+before the Reformation, to throw all religion into forms and ciphers;
+which tendency, as it affected Christian ethics, was confirmed by the
+Renaissance enthusiasm for the works of Aristotle and Cicero, from whom
+the code of the fifteenth century virtues was borrowed, and whose
+authority was then infinitely more revered by all the Doctors of the
+Church than that either of St. Paul or St. Peter.
+
+§ XLVIII. Although, however, this change in the tone of the Christian
+mind was most distinctly manifested when the revival of literature
+rendered the works of the heathen philosophers the leading study of all
+the greatest scholars of the period, it had been, as I said before,
+taking place gradually from the earliest ages. It is, as far as I know,
+that root of the Renaissance poison-tree, which, of all others, is
+deepest struck; showing itself in various measures through the writings
+of all the Fathers, of course exactly in proportion to the respect which
+they paid to classical authors, especially to Plato, Aristotle, and
+Cicero. The mode in which the pestilent study of that literature
+affected them may be well illustrated by the examination of a single
+passage from the works of one of the best of them, St. Ambrose, and of
+the mode in which that passage was then amplified and formulized by
+later writers.
+
+§ XLIX. Plato, indeed, studied alone, would have done no one any harm.
+He is profoundly spiritual and capacious in all his views, and embraces
+the small systems of Aristotle and Cicero, as the solar system does the
+Earth. He seems to me especially remarkable for the sense of the great
+Christian virtue of Holiness, or sanctification; and for the sense of
+the presence of the Deity in all things, great or small, which always
+runs in a solemn undercurrent beneath his exquisite playfulness and
+irony; while all the merely moral virtues may be found in his writings
+defined in the most noble manner, as a great painter defines his
+figures, _without outlines_. But the imperfect scholarship of later ages
+seems to have gone to Plato, only to find in him the system of Cicero;
+which indeed was very definitely expressed by him. For it having been
+quickly felt by all men who strove, unhelped by Christian faith, to
+enter at the strait gate into the paths of virtue, that there were four
+characters of mind which were protective or preservative of all that was
+best in man, namely, Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance,[142]
+these were afterwards, with most illogical inaccuracy, called cardinal
+_virtues_, Prudence being evidently no virtue, but an intellectual gift:
+but this inaccuracy arose partly from the ambiguous sense of the Latin
+word "virtutes," which sometimes, in medićval language, signifies
+virtues, sometimes powers (being occasionally used in the Vulgate for
+the word "hosts," as in Psalm ciii. 21, cxlviii. 2, &c., while
+"fortitudines" and "exercitus" are used for the same word in other
+places), so that Prudence might properly be styled a power, though not
+properly a virtue; and partly from the confusion of Prudence with
+Heavenly Wisdom. The real rank of these four virtues, if so they are to
+be called, is however properly expressed by the term "cardinal." They
+are virtues of the compass, those by which all others are directed and
+strengthened; they are not the greatest virtues, but the restraining or
+modifying virtues, thus Prudence restrains zeal, Justice restrains
+mercy, Fortitude and Temperance guide the entire system of the passions;
+and, thus understood, these virtues properly assumed their peculiar
+leading or guiding position in the system of Christian ethics. But in
+Pagan ethics, they were not only guiding, but comprehensive. They meant
+a great deal more on the lips of the ancients, than they now express to
+the Christian mind. Cicero's Justice includes charity, beneficence, and
+benignity, truth, and faith in the sense of trustworthiness. His
+Fortitude includes courage, self-command, the scorn of fortune and of
+all temporary felicities. His Temperance includes courtesy and modesty.
+So also, in Plato, these four virtues constitute the sum of education. I
+do not remember any more simple or perfect expression of the idea, than
+in the account given by Socrates, in the "Alcibiades I.," of the
+education of the Persian kings, for whom, in their youth, there are
+chosen, he says, four tutors from among the Persian nobles; namely, the
+Wisest, the most Just, the most Temperate, and the most Brave of them.
+Then each has a distinct duty: "The Wisest teaches the young king the
+worship of the gods, and the duties of a king (something more here,
+observe, than our 'Prudence!'); the most Just teaches him to speak all
+truth, and to act out all truth, through the whole course of his life;
+the most Temperate teaches him to allow no pleasure to have the mastery
+of him, so that he may be truly free, and indeed a king; and the most
+Brave makes him fearless of all things, showing him that the moment he
+fears anything, he becomes a slave."
+
+§ L. All this is exceedingly beautiful, so far as it reaches; but the
+Christian divines were grievously led astray by their endeavors to
+reconcile this system with the nobler law of love. At first, as in the
+passage I am just going to quote from St. Ambrose, they tried to graft
+the Christian system on the four branches of the Pagan one; but finding
+that the tree would not grow, they planted the Pagan and Christian
+branches side by side; adding, to the four cardinal virtues, the three
+called by the schoolmen theological, namely, Faith, Hope, and Charity:
+the one series considered as attainable by the Heathen, but the other by
+the Christian only. Thus Virgil to Sordello:
+
+  "Loco e laggiů, non tristo da martiri
+    Ma di tenebre solo, ove i lamenti
+    Non suonan come guai, ma son sospiri:
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Quivi sto io, con quei che le tre sante
+    Virtů non si vestiro, e senza vizio
+    Conobbei l' altre, e seguir, tutte quante."
+
+  . . . . . "There I with those abide
+  Who the Three Holy Virtues put not on,
+  But understood the rest, and without blame
+  Followed them all."
+
+                                         CARY.
+
+§ LI. This arrangement of the virtues was, however, productive of
+infinite confusion and error: in the first place, because Faith is
+classed with its own fruits,--the gift of God, which is the root of the
+virtues, classed simply as one of them; in the second, because the words
+used by the ancients to express the several virtues had always a
+different meaning from the same expressions in the Bible, sometimes a
+more extended, sometimes a more limited one. Imagine, for instance, the
+confusion which must have been introduced into the ideas of a student
+who read St. Paul and Aristotle alternately; considering that the word
+which the Greek writer uses for Justice, means, with St. Paul,
+Righteousness. And lastly, it is impossible to overrate the mischief
+produced in former days, as well as in our own, by the mere habit of
+reading Aristotle, whose system is so false, so forced, and so
+confused, that the study of it at our universities is quite enough to
+occasion the utter want of accurate habits of thought which so often
+disgraces men otherwise well-educated. In a word, Aristotle mistakes the
+Prudence or Temperance which must regulate the operation of the virtues,
+for the essence of the virtues themselves; and, striving to show that
+all virtues are means between two opposite vices, torments his wit to
+discover and distinguish as many pairs of vices as are necessary to the
+completion of his system, not disdaining to employ sophistry where
+invention fails him.
+
+And, indeed, the study of classical literature, in general, not only
+fostered in the Christian writers the unfortunate love of systematizing,
+which gradually degenerated into every species of contemptible
+formulism, but it accustomed them to work out their systems by the help
+of any logical quibble, or verbal subtlety, which could be made
+available for their purpose, and this not with any dishonest intention,
+but in a sincere desire to arrange their ideas in systematical groups,
+while yet their powers of thought were not accurate enough, nor their
+common sense stern enough, to detect the fallacy, or disdain the
+finesse, by which these arrangements were frequently accomplished.
+
+§ LII. Thus St. Ambrose, in his commentary on Luke vi. 20, is resolved
+to transform the four Beatitudes there described into rewards of the
+four cardinal Virtues, and sets himself thus ingeniously to the task:
+
+"'Blessed be ye poor.' Here you have Temperance. 'Blessed are ye that
+hunger now.' He who hungers, pities those who are an-hungered; in
+pitying, he gives to them, and in giving he becomes just (largiendo fit
+Justus). 'Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.' Here you
+have Prudence, whose part it is to weep, so far as present things are
+concerned, and to seek things which are eternal. 'Blessed are ye when
+men shall hate you.' Here you have Fortitude."
+
+§ LIII. As a preparation for this profitable exercise of wit, we have
+also a reconciliation of the Beatitudes as stated by St. Matthew, with
+those of St. Luke, on the ground that "in those eight are these four,
+and in these four are those eight;" with sundry remarks on the mystical
+value of the number eight, with which I need not trouble the reader.
+With St. Ambrose, however, this puerile systematization is quite
+subordinate to a very forcible and truthful exposition of the real
+nature of the Christian life. But the classification he employs
+furnishes ground for farther subtleties to future divines; and in a MS.
+of the thirteenth century I find some expressions in this commentary on
+St. Luke, and in the treatise on the duties of bishops, amplified into a
+treatise on the "Steps of the Virtues: by which every one who perseveres
+may, by a straight path, attain to the heavenly country of the Angels."
+("Liber de Gradibus Virtutum: quibus ad patriam angelorum supernam
+itinere recto ascenditur ab omni perseverante.") These Steps are thirty
+in number (one expressly for each day of the month), and the curious
+mode of their association renders the list well worth quoting:--
+
+§ LIV. Primus gradus est  Fides Recta.          Unerring faith.
+       Secundus "         Spes firma.           Firm hope.
+       Tertius  "         Caritas perfecta.     Perfect charity.
+          4.    "         Patientia vera.       True patience.
+          5.    "         Humilitas sancta.     Holy humility.
+          6.    "         Mansuetudo.           Meekness.
+          7.    "         Intelligentia.        Understanding.
+          8.    "         Compunctio cordis.    Contrition of heart.
+          9.    "         Oratio.               Prayer.
+         10.    "         Confessio pura.       Pure confession.
+         11.    "         Penitentia digna.     Fitting penance.[143]
+         12.    "         Abstinentia.          Abstinence (fasting).
+         13.    "         Timor Dei.            Fear of God.
+         14.    "         Virginitas.           Virginity.
+         15.    "         Justicia.             Justice.
+         16.    "         Misericordia.         Mercy.
+         17.    "         Elemosina.            Almsgiving.
+         18.    "         Hospitalitas.         Hospitality.
+         19.    "         Honor parentum.       Honoring of parents.
+         20.    "         Silencium.            Silence.
+         21.    "         Consilium bonum.      Good counsel.
+         22.    "         Judicium rectum.      Right judgment.
+         23.    "         Exemplum bonum.       Good example.
+         24.    "         Visitatio infirmorum. Visitation of the sick.
+         25.    "         Frequentatio          Companying with saints.
+                             sanctorum.
+         26.    "         Oblatio justa.        Just oblations.
+         27.    "         Decimas Deo solvere.  Paying tithes to God.
+         28.    "         Sapientia.            Wisdom.
+         29.    "         Voluntas bona.        Goodwill.
+         30.    "         Perseverantia.        Perseverance.
+
+§ LV. The reader will note that the general idea of Christian virtue
+embodied in this list is true, exalted, and beautiful; the points of
+weakness being the confusion of duties with virtues, and the vain
+endeavor to enumerate the various offices of charity as so many separate
+virtues; more frequently arranged as seven distinct works of mercy. This
+general tendency to a morbid accuracy of classification was associated,
+in later times, with another very important element of the Renaissance
+mind, the love of personification; which appears to have reached its
+greatest vigor in the course of the sixteenth century, and is expressed
+to all future ages, in a consummate manner, in the poem of Spenser. It
+is to be noted that personification is, in some sort, the reverse of
+symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of a
+great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign (as, for instance, of the
+hope of the resurrection by the form of the phoenix); and it is almost
+always employed by men in their most serious moods of faith, rarely in
+recreation. Men who use symbolism forcibly are almost always true
+believers in what they symbolize. But Personification is the bestowing
+of a human or living form upon an abstract idea: it is, in most cases, a
+mere recreation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb the belief in the
+reality of the thing personified. Thus symbolism constituted the entire
+system of the Mosaic dispensation: it occurs in every word of Christ's
+teaching; it attaches perpetual mystery to the last and most solemn act
+of His life. But I do not recollect a single instance of personification
+in any of His words. And as we watch, thenceforward, the history of the
+Church, we shall find the declension of its faith exactly marked by the
+abandonment of symbolism,[144] and the profuse employment of
+personification,--even to such an extent that the virtues came, at last,
+to be confused with the saints; and we find in the later Litanies, St.
+Faith, St. Hope, St. Charity, and St. Chastity, invoked immediately
+after St. Clara and St. Bridget.
+
+§ LVI. Nevertheless, in the hands of its early and earnest masters, in
+whom fancy could not overthrow the foundations of faith, personification
+is, often thoroughly noble and lovely; the earlier conditions of it
+being just as much more spiritual and vital than the later ones, as the
+still earlier symbolism was more spiritual than they. Compare, for
+instance, Dante's burning Charity, running and returning at the wheels
+of the chariot of God,--
+
+            "So ruddy, that her form had scarce
+  Been known within a furnace of clear flame,"
+
+with Reynolds's Charity, a nurse in a white dress, climbed upon by three
+children.[145] And not only so, but the number and nature of the virtues
+differ considerably in the statements of different poets and painters,
+according to their own views of religion, or to the manner of life they
+had it in mind to illustrate. Giotto, for instance, arranges his system
+altogether differently at Assisi, where he is setting forth the monkish
+life, and in the Arena Chapel, where he treats of that of mankind in
+general, and where, therefore, he gives only the so-called theological
+and cardinal virtues; while, at Assisi, the three principal virtues are
+those which are reported to have appeared in vision to St. Francis,
+Chastity, Obedience, and Poverty: Chastity being attended by Fortitude,
+Purity, and Penance; Obedience by Prudence and Humility; Poverty by Hope
+and Charity. The systems vary with almost every writer, and in almost
+every important work of art which embodies them, being more or less
+spiritual according to the power of intellect by which they were
+conceived. The most noble in literature are, I suppose, those of Dante
+and Spenser: and with these we may compare five of the most interesting
+series in the early art of Italy; namely, those of Orcagna, Giotto, and
+Simon Memmi, at Florence and Padua, and those of St. Mark's and the
+Ducal Palace at Venice. Of course, in the richest of these series, the
+vices are personified together with the virtues, as in the Ducal Palace;
+and by the form or name of opposed vice, we may often ascertain, with
+much greater accuracy than would otherwise be possible, the particular
+idea of the contrary virtue in the mind of the writer or painter. Thus,
+when opposed to Prudence, or Prudentia, on the one side, we find Folly,
+or Stultitia, on the other, it shows that the virtue understood by
+Prudence, is not the mere guiding or cardinal virtue, but the Heavenly
+Wisdom,[146] opposed to that folly which "hath said in its heart, there
+is no God;" and of which it is said, "the thought of foolishness is
+sin;" and again, "Such as be foolish shall not stand in thy sight." This
+folly is personified, in early painting and illumination, by a
+half-naked man, greedily eating an apple or other fruit, and brandishing
+a club; showing that sensuality and violence are the two principal
+characteristics of Foolishness, and lead into atheism. The figure, in
+early Psalters, always forms the letter D, which commences the
+fifty-third Psalm, "_Dixit insipiens_."
+
+§ LVII. In reading Dante, this mode of reasoning from contraries is a
+great help, for his philosophy of the vices is the only one which admits
+of classification; his descriptions of virtue, while they include the
+ordinary formal divisions, are far too profound and extended to be
+brought under definition. Every line of the "Paradise" is full of the
+most exquisite and spiritual expressions of Christian truth; and that
+poem is only less read than the "Inferno" because it requires far
+greater attention, and, perhaps, for its full enjoyment, a holier heart.
+
+
+§ LVIII. His system in the "Inferno" is briefly this. The whole nether
+world is divided into seven circles, deep within deep, in each of which,
+according to its depth, severer punishment is inflicted. These seven
+circles, reckoning them downwards, are thus allotted:
+
+  1. To those who have lived virtuously, but knew not Christ.
+  2. To Lust.
+  3. To Gluttony.
+  4. To Avarice and Extravagance.
+  5. To Anger and _Sorrow_.
+  6. To Heresy.
+  7. To Violence and Fraud.
+
+This seventh circle is divided into two parts; of which the first,
+reserved for those who have been guilty of Violence, is again divided
+into three, apportioned severally to those who have committed, or
+desired to commit, violence against their neighbors, against themselves,
+or against God.
+
+The lowest hell, reserved for the punishment of Fraud, is itself divided
+into ten circles, wherein are severally punished the sins of,--
+
+   1. Betraying women.
+   2. Flattery.
+   3. Simony.
+   4. False prophecy.
+   5. Peculation.
+   6. Hypocrisy.
+   7. Theft.
+   8. False counsel.
+   9. Schism and Imposture.
+  10. Treachery to those who repose entire trust in the traitor.
+
+§ LIX. There is, perhaps, nothing more notable in this most interesting
+system than the profound truth couched under the attachment of so
+terrible a penalty to sadness or sorrow. It is true that Idleness does
+not elsewhere appear in the scheme, and is evidently intended to be
+included in the guilt of sadness by the word "accidioso;" but the main
+meaning of the poet is to mark the duty of rejoicing in God, according
+both to St. Paul's command, and Isaiah's promise, "Thou meetest him that
+rejoiceth and worketh righteousness."[147] I do not know words that
+might with more benefit be borne with us, and set in our hearts
+momentarily against the minor regrets and rebelliousnesses of life, than
+these simple ones:
+
+                       "Tristi fummo
+  Nel aer dolce, che del sol s' allegra,
+  Or ci attristiam, nella belletta negra."
+
+                "We once were sad,
+  In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun,
+  Now in these murky settlings are we sad."[148]          CARY.
+
+The virtue usually opposed to this vice of sullenness is Alacritas,
+uniting the sense of activity and cheerfulness. Spenser has cheerfulness
+simply, in his description, never enough to be loved or praised, of the
+virtues of Womanhood; first feminineness or womanhood in specialty;
+then,--
+
+    "Next to her sate goodly Shamefastnesse,
+   Ne ever durst, her eyes from ground upreare,
+   Ne ever once did looke up from her desse,[149]
+   As if some blame of evill she did feare
+   That in her cheekes made roses oft appeare:
+   And her against sweet Cherefulnesse was placed,
+   Whose eyes, like twinkling stars in evening cleare,
+   Were deckt with smyles that all sad humours chaced.
+
+  "And next to her sate sober Modestie,
+   Holding her hand upon her gentle hart;
+   And her against, sate comely Curtesie,
+   _That unto every person knew her part_;
+   And her before was seated overthwart
+   Soft Silence, and submisse Obedience,
+   Both linckt together never to dispart."
+
+§ LX. Another notable point in Dante's system is the intensity of
+uttermost punishment given to treason, the peculiar sin of Italy, and
+that to which, at this day, she attributes her own misery with her own
+lips. An Italian, questioned as to the causes of the failure of the
+campaign of 1848, always makes one answer, "We were betrayed;" and the
+most melancholy feature of the present state of Italy is principally
+this, that she does not see that, of all causes to which failure might
+be attributed, this is at once the most disgraceful, and the most
+hopeless. In fact, Dante seems to me to have written almost
+prophetically, for the instruction of modern Italy, and chiefly so in
+the sixth canto of the "Purgatorio."
+
+§ LXI. Hitherto we have been considering the system of the "Inferno"
+only. That of the "Purgatorio" is much simpler, it being divided into
+seven districts, in which the souls are severally purified from the sins
+of Pride, Envy, Wrath, Indifference, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust; the
+poet thus implying in opposition, and describing in various instances,
+the seven virtues of Humility, Kindness,[150] Patience, Zeal, Poverty,
+Abstinence, and Chastity, as adjuncts of the Christian character, in
+which it may occasionally fail, while the essential group of the three
+theological and four cardinal virtues are represented as in direct
+attendance on the chariot of the Deity; and all the sins of Christians
+are in the seventeenth canto traced to the deficiency or aberration of
+Affection.
+
+§ LXII. The system of Spenser is unfinished, and exceedingly
+complicated, the same vices and virtues occurring under different forms
+in different places, in order to show their different relations to each
+other. I shall not therefore give any general sketch of it, but only
+refer to the particular personification of each virtue in order to
+compare it with that of the Ducal Palace.[151] The peculiar superiority
+of his system is in its exquisite setting forth of Chastity under the
+figure of Britomart; not monkish chastity, but that of the purest Love.
+In completeness of personification no one can approach him; not even in
+Dante do I remember anything quite so great as the description of the
+Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh:
+
+  "As pale and wan as ashes was his looke;
+   His body lean and meagre as a rake;
+   And skin all withered like a dryed rooke;
+   Thereto as cold and drery as a snake;
+   That seemed to tremble evermore, and quake:
+   _All in a canvas thin he was bedight,
+   And girded with a belt of twisted brake_:
+   Upon his head he wore an helmet light,
+   Made of a dead man's skull."
+
+He rides upon a tiger, and in his hand is a bow, bent;
+
+  "And many arrows under his right side,
+   Headed with flint, and fethers bloody dide."
+
+The horror and the truth of this are beyond everything that I know, out
+of the pages of Inspiration. Note the heading of the arrows with flint,
+because sharper and more subtle in the edge than steel, and because
+steel might consume away with rust, but flint not; and consider in the
+whole description how the wasting away of body and soul together, and
+the _coldness_ of the heart, which unholy fire has consumed into ashes,
+and the loss of all power, and the kindling of all terrible impatience,
+and the implanting of thorny and inextricable griefs, are set forth by
+the various images, the belt of brake, the tiger steed, and the _light_
+helmet, girding the head with death.
+
+§ LXIII. Perhaps the most interesting series of the Virtues expressed in
+Italian art are those above mentioned of Simon Memmi in the Spanish
+chapel at Florence, of Ambrogio di Lorenzo in the Palazzo Publico of
+Pisa, of Orcagna in Or San Michele at Florence, of Giotto at Padua and
+Assisi, in mosaic on the central cupola of St. Mark's, and in sculpture
+on the pillars of the Ducal Palace. The first two series are carefully
+described by Lord Lindsay; both are too complicated for comparison with
+the more simple series of the Ducal Palace; the other four of course
+agree in giving first the cardinal and evangelical virtues; their
+variations in the statement of the rest will be best understood by
+putting them in a parallel arrangement.
+
+  ST. MARK'S.           ORCAGNA.         GIOTTO.         DUCAL PALACE.
+
+  Constancy.          Perseverance.                      Constancy.
+  Modesty.                                               Modesty.
+  Chastity.           Virginity         Chastity.        Chastity.
+  Patience.           Patience.                          Patience.
+  Mercy.
+  Abstinence.                                            Abstinence?
+  Piety.[152]           Devotion.
+  Benignity.
+  Humility.           Humility.         Humility.        Humility.
+                      Obedience.        Obedience.       Obedience.
+                      Docility.
+                      Caution.
+                                        Poverty.         _Honesty._
+                                                         Liberality.
+                                                         _Alacrity_.
+
+§ LXIV. It is curious, that in none of these lists do we find either
+_Honesty_ or _Industry_ ranked as a virtue, except in the Venetian one,
+where the latter is implied in Alacritas, and opposed not only by
+"Accidia" or sloth, but by a whole series of eight sculptures on another
+capital, illustrative, as I believe, of the temptations to idleness;
+while various other capitals, as we shall see presently, are devoted to
+the representation of the active trades. Industry, in Northern art and
+Northern morality, assumes a very principal place. I have seen in French
+manuscripts the virtues reduced to these seven, Charity, Chastity,
+Patience, Abstinence, Humility, Liberality, and Industry: and I doubt
+whether, if we were but to add Honesty (or Truth), a wiser or shorter
+list could be made out.
+
+§ LXV. We will now take the pillars of the Ducal Palace in their order.
+It has already been mentioned (Vol. I. Chap. I. § XLVI.) that there are,
+in all, thirty-six great pillars supporting the lower story; and that
+these are to be counted from right to left, because then the more
+ancient of them come first: and that, thus arranged, the first, which is
+not a shaft, but a pilaster, will be the support of the Vine angle; the
+eighteenth will be the great shaft of the Fig-tree angle; and the
+thirty-sixth, that of the Judgment angle.
+
+§ LXVI. All their capitals, except that of the first, are octagonal, and
+are decorated by sixteen leaves, differently enriched in every capital,
+but arranged in the same way; eight of them rising to the angles, and
+there forming volutes; the eight others set between them, on the sides,
+rising half-way up the bell of the capital; there nodding forward, and
+showing above them, rising out of their luxuriance, the groups or single
+figures which we have to examine.[153] In some instances, the
+intermediate or lower leaves are reduced to eight sprays of foliage; and
+the capital is left dependent for its effect on the bold position of the
+figures. In referring to the figures on the octagonal capitals, I shall
+call the outer side, fronting either the Sea or the Piazzetta, the first
+side; and so count round from left to right; the fourth side being thus,
+of course, the innermost. As, however, the first five arches were walled
+up after the great fire, only three sides of their capitals are left
+visible, which we may describe as the front and the eastern and western
+sides of each.
+
+§ LXVII. FIRST CAPITAL: i.e. of the pilaster at the Vine angle.
+
+In front, towards the Sea. A child holding a bird before him, with its
+wings expanded, covering his breast.
+
+On its eastern side. Children's heads among leaves.
+
+On its western side. A child carrying in one hand a comb; in the other,
+a pair of scissors.
+
+It appears curious, that this, the principal pilaster of the façade,
+should have been decorated only by these graceful grotesques, for I can
+hardly suppose them anything more. There may be meaning in them, but I
+will not venture to conjecture any, except the very plain and practical
+meaning conveyed by the last figure to all Venetian children, which it
+would be well if they would act upon. For the rest, I have seen the comb
+introduced in grotesque work as early as the thirteenth century, but
+generally for the purpose of ridiculing too great care in dressing the
+hair, which assuredly is not its purpose here. The children's heads are
+very sweet and full of life, but the eyes sharp and small.
+
+§ LXVIII. SECOND CAPITAL. Only three sides of the original work are left
+unburied by the mass of added wall. Each side has a bird, one
+web-footed, with a fish, one clawed, with a serpent, which opens its
+jaws, and darts its tongue at the bird's breast; the third pluming
+itself, with a feather between the mandibles of its bill. It is by far
+the most beautiful of the three capitals decorated with birds.
+
+THIRD CAPITAL. Also has three sides only left. They have three heads,
+large, and very ill cut; one female, and crowned.
+
+FOURTH CAPITAL. Has three children. The eastern one is defaced: the one
+in front holds a small bird, whose plumage is beautifully indicated, in
+its right hand; and with its left holds up half a walnut, showing the
+nut inside: the third holds a fresh fig, cut through, showing the seeds.
+
+The hair of all the three children is differently worked: the first has
+luxuriant flowing hair, and a double chin; the second, light flowing
+hair falling in pointed locks on the forehead; the third, crisp curling
+hair, deep cut with drill holes.
+
+This capital has been copied on the Renaissance side of the palace, only
+with such changes in the ideal of the children as the workman thought
+expedient and natural. It is highly interesting to compare the child of
+the fourteenth with the child of the fifteenth century. The early heads
+are full of youthful life, playful, humane, affectionate, beaming with
+sensation and vivacity, but with much manliness and firmness, also, not
+a little cunning, and some cruelty perhaps, beneath all; the features
+small and hard, and the eyes keen. There is the making of rough and
+great men in them. But the children of the fifteenth century are dull
+smooth-faced dunces, without a single meaning line in the fatness of
+their stolid cheeks; and, although, in the vulgar sense, as handsome as
+the other children are ugly, capable of becoming nothing but perfumed
+coxcombs.
+
+FIFTH CAPITAL. Still three sides only left, bearing three half-length
+statues of kings; this is the first capital which bears any inscription.
+In front, a king with a sword in his right hand points to a handkerchief
+embroidered and fringed, with a head on it, carved on the cavetto of the
+abacus. His name is written above, "TITUS VESPASIAN IMPERATOR"
+(contracted [Illustration: IPAT.]).
+
+On eastern side, "TRAJANUS IMPERATOR." Crowned, a sword in right hand,
+and sceptre in left.
+
+On western, "(OCT)AVIANUS AUGUSTUS IMPERATOR." The "OCT" is broken away.
+He bears a globe in his right hand, with "MUNDUS PACIS" upon it; a
+sceptre in his left, which I think has terminated in a human figure. He
+has a flowing beard, and a singularly high crown; the face is much
+injured, but has once been very noble in expression.
+
+SIXTH CAPITAL. Has large male and female heads, very coarsely cut, hard,
+and bad.
+
+§ LXIX. SEVENTH CAPITAL. This is the first of the series which is
+complete; the first open arch of the lower arcade being between it and
+the sixth. It begins the representation of the Virtues.
+
+_First side_. Largitas, or Liberality: always distinguished from the
+higher Charity. A male figure, with his lap full of money, which he
+pours out of his hand. The coins are plain, circular, and smooth; there
+is no attempt to mark device upon them. The inscription above is,
+"LARGITAS ME ONORAT."
+
+In the copy of this design on the twenty-fifth capital, instead of
+showering out the gold from his open hand, the figure holds it in a
+plate or salver, introduced for the sake of disguising the direct
+imitation. The changes thus made in the Renaissance pillars are always
+injuries.
+
+This virtue is the proper opponent of Avarice; though it does not occur
+in the systems of Orcagna or Giotto, being included in Charity. It was a
+leading virtue with Aristotle and the other ancients.
+
+§ LXX. _Second side_. Constancy; not very characteristic. An armed man
+with a sword in his hand, inscribed, "CONSTANTIA SUM, NIL TIMENS."
+
+This virtue is one of the forms of fortitude, and Giotto therefore sets
+as the vice opponent to Fortitude, "Inconstantia," represented as a
+woman in loose drapery, falling from a rolling globe. The vision seen in
+the interpreter's house in the Pilgrim's Progress, of the man with a
+very bold countenance, who says to him who has the writer's ink-horn by
+his side, "Set down my name," is the best personification of the
+Venetian "Constantia" of which I am aware in literature. It would be
+well for us all to consider whether we have yet given the order to the
+man with the ink-horn, "Set down my name."
+
+§ LXXI. _Third side_. Discord; holding up her finger, but needing the
+inscription above to assure us of her meaning, "DISCORDIA SUM,
+DISCORDANS." In the Renaissance copy she is a meek and nun-like person
+with a veil.
+
+She is the Atë of Spenser; "mother of debate," thus described in the
+fourth book:
+
+  "Her face most fowle and filthy was to see,
+   With squinted eyes contrarie wayes intended;
+   And loathly mouth, unmeete a mouth to bee,
+   That nought but gall and venim comprehended,
+   And wicked wordes that God and man offended:
+   Her lying tongue was in two parts divided,
+   And both the parts did speake, and both contended;
+   And as her tongue, so was her hart discided,
+   That never thoght one thing, but doubly stil was guided."
+
+Note the fine old meaning of "discided," cut in two; it is a great pity
+we have lost this powerful expression. We might keep "determined" for
+the other sense of the word.
+
+§ LXXII. _Fourth side._ Patience. A female figure, very expressive and
+lovely, in a hood, with her right hand on her breast, the left extended,
+inscribed "PATIENTIA MANET MECUM."
+
+She is one of the principal virtues in all the Christian systems: a
+masculine virtue in Spenser, and beautifully placed as the _Physician_
+in the House of Holinesse. The opponent vice, Impatience, is one of the
+hags who attend the Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh; the other being
+Impotence. In like manner, in the "Pilgrim's Progress," the opposite of
+Patience is Passion; but Spenser's thought is farther carried. His two
+hags, Impatience and Impotence, as attendant upon the evil spirit of
+Passion, embrace all the phenomena of human conduct, down even to the
+smallest matters, according to the adage, "More haste, worse speed."
+
+§ LXXIII. _Fifth side._ Despair. A female figure thrusting a dagger into
+her throat, and tearing her long hair, which flows down among the leaves
+of the capital below her knees. One of the finest figures of the series;
+inscribed "DESPERACIO MÔS (mortis?) CRUDELIS." In the Renaissance copy
+she is totally devoid of expression, and appears, instead of tearing her
+hair, to be dividing it into long curls on each side.
+
+This vice is the proper opposite of Hope. By Giotto she is represented
+as a woman hanging herself, a fiend coming for her soul. Spenser's
+vision of Despair is well known, it being indeed currently reported that
+this part of the Faerie Queen was the first which drew to it the
+attention of Sir Philip Sidney.
+
+§ LXXIV. _Sixth side._ Obedience: with her arms folded; meek, but rude
+and commonplace, looking at a little dog standing on its hind legs and
+begging, with a collar round its neck. Inscribed "OBEDIENTI * *;" the
+rest of the sentence is much defaced, but looks like [Illustration:
+Graphic signs]. I suppose the note of contraction above the final A has
+disappeared and that the inscription was "Obedientiam domino exhibeo."
+
+This virtue is, of course, a principal one in the monkish systems;
+represented by Giotto at Assisi as "an angel robed in black, placing the
+finger of his left hand on his mouth, and passing the yoke over the head
+of a Franciscan monk kneeling at his feet."[154]
+
+Obedience holds a less principal place in Spenser. We have seen her
+above associated with the other peculiar virtues of womanhood.
+
+§ LXXV. _Seventh side._ Infidelity. A man in a turban, with a small
+image in his hand, or the image of a child. Of the inscription nothing
+but "INFIDELITATE * * *" and some fragmentary letters, "ILI, CERO,"
+remain.
+
+By Giotto Infidelity is most nobly symbolized as a woman helmeted, the
+helmet having a broad rim which keeps the light from her eyes. She is
+covered with heavy drapery, stands infirmly as if about to fall, is
+_bound by a cord round her neck to an image_ which she carries in her
+hand, and has flames bursting forth at her feet.
+
+In Spenser, Infidelity is the Saracen knight Sans Foy,--
+
+       "Full large of limbe and every joint
+  He was, and cared not for God or man a point."
+
+For the part which he sustains in the contest with Godly Fear, or the
+Red-cross knight, see Appendix 2, Vol. III.
+
+§ LXXVI. _Eighth side_. Modesty; bearing a pitcher. (In the Renaissance
+copy, a vase like a coffee-pot.) Inscribed "MODESTIA [Illustration:
+Graphic signs]."
+
+I do not find this virtue in any of the Italian series, except that of
+Venice. In Spenser she is of course one of those attendant on
+Womanhood, but occurs as one of the tenants of the Heart of Man, thus
+portrayed in the second book:
+
+  "Straunge was her tyre, and all her garment blew,
+   Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight:
+   Upon her fist the bird which shonneth vew.
+
+          *       *       *       *       *
+
+   And ever and anone with rosy red
+   The bashfull blood her snowy cheekes did dye,
+   That her became, as polisht yvory
+   Which cunning craftesman hand hath overlayd
+   With fayre vermilion or pure castory."
+
+§ LXXVII. EIGHTH CAPITAL. It has no inscriptions, and its subjects are
+not, by themselves, intelligible; but they appear to be typical of the
+degradation of human instincts.
+
+_First side._ A caricature of Arion on his dolphin; he wears a cap
+ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin with a curious
+twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very graphically expressed, but
+still without anything approaching to the power of Northern grotesque.
+His dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the waves beat over his back.
+
+_Second side._ A human figure, with curly hair and the legs of a bear;
+the paws laid, with great sculptural skill, upon the foliage. It plays a
+violin, shaped like a guitar, with a bent double-stringed bow.
+
+_Third side._ A figure with a serpent's tail and a monstrous head,
+founded on a Negro type, hollow-cheeked, large-lipped, and wearing a cap
+made of a serpent's skin, holding a fir-cone in its hand.
+
+_Fourth side._ A monstrous figure, terminating below in a tortoise. It
+is devouring a gourd, which it grasps greedily with both hands; it wears
+a cap ending in a hoofed leg.
+
+_Fifth side._ A centaur wearing a crested helmet, and holding a curved
+sword.
+
+_Sixth side._ A knight, riding a headless horse, and wearing chain
+armor, with a triangular shield flung behind his back, and a two-edged
+sword.
+
+_Seventh side._ A figure like that on the fifth, wearing a round
+helmet, and with the legs and tail of a horse. He bears a long mace with
+a top like a fir-cone.
+
+_Eighth side._ A figure with curly hair, and an acorn in its hand,
+ending below in a fish.
+
+§ LXXVIII. Ninth Capital. _First side._ Faith. She has her left hand on
+her breast, and the cross on her right. Inscribed "FIDES OPTIMA IN DEO."
+The Faith of Giotto holds the cross in her right hand; in her left, a
+scroll with the Apostles' Creed. She treads upon cabalistic books, and
+has a key suspended to her waist. Spenser's Faith (Fidelia) is still
+more spiritual and noble:
+
+  "She was araied all in lilly white,
+   And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,
+   With wine and water fild up to the hight,
+   In which a serpent did himselfe enfold,
+   That horrour made to all that did behold;
+   But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:
+   And in her other hand she fast did hold
+   A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood;
+   Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood."
+
+§ LXXIX. _Second side._ Fortitude. A long-bearded man [Samson?] tearing
+open a lion's jaw. The inscription is illegible, and the somewhat vulgar
+personification appears to belong rather to Courage than Fortitude. On
+the Renaissance copy it is inscribed "FORTITUDO SUM VIRILIS." The Latin
+word has, perhaps, been received by the sculptor as merely signifying
+"Strength," the rest of the perfect idea of this virtue having been
+given in "Constantia" previously. But both these Venetian symbols
+together do not at all approach the idea of Fortitude as given generally
+by Giotto and the Pisan sculptors; clothed with a lion's skin, knotted
+about her neck, and falling to her feet in deep folds; drawing back her
+right hand, with the sword pointed towards her enemy; and slightly
+retired behind her immovable shield, which, with Giotto, is square, and
+rested on the ground like a tower, covering her up to above her
+shoulders; bearing on it a lion, and with broken heads of javelins
+deeply infixed.
+
+Among the Greeks, this is, of course, one of the principal virtues;
+apt, however, in their ordinary conception of it to degenerate into mere
+manliness or courage.
+
+§ LXXX. _Third side._ Temperance; bearing a pitcher of water and a cup.
+Inscription, illegible here, and on the Renaissance copy nearly so,
+"TEMPERANTIA SUM" (INOM' L^s)? only left. In this somewhat vulgar and
+most frequent conception of this virtue (afterwards continually
+repeated, as by Sir Joshua in his window at New College) temperance is
+confused with mere abstinence, the opposite of Gula, or gluttony;
+whereas the Greek Temperance, a truly cardinal virtue, is the moderator
+of _all_ the passions, and so represented by Giotto, who has placed a
+bridle upon her lips, and a sword in her hand, the hilt of which she is
+binding to the scabbard. In his system, she is opposed among the vices,
+not by Gula or Gluttony, but by Ira, Anger. So also the Temperance of
+Spenser, or Sir Guyon, but with mingling of much sternness:
+
+  "A goodly knight, all armd in harnesse meete,
+   That from his head no place appeared to his feete,
+   His carriage was full comely and upright;
+   His countenance demure and temperate;
+   But yett so sterne and terrible in sight,
+   That cheard his friendes, and did his foes amate."
+
+The Temperance of the Greeks, [Greek: sôphrosynę], involves the idea of
+Prudence, and is a most noble virtue, yet properly marked by Plato as
+inferior to sacred enthusiasm, though necessary for its government. He
+opposes it, under the name "Mortal Temperance" or "the Temperance which
+is of men," to divine madness, [Greek: mania], or inspiration; but he
+most justly and nobly expresses the general idea of it under the term
+[Greek: hubris], which, in the "Phćdrus," is divided into various
+intemperances with respect to various objects, and set forth under the
+image of a black, vicious, diseased and furious horse, yoked by the side
+of Prudence or Wisdom (set forth under the figure of a white horse with
+a crested and noble head, like that which we have among the Elgin
+Marbles) to the chariot of the Soul. The system of Aristotle, as above
+stated, is throughout a mere complicated blunder, supported by
+sophistry, the laboriously developed mistake of Temperance for the
+essence of the virtues which it guides. Temperance in the medićval
+systems is generally opposed by Anger, or by Folly, or Gluttony: but her
+proper opposite is Spenser's Acrasia, the principal enemy of Sir Guyon,
+at whose gates we find the subordinate vice "Excesse," as the
+introduction to Intemperance; a graceful and feminine image, necessary
+to illustrate the more dangerous forms of subtle intemperance, as
+opposed to the brutal "Gluttony" in the first book. She presses grapes
+into a cup, because of the words of St. Paul, "Be not drunk with wine,
+wherein is excess;" but always delicately,
+
+  "Into her cup she scruzd with daintie breach
+   Of her fine fingers, without fowle empeach,
+   That so faire winepresse made the wine more sweet."
+
+The reader will, I trust, pardon these frequent extracts from Spenser,
+for it is nearly as necessary to point out the profound divinity and
+philosophy of our great English poet, as the beauty of the Ducal Palace.
+
+§ LXXXI. _Fourth side._ Humility; with a veil upon her head, carrying a
+lamp in her lap. Inscribed in the copy, "HUMILITAS HABITAT IN ME."
+
+This virtue is of course a peculiarly Christian one, hardly recognized
+in the Pagan systems, though carefully impressed upon the Greeks in
+early life in a manner which at this day it would be well if we were to
+imitate, and, together with an almost feminine modesty, giving an
+exquisite grace to the conduct and bearing of the well-educated Greek
+youth. It is, of course, one of the leading virtues in all the monkish
+systems, but I have not any notes of the manner of its representation.
+
+§ LXXXII. _Fifth side._ Charity. A woman with her lap full of loaves(?),
+giving one to a child, who stretches his arm out for it across a broad
+gap in the leafage of the capital.
+
+Again very far inferior to the Giottesque rendering of this virtue. In
+the Arena Chapel she is distinguished from all the other virtues by
+having a circular glory round her head, and a cross of fire; she is
+crowned with flowers, presents with her right hand a vase of corn and
+fruit, and with her left receives treasure from Christ, who appears
+above her, to provide her with the means of continual offices of
+beneficence, while she tramples under foot the treasures of the earth.
+
+The peculiar beauty of most of the Italian conceptions of Charity, is in
+the subjection of mere munificence to the glowing of her love, always
+represented by flames; here in the form of a cross round her head; in
+Oreagna's shrine at Florence, issuing from a censer in her hand; and,
+with Dante, inflaming her whole form, so that, in a furnace of clear
+fire, she could not have been discerned.
+
+Spenser represents her as a mother surrounded by happy children, an idea
+afterwards grievously hackneyed and vulgarized by English painters and
+sculptors.
+
+§ LXXXIII. _Sixth side._ Justice. Crowned, and with sword. Inscribed in
+the copy, "REX SUM JUSTICIE."
+
+This idea was afterwards much amplified and adorned in the only good
+capital of the Renaissance series, under the Judgment angle. Giotto has
+also given his whole strength to the painting of this virtue,
+representing her as enthroned under a noble Gothic canopy, holding
+scales, not by the beam, but one in each hand; a beautiful idea, showing
+that the equality of the scales of Justice is not owing to natural laws,
+but to her own immediate weighing the opposed causes in her own hands.
+In one scale is an executioner beheading a criminal; in the other an
+angel crowning a man who seems (in Selvatico's plate) to have been
+working at a desk or table.
+
+Beneath her feet is a small predella, representing various persons
+riding securely in the woods, and others dancing to the sound of music.
+
+Spenser's Justice, Sir Artegall, is the hero of an entire book, and the
+betrothed knight of Britomart, or chastity.
+
+§ LXXXIV. _Seventh side._ Prudence. A man with a book and a pair of
+compasses, wearing the noble cap, hanging down towards the shoulder, and
+bound in a fillet round the brow, which occurs so frequently during the
+fourteenth century in Italy in the portraits of men occupied in any
+civil capacity.
+
+This virtue is, as we have seen, conceived under very different degrees
+of dignity, from mere worldly prudence up to heavenly wisdom, being
+opposed sometimes by Stultitia, sometimes by Ignorantia. I do not find,
+in any of the representations of her, that her truly distinctive
+character, namely, _forethought_, is enough insisted upon: Giotto
+expresses her vigilance and just measurement or estimate of all things
+by painting her as Janus-headed, and gazing into a convex mirror, with
+compasses in her right hand; the convex mirror showing her power of
+looking at many things in small compass. But forethought or
+anticipation, by which, independently of greater or less natural
+capacities, one man becomes more _prudent_ than another, is never enough
+considered or symbolized.
+
+The idea of this virtue oscillates, in the Greek systems, between
+Temperance and Heavenly Wisdom.
+
+§ LXXXV. _Eighth side._ Hope. A figure full of devotional expression,
+holding up its hands as in prayer, and looking to a hand which is
+extended towards it out of sunbeams. In the Renaissance copy this hand
+does not appear.
+
+Of all the virtues, this is the most distinctively Christian (it could
+not, of course, enter definitely into any Pagan scheme); and above all
+others, it seems to me the _testing_ virtue,--that by the possession of
+which we may most certainly determine whether we are Christians or not;
+for many men have charity, that is to say, general kindness of heart, or
+even a kind of faith, who have not any habitual _hope_ of, or longing
+for, heaven. The Hope of Giotto is represented as winged, rising in the
+air, while an angel holds a crown before her. I do not know if Spenser
+was the first to introduce our marine virtue, leaning on an anchor, a
+symbol as inaccurate as it is vulgar: for, in the first place, anchors
+are not for men, but for ships; and in the second, anchorage is the
+characteristic not of Hope, but of Faith. Faith is dependent, but Hope
+is aspirant. Spenser, however, introduces Hope twice,--the first time as
+the Virtue with the anchor; but afterwards fallacious Hope, far more
+beautifully, in the Masque of Cupid:
+
+  "She always smyld, and in her hand did hold
+   An holy-water sprinckle, dipt in deowe."
+
+§ LXXXVI. Tenth Capital. _First side._ Luxury (the opposite of chastity,
+as above explained). A woman with a jewelled chain across her forehead,
+smiling as she looks into a mirror, exposing her breast by drawing down
+her dress with one hand. Inscribed "LUXURIA SUM IMENSA."
+
+These subordinate forms of vice are not met with so frequently in art as
+those of the opposite virtues, but in Spenser we find them all. His
+Luxury rides upon a goat:
+
+  "In a greene gowne he clothed was full faire,
+   Which underneath did hide his filthinesse,
+   And in his hand a burning hart he bare."
+
+But, in fact, the proper and comprehensive expression of this vice is
+the Cupid of the ancients; and there is not any minor circumstance more
+indicative of the _intense_ difference between the medićval and the
+Renaissance spirit, than the mode in which this god is represented.
+
+I have above said, that all great European art is rooted in the
+thirteenth century; and it seems to me that there is a kind of central
+year about which we may consider the energy of the middle ages to be
+gathered; a kind of focus of time which, by what is to my mind a most
+touching and impressive Divine appointment, has been marked for us by
+the greatest writer of the middle ages, in the first words he utters;
+namely, the year 1300, the "mezzo del cammin" of the life of Dante. Now,
+therefore, to Giotto, the contemporary of Dante, and who drew Dante's
+still existing portrait in this very year, 1300, we may always look for
+the central medićval idea in any subject: and observe how he represents
+Cupid; as one of three, a terrible trinity, his companions being Satan
+and Death; and he himself "a lean scarecrow, with bow, quiver, and
+fillet, and feet ending in claws,"[155] thrust down into Hell by
+Penance, from the presence of Purity and Fortitude. Spenser, who has
+been so often noticed as furnishing the exactly intermediate type of
+conception between the medićval and the Renaissance, indeed represents
+Cupid under the form of a beautiful winged god, and riding on a lion,
+but still no plaything of the Graces, but full of terror:
+
+  "With that the darts which his right hand did straine
+   Full dreadfully he shooke, that all did quake,
+   And clapt on hye his coloured winges twaine,
+   That all his many it afraide did make."
+
+His _many_, that is to say, his company; and observe what a company it
+is. Before him go Fancy, Desire, Doubt, Danger, Fear, Fallacious Hope,
+Dissemblance, Suspicion, Grief, Fury, Displeasure, Despite, and Cruelty.
+After him, Reproach, Repentance, Shame,
+
+  "Unquiet Care, and fond Unthriftyhead,
+   Lewd Losse of Time, and Sorrow seeming dead,
+   Inconstant Chaunge, and false Disloyalty,
+   Consuming Riotise, and guilty Dread
+   Of heavenly vengeaunce; faint Infirmity,
+   Vile Poverty, and lastly Death with infamy."
+
+Compare these two pictures of Cupid with the Love-god of the
+Renaissance, as he is represented to this day, confused with angels, in
+every faded form of ornament and allegory, in our furniture, our
+literature, and our minds.
+
+§ LXXXVII. _Second side._ Gluttony. A woman in a turban, with a jewelled
+cup in her right hand. In her left, the clawed limb of a bird, which she
+is gnawing. Inscribed "GULA SINE ORDINE SUM."
+
+Spenser's Gluttony is more than usually fine:
+
+  "His belly was upblowne with luxury,
+   And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,
+   And like a crane his necke was long and fyne,
+   Wherewith he swallowed up excessive feast,
+   For want whereof poore people oft did pyne."
+
+He rides upon a swine, and is clad in vine-leaves, with a garland of
+ivy. Compare the account of Excesse, above, as opposed to Temperance.
+
+§ LXXXVIII. _Third side._ Pride. A knight, with a heavy and stupid face,
+holding a sword with three edges: his armor covered with ornaments in
+the form of roses, and with two ears attached to his helmet. The
+inscription indecipherable, all but "SUPERBIA."
+
+Spenser has analyzed this vice with great care. He first represents it
+as the Pride of life; that is to say, the pride which runs in a deep
+under current through all the thoughts and acts of men. As such, it is a
+feminine vice, directly opposed to Holiness, and mistress of a castle
+called the House of Pryde, and her chariot is driven by Satan, with a
+team of beasts, ridden by the mortal sins. In the throne chamber of her
+palace she is thus described:
+
+  "So proud she shyned in her princely state,
+   Looking to Heaven, for Earth she did disdayne;
+   And sitting high, for lowly she did hate:
+   Lo, underneath her scornefull feete was layne
+   A dreadfull dragon with an hideous trayne;
+   And in her hand she held a mirrhour bright,
+   Wherein her face she often vewed fayne"
+
+The giant Orgoglio is a baser species of pride, born of the Earth and
+Eolus; that is to say, of sensual and vain conceits. His foster-father
+and the keeper of his castle is Ignorance. (Book I. canto VIII.)
+
+Finally, Disdain is introduced, in other places, as the form of pride
+which vents itself in insult to others.
+
+§ LXXXIX. _Fourth side._ Anger. A woman tearing her dress open at her
+breast. Inscription here undecipherable; but in the Renaissance copy it
+is "IRA CRUDELIS EST IN ME."
+
+Giotto represents this vice under the same symbol; but it is the weakest
+of all the figures in the Arena Chapel. The "Wrath" of Spenser rides upon
+a lion, brandishing a fire-brand, his garments stained with blood. Rage,
+or Furor, occurs subordinately in other places. It appears to me very
+strange that neither Giotto nor Spenser should have given any
+representation of the _restrained_ Anger, which is infinitely the most
+terrible; both of them make him violent.
+
+§ XC. _Fifth side._ Avarice. An old woman with a veil over her forehead,
+and a bag of money in each hand. A figure very marvellous for power of
+expression. The throat is all made up of sinews with skinny channels
+deep between them, strained as by anxiety, and wasted by famine; the
+features hunger-bitten, the eyes hollow, the look glaring and intense,
+yet without the slightest: caricature. Inscribed in the Renaissance
+copy, "AVARITIA IMPLETOR."
+
+Spenser's Avarice (the vice) is much feebler than this; but the god
+Mammon and his kingdom have been described by him with his usual power.
+Note the position of the house of Richesse:
+
+  "Betwixt them both was but a little stride,
+   That did the House of Richesse from Hell-mouth divide."
+
+It is curious that most moralists confuse avarice with covetousness,
+although they are vices totally different in their operation on the
+human heart, and on the frame of society. The love of money, the sin of
+Judas and Ananias, is indeed the root of all evil in the hardening of
+the heart; but "covetousness, which is idolatry," the sin of Ahab, that
+is, the inordinate desire of some seen or recognized good,--thus
+destroying peace of mind,--is probably productive of much more misery in
+heart, and error in conduct, than avarice itself, only covetousness is
+not so inconsistent with Christianity: for covetousness may partly
+proceed from vividness of the affections and hopes, as in David, and be
+consistent with, much charity; not so avarice.
+
+§ XCI. _Sixth side_. Idleness. Accidia. A figure much broken away,
+having had its arms round two branches of trees.
+
+I do not know why Idleness should be represented as among trees, unless,
+in the Italy of the fourteenth century, forest country was considered as
+desert, and therefore the domain of Idleness. Spenser fastens this vice
+especially upon the clergy,--
+
+  "Upon a slouthfull asse he chose to ryde,
+   Arayd in habit blacke, and amis thin,
+   Like to an holy monck, the service to begin.
+   And in his hand his portesse still he bare,
+   That much was worne, but therein little redd."
+
+And he properly makes him the leader of the train of the vices:
+
+  "May seem the wayne was very evil ledd,
+   When such an one had guiding of the way"
+
+Observe that subtle touch of truth in the "wearing" of the portesse,
+indicating the abuse of books by idle readers, so thoroughly
+characteristic of unwilling studentship from the schoolboy upwards.
+
+§ XCII. _Seventh side._ Vanity. She is smiling complacently as she looks
+into a mirror in her lap. Her robe is embroidered with roses, and roses
+form her crown. Undecipherable.
+
+There is some confusion in the expression of this vice, between pride in
+the personal appearance and lightness of purpose. The word Vanitas
+generally, I think, bears, in the medićval period, the sense given it in
+Scripture. "Let not him that is deceived trust in Vanity, for Vanity
+shall be his recompense." "Vanity of Vanities." "The Lord knoweth the
+thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." It is difficult to find this
+sin,--which, after Pride, is the most universal, perhaps the most fatal,
+of all, fretting the whole depth of our humanity into storm "to waft a
+feather or to drown a fly,"--definitely expressed in art. Even Spenser,
+I think, has only partially expressed it under the figure of Phćdria,
+more properly Idle Mirth, in the second book. The idea is, however,
+entirely worked out in the Vanity Fair of the "Pilgrim's Progress."
+
+§ XCIII. _Eighth side._ Envy. One of the noblest pieces of expression in
+the series. She is pointing malignantly with her finger; a serpent is
+wreathed about her head like a cap, another forms the girdle of her
+waist, and a dragon rests in her lap.
+
+Giotto has, however, represented her, with still greater subtlety, as
+having her fingers terminating in claws, and raising her right hand with
+an expression partly of impotent regret, partly of involuntary grasping;
+a serpent, issuing from her mouth, is about to bite her between the
+eyes; she has long membranous ears, horns on her head, and flames
+consuming her body. The Envy of Spenser is only inferior to that of
+Giotto, because the idea of folly and quickness of hearing is not
+suggested by the size of the ear: in other respects it is even finer,
+joining the idea of fury, in the wolf on which he rides, with that of
+corruption on his lips, and of discoloration or distortion in the whole
+mind:
+
+                   "Malicious Envy rode
+  Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw
+  Between his cankred teeth a venemous tode,
+  That all the poison ran about his jaw.
+  _All in a kirtle of discolourd say
+  He clothed was, ypaynted full of eies_,
+  And in his bosome secretly there lay
+  An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes
+  In many folds, and mortall sting implyes."
+
+He has developed the idea in more detail, and still more loathsomely, in
+the twelfth canto of the fifth book.
+
+§ XCIV. ELEVENTH CAPITAL. Its decoration is composed of eight birds,
+arranged as shown in Plate V. of the "Seven Lamps," which, however, was
+sketched from the Renaissance copy. These birds are all varied in form
+and action, but not so as to require special description.
+
+§ XCV. TWELFTH CAPITAL. This has been very interesting, but is
+grievously defaced, four of its figures being entirely broken away, and
+the character of two others quite undecipherable. It is fortunate that
+it has been copied in the thirty-third capital of the Renaissance
+series, from which we are able to identify the lost figures.
+
+_First side._ Misery. A man with a wan face, seemingly pleading with a
+child who has its hands crossed on its breast. There is a buckle at his
+own breast in the shape of a cloven heart. Inscribed "MISERIA."
+
+The intention of this figure is not altogether apparent, as it is by no
+means treated as a vice; the distress seeming real, and like that of a
+parent in poverty mourning over his child. Yet it seems placed here as
+in direct opposition to the virtue of Cheerfulness, which follows next
+in order; rather, however, I believe, with the intention of illustrating
+human life, than the character of the vice which, as we have seen, Dante
+placed in the circle of hell. The word in that case would, I think, have
+been "Tristitia," the "unholy Griefe" of Spenser--
+
+          "All in sable sorrowfully clad,
+  Downe hanging his dull head with heavy chere:
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  A pair of pincers in his hand he had,
+  With which he pinched people to the heart."
+
+He has farther amplified the idea under another figure in the fifth
+canto of the fourth book:
+
+  "His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,
+   That neither day nor night from working spared;
+   But to small purpose yron wedges made:
+   Those be unquiet thoughts that carefull minds invade.
+   Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,
+   Ne better had he, ne for better cared;
+   With blistered hands among the cinders brent."
+
+It is to be noticed, however, that in the Renaissance copy this figure
+is stated to be, not Miseria, but "Misericordia." The contraction is a
+very moderate one, Misericordia being in old MS. written always as
+"Mia." If this reading be right, the figure is placed here rather as the
+companion, than the opposite, of Cheerfulness; unless, indeed, it is
+intended to unite the idea of Mercy and Compassion with that of Sacred
+Sorrow.
+
+§ XCVI. _Second side._ Cheerfulness. A woman with long flowing hair,
+crowned with roses, playing on a tambourine, and with open lips, as
+singing. Inscribed " ALACRITAS."
+
+We have already met with this virtue among those especially set by
+Spenser to attend on Womanhood. It is inscribed in the Renaissance copy,
+"ALACHRITAS CHANIT MECUM." Note the gutturals of the rich and fully
+developed Venetian dialect now affecting the Latin, which is free from
+them in the earlier capitals.
+
+§ XCVII. _Third side._ Destroyed; but, from the copy, we find it has
+been Stultitia, Folly; and it is there represented simply as a man
+_riding_, a sculpture worth the consideration of the English residents
+who bring their horses to Venice. Giotto gives Stultitia a feather, cap,
+and club. In early manuscripts he is always eating with one hand, and
+striking with the other; in later ones he has a cap and bells, or cap
+crested with a cock's head, whence the word "coxcomb."
+
+§ XCVIII. _Fourth side._ Destroyed, all but a book, which identifies it
+with the "Celestial Chastity" of the Renaissance copy; there represented
+as a woman pointing to a book (connecting the convent life with the
+pursuit of literature?).
+
+Spenser's Chastity, Britomart, is the most exquisitely wrought of all
+his characters; but, as before noticed, she is not the Chastity of the
+convent, but of wedded life.
+
+§ XCIX. _Fifth side._ Only a scroll is left; but, from the copy, we find
+it has been Honesty or Truth. Inscribed "HONESTATEM DILIGO." It is very
+curious, that among all the Christian systems of the virtues which we
+have examined, we should find this one in Venice only.
+
+The Truth of Spenser, Una, is, after Chastity, the most exquisite
+character in the "Faerie Queen."
+
+§ C. _Sixth side._ Falsehood. An old woman leaning on a crutch; and
+inscribed in the copy, "FALSITAS IN ME SEMPER EST." The Fidessa of
+Spenser, the great enemy of Una, or Truth, is far more subtly conceived,
+probably not without special reference to the Papal deceits. In her true
+form she is a loathsome hag, but in her outward aspect,
+
+  "A goodly lady, clad in scarlot red,
+   Purfled with gold and pearle;...
+   Her wanton palfrey all was overspred
+   With tinsell trappings, woven like a wave,
+   Whose bridle rung with golden bels and bosses brave."
+
+Dante's Fraud, Geryon, is the finest personification of all, but the
+description (Inferno, canto XVII.) is too long to be quoted.
+
+§ CI. _Seventh side._ Injustice. An armed figure holding a halbert; so
+also in the copy. The figure used by Giotto with the particular
+intention of representing unjust government, is represented at the gate
+of an embattled castle in a forest, between rocks, while various deeds
+of violence are committed at his feet. Spenser's "Adicia" is a furious
+hag, at last transformed into a tiger.
+
+_Eighth side._ A man with a dagger looking sorrowfully at a child, who
+turns its back to him. I cannot understand this figure. It is inscribed
+in the copy, "ASTINECIA (Abstinentia?) OPITIMA."
+
+§ CII. THIRTEENTH CAPITAL. It has lions' heads all round, coarsely cut.
+
+FOURTEENTH CAPITAL. It has various animals, each sitting on its
+haunches. Three dogs, one a greyhound, one long-haired, one short-haired
+with bells about its neck; two monkeys, one with fan-shaped hair
+projecting on each side of its face; a noble boar, with its tusks,
+hoofs, and bristles sharply cut; and a lion and lioness.
+
+§ CIII. FIFTEENTH CAPITAL. The pillar to which it belongs is thicker
+than the rest, as well as the one over it in the upper arcade.
+
+The sculpture of this capital is also much coarser, and seems to me
+later than that of the rest; and it has no inscription, which is
+embarrassing, as its subjects have had much meaning; but I believe
+Selvatico is right in supposing it to have been intended for a general
+illustration of Idleness.
+
+_First side._ A woman with a distaff; her girdle richly decorated, and
+fastened by a buckle.
+
+_Second side._ A youth in a long mantle, with a rose in his hand.
+
+_Third side._ A woman in a turban stroking a puppy which she holds by
+the haunches.
+
+_Fourth side._ A man with a parrot.
+
+_Fifth side._ A woman in very rich costume, with braided hair, and dress
+thrown into minute folds, holding a rosary(?) in her left hand, her
+right on her breast.
+
+_Sixth side._ A man with a very thoughtful face, laying his hand upon
+the leaves of the capital.
+
+_Seventh side._ A crowned lady, with a rose in her hand.
+
+_Eighth side._ A boy with a ball in his left hand, and his right laid on
+his breast.
+
+§ CIV. SIXTEENTH CAPITAL. It is decorated with eight large heads, partly
+intended to be grotesque,[156] and very coarse and bad, except only
+that in the sixth side, which is totally different from all the rest,
+and looks like a portrait. It is thin, thoughtful, and dignified;
+thoroughly fine in every way. It wears a cap surmounted by two winged
+lions; and, therefore, I think Selvatico must have inaccurately written
+the list given in the note, for this head is certainly meant to express
+the superiority of the Venetian character over that of other nations.
+Nothing is more remarkable in all early sculpture, than its appreciation
+of the signs of dignity of character in the features, and the way in
+which it can exalt the principal figure in any subject by a few touches.
+
+§ CV. SEVENTEENTH CAPITAL. This has been so destroyed by the sea wind,
+which sweeps at this point of the arcade round the angle of the palace,
+that its inscriptions are no longer legible, and great part of its
+figures are gone. Selvatico states them as follows: Solomon, the wise;
+Priscian, the grammarian; Aristotle, the logician; Tully, the orator;
+Pythagoras, the philosopher; Archimedes, the mechanic; Orpheus, the
+musician; Ptolemy, the astronomer. The fragments actually remaining are
+the following:
+
+_First side._ A figure with two books, in a robe richly decorated with
+circles of roses. Inscribed "SALOMON (SAP)IENS."
+
+_Second side._ A man with one book, poring over it: he has had a long
+stick or reed in his hand. Of inscription only the letters "GRAMMATIC"
+remain.
+
+_Third side._ "ARISTOTLE:" so inscribed. He has a peaked double beard
+and a flat cap, from under which his long hair falls down his back.
+
+_Fourth side._ Destroyed.
+
+_Fifth side._ Destroyed, all but a board with three (counters?) on it.
+
+_Sixth side._ A figure with compasses. Inscribed "GEOMET * *"
+
+_Seventh side._ Nothing is left but a guitar with its handle wrought
+into a lion's head.
+
+_Eighth side._ Destroyed.
+
+§ CVI. We have now arrived at the EIGHTEENTH CAPITAL, the most
+interesting and beautiful of the palace. It represents the planets, and
+the sun and moon, in those divisions of the zodiac known to astrologers
+as their "houses;" and perhaps indicates, by the position in which they
+are placed, the period of the year at which this great corner-stone was
+laid. The inscriptions above have been in quaint Latin rhyme, but are
+now decipherable only in fragments, and that with the more difficulty
+because the rusty iron bar that binds the abacus has broken away, in its
+expansion, nearly all the upper portions of the stone, and with them the
+signs of contraction, which are of great importance. I shall give the
+fragments of them that I could decipher; first as the letters actually
+stand (putting those of which I am doubtful in brackets, with a note of
+interrogation), and then as I would read them.
+
+§ CVII. It should be premised that, in modern astrology, the houses of
+the planets are thus arranged:
+
+  The house of the Sun,      is Leo.
+        "          Moon,     "  Cancer.
+        "       of Mars,     "  Aries and Scorpio.
+        "          Venus,    "  Taurus and Libra.
+        "          Mercury,  "  Gemini and Virgo.
+        "          Jupiter,  "  Sagittarius and Pisces.
+        "          Saturn,   "  Capricorn.
+        "          Herschel, "  Aquarius.
+
+The Herschel planet being of course unknown to the old astrologers, we
+have only the other six planetary powers, together with the sun; and
+Aquarius is assigned to Saturn as his house. I could not find Capricorn
+at all; but this sign may have been broken away, as the whole capital is
+grievously defaced. The eighth side of the capital, which the Herschel
+planet would now have occupied, bears a sculpture of the Creation of
+Man: it is the most conspicuous side, the one set diagonally across the
+angle; or the eighth in our usual mode of reading the capitals, from
+which I shall not depart.
+
+§ CVIII. _The first side_, then, or that towards the Sea, has Aquarius,
+as the house of Saturn, represented as a seated figure beautifully
+draped, pouring a stream of water out of an amphora over the leaves of
+the capital. His inscription is:
+
+  "ET SATURNE DOMUS (ECLOCERUNT?) 1^s 7BRE."
+
+§ CIX. _Second side._ Jupiter, in his houses Sagittarius and Pisces,
+represented throned, with an upper dress disposed in radiating folds
+about his neck, and hanging down upon his breast, ornamented by small
+pendent trefoiled studs or bosses. He wears the drooping bonnet and long
+gloves; but the folds about the neck, shot forth to express the rays of
+the star, are the most remarkable characteristic of the figure. He
+raises his sceptre in his left hand over Sagittarius, represented as the
+centaur Chiron; and holds two thunnies in his right. Something rough,
+like a third fish, has been broken away below them; the more easily
+because this part of the group is entirely undercut, and the two fish
+glitter in the light, relieved on the deep gloom below the leaves. The
+inscription is:
+
+  "INDE JOVI'[157] DONA PISES SIMUL ATQ^s CIRONA."
+
+Or,
+
+  "Inde Jovis dona
+   Pisces simul atque Chirona."
+
+Domus is, I suppose, to be understood before Jovis: "Then the house of
+Jupiter gives (or governs?) the fishes and Chiron."
+
+§ CX. _Third side._ Mars, in his houses Aries and Scorpio. Represented
+as a very ugly knight in chain mail, seated sideways on the ram, whose
+horns are broken away, and having a large scorpion in his left hand,
+whose tail is broken also, to the infinite injury of the group, for it
+seems to have curled across to the angle leaf, and formed a bright line
+of light, like the fish in the hand of Jupiter. The knight carries a
+shield, on which fire and water are sculptured, and bears a banner upon
+his lance, with the word "DEFEROSUM," which puzzled me for some time. It
+should be read, I believe, "De ferro sum;" which would be good
+_Venetian_ Latin for "I am of iron."
+
+§ CXI. _Fourth side._ The Sun, in his house Leo. Represented under the
+figure of Apollo, sitting on the Lion, with rays shooting from his head,
+and the world in his hand. The inscription:
+
+  "TU ES DOMU' SOLIS (QUO *?) SIGNE LEONI."
+
+I believe the first phrase is, "Tunc est Domus solis;" but there is a
+letter gone after the "quo," and I have no idea what case of signum
+"signe" stands for.
+
+§ CXII. _Fifth side._ Venus, in her houses Taurus and Libra. The most
+beautiful figure of the series. She sits upon the bull, who is deep in
+the dewlap, and better cut than most of the animals, holding a mirror in
+her right hand, and the scales in her left. Her breast is very nobly and
+tenderly indicated under the folds of her drapery, which is exquisitely
+studied in its fall. What is left of the inscription, runs:
+
+  "LIBRA CUM TAURO DOMUS * * * PURIOR AUR *."
+
+§ CXIII. _Sixth side._ Mercury, represented as wearing a pendent cap,
+and holding a book: he is supported by three children in reclining
+attitudes, representing his houses Gemini and Virgo. But I cannot
+understand the inscription, though more than usually legible.
+
+  "OCCUPAT ERIGONE STIBONS GEMINUQ' LACONE."
+
+§ CXIV. _Seventh side._ The Moon, in her house Cancer. This sculpture,
+which is turned towards the Piazzetta, is the most picturesque of the
+series. The moon is represented as a woman in a boat, upon the sea, who
+raises the crescent in her right hand, and with her left draws a crab
+out of the waves, up the boat's side. The moon was, I believe,
+represented in Egyptian sculptures as in a boat; but I rather think the
+Venetian was not aware of this, and that he meant to express the
+peculiar sweetness of the moonlight at Venice, as seen across the
+lagoons. Whether this was intended by putting the planet in the boat,
+may be questionable, but assuredly the idea was meant to be conveyed by
+the dress of the figure. For all the draperies of the other figures on
+this capital, as well as on the rest of the façade, are disposed in
+severe but full folds, showing little of the forms beneath them; but the
+moon's drapery _ripples_ down to her feet, so as exactly to suggest the
+trembling of the moonlight on the waves. This beautiful idea is highly
+characteristic of the thoughtfulness of the early sculptors: five
+hundred men may be now found who could have cut the drapery, as such,
+far better, for one who would have disposed its folds with this
+intention. The inscription is:
+
+  "LUNE CANCER DOMU T. PBET IORBE SIGNORU."
+
+§ CXV. _Eighth side._ God creating Man. Represented as a throned figure,
+with a glory round the head, laying his left hand on the head of a naked
+youth, and sustaining him with his right hand. The inscription puzzled
+me for a long time; but except the lost r and m of "formavit," and a
+letter quite undefaced, but to me unintelligible, before the word Eva,
+in the shape of a figure of 7, I have safely ascertained the rest.
+
+  "DELIMO DSADA DECO STAFO * * AVIT7EVA."
+
+Or
+
+    "De limo Dominus Adam, de costa fo(rm) avit Evam;"
+  From the dust the Lord made Adam, and from the rib Eve.
+
+I imagine the whole of this capital, therefore--the principal one of the
+old palace,--to have been intended to signify, first, the formation of
+the planets for the service of man upon the earth; secondly, the entire
+subjection of the fates and fortune of man to the will of God, as
+determined from the time when the earth and stars were made, and, in
+fact, written in the volume of the stars themselves.
+
+Thus interpreted, the doctrines of judicial astrology were not only
+consistent with, but an aid to, the most spiritual and humble
+Christianity.
+
+In the workmanship and grouping of its foliage, this capital is, on the
+whole, the finest I know in Europe. The sculptor has put his whole
+strength into it. I trust that it will appear among the other Venetian
+casts lately taken for the Crystal Palace; but if not, I have myself
+cast all its figures, and two of its leaves, and I intend to give
+drawings of them on a large scale in my folio work.
+
+§ CXVI. NINETEENTH CAPITAL. This is, of course, the second counting from
+the Sea, on the Piazzetta side of the palace, calling that of the
+Fig-tree angle the first.
+
+It is the most important capital, as a piece of evidence in point of
+dates, in the whole palace. Great pains have been taken with it, and in
+some portion of the accompanying furniture or ornaments of each of its
+figures a small piece of colored marble has been inlaid, with peculiar
+significance: for the capital represents the _arts of sculpture and
+architecture_; and the inlaying of the colored stones (which are far too
+small to be effective at a distance, and are found in this one capital
+only of the whole series) is merely an expression of the architect's
+feeling of the essential importance of this art of inlaying, and of the
+value of color generally in his own art.
+
+§ CXVII. _First side._ "ST. SIMPLICIUS": so inscribed. A figure working
+with a pointed chisel on a small oblong block of green serpentine, about
+four inches long by one wide, inlaid in the capital. The chisel is, of
+course, in the left hand, but the right is held up open, with the palm
+outwards.
+
+_Second side._ A crowned figure, carving the image of a child on a small
+statue, with a ground of red marble. The sculptured figure is highly
+finished, and is in type of head much like the Ham or Japheth at the
+Vine angle. Inscription effaced.
+
+_Third side._ An old man, uncrowned, but with curling hair, at work on a
+small column, with its capital complete, and a little shaft of dark red
+marble, spotted with paler red. The capital is precisely of the form of
+that found in the palace of the Tiepolos and the other thirteenth
+century work of Venice. This one figure would be quite enough, without
+any other evidence whatever, to determine the date of this flank of the
+Ducal Palace as not later, at all events, than the first half of the
+fourteenth century. Its inscription is broken away, all but "DISIPULO."
+
+_Fourth side._ A crowned figure; but the object on which it has been
+working is broken away, and all the inscription except "ST. E(N?)AS."
+
+_Fifth side._ A man with a turban, and a sharp chisel, at work on a kind
+of panel or niche, the back of which is of red marble.
+
+_Sixth side._ A crowned figure, with hammer and chisel, employed _on a
+little range of windows of the fifth order_, having roses set, instead
+of orbicular ornaments, between the spandrils, with a rich cornice, and
+a band of marble inserted above. This sculpture assures us of the date
+of the fifth order window, which it shows to have been universal in the
+early fourteenth century.
+
+There are also five arches in the block on which the sculptor is
+working, marking the frequency of the number five in the window groups
+of the time.
+
+_Seventh side._ A figure at work on a pilaster, with Lombardic
+thirteenth century capital (for account of the series of forms in
+Venetian capitals, see the final Appendix of the next volume), the shaft
+of dark red spotted marble.
+
+_Eighth side._ A figure with a rich open crown, working on a delicate
+recumbent statue, the head of which is laid on a pillow covered with a
+rich chequer pattern; the whole supported on a block of dark red marble.
+Inscription broken away, all but "ST. SYM. (Symmachus?) TV * * ANVS."
+There appear, therefore, altogether to have been five saints, two of
+them popes, if Simplicius is the pope of that name (three in front, two
+on the fourth and sixth sides), alternating with the three uncrowned
+workmen in the manual labor of sculpture. I did not, therefore, insult
+our present architects in saying above that they "ought to work in the
+mason's yard with their men." It would be difficult to find a more
+interesting expression of the devotional spirit in which all great work
+was undertaken at this time.
+
+§ CXVIII. TWENTIETH CAPITAL. It is adorned with heads of animals, and is
+the finest of the whole series in the broad massiveness of its effect;
+so simply characteristic, indeed, of the grandeur of style in the
+entire building, that I chose it for the first Plate in my folio work.
+In spite of the sternness of its plan, however, it is wrought with great
+care in surface detail; and the ornamental value of the minute chasing
+obtained by the delicate plumage of the birds, and the clustered bees on
+the honeycomb in the bear's mouth, opposed to the strong simplicity of
+its general form, cannot be too much admired. There are also more grace,
+life, and variety in the sprays of foliage on each side of it, and under
+the heads, than in any other capital of the series, though the earliness
+of the workmanship is marked by considerable hardness and coldness in
+the larger heads. A Northern Gothic workman, better acquainted with
+bears and wolves than it was possible to become in St. Mark's Place,
+would have put far more life into these heads, but he could not have
+composed them more skilfully.
+
+§ CXIX. _First side._ A lion with a stag's haunch in his mouth. Those
+readers who have the folio plate, should observe the peculiar way in
+which the ear is cut into the shape of a ring, jagged or furrowed on the
+edge; an archaic mode of treatment peculiar, in the Ducal Palace, to the
+lions' heads of the fourteenth century. The moment we reach the
+Renaissance work, the lions' ears are smooth. Inscribed simply, "LEO."
+
+_Second side._ A wolf with a dead bird in his mouth, its body
+wonderfully true in expression of the passiveness of death. The feathers
+are each wrought with a central quill and radiating filaments. Inscribed
+"LUPUS."
+
+_Third side._ A fox, not at all like one, with a dead cock in his mouth,
+its comb and pendent neck admirably designed so as to fall across the
+great angle leaf of the capital, its tail hanging down on the other
+side, its long straight feathers exquisitely cut. Inscribed "(VULP?)IS."
+
+_Fourth side._ Entirely broken away.
+
+_Fifth side_. "APER." Well tusked, with a head of maize in his mouth; at
+least I suppose it to be maize, though shaped like a pine-cone.
+
+_Sixth side._ "CHANIS." With a bone, very ill cut; and a bald-headed
+species of dog, with ugly flap ears.
+
+_Seventh side._ "MUSCIPULUS." With a rat (?) in his mouth.
+
+_Eighth side._ "URSUS." With a honeycomb, covered with large bees.
+
+§ CXX. TWENTY-FIRST CAPITAL. Represents the principal inferior
+professions.
+
+_First side._ An old man, with his brow deeply wrinkled, and very
+expressive features, beating in a kind of mortar with a hammer.
+Inscribed "LAPICIDA SUM."
+
+_Second side._ I believe, a goldsmith; he is striking a small flat bowl
+or patera, on a pointed anvil, with a light hammer. The inscription is
+gone.
+
+_Third side._ A shoemaker with a shoe in his hand, and an instrument for
+cutting leather suspended beside him. Inscription undecipherable.
+
+_Fourth side._ Much broken. A carpenter planing a beam resting on two
+horizontal logs. Inscribed "CARPENTARIUS SUM."
+
+_Fifth side._ A figure shovelling fruit into a tub; the latter very
+carefully carved from what appears to have been an excellent piece of
+cooperage. Two thin laths cross each other over the top of it. The
+inscription, now lost, was, according to Selvatico, "MENSURATOR"?
+
+_Sixth side._ A man, with a large hoe, breaking the ground, which lies
+in irregular furrows and clods before him. Now undecipherable, but
+according to Selvatico, "AGRICHOLA."
+
+_Seventh side._ A man, in a pendent cap, writing on a large scroll which
+falls over his knee. Inscribed "NOTARIUS SUM."
+
+_Eighth side._ A man forging a sword, or scythe-blade: he wears a large
+skull-cap; beats with a large hammer on a solid anvil; and is inscribed
+"FABER SUM."
+
+§ CXXI. TWENTY-SECOND CAPITAL. The Ages of Man; and the influence of the
+planets on human life.
+
+_First side._ The moon, governing infancy for four years, according to
+Selvatico. I have no note of this side, having, I suppose, been
+prevented from raising the ladder against it by some fruit-stall or
+other impediment in the regular course of my examination; and then
+forgotten to return to it.
+
+_Second side._ A child with a tablet, and an alphabet inscribed on it.
+The legend above is
+
+  "MECUREU^s DNT. PUERICIE PAN. X."
+
+Or, "Mercurius dominatur pueritić per annos X." (Selvatico reads VII.)
+"Mercury governs boyhood for ten (or seven) years."
+
+_Third side._ An older youth, with another tablet, but broken. Inscribed
+
+  "ADOLOSCENCIE * * * P. AN. VII."
+
+Selvatico misses this side altogether, as I did the first, so that the
+lost planet is irrecoverable, as the inscription is now defaced. Note
+the o for e in adolescentia; so also we constantly find u for o;
+showing, together with much other incontestable evidence of the same
+kind, how full and deep the old pronunciation of Latin always remained,
+and how ridiculous our English mincing of the vowels would have sounded
+to a Roman ear.
+
+_Fourth side._ A youth with a hawk on his fist.
+
+     "IUVENTUTI DNT SOL. P. AN. XIX."
+  The son governs youth for nineteen years.
+
+_Fifth side._ A man sitting, helmed, with a sword over his shoulder.
+Inscribed
+
+    "SENECTUTI DNT MARS. P. AN. XV."
+  Mars governs manhood for fifteen years.
+
+_Sixth side._ A very graceful and serene figure, in the pendent cap,
+reading.
+
+   "SENICIE DNT JUPITER, P. ANN. XII."
+  Jupiter governs age for twelve years.
+
+_Seventh side._ An old man in a skull-cap, praying.
+
+  "DECREPITE DNT SATN UQ^s ADMOTE." (Saturnus usque ad mortem.)
+             Saturn governs decrepitude until death.
+
+_Eighth side._ The dead body lying on a mattress.
+
+    "ULTIMA EST MORS PENA PECCATI."
+  Last comes death, the penalty of sin.
+
+§ CXXII. Shakspeare's Seven Ages are of course merely the expression of
+this early and well known system. He has deprived the dotage of its
+devotion; but I think wisely, as the Italian system would imply that
+devotion was, or should be, always delayed until dotage.
+
+TWENTY-THIRD CAPITAL. I agree with Selvatico in thinking this has been
+restored. It is decorated with large and vulgar heads.
+
+§ CXXIII. TWENTY-FOURTH CAPITAL. This belongs to the large shaft which
+sustains the great party wall of the Sala del Gran Consiglio. The shaft
+is thicker than the rest; but the capital, though ancient, is coarse and
+somewhat inferior in design to the others of the series. It represents
+the history of marriage: the lover first seeing his mistress at a
+window, then addressing her, bringing her presents; then the bridal, the
+birth and the death of a child. But I have not been able to examine
+these sculptures properly, because the pillar is encumbered by the
+railing which surrounds the two guns set before the Austrian
+guard-house.
+
+§ CXXIV. TWENTY-FIFTH CAPITAL. We have here the employments of the
+months, with which we are already tolerably acquainted. There are,
+however, one or two varieties worth noticing in this series.
+
+_First side._ March. Sitting triumphantly in a rich dress, as the
+beginning of the year.
+
+_Second side._ April and May. April with a lamb: May with a feather fan
+in her hand.
+
+_Third side._ June. Carrying cherries in a basket.
+
+I did not give this series with the others in the previous chapter,
+because this representation of June is peculiarly Venetian. It is called
+"the month of cherries," mese delle ceriese, in the popular rhyme on the
+conspiracy of Tiepolo, quoted above, Vol. I.
+
+The cherries principally grown near Venice are of a deep red color, and
+large, but not of high flavor, though refreshing. They are carved upon
+the pillar with great care, all their stalks undercut.
+
+_Fourth side._ July and August. The first reaping; the _leaves_ of the
+straw being given, shooting out from the tubular stalk. August,
+opposite, beats (the grain?) in a basket.
+
+_Fifth side._ September. A woman standing in a wine-tub, and holding a
+branch of vine. Very beautiful.
+
+_Sixth side._ October and November. I could not make out their
+occupation; they seem to be roasting or boiling some root over a fire.
+
+_Seventh side._ December. Killing pigs, as usual.
+
+_Eighth side._ January warming his feet, and February frying fish. This
+last employment is again as characteristic of the Venetian winter as the
+cherries are of the Venetian summer.
+
+The inscriptions are undecipherable, except a few letters here and
+there, and the words MARCIUS, APRILIS, and FEBRUARIUS.
+
+This is the last of the capitals of the early palace; the next, or
+twenty-sixth capital, is the first of those executed in the fifteenth
+century under Foscari; and hence to the Judgment angle the traveller has
+nothing to do but to compare the base copies of the earlier work with
+their originals, or to observe the total want of invention in the
+Renaissance sculptor, wherever he has depended on his own resources.
+This, however, always with the exception of the twenty-seventh and of
+the last capital, which are both fine.
+
+I shall merely enumerate the subjects and point out the plagiarisms of
+these capitals, as they are not worth description.
+
+§ CXXV. TWENTY-SIXTH CAPITAL. Copied from the fifteenth, merely changing
+the succession of the figures.
+
+TWENTY-SEVENTH CAPITAL. I think it possible that this may be part of the
+old work displaced in joining the new palace with the old; at all
+events, it is well designed, though a little coarse. It represents eight
+different kinds of fruit, each in a basket; the characters well given,
+and groups well arranged, but without much care or finish. The names are
+inscribed above, though somewhat unnecessarily, and with certainly as
+much disrespect to the beholder's intelligence as the sculptor's art,
+namely, ZEREXIS, PIRI, CHUCUMERIS, PERSICI, ZUCHE, MOLONI, FICI, HUVA.
+Zerexis (cherries) and Zuche (gourds) both begin with the same letter,
+whether meant for z, s, or c I am not sure. The Zuche are the common
+gourds, divided into two protuberances, one larger than the other, like
+a bottle compresed near the neck; and the Moloni are the long
+water-melons, which, roasted, form a staple food of the Venetians to
+this day.
+
+§ CXXVI. TWENTY-EIGHTH CAPITAL. Copied from the seventh.
+
+TWENTY-NINTH CAPITAL. Copied from the ninth.
+
+THIRTIETH CAPITAL. Copied from the tenth. The "Accidia" is noticeable as
+having the inscription complete, "ACCIDIA ME STRINGIT;" and the
+"Luxuria" for its utter want of expression, having a severe and calm
+face, a robe up to the neck, and her hand upon her breast. The
+inscription is also different: "LUXURIA SUM STERC^S (?) INFERI" (?).
+
+THIRTY-FIRST CAPITAL. Copied from the eighth.
+
+THIRTY-SECOND CAPITAL. Has no inscription, only fully robed figures
+laying their hands, without any meaning, on their own shoulders, heads,
+or chins, or on the leaves around them.
+
+THIRTY-THIRD CAPITAL. Copied from the twelfth.
+
+THIRTY-FOURTH CAPITAL. Copied from the eleventh.
+
+THIRTY-FIFTH CAPITAL. Has children, with birds or fruit, pretty in
+features, and utterly inexpressive, like the cherubs of the eighteenth
+century.
+
+§ CXXVII. THIRTY-SIXTH CAPITAL. This is the last of the Piazzetta
+façade, the elaborate one under the Judgment angle. Its foliage is
+copied from the eighteenth at the opposite side, with an endeavor on the
+part of the Renaissance sculptor to refine upon it, by which he has
+merely lost some of its truth and force. This capital will, however, be
+always thought, at first, the most beautiful of the whole series: and
+indeed it is very noble; its groups of figures most carefully studied,
+very graceful, and much more pleasing than those of the earlier work,
+though with less real power in them; and its foliage is only inferior to
+that of the magnificent Fig-tree angle. It represents, on its front or
+first side, Justice enthroned, seated on two lions; and on the seven
+other sides examples of acts of justice or good government, or figures
+of lawgivers, in the following order:
+
+_Second side._ Aristotle, with two pupils, giving laws. Inscribed:
+
+  "ARISTOT * * CHE DIE LEGE."
+   Aristotle who declares laws.
+
+_Third side._ I have mislaid my note of this side: Selvatico and Lazari
+call it "Isidore" (?).[158]
+
+_Fourth side._ Solon with his pupils. Inscribed:
+
+  "SAL^O UNO DEI SETE SAVI DI GRECIA CHE DIE LEGE."
+   Solon, one of the seven sages of Greece, who declares laws.
+
+Note, by the by, the pure Venetian dialect used in this capital, instead
+of the Latin in the more ancient ones. One of the seated pupils in this
+sculpture is remarkably beautiful in the sweep of his flowing drapery.
+
+_Fifth side._ The chastity of Scipio. Inscribed:
+
+  "ISIPIONE A CHASTITA CH * * * E LA FIA (e la figlia?) * * ARE."
+
+A soldier in a plumed bonnet presents a kneeling maiden to the seated
+Scipio, who turns thoughtfully away.
+
+_Sixth side._ Numa Pompilius building churches.
+
+  "NUMA POMPILIO IMPERADOR EDIFICHADOR DI TEMPI E CHIESE."
+
+Numa, in a kind of hat with a crown above it, directing a soldier in
+Roman armor (note this, as contrasted with the mail of the earlier
+capitals). They point to a tower of three stories filled with tracery.
+
+_Seventh side._ Moses receiving the law. Inscribed:
+
+  "QUANDO MOSE RECEVE LA LEGE I SUL MONTE."
+
+Moses kneels on a rock, whence springs a beautifully fancied tree, with
+clusters of three berries in the centre of three leaves, sharp and
+quaint, like fine Northern Gothic. The half figure of the Deity comes
+out of the abacus, the arm meeting that of Moses, both at full stretch,
+with the stone tablets between.
+
+_Eighth side._ Trajan doing justice to the Widow.
+
+  "TRAJANO IMPERADOR CHE FA JUSTITIA A LA VEDOVA."
+
+He is riding spiritedly, his mantle blown out behind: the widow kneeling
+before his horse.
+
+§ CXXVIII. The reader will observe that this capital is of peculiar
+interest in its relation to the much disputed question of the character
+of the later government of Venice. It is the assertion by that
+government of its belief that Justice only could be the foundation of
+its stability; as these stones of Justice and Judgment are the
+foundation of its halls of council. And this profession of their faith
+may be interpreted in two ways. Most modern historians would call it, in
+common with the continual reference to the principles of justice in the
+political and judicial language of the period,[159] nothing more than a
+cloak for consummate violence and guilt; and it may easily be proved to
+have been so in myriads of instances. But in the main, I believe the
+expression of feeling to be genuine. I do not believe, of the majority
+of the leading Venetians of this period whose portraits have come down
+to us, that they were deliberately and everlastingly hypocrites. I see
+no hypocrisy in their countenances. Much capacity of it, much subtlety,
+much natural and acquired reserve; but no meanness. On the contrary,
+infinite grandeur, repose, courage, and the peculiar unity and
+tranquillity of expression which come of sincerity or _wholeness_ of
+heart, and which it would take much demonstration to make me believe
+could by any possibility be seen on the countenance of an insincere man.
+I trust, therefore, that these Venetian nobles of the fifteenth century
+did, in the main, desire to do judgment and justice to all men; but, as
+the whole system of morality had been by this time undermined by the
+teaching of the Romish Church, the idea of justice had become separated
+from that of truth, so that dissimulation in the interest of the state
+assumed the aspect of duty. We had, perhaps, better consider, with some
+carefulness, the mode in which our own government is carried on, and the
+occasional difference between parliamentary and private morality, before
+we judge mercilessly of the Venetians in this respect. The secrecy with
+which their political and criminal trials were conducted, appears to
+modern eyes like a confession of sinister intentions; but may it not
+also be considered, and with more probability, as the result of an
+endeavor to do justice in an age of violence?--the only means by which
+Law could establish its footing in the midst of feudalism. Might not
+Irish juries at this day justifiably desire to conduct their proceedings
+with some greater approximation to the judicial principles of the
+Council of Ten? Finally, if we examine, with critical accuracy, the
+evidence on which our present impressions of Venetian government are
+founded, we shall discover, in the first place, that two-thirds of the
+traditions of its cruelties are romantic fables: in the second, that the
+crimes of which it can be proved to have been guilty, differ only from
+those committed by the other Italian powers in being done less wantonly,
+and under profounder conviction of their political expediency: and
+lastly, that the final degradation of the Venetian power appears owing
+not so much to the principles of its government, as to their being
+forgotten in the pursuit of pleasure.
+
+§ CXXIX. We have now examined the portions of the palace which contain
+the principal evidence of the feeling of its builders. The capitals of
+the upper arcade are exceedingly various in their character; their
+design is formed, as in the lower series, of eight leaves, thrown into
+volutes at the angles, and sustaining figures at the flanks; but these
+figures have no inscriptions, and though evidently not without meaning,
+cannot be interpreted without more knowledge than I possess of ancient
+symbolism. Many of the capitals toward the Sea appear to have been
+restored, and to be rude copies of the ancient ones; others, though
+apparently original, have been somewhat carelessly wrought; but those of
+them, which are both genuine and carefully treated, are even finer in
+composition than any, except the eighteenth, in the lower arcade. The
+traveller in Venice ought to ascend into the corridor, and examine with
+great care the series of capitals which extend on the Piazzetta side
+from the Fig-tree angle to the pilaster which carries the party wall of
+the Sala del Gran Consiglio. As examples of graceful composition in
+massy capitals meant for hard service and distant effect, these are
+among the finest things I know in Gothic art; and that above the
+fig-tree is remarkable for its sculptures of the four winds; each on the
+side turned towards the wind represented. Levante, the east wind; a
+figure with rays round its head, to show that it is always clear weather
+when that wind blows, raising the sun out of the sea: Hotro, the south
+wind; crowned, holding the sun in its right hand; Ponente, the west
+wind; plunging the sun into the sea: and Tramontana, the north wind;
+looking up at the north star. This capital should be carefully examined,
+if for no other reason than to attach greater distinctness of idea to
+the magnificent verbiage of Milton:
+
+                "Thwart of these, as fierce,
+  Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,
+  Eurus, and Zephyr; with their lateral noise,
+  Sirocco and Libecchio."
+
+I may also especially point out the bird feeding its three young ones on
+the seventh pillar on the Piazzetta side; but there is no end to the
+fantasy of these sculptures; and the traveller ought to observe them all
+carefully, until he comes to the great Pilaster or complicated pier
+which sustains the party wall of the Sala del Consiglio; that is to say,
+the forty-seventh capital of the whole series, counting from the
+pilaster of the Vine angle inclusive, as in the series of the lower
+arcade. The forty-eighth, forty-ninth, and fiftieth are bad work, but
+they are old; the fifty-first is the first Renaissance capital of the
+upper arcade: the first new lion's head with smooth ears, cut in the
+time of Foscari, is over the fiftieth capital; and that capital, with
+its shaft, stands on the apex of the eighth arch from the Sea, on the
+Piazzetta side, of which one spandril is masonry of the fourteenth and
+the other of the fifteenth century.
+
+§ CXXX. The reader who is not able to examine the building on the spot
+may be surprised at the definiteness with which the point of junction is
+ascertainable; but a glance at the lowest range of leaves in the
+opposite Plate (XX.) will enable him to judge of the grounds on which
+the above statement is made. Fig. 12 is a cluster of leaves from the
+capital of the Four Winds; early work of the finest time. Fig. 13 is a
+leaf from the great Renaissance capital at the Judgment angle, worked in
+imitation of the older leafage. Fig. 14 is a leaf from one of the
+Renaissance capitals of the upper arcade, which are all worked in the
+natural manner of the period. It will be seen that it requires no great
+ingenuity to distinguish between such design as that of fig. 12 and that
+of fig. 14.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XX.
+               LEAFAGE OF THE VENETIAN CAPITALS.]
+
+§ CXXXI. It is very possible that the reader may at first like fig. 14
+the best. I shall endeavor, in the next chapter, to show why he should
+not; but it must also be noted, that fig. 12 has lost, and fig. 14
+gained, both largely, under the hands of the engraver. All the bluntness
+and coarseness of feeling in the workmanship of fig. 14 have disappeared
+on this small scale, and all the subtle refinements in the broad masses
+of fig. 12 have vanished. They could not, indeed, be rendered in line
+engraving, unless by the hand of Albert Durer; and I have, therefore,
+abandoned, for the present, all endeavor to represent any more important
+mass of the early sculpture of the Ducal Palace: but I trust that, in a
+few months, casts of many portions will be within the reach of the
+inhabitants of London, and that they will be able to judge for
+themselves of their perfect, pure, unlabored naturalism; the freshness,
+elasticity, and softness of their leafage, united with the most noble
+symmetry and severe reserve,--no running to waste, no loose or
+experimental lines, no extravagance, and no weakness. Their design is
+always sternly architectural; there is none of the wildness or
+redundance of natural vegetation, but there is all the strength,
+freedom, and tossing flow of the breathing leaves, and all the
+undulation of their surfaces, rippled, as they grew, by the summer
+winds, as the sands are by the sea.
+
+§ CXXXII. This early sculpture of the Ducal Palace, then, represents the
+state of Gothic work in Venice at its central and proudest period, i.e.
+circa 1350. After this time, all is decline,--of what nature and by what
+steps, we shall inquire in the ensuing chapter; for as this
+investigation, though still referring to Gothic architecture, introduces
+us to the first symptoms of the Renaissance influence, I have considered
+it as properly belonging to the third division of our subject.
+
+§ CXXXIII. And as, under the shadow of these nodding leaves, we bid
+farewell to the great Gothic spirit, here also we may cease our
+examination of the details of the Ducal Palace; for above its upper
+arcade there are only the four traceried windows,[160] and one or two of
+the third order on the Rio Façade, which can be depended upon as
+exhibiting the original workmanship of the older palace. I examined the
+capitals of the four other windows on the façade, and of those on the
+Piazzetta, one by one, with great care, and I found them all to be of
+far inferior workmanship to those which retain their traceries: I
+believe the stone framework of these windows must have been so cracked
+and injured by the flames of the great fire, as to render it necessary
+to replace it by new traceries; and that the present mouldings and
+capitals are base imitations of the original ones. The traceries were at
+first, however, restored in their complete form, as the holes for the
+bolts which fastened the bases of their shafts are still to be seen in
+the window-sills, as well as the marks of the inner mouldings on the
+soffits. How much the stone facing of the façade, the parapets, and the
+shafts and niches of the angles, retain of their original masonry, it is
+also impossible to determine; but there is nothing in the workmanship
+of any of them demanding especial notice; still less in the large
+central windows on each façade, which are entirely of Renaissance
+execution. All that is admirable in these portions of the building is
+the disposition of their various parts and masses, which is without
+doubt the same as in the original fabric, and calculated, when seen from
+a distance, to produce the same impression.
+
+§ CXXXIV. Not so in the interior. All vestige of the earlier modes of
+decoration was here, of course, destroyed by the fires; and the severe
+and religious work of Guariento and Bellini has been replaced by the
+wildness of Tintoret and the luxury of Veronese. But in this case,
+though widely different in temper, the art of the renewal was at least
+intellectually as great as that which had perished: and though the halls
+of the Ducal Palace are no more representative of the character of the
+men by whom it was built, each of them is still a colossal casket of
+priceless treasure; a treasure whose safety has till now depended on its
+being despised, and which at this moment, and as I write, is piece by
+piece being destroyed for ever.
+
+§ CXXXV. The reader will forgive my quitting our more immediate subject,
+in order briefly to explain the causes and the nature of this
+destruction; for the matter is simply the most important of all that can
+be brought under our present consideration respecting the state of art
+in Europe.
+
+The fact is, that the greater number of persons or societies throughout
+Europe, whom wealth, or chance, or inheritance has put in possession of
+valuable pictures, do not know a good picture from a bad one,[161] and
+have no idea in what the value of a picture really consists. The
+reputation of certain works is raised, partly by accident, partly by the
+just testimony of artists, partly by the various and generally bad taste
+of the public (no picture, that I know of, has ever, in modern times,
+attained popularity, in the full sense of the term, without having some
+exceedingly bad qualities mingled with its good ones), and when this
+reputation has once been completely established, it little matters to
+what state the picture may be reduced: few minds are so completely
+devoid of imagination as to be unable to invest it with the beauties
+which they have heard attributed to it.
+
+§ CXXXVI. This being so, the pictures that are most valued are for the
+most part those by masters of established renown, which are highly or
+neatly finished, and of a size small enough to admit of their being
+placed in galleries or saloons, so as to be made subjects of
+ostentation, and to be easily seen by a crowd. For the support of the
+fame and value of such pictures, little more is necessary than that they
+should be kept bright, partly by cleaning, which is incipient
+destruction, and partly by what is called "restoring," that is, painting
+over, which is of course total destruction. Nearly all the gallery
+pictures in modern Europe have been more or less destroyed by one or
+other of these operations, generally exactly in proportion to the
+estimation in which they are held; and as, originally, the smaller and
+more highly finished works of any great master are usually his worst,
+the contents of many of our most celebrated galleries are by this time,
+in reality, of very small value indeed.
+
+§ CXXXVII. On the other hand, the most precious works of any noble
+painter are usually those which have been done quickly, and in the heat
+of the first thought, on a large scale, for places where there was
+little likelihood of their being well seen, or for patrons from whom
+there was little prospect of rich remuneration. In general, the best
+things are done in this way, or else in the enthusiasm and pride of
+accomplishing some great purpose, such as painting a cathedral or a
+camposanto from one end to the other, especially when the time has been
+short, and circumstances disadvantageous.
+
+§ CXXXVIII. Works thus executed are of course despised, on account of
+their quantity, as well as their frequent slightness, in the places
+where they exist; and they are too large to be portable, and too vast
+and comprehensive to be read on the spot, in the hasty temper of the
+present age. They are, therefore, almost universally neglected,
+whitewashed by custodes, shot at by soldiers, suffered to drop from the
+walls piecemeal in powder and rags by society in general; but, which is
+an advantage more than counterbalancing all this evil, they are not
+often "restored." What is left of them, however fragmentary, however
+ruinous, however obscured and defiled, is almost always _the real
+thing_; there are no fresh readings: and therefore the greatest
+treasures of art which Europe at this moment possesses are pieces of old
+plaster on ruinous brick walls, where the lizards burrow and bask, and
+which few other living creatures ever approach; and torn sheets of dim
+canvas, in waste corners of churches; and mildewed stains, in the shape
+of human figures, on the walls of dark chambers, which now and then an
+exploring traveller causes to be unlocked by their tottering custode,
+looks hastily round, and retreats from in a weary satisfaction at his
+accomplished duty.
+
+§ CXXXIX. Many of the pictures on the ceilings and walls of the Ducal
+Palace, by Paul Veronese and Tintoret, have been more or less reduced,
+by neglect, to this condition. Unfortunately they are not altogether
+without reputation, and their state has drawn the attention of the
+Venetian authorities and academicians. It constantly happens, that
+public bodies who will not pay five pounds to preserve a picture, will
+pay fifty to repaint it:[162] and when I was at Venice in 1846, there
+were two remedial operations carrying on, at one and the same time, in
+the two buildings which contain the pictures of greatest value in the
+city (as pieces of color, of greatest value in the world), curiously
+illustrative of this peculiarity in human nature. Buckets were set on
+the floor of the Scuola di San Rocco, in every shower, to catch the rain
+which came through the pictures of Tintoret on the ceiling; while in the
+Ducal Palace, those of Paul Veronese were themselves laid on the floor
+to be repainted; and I was myself present at the re-illumination of the
+breast of a white horse, with a brush, at the end of a stick five feet
+long, luxuriously dipped in a common house-painter's vessel of paint.
+
+This was, of course, a large picture. The process has already been
+continued in an equally destructive, though somewhat more delicate
+manner, over the whole of the humbler canvases on the ceiling of the
+Sala del Gran Consiglio; and I heard it threatened when I was last in
+Venice (1851-2) to the "Paradise" at its extremity, which is yet in
+tolerable condition,--the largest work of Tintoret, and the most
+wonderful piece of pure, manly, and masterly oil-painting in the world.
+
+§ CXL. I leave these facts to the consideration of the European patrons
+of art. Twenty years hence they will be acknowledged and regretted; at
+present, I am well aware, that it is of little use to bring them
+forward, except only to explain the present impossibility of stating
+what pictures _are_, and what _were_, in the interior of the Ducal
+Palace. I can only say, that in the winter of 1851, the "Paradise" of
+Tintoret was still comparatively uninjured, and that the Camera di
+Collegio, and its antechamber, and the Sala de' Pregadi were full of
+pictures by Veronese and Tintoret, that made their walls as precious as
+so many kingdoms; so precious indeed, and so full of majesty, that
+sometimes when walking at evening on the Lido, whence the great chain of
+the Alps, crested with silver clouds, might be seen rising above the
+front of the Ducal Palace, I used to feel as much awe in gazing on the
+building as on the hills, and could believe that God had done a greater
+work in breathing into the narrowness of dust the mighty spirits by
+whom its haughty walls had been raised, and its burning legends written,
+than in lifting the rocks of granite higher than the clouds of heaven,
+and veiling them with their various mantle of purple flower and shadowy
+pine.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [99] The reader will find it convenient to note the following
+    editions of the printed books which have been principally consulted
+    in the following inquiry. The numbers of the manuscripts referred to
+    in the Marcian Library are given with the quotations.
+
+      Sansovino.   Venetia Descritta. 4to, Venice, 1663.
+      Sansovino.   Lettera intorno al Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1829.
+      Temanza.   Antica Pianta di Venezia, with text. Venice, 1780.
+      Cadorin.   Pareri di XV. Architetti. 8vo, Venice, 1838.
+      Filiasi.   Memorie storiche. 8vo, Padua, 1811.
+      Bettio.   Lettera discorsiva del Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1837.
+      Selvatico.   Architettura di Venezia. 8vo, Venice, 1847.
+
+  [100] The year commonly given is 810, as in the Savina Chronicle
+    (Cod. Marcianus), p. 13. "Del 810 fece principiar el pallazzo Ducal
+    nel luogo ditto Bruolo in confin di S. Moisč, et fece riedificar la
+    isola di Eraclia." The Sagornin Chronicle gives 804; and Filiasi,
+    vol. vi. chap. 1, corrects this date to 813.
+
+  [101] "Ampliň la cittŕ, fornilla di casamenti, _e per il culto d'
+    Iddio e l' amministrazione della giustizia_ eresse la cappella di S.
+    Marco, e il palazzo di sua residenza."--Pareri, p. 120. Observe,
+    that piety towards God, and justice towards man, have been at least
+    the nominal purposes of every act and institution of ancient Venice.
+    Compare also Temanza, p. 24. "Quello che abbiamo di certo si č che
+    il suddetto Agnello lo incominciň da fondamenti, e cost pure la
+    cappella ducale di S. Marco."
+
+  [102] What I call the Sea, was called "the Grand Canal" by the
+    Venetians, as well as the great water street of the city; but I
+    prefer calling it "the Sea," in order to distinguish between that
+    street and the broad water in front of the Ducal Palace, which,
+    interrupted only by the island of San Giorgio, stretches for many
+    miles to the south, and for more than two to the boundary of the
+    Lido. It was the deeper channel, just in front of the Ducal Palace,
+    continuing the line of the great water street itself which the
+    Venetians spoke of as "the Grand Canal." The words of Sansovino are:
+    "Fu cominciato dove si vede, vicino al ponte della paglia, et
+    rispondente sul canal grande." Filiasi says simply: "The palace was
+    built where it now is." "Il palazio fu fatto dove ora pure
+    esiste."--Vol. iii. chap. 27. The Savina Chronicle, already quoted,
+    says: "In the place called the Bruolo (or Broglio), that is to say,
+    on the Piazzetta."
+
+  [103] "Omni decoritate illius perlustrata."--Sagornino, quoted by
+    Cadorin and Temanza.
+
+  [104] There is an interesting account of this revolt in Monaci, p.
+    68. Some historians speak of the palace as having been destroyed
+    entirely; but, that it did not even need important restorations,
+    appears from Sagornino's expression, quoted by Cadorin and Temanza.
+    Speaking of the Doge Participazio, he says: "Qui Palatii hucusque
+    manentis fuerit fabricator." The reparations of the palace are
+    usually attributed to the successor of Candiano, Pietro Orseolo I.;
+    but the legend, under the picture of that Doge in the Council
+    Chamber, speaks only of his rebuilding St. Mark's, and "performing
+    many miracles." His whole mind seems to have been occupied with
+    ecclesiastical affairs; and his piety was finally manifested in a
+    way somewhat startling to the state, by his absconding with a French
+    priest to St. Michael's, in Gascony, and there becoming a monk. What
+    repairs, therefore, were necessary to the Ducal Palace, were left to
+    be undertaken by his son, Orseolo II., above named.
+
+  [105] "Quam non modo marmoreo, verum aureo compsit
+    ornamento."--_Temanza_, p. 25.
+
+  [106] "L'anno 1106, uscito fuoco d'una casa privata, arse parte del
+    palazzo."--_Sansovino_. Of the beneficial effect of these fires,
+    vide Cadorin, p. 121, 123.
+
+  [107] "Urbis situm, ćdificiorum decorem, et regiminis ćquitatem
+    multipliciter commendavit."--_Cronaca Dandolo_, quoted by Cadorin.
+
+  [108] "Non solamente rinovň il palazzo, ma lo aggrandě per ogni
+    verso."--_Sansovino_. Zanotto quotes the Altinat Chronicle for
+    account of these repairs.
+
+  [109] "El palazzo che anco di mezzo se vede vecchio, per M.
+    Sebastian Ziani fu fatto compir, come el se vede."--_Chronicle of
+    Pietro Dolfino_, Cod. Ven. p. 47. This Chronicle is spoken of by
+    Sansovino as "molto particolare e distinta."--_Sansovino, Venezia
+    descritta_, p. 593.--It terminates in the year 1422.
+
+  [110] See Vol. I. Appendix 3.
+
+  [111] Vide Sansovino's enumeration of those who flourished in the
+    reign of Gradenigo, p. 564.
+
+  [112] Sansovino, 324, 1.
+
+  [113] "1301 fu presa parte di fare una sala grande per la riduzione
+    del gran consiglio, e fu fatta quella che ora si chiama dello
+    Scrutinio."--_Cronaca Sivos_, quoted by Cadorin. There is another
+    most interesting entry in the Chronicle of Magno, relating to this
+    event; but the passage is so ill written, that I am not sure if I
+    have deciphered it correctly:--"Del 1301 fu preso de fabrichar la
+    sala fo ruina e fu fata (fatta) quella se adoperava a far el pregadi
+    e fu adopera per far el Gran Consegio fin 1423, che fu anni 122."
+    This last sentence, which is of great importance, is luckily
+    unmistakable:--"The room was used for the meetings of the Great
+    Council until 1423, that is to say, for 122 years."--_Cod. Ven_.
+    tom. i. p. 126. The Chronicle extends from 1253 to 1454.
+
+  [114] "Vi era appresso la Cancellaria, e la Gheba o Gabbia, chiamata
+    poi Torresella."--P. 324. A small square tower is seen above the
+    Vine angle in the view of Venice dated 1500, and attributed to
+    Albert Durer. It appears about 25 feet square, and is very probably
+    the Torresella in question.
+
+  [115] Vide Bettio, Lettera, p. 23.
+
+  [116] Bettio, Lettera, p. 20. "Those who wrote without having seen
+    them described them as covered with lead; and those who have seen
+    them know that, between their flat timber roofs and the sloping
+    leaden roof of the palace, the interval is five metres where it is
+    least, and nine where it is greatest."
+
+  [117] "Questo Dose anche fese far la porta granda che se al intrar
+    del Pallazzo, in su la qual vi e la sua statua che sta in
+    zenocchioni con lo confalon in man, davanti li pie de lo Lion S.
+    Marco,"--_Savin Chronicle_, Cod. Ven. p. 120.
+
+  [118] These documents I have not examined myself, being satisfied of
+    the accuracy of Cadorin, from whom I take the passages quoted.
+
+  [119] "Libras tres, soldos 15 grossorum."--_Cadorin_, 189, 1.
+
+  [120] Cod. Ven., No. CXLI. p. 365.
+
+  [121] Sansovino is more explicit than usual in his reference to this
+    decree: "For it having appeared that the place (the first Council
+    Chamber) was not capacious enough, the saloon on the Grand Canal was
+    ordered." "Per cio parendo che il luogo non fosse capace, fu
+    ordinata la Sala sul Canal Grande."--P. 324.
+
+  [122] Cadorin, 185, 2. The decree of 1342 is falsely given as of 1345
+    by the Sivos Chronicle, and by Magno; while Sanuto gives the decree
+    to its right year, 1342, but speaks of the Council Chamber as only
+    begun in 1345.
+
+  [123] Calendario. See Appendix 1, Vol. III.
+
+  [124] "Il primo che vi colorisse fu Guariento, il quale l' anno 1365
+    vi fece il Paradiso in testa della sala."--_Sansovino._
+
+  [125] "L' an poi 1400 vi fece il cielo compartita a quadretti d'oro,
+    ripieni di stelle, ch' era la insegna del Doge Steno."--_Sansovino_,
+    lib. VIII.
+
+  [126] "In questi tempi si messe in oro il cielo della sala del Gran
+    Consiglio et si fece il pergolo del finestra grande chi guarda sul
+    canale, adornato l'uno e l'altro di stelle, ch' erano l'insegne del
+    Doge."--_Sansovino_, lib. XIII. Compare also Pareri, p. 129.
+
+  [127] Baseggio (Pareri, p. 127) is called the Proto of the _New_
+    Palace. Farther notes will be found in Appendix 1, Vol. III.
+
+  [128] Cronaca Sanudo, No. CXXV. in the Marcian Library, p. 568.
+
+  [129] Tomaso Mocenigo.
+
+    [130] Vide notes in Appendix.
+
+  [131] On the 4th of April, 1423, according to the copy of the
+    Zancarol Chronicle in the Marcian Library, but previously, according
+    to the Caroldo Chronicle, which makes Foscari enter the Senate as
+    Doge on the 3rd of April.
+
+  [132] "Nella quale (the Sala del Gran Consiglio) non si fece Gran
+    Consiglio salvo nell' anno 1423, alli 3 April, et fu il primo giorno
+    che il Duce Foscari venisse in Gran Consiglio dopo la sua
+    creatione."--Copy in Marcian Library, p. 365.
+
+  [133] "E a di 23 April (1423, by the context) sequente fo fatto Gran
+    Conseio in la salla nuovo dovi avanti non esta piů fatto Gran
+    Conseio si che el primo Gran Conseio dopo la sua (Foscari's)
+    creation, fo fatto in la salla nuova, nel qual conseio fu el
+    Marchese di Mantoa," &c., p. 426.
+
+  [134] Compare Appendix 1, Vol. III.
+
+  [135] "Tutte queste fatture si compirono sotto il dogado del
+    Foscari, nel 1441."--_Pareri_, p. 131.
+
+  [136] This identification has been accomplished, and I think
+    conclusively, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has devoted all the
+    leisure which, during the last twenty years, his manifold offices of
+    kindness to almost every English visitant of Venice have left him,
+    in discovering and translating the passages of the Venetian records
+    which bear upon English history and literature. I shall have
+    occasion to take advantage hereafter of a portion of his labors,
+    which I trust will shortly be made public.
+
+  [137] See the last chapter of the third volume.
+
+  [138] "IN XRI--NOIE AMEN ANNINCARNATIONIS MCCCXVII. INESETBR." "In the
+    name of Christ, Amen, in the year of the incarnation, 1317, in the
+    month of September," &c.
+
+  [139] "Oh, venerable Raphael, make thou the gulf calm, we beseech
+    thee." The peculiar office of the angel Raphael is, in general,
+    according to tradition, the restraining the harmful influences of
+    evil spirits. Sir Charles Eastlake told me, that sometimes in this
+    office he is represented bearing the gall of the fish caught by
+    Tobit; and reminded me of the peculiar superstitions of the
+    Venetians respecting the raising of storms by fiends, as embodied in
+    the well-known tale of the Fisherman and St. Mark's ring.
+
+  [140] In the original, the succession of words is evidently suggested
+    partly by similarity of sound; and the sentence is made weighty by
+    an alliteration which is quite lost in our translation; but the very
+    allowance of influence to these minor considerations is a proof how
+    little any metaphysical order or system was considered necessary in
+    the statement.
+
+  [141] It occurs in a prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit,
+    "That He may keep my soul, and direct my way; compose my bearing,
+    and form my thoughts in holiness; may He govern my body, and protect
+    my mind; strengthen me in action, approve my vows, and accomplish my
+    desires; cause me to lead an honest and honorable life, and give me
+    good hope, charity and chastity, humility and patience: may He
+    govern the Five Senses of my body," &c. The following prayer is also
+    very characteristic of this period. It opens with a beautiful
+    address to Christ upon the cross; then proceeds thus: "Grant to us,
+    O Lord, we beseech thee, this day and ever, the use of penitence, of
+    abstinence, of humility, and chastity; and grant to us light,
+    judgment, understanding, and true knowledge, even to the end." One
+    thing I note in comparing old prayers with modern ones, that however
+    quaint, or however erring, they are always tenfold more condensed,
+    comprehensive, and to their purpose, whatever that may be. There is
+    no dilution in them, no vain or monotonous phraseology. They ask for
+    what is desired plainly and earnestly, and never could be shortened
+    by a syllable. The following series of ejaculations are deep in
+    spirituality, and curiously to our present purpose in the
+    philological quaintness of being built upon prepositions:--
+
+     "Domine Jesu Christe, sancta cruce tua apud me sis, ut me defendas.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro veneranda cruce tua post me sis, ut me
+    gubernes.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua intra me sis, ut me
+    reficeas.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua circa me sis, ut me
+    conserves.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro gloriosa cruce tua ante me sis, ut me
+    deduces.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro laudanda cruce tua super me sis, ut
+    benedicas.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro magnifica cruce tua in me sis, ut me ad
+    regnum tuum perducas, per D. N. J. C. Amen."
+
+  [142] This arrangement of the cardinal virtues is said to have been
+    first made by Archytas. See D'Ancarville's illustration of the three
+    figures of Prudence, Fortitude, and Charity, in Selvatico's
+    "Cappellina degli Scrovegni," Padua, 1836.
+
+  [143] Or Penitence: but I rather think this is understood only in
+    Compunctio cordis.
+
+  [144] The transformation of a symbol into a reality, observe, as in
+    transubstantiation, is as much an abandonment of symbolism as the
+    forgetfulness of symbolic meaning altogether.
+
+  [145] On the window of New College, Oxford.
+
+  [146] Uniting the three ideas expressed by the Greek philosophers
+    under the terms [Greek: phronęei], [Greek: sophia], and [Greek:
+    epistęmę]; and part of the idea of [Greek: sôphrosonę].
+
+  [147] Isa. lxiv. 5.
+
+  [148] I can hardly think it necessary to point out to the reader the
+    association between sacred cheerfulness and solemn thought, or to
+    explain any appearance of contradiction between passages in which
+    (as above in Chap. V.) I have had to oppose sacred pensiveness to
+    unholy mirth, and those in which I have to oppose sacred
+    cheerfulness to unholy sorrow.
+
+  [149] "Desse," seat
+
+  [150] Usually called Charity: but this virtue in its full sense is
+    one of the attendant spirits by the Throne; the Kindness here meant
+    is Charity with a special object; or Friendship and Kindness, as
+    opposed to Envy, which has always, in like manner, a special object.
+    Hence the love of Orestes and Pylades is given as an instance of the
+    virtue of Friendship; and the Virgin's, "They have no wine," at
+    Cana, of general kindness and sympathy with others' pleasure.
+
+  [151] The "Faerie Queen," like Dante's "Paradise," is only half
+    estimated, because few persons take the pains to think out its
+    meaning. I have put a brief analysis of the first book in Appendix
+    2, Vol. III.; which may perhaps induce the reader to follow out the
+    subject for himself. No time devoted to profane literature will be
+    better rewarded than that spent _earnestly_ on Spenser.
+
+  [152] Inscribed, I believe, Pietas, meaning general reverence and
+    godly fear.
+
+  [153] I have given one of these capitals carefully already in my folio
+    work, and hope to give most of the others in due time. It was of no
+    use to draw them here, as the scale would have been too small to
+    allow me to show the expression of the figures.
+
+  [154] Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 226.
+
+  [155] Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. letter IV.
+
+  [156] Selvatico states that these are intended to be representative
+    of eight nations, Latins, Tartars, Turks, Hungarians, Greeks, Goths,
+    Egyptians, and Persians. Either the inscriptions are now defaced or
+    I have carelessly omitted to note them.
+
+  [157] The comma in these inscriptions stands for a small cuneiform
+    mark, I believe of contraction, and the small ^s for a zigzag mark
+    of the same kind. The dots or periods are similarly marked, on the
+    stone.
+
+  [158] Can they have mistaken the ISIPIONE of the fifth side for the
+    word Isidore?
+
+  [159] Compare the speech of the Doge Mocenigo, above,--"first justice,
+    and _then_ the interests of the state:" and see Vol. III. Chap. II.
+    § LIX.
+
+  [160] Some further details respecting these portions, as well as
+    some necessary confirmations of my statements of dates, are,
+    however, given in Appendix 1, Vol. III. I feared wearying the
+    general reader by introducing them into the text.
+
+  [161] Many persons, capable of quickly sympathizing with any
+    excellence, when once pointed out to them, easily deceive themselves
+    into the supposition that they are judges of art. There is only one
+    real test of such power of judgment. Can they, at a glance, discover
+    a good picture obscured by the filth, and confused among the
+    rubbish, of the pawnbroker's or dealer's garret?
+
+  [162] This is easily explained. There are, of course, in every place
+    and at all periods, bad painters who conscientiously believe that
+    they can improve every picture they touch; and these men are
+    generally, in their presumption, the most influential over the
+    innocence, whether of monarchs or municipalities. The carpenter and
+    slater have little influence in recommending the repairs of the
+    roof; but the bad painter has great influence, as well as interest,
+    in recommending those of the picture.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+1. THE GONDOLIER'S CRY.
+
+
+Most persons are now well acquainted with the general aspect of the
+Venetian gondola, but few have taken the pains to understand the cries
+of warning uttered by its boatmen, although those cries are peculiarly
+characteristic, and very impressive to a stranger, and have been even
+very sweetly introduced in poetry by Mr. Monckton Milnes. It may perhaps
+be interesting to the traveller in Venice to know the general method of
+management of the boat to which he owes so many happy hours.
+
+A gondola is in general rowed only by one man, _standing_ at the stern;
+those of the upper classes having two or more boatmen, for greater speed
+and magnificence. In order to raise the oar sufficiently, it rests, not
+on the side of the boat, but on a piece of crooked timber like the
+branch of a tree, rising about a foot from the boat's side, and called a
+"fórcola." The fórcola is of different forms, according to the size and
+uses of the boat, and it is always somewhat complicated in its parts and
+curvature, allowing the oar various kinds of rests and catches on both
+its sides, but perfectly free play in all cases; as the management of
+the boat depends on the gondolier's being able in an instant to place
+his oar in any position. The fórcola is set on the right-hand side of
+the boat, some six feet from the stern: the gondolier stands on a little
+flat platform or deck behind it, and throws nearly the entire weight of
+his body upon the forward stroke. The effect of this stroke would be
+naturally to turn the boat's head round to the left, as well as to send
+it forward; but this tendency is corrected by keeping the blade of the
+oar under the water on the return stroke, and raising it gradually, as
+a full spoon is raised out of any liquid, so that the blade emerges from
+the water only an instant before it again plunges. A _downward_ and
+lateral pressure upon the fórcola is thus obtained, which entirely
+counteracts the tendency given by the forward stroke; and the effort,
+after a little practice, becomes hardly conscious, though, as it adds
+some labor to the back stroke, rowing a gondola at speed is hard and
+breathless work, though it appears easy and graceful to the looker-on.
+
+If then the gondola is to be turned to the left, the forward impulse is
+given without the return stroke; if it is to be turned to the right, the
+plunged oar is brought forcibly up to the surface; in either case a
+single strong stroke being enough to turn the light and flat-bottomed
+boat. But as it has no keel, when the turn is made sharply, as out of
+one canal into another very narrow one, the impetus of the boat in its
+former direction gives it an enormous lee-way, and it drifts laterally
+up against the wall of the canal, and that so forcibly, that if it has
+turned at speed, no gondolier can arrest the motion merely by strength
+or rapidity of stroke of oar; but it is checked by a strong thrust of
+the foot against the wall itself, the head of the boat being of course
+turned for the moment almost completely round to the opposite wall, and
+greater exertion made to give it, as quickly as possible, impulse in the
+new direction.
+
+The boat being thus guided, the cry "Premi" is the order from one
+gondolier to another that he should "press" or thrust forward his oar,
+without the back stroke, so as to send the boat's head round _to the
+left_; and the cry "Stali" is the order that he should give the return
+or upward stroke which sends the boat's head round to the _right_.
+Hence, if two gondoliers meet under any circumstances which render it a
+matter of question on which side they should pass each other, the
+gondolier who has at the moment the least power over his boat, cries to
+the other, "Premi," if he wishes the boats to pass with their right-hand
+sides to each other, and "Stali," if with their left. Now, in turning a
+corner, there is of course risk of collision between boats coming from
+opposite sides, and warning is always clearly and loudly given on
+approaching an angle of the canals. It is of course presumed that the
+boat which gives the warning will be nearer the turn than the one which
+receives and answers it; and therefore will not have so much time to
+check itself or alter its course. Hence the advantage of the turn, that
+is, the outside, which allows the fullest swing and greatest room for
+lee-way, is always yielded to the boat which gives warning. Therefore,
+if the warning boat is going to turn to the right, as it is to have the
+outside position, it will keep its own right-hand side to the boat which
+it meets, and the cry of warning is therefore "Premi," twice given;
+first as soon as it can be heard round the angle, prolonged and loud,
+with the accent on the e, and another strongly accented e added, a kind
+of question, "Prémi-é," followed at the instant of turning, with "Ah
+Premí," with the accent sharp on the final i. If, on the other hand, the
+warning boat is going to turn to the left, it will pass with its
+left-hand side to the one it meets; and the warning cry is, "Stáli-é, Ah
+Stalí." Hence the confused idea in the mind of the traveller that Stali
+means "to the left," and "Premi" to the right; while they mean, in
+reality, the direct reverse; the Stali, for instance, being the order to
+the unseen gondolier who may be behind the corner, coming from the
+left-hand side, that he should hold as much as possible _to his own
+right_; this being the only safe order for him, whether he is going to
+turn the corner himself, or to go straight on; for as the warning
+gondola will always swing right across the canal in turning, a collision
+with it is only to be avoided by keeping well within it, and close up to
+the corner which it turns.
+
+There are several other cries necessary in the management of the
+gondola, but less frequently, so that the reader will hardly care for
+their interpretation; except only the "sciar," which is the order to the
+opposite gondolier to stop the boat as suddenly as possible by slipping
+his oar in front of the fórcola. The _cry_ is never heard except when
+the boatmen have got into some unexpected position, involving a risk of
+collision; but the action is seen constantly, when the gondola is rowed
+by two or more men (for if performed by the single gondolier it only
+swings the boat's head sharp round to the right), in bringing up at a
+landing-place, especially when there is any intent of display, the boat
+being first urged to its full speed and then stopped with as much foam
+about the oar-blades as possible, the effect being much like that of
+stopping a horse at speed by pulling him on his haunches.
+
+
+2. OUR LADY OF SALVATION.
+
+"Santa Maria della Salute," Our Lady of Health, or of Safety, would be a
+more literal translation, yet not perhaps fully expressing the force of
+the Italian word in this case. The church was built between 1630 and
+1680, in acknowledgment of the cessation of the plague;--of course to
+the Virgin, to whom the modern Italian has recourse in all his principal
+distresses, and who receives his gratitude for all principal
+deliverances.
+
+The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration of this
+building; but there is a notable lesson to be derived from it, which is
+not often read. On the opposite side of the broad canal of the Giudecca
+is a small church, celebrated among Renaissance architects as of
+Palladian design, but which would hardly attract the notice of the
+general observer, unless on account of the pictures by John Bellini
+which it contains, in order to see which the traveller may perhaps
+remember having been taken across the Giudecca to the Church of the
+"Redentore." But he ought carefully to compare these two buildings with
+each other, the one built "to the Virgin," the other "to the Redeemer"
+(also a votive offering after the cessation of the plague of 1576); the
+one, the most conspicuous church in Venice, its dome, the principal one
+by which she is first discerned, rising out of the distant sea: the
+other, small and contemptible, on a suburban island, and only becoming
+an object of interest because it contains three small pictures! For in
+the relative magnitude and conspicuousness of these two buildings, we
+have an accurate index of the relative importance of the ideas of the
+Madonna and of Christ, in the modern Italian mind.
+
+Some further account of this church is given in the final Index to the
+Venetian buildings at the close of the third Volume.
+
+
+3. TIDES OF VENICE, AND MEASURES AT TORCELLO.
+
+The lowest and highest tides take place in Venice at different periods,
+the lowest during the winter, the highest in the summer and autumn.
+During the period of the highest tides, the city is exceedingly
+beautiful, especially if, as is not unfrequently the case, the water
+rises high enough partially to flood St. Mark's Place. Nothing can be
+more lovely or fantastic than the scene, when the Campanile and the
+Golden Church are reflected in the calm water, and the lighter gondolas
+floating under the very porches of the façade. On the other hand, a
+winter residence in Venice is rendered peculiarly disagreeable by the
+low tides, which sometimes leave the smaller canals entirely dry, and
+large banks of mud beneath the houses, along the borders of even the
+Grand Canal. The difference between the levels of the highest and lowest
+tides I saw in Venice was 6 ft. 3 in. The average fall rise is from two
+to three feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The measures of Torcello were intended for Appendix 4; but having by a
+misprint referred the reader to Appendix 3, I give them here. The entire
+breadth of the church within the walls is 70 feet; of which the square
+bases of the pillars, 3 feet on each side, occupy 6 feet; and the nave,
+from base to base, measures 31 ft. 1 in.; the aisles from base to wall,
+16 feet odd inches, not accurately ascertainable on account of the
+modern wainscot fittings. The intervals between the bases of the pillars
+are 8 feet each, increasing towards the altar to 8 ft. 3 in., in order
+to allow for a corresponding diminution in the diameter of the bases
+from 3 ft. to 2 ft. 11 in. or 2 ft. 10. in. This subtle diminution of
+the bases is in order to prevent the eye from feeling the greater
+narrowness of the shafts in that part of the nave, their average
+circumference being 6 ft. 10 in.; and one, the second on the north side,
+reaching 7 feet, while those at the upper end of the nave vary from 6
+ft. 8 in. to 6 ft. 4 in. It is probable that this diminution in the more
+distant pillars adds slightly to the perspective effect of length in the
+body of the church, as it is seen from the great entrance: but whether
+this was the intention or not, the delicate adaptation of this
+diminished base to the diminished shaft is a piece of fastidiousness in
+proportion which I rejoice in having detected; and this the more,
+because the rude contours of the bases themselves would little induce
+the spectator to anticipate any such refinement.
+
+
+4. DATE OF THE DUOMO OF TORCELLO.
+
+The first flight to the lagoons for shelter was caused by the invasion
+of Attila in the fifth century, so that in endeavoring to throw back the
+thought of the reader to the former solitude of the islands, I spoke of
+them as they must have appeared "1300 years ago." Altinum, however, was
+not finally destroyed till the Lombard invasion in 641, when the
+episcopal seat was removed to Torcello, and the inhabitants of the
+mainland city, giving up all hope of returning to their former homes,
+built their Duomo there. It is a disputed point among Venetian
+antiquarians, whether the present church be that which was built in the
+seventh century, partially restored in 1008, or whether the words of
+Sagornino, "ecclesiam jam vetustate consumptam recreare," justify them
+in assuming an entire rebuilding of the fabric. I quite agree with the
+Marchese Selvatico, in believing the present church to be the earlier
+building, variously strengthened, refitted, and modified by subsequent
+care; but, in all its main features, preserving its original aspect,
+except, perhaps, in the case of the pulpit and chancel screen, which, if
+the Chevalier Bunsen's conclusions respecting early pulpits in the Roman
+basilicas be correct (see the next article of this Appendix), may
+possibly have been placed in their present position in the tenth
+century, and the fragmentary character of the workmanship of the latter,
+noticed in §§ X. and XI., would in that case have been the result of
+innovation, rather than of haste. The question, however, whether they
+are of the seventh or eleventh century, does not in the least affect our
+conclusions, drawn from the design of these portions of the church,
+respecting pulpits in general.
+
+
+5. MODERN PULPITS.
+
+There is no character of an ordinary modern English church which appears
+to me more to be regretted than the peculiar pompousness of the
+furniture of the pulpits, contrasted, as it generally is, with great
+meagreness and absence of color in the other portions of the church; a
+pompousness, besides, altogether without grace or meaning, and dependent
+merely on certain applications of upholstery; which, curiously enough,
+are always in worse taste than even those of our drawing-rooms. Nor do
+I understand how our congregations can endure the aspect of the wooden
+sounding-board attached only by one point of its circumference to an
+upright pillar behind the preacher; and looking as if the weight of its
+enormous leverage must infallibly, before the sermon is concluded, tear
+it from its support, and bring it down upon the preacher's head. These
+errors in taste and feeling will however, I believe, be gradually
+amended as more Gothic churches are built; but the question of the
+position of the pulpit presents a more disputable ground of discussion.
+I can perfectly sympathise with the feeling of those who wish the
+eastern extremity of the church to form a kind of holy place for the
+communion table; nor have I often received a more painful impression
+than on seeing the preacher at the Scotch church in George Street,
+Portman Square, taking possession of a perfect apse; and occupying
+therein, during the course of the service, very nearly the same position
+which the figure of Christ does in that of the Cathedral of Pisa. But I
+nevertheless believe that the Scotch congregation are perfectly right,
+and have restored the real arrangement of the primitive churches. The
+Chevalier Bunsen informed me very lately, that, in all the early
+basilicas he has examined, the lateral pulpits are of more recent date
+than the rest of the building; that he knows of none placed in the
+position which they now occupy, both in the basilicas and Gothic
+cathedrals, before the ninth century; and that there can be no doubt
+that the bishop always preached or exhorted, in the primitive times,
+from his throne in the centre of the apse, the altar being always set at
+the centre of the church, in the crossing of the transepts. His
+Excellency found by experiment in Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest of
+the Roman basilicas, that the voice could be heard more plainly from the
+centre of the apse than from any other spot in the whole church; and, if
+this be so, it will be another very important reason for the adoption of
+the Romanesque (or Norman) architecture in our churches, rather than of
+the Gothic. The reader will find some farther notice of this question in
+the concluding chapter of the third volume.
+
+Before leaving this subject, however, I must be permitted to say one
+word to those members of the Scotch Church who are severe in their
+requirement of the nominal or apparent extemporization of all addresses
+delivered from the pulpit. Whether they do right in giving those among
+their ministers who _cannot_ preach extempore, the additional and
+useless labor of committing their sermons to memory, may be a disputed
+question; but it can hardly be so, that the now not unfrequent habit of
+making a desk of the Bible, and reading the sermon stealthily, by
+slipping the sheets of it between the sacred leaves, so that the
+preacher consults his own notes _on pretence_ of consulting the
+Scriptures, is a very unseemly consequence of their over-strictness.
+
+
+6. APSE OF MURANO.
+
+The following passage succeeded in the original text to § XV. of Chap.
+III. Finding it not likely to interest the general reader, I have placed
+it here, as it contains matter of some interest to architects.
+
+   "On this plinth, thus carefully studied in relations of magnitude,
+   the shafts are set at the angles, as close to each other as possible,
+   as seen in the ground-plan. These shafts are founded on pure Roman
+   tradition; their bases have no spurs, and the shaft itself is tapered
+   in a bold curve, according to the classical model. But, in the
+   adjustment of the bases to each other, we have a most curious
+   instance of the first beginning of the Gothic principle of
+   aggregation of shafts. They have a singularly archaic and simple
+   profile, composed of a single cavetto and roll, which are circular,
+   on a square plinth. Now when these bases are brought close to each
+   other at the angles of the apse, their natural position would be as
+   in fig. 3, Plate I., leaving an awkward fissure between the two
+   square plinths. This offended the architect's eye; so he cut part of
+   each of the bases away, and fitted them close to each other, as in
+   fig. 5, Plate I., which is their actual position. As before this
+   piece of rough harmonization the circular mouldings reached the sides
+   of the squares, they were necessarily cut partly away in the course
+   of the adjustment, and run into each other as in the figure, so as to
+   give us one of the first Venetian instances of the continuous Gothic
+   base.
+
+   "The shafts measure on the average 2 ft. 8˝ in. in circumference,
+   at the base, tapering so much that under the lowest fillet of their
+   necks they measure only 2 feet round, though their height is only 5
+   ft. 6 in., losing thus eight inches of girth in five feet and a half
+   of height. They are delicately curved all the way up; and are 2˝
+   in. apart from each other where they are nearest, and about 5 in. at
+   the necks of their capitals."
+
+
+7. EARLY VENETIAN DRESS.
+
+Sansovino's account of the changes in the dress of the Venetians is
+brief, masterly, and full of interest; one or two passages are deserving
+of careful notice, especially the introductory sentence. "For the
+Venetians from their first origin, having made it their aim to be
+peaceful and religious, and to keep on an equality with one another,
+that equality might induce stability and concord (as disparity produces
+confusion and ruin), made their dress a matter of conscience, ...; and
+our ancestors, observant lovers of religion, upon which all their acts
+were founded, and desiring that their young men should direct themselves
+to virtue, the true soul of all human action, _and above all to peace_,
+invented a dress conformable to their gravity, such, that in clothing
+themselves with it, they might clothe themselves also with modesty and
+honor. And because their mind was bent upon giving no offence to any
+one, and living quietly as far as might be permitted them, it seemed
+good to them to show to every one, even by external signs, this their
+endeavor, by wearing a long dress, which was in no wise convenient for
+persons of a quick temperament, or of eager and fierce spirits."
+
+Respecting the color of the women's dress, it is noticeable that blue is
+called "Venetian color" by Cassiodorus, translated "turchino" by
+Filiasi, vol. v. chap. iv. It was a very pale blue, as the place in
+which the word occurs is the description by Cassiodorus of the darkness
+which came over the sun's disk at the time of the Belisarian wars and
+desolation of the Gothic kingdom.
+
+
+8. INSCRIPTIONS AT MURANO.
+
+There are two other inscriptions on the border of the concha; but these,
+being written on the soffit of the face arch, which, as before noticed,
+is supported by the last two shafts of the chancel, could not be read by
+the congregation, and only with difficulty by those immediately
+underneath them. One of them is in black, the other in red letters. The
+first:
+
+  "Mutat quod sumsit, quod sollat crimina tandit
+   Et quod sumpsit, vultus vestisq. refulsit."
+
+The second:
+
+  "Discipuli testes, prophete certa videntes
+   Et cernunt purum, sibi credunt ese futurum."
+
+I have found no notice of any of these inscriptions in any Italian
+account of the church of Murano, and have seldom seen even Monkish Latin
+less intelligible. There is no mistake in the letters, which are all
+large and clear; but wrong letters may have been introduced by ignorant
+restorers, as has often happened in St. Mark's.
+
+
+9. SHAFTS OF ST. MARK.
+
+The principal pillars which carry the nave and transepts, fourteen in
+number, are of white alabaster veined with grey and amber; each of a
+single block, 15 ft. high, and 6 ft. 2 in. round at the base. I in vain
+endeavored to ascertain their probable value. Every sculptor whom I
+questioned on this subject told me there were no such pieces of
+alabaster in the market, and that they were to be considered as without
+price.
+
+On the façade of the church alone are two great ranges of shafts,
+seventy-two in the lower range, and seventy-nine in the upper; all of
+porphyry, alabaster, and verd-antique or fine marble; the lower about 9
+ft., the upper about 7 ft. high, and of various circumferences, from 4
+ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. round.
+
+There are now so many published engravings, and, far better than
+engravings, calotypes, of this façade, that I may point out one or two
+circumstances for the reader's consideration without giving any plate of
+it here. And first, we ought to note the relations of the shafts and
+wall, the latter being first sheeted with alabaster, and then the
+pillars set within two or three inches of it, forming such a grove of
+golden marble that the porches open before us as we enter the church
+like glades in a deep forest. The reader may perhaps at first question
+the propriety of placing the wall so close behind the shafts that the
+latter have nearly as little work to do as the statues in a Gothic
+porch; but the philosophy of this arrangement is briefly deducible from
+the principles stated in the text. The builder had at his disposal
+shafts of a certain size only, not fit to sustain the whole weight of
+the fabric above. He therefore turns just as much of the wall veil into
+shaft as he has strength of marble at his disposal, and leaves the rest
+in its massive form. And that there may be no dishonesty in this, nor
+any appearance in the shafts of doing more work than is really allotted
+to them, many are left visibly with half their capitals projecting
+beyond the archivolts they sustain, showing that the wall is very
+slightly dependent on their co-operation, and that many of them are
+little more than mere bonds or connecting rods between the foundation
+and cornices. If any architect ventures to blame such an arrangement,
+let him look at our much vaunted early English piers in Salisbury
+Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, where the small satellitic shafts are
+introduced in the same gratuitous manner, but with far less excuse or
+reason: for those small shafts have nothing but their delicacy and
+purely theoretical connection with the archivolt mouldings to recommend
+them; but the St. Mark's shafts have an intrinsic beauty and value of
+the highest order, and the object of the whole system of architecture,
+as above stated, is in great part to set forth the beauty and value of
+the shaft itself. Now, not only is this accomplished by withdrawing it
+occasionally from servile work, but the position here given to it,
+within three or four inches of a wall from which it nevertheless stands
+perfectly clear all the way up, is exactly that which must best display
+its color and quality. When there is much vacant space left behind a
+pillar, the shade against which it is relieved is comparatively
+indefinite, the eye passes by the shaft, and penetrates into the
+vacancy. But when a broad surface of wall is brought near the shaft, its
+own shadow is, in almost every effect of sunshine, so sharp and dark as
+to throw out its colors with the highest possible brilliancy; if there
+be no sunshine, the wall veil is subdued and varied by the most subtle
+gradations of delicate half shadow, hardly less advantageous to the
+shaft which it relieves. And, as far as regards pure effect in open air
+(all artifice of excessive darkness or mystery being excluded), I do not
+know anything whatsoever in the whole compass of the European
+architecture I have seen, which can for a moment be compared with the
+quaint shade and delicate color, like that of Rembrandt and Paul
+Veronese united, which the sun brings out, as his rays move from porch
+to porch along the St. Mark's façade.
+
+And, as if to prove that this was indeed the builder's intention, and
+that he did not leave his shafts idle merely because he did not know how
+to set them to work safely, there are two pieces of masonry at the
+extremities of the façade, which are just as remarkable for their frank
+trust in the bearing power of the shafts as the rest are for their want
+of confidence in them. But, before we come to these, we must say a word
+or two respecting the second point named above, the superior position of
+the shafts.
+
+It was assuredly not in the builder's power, even had he been so
+inclined, to obtain shafts high enough to sustain the whole external
+gallery, as it is sustained in the nave, on one arcade. He had, as above
+noticed, a supply of shafts of every sort and size, from which he chose
+the largest for his nave shafts; the smallest were set aside for
+windows, jambs, balustrades, supports of pulpits, niches, and such other
+services, every conceivable size occurring in different portions of the
+building; and the middle-sized shafts were sorted into two classes, of
+which on the average one was about two-thirds the length of the other,
+and out of these the two stories of the façade and sides of the church
+are composed, the smaller shafts of course uppermost, and more numerous
+than the lower, according to the ordinary laws of superimposition
+adopted by all the Romanesque builders, and observed also in a kind of
+architecture quite as beautiful as any we are likely to invent, that of
+forest trees.
+
+Nothing is more singular than the way in which this kind of
+superimposition (the only right one in the case of shafts) will shock a
+professed architect. He has been accustomed to see, in the Renaissance
+designs, shaft put on the top of shaft, three or four times over, and he
+thinks this quite right; but the moment he is shown a properly
+subdivided superimposition, in which the upper shafts diminish in size
+and multiply in number, so that the lower pillars would balance them
+safely even without cement, he exclaims that it is "against law," as if
+he had never seen a tree in his life.
+
+Not that the idea of the Byzantine superimposition was taken from trees,
+any more than that of Gothic arches. Both are simple compliances with
+laws of nature, and, therefore, approximations to the forms of nature.
+
+There is, however, one very essential difference between tree structure
+and the shaft structure in question; namely, that the marble branches,
+having no vital connexion with the stem, must be provided with a firm
+tablet or second foundation whereon to stand. This intermediate plinth
+or tablet runs along the whole façade at one level, is about eighteen
+inches thick, and left with little decoration as being meant for hard
+service. The small porticos, already spoken of as the most graceful
+pieces of composition with which I am acquainted, are sustained on
+detached clusters of four or five columns, forming the continuation of
+those of the upper series, and each of these clusters is balanced on one
+grand detached shaft; as much trust being thus placed in the pillars
+here, as is withdrawn from them elsewhere. The northern portico has only
+one detached pillar at its outer angle, which sustains three shafts and
+a square pilaster; of these shafts the one at the outer angle of the
+group is the thickest (so as to balance the pilaster on the inner
+angle), measuring 3 ft. 2 in. round, while the others measure only 2 ft.
+10 in. and 2 ft. 11 in.; and in order to make this increase of diameter,
+and the importance of the shaft, more manifest to the eye, the old
+builders made the shaft _shorter_ as well as thicker, increasing the
+depth both of its capital and the base, with what is to the thoughtless
+spectator ridiculous incongruity, and to the observant one a most
+beautiful expression of constructive genius. Nor is this all. Observe:
+the whole strength of this angle depends on accuracy of _poise_, not on
+breadth or strength of foundation. It is a _balanced_, not a propped
+structure: if the balance fails, it must fall instantly; if the balance
+is maintained, no matter how the lower shaft is fastened into the
+ground, all will be safe. And to mark this more definitely, the great
+lower shaft _has a different base from all the others of the façade_,
+remarkably high in proportion to the shaft, on a circular instead of a
+square plinth, and _without spurs_, while all the other bases have spurs
+without exception. Glance back at what is said of the spurs at p. 79 of
+the first volume, and reflect that all expression of _grasp_ in the foot
+of the pillar is here useless, and to be replaced by one of balance
+merely, and you will feel what the old builder wanted to say to us, and
+how much he desired us to follow him with our understanding as he laid
+stone above stone.
+
+And this purpose of his is hinted to us once more, even by the position
+of this base in the ground plan of the foundation of the portico; for,
+though itself circular, it sustains a hexagonal plinth _set obliquely to
+the walls of the church_, as if expressly to mark to us that it did not
+matter how the base was set, so only that the weights were justly
+disposed above it.
+
+
+10. PROPER SENSE OF THE WORD IDOLATRY.
+
+I do not intend, in thus applying the word "Idolatry" to certain
+ceremonies of Romanist worship, to admit the propriety of the ordinary
+Protestant manner of regarding those ceremonies as distinctively
+idolatrous, and as separating the Romanist from the Protestant Church by
+a gulf across which we must not look to our fellow-Christians but with
+utter reprobation and disdain. The Church of Rome does indeed
+distinctively violate the _second_ commandment; but the true force and
+weight of the sin of idolatry are in the violation of the first, of
+which we are all of us guilty, in probably a very equal degree,
+considered only as members of this or that communion, and not as
+Christians or unbelievers. Idolatry is, both literally and verily, not
+the mere bowing down before sculptures, but the serving or becoming the
+slave of any images or imaginations which stand between us and God, and
+it is otherwise expressed in Scripture as "walking after the
+_Imagination_" of our own hearts. And observe also that while, at least
+on one occasion, we find in the Bible an indulgence granted to the mere
+external and literal violation of the second commandment, "When I bow
+myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this
+thing," we find no indulgence in any instance, or in the slightest
+degree, granted to "covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. iii. 5; no
+casual association of terms, observe, but again energetically repeated
+in Ephesians, v. 5, "No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any
+inheritance in the kingdom of Christ"); nor any to that denial of God,
+idolatry in one of its most subtle forms, following so often on the
+possession of that wealth against which Agur prayed so earnestly, "Give
+me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee, and say,
+'Who is the Lord?'"
+
+And in this sense, which of us is not an idolater? Which of us has the
+right, in the fulness of that better knowledge, in spite of which he
+nevertheless is not yet separated from the service of this world, to
+speak scornfully of any of his brethren, because, in a guiltless
+ignorance, they have been accustomed to bow their knees before a statue?
+Which of us shall say that there may not be a spiritual worship in their
+apparent idolatry, or that there is not a spiritual idolatry in our own
+apparent worship?
+
+For indeed it is utterly impossible for one man to judge of the feeling
+with which another bows down before an image. From that pure reverence
+in which Sir Thomas Brown wrote, "I can dispense with my hat at the
+sight of a cross, but not with a thought of my Redeemer," to the worst
+superstition of the most ignorant Romanist, there is an infinite series
+of subtle transitions; and the point where simple reverence and the use
+of the image merely to render conception more vivid, and feeling more
+intense, change into definite idolatry by the attribution of Power to
+the image itself, is so difficultly determinable that we cannot be too
+cautions in asserting that such a change has actually taken place in the
+case of any individual. Even when it is definite and certain, we shall
+oftener find it the consequence of dulness of intellect than of real
+alienation of heart from God; and I have no manner of doubt that half of
+the poor and untaught Christians who are this day lying prostrate before
+crucifixes, Bambinos, and Volto Santos, are finding more acceptance with
+God, than many Protestants who idolize nothing but their own opinions or
+their own interests. I believe that those who have worshipped the thorns
+of Christ's crown will be found at last to have been holier and wiser
+than those who worship the thorns of the world's service, and that to
+adore the nails of the cross is a less sin than to adore the hammer of
+the workman.
+
+But, on the other hand, though the idolatry of the lower orders in the
+Romish Church may thus be frequently excusable, the ordinary subterfuges
+by which it is defended are not so. It may be extenuated, but cannot be
+denied; and the attribution of power to the image,[163] in which it
+consists, is not merely a form of popular feeling, but a tenet of
+priestly instruction, and may be proved, over and over again, from any
+book of the Romish Church services. Take for instance the following
+prayer, which occurs continually at the close of the service of the Holy
+Cross:
+
+  "Saincte vraye Croye aourée,
+   Qui du corps Dieu fu aournée
+   Et de sa sueur arrousée,
+   Et de son sanc enluminée,
+   Par ta vertu, par ta puissance,
+   Defent mon corps de meschance,
+   Et montroie moy par ton playsir
+   Que vray confes puisse mourir."
+
+  "Oh holy, true, and golden Cross, which wast adorned with God's body,
+    and watered with His sweat, and illuminated with His blood, by thy
+    healing virtue and thy power, defend my body from mischance; and by
+    thy good pleasure, let me make a good confession when I die."
+
+There can be no possible defence imagined for the mere terms in which
+this prayer and other such are couched: yet it is always to be
+remembered, that in many cases they are rather poetical effusions than
+serious prayers; the utterances of imaginative enthusiasm, rather than
+of reasonable conviction; and as such, they are rather to be condemned
+as illusory and fictitious, than as idolatrous, nor even as such,
+condemned altogether, for strong love and faith are often the roots of
+them and the errors of affection are better than the accuracies of
+apathy. But the unhappy results, among all religious sects, of the habit
+of allowing imaginative and poetical belief to take the place of
+deliberate, resolute, and prosaic belief, have been fully and admirably
+traced by the author of the "Natural History of Enthusiasm."
+
+
+11. SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES.
+
+  (1.) _The Terraced House._
+
+The most conspicuous pile in the midmost reach of the Grand Canal is the
+Casa Grimani, now the Post-Office. Letting his boat lie by the steps of
+this great palace, the traveller will see, on the other side of the
+canal, a building with a small terrace in front of it, and a little
+court with a door to the water, beside the terrace. Half of the house is
+visibly modern, and there is a great seam, like the edge of a scar,
+between it and the ancient remnant, in which the circular bands of the
+Byzantine arches will be instantly recognized. This building not having,
+as far as I know, any name except that of its present proprietor, I
+shall in future distinguish it simply as the Terraced House.
+
+
+  (2.) _Casa Businello._
+
+To the left of this edifice (looking from the Post-Office) there is a
+modern palace, on the other side of which the Byzantine mouldings appear
+again in the first and second stories of a house lately restored. It
+might be thought that the shafts and arches had been raised yesterday,
+the modern walls having been deftly adjusted to them, and all appearance
+of antiquity, together with the ornamentation and proportions of the
+fabric, having been entirely destroyed. I cannot, however, speak with
+unmixed sorrow of these changes, since, without his being implicated in
+the shame of them, they fitted this palace to become the residence of
+the kindest friend I had in Venice. It is generally known as the Casa
+Businello.
+
+
+  (3.) _The Braided House._
+
+Leaving the steps of the Casa Grimani, and turning the gondola away from
+the Rialto, we will pass the Casa Businello, and the three houses which
+succeed it on the right. The fourth is another restored palace, white
+and conspicuous, but retaining of its ancient structure only the five
+windows in its second story, and an ornamental moulding above them which
+appears to be ancient, though it is inaccessible without scaffolding,
+and I cannot therefore answer for it. But the five central windows are
+very valuable; and as their capitals differ from most that we find
+(except in St. Mark's), in their plaited or braided border and
+basket-worked sides, I shall call this house, in future, the Braided
+House.[164]
+
+
+  (4.) _The Madonnetta House._
+
+On the other side of this palace is the Traghetto called "Della
+Madonnetta;" and beyond this Traghetto, still facing the Grand Canal, a
+small palace, of which the front shows mere vestiges of arcades, the old
+shafts only being visible, with obscure circular seams in the modern
+plaster which covers the arches. The side of it is a curious
+agglomeration of pointed and round windows in every possible position,
+and of nearly every date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It
+is the smallest of the buildings we have to examine, but by no means the
+least interesting: I shall call it, from the name of its Traghetto, the
+Madonnetta House.
+
+
+  (5.) _The Rio Foscari House._
+
+We must now descend the Grand Canal as far as the Palazzo Foscari, and
+enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca' Foscari, at the side of
+that palace. Almost immediately after passing the great gateway of the
+Foscari courtyard, we shall see on our left, in the ruinous and
+time-stricken walls which totter over the water, the white curve of a
+circular arch covered with sculpture, and fragments of the bases of
+small pillars, entangled among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I
+have already, in the folio plates which accompanied the first volume,
+partly illustrated this building. In what references I have to make to
+it here, I shall speak of it as the Rio Foscari House.
+
+
+  (6.) _Casa Farsetti._
+
+We have now to reascend the Grand Canal, and approach the Rialto. As
+soon as we have passed the Casa Grimani, the traveller will recognize,
+on his right, two rich and extensive masses of building, which form
+important objects in almost every picturesque view of the noble bridge.
+Of these, the first, that farthest from the Rialto, retains great part
+of its ancient materials in a dislocated form. It has been entirely
+modernized in its upper stories, but the ground floor and first floor
+have nearly all their original shafts and capitals, only they have been
+shifted hither and thither to give room for the introduction of various
+small apartments, and present, in consequence, marvellous anomalies in
+proportion. This building is known in Venice as the Casa Farsetti.
+
+
+  (7.) _Casa Loredan._
+
+The one next to it, though not conspicuous, and often passed with
+neglect, will, I believe, be felt at last, by all who examine it
+carefully, to be the most beautiful palace in the whole extent of the
+Grand Canal. It has been restored often, once in the Gothic, once in the
+Renaissance times,--some writers say, even rebuilt; but, if so, rebuilt
+in its old form. The Gothic additions harmonize exquisitely with its
+Byzantine work, and it is easy, as we examine its lovely central arcade,
+to forget the Renaissance additions which encumber it above. It is known
+as the Casa Loredan.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eighth palace is the Fondaco de' Turchi, described in the text. A
+ninth existed, more interesting apparently than any of these, near the
+Church of San Moisč, but it was thrown down in the course of
+"improvements" a few years ago. A woodcut of it is given in M. Lazari's
+Guide.
+
+
+12. MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS.
+
+Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days, we have
+defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and few of more
+practical importance than this, which I shall have occasion again and
+again to allege in support of many future deductions:
+
+"All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself the
+objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly attainable; and
+becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose to itself any other
+objects, better attainable with other materials."
+
+Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,--as in
+ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of
+hair,--is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting,
+but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture.
+All sculpture, therefore, which professes as its chief end the
+expression of such characters, is debased; and if the suggestion of them
+be accidentally required of it, that suggestion is only to be given to
+an extent compatible with perfect ease of execution in the given
+material,--not to the utmost possible extent. For instance: some of the
+most delightful drawings of our own water-color painter, Hunt, have been
+of birds' nests; of which, in painting, it is perfectly possible to
+represent the intricate fibrous or mossy structure; therefore, the
+effort is a legitimate one, and the art is well employed. But to carve a
+bird's nest out of marble would be physically impossible, and to reach
+any approximate expression of its structure would require prolonged and
+intolerable labor. Therefore, all sculpture which set itself to carving
+birds' nests as an end, or which, if a bird's nest were required of it,
+carved it to the utmost possible point of realization, would be debased.
+Nothing but the general form, and as much of the fibrous structure as
+could be with perfect ease represented, ought to be attempted at all.
+
+But more than this. The workman has not done his duty, and is not
+working on safe principles, unless he even so far _honors_ the materials
+with which he is working as to set himself to bring out their beauty,
+and to recommend and exalt, as far as lie can, their peculiar qualities.
+If he is working in marble, he should insist upon and exhibit its
+transparency and solidity; if in iron, its strength and tenacity; if in
+gold, its ductility; and he will invariably find the material grateful,
+and that his work is all the nobler for being eulogistic of the
+substance of which it is made. But of all the arts, the working of glass
+is that in which we ought to keep these principles most vigorously in
+mind. For we owe it so much, and the possession of it is so great a
+blessing, that all our work in it should be completely and forcibly
+expressive of the peculiar characters which give it so vast a value.
+
+These are two, namely, its DUCTILITY when heated, and TRANSPARENCY when
+cold, both nearly perfect. In its employment for vessels, we ought
+always to exhibit its ductility, and in its employment for windows, its
+transparency. All work in glass is bad which does not, with loud voice,
+proclaim one or other of these great qualities.
+
+Consequently, _all cut glass_ is barbarous: for the cutting conceals its
+ductility, and confuses it with crystal. Also, all very neat, finished,
+and perfect form in glass is barbarous: for this fails in proclaiming
+another of its great virtues; namely, the ease with which its light
+substance can be moulded or blown into any form, so long as perfect
+accuracy be not required. In metal, which, even when heated enough to be
+thoroughly malleable, retains yet such weight and consistency as render
+it susceptible of the finest handling and retention of the most delicate
+form, great precision of workmanship is admissible; but in glass, which
+when once softened must be blown or moulded, not hammered, and which is
+liable to lose, by contraction or subsidence, the fineness of the forms
+given to it, no delicate outlines are to be attempted, but only such
+fantastic and fickle grace as the mind of the workman can conceive and
+execute on the instant. The more wild, extravagant, and grotesque in
+their gracefulness the forms are, the better. No material is so adapted
+for giving full play to the imagination, but it must not be wrought with
+refinement or painfulness, still less with costliness. For as in
+gratitude we are to proclaim its virtues, so in all honesty we are to
+confess its imperfections; and while we triumphantly set forth its
+transparency, we are also frankly to admit its fragility, and therefore
+not to waste much time upon it, nor put any real art into it when
+intended for daily use. No workman ought ever to spend more than an hour
+in the making of any glass vessel.
+
+Next in the case of windows, the points which we have to insist upon
+are, the transparency of the glass and its susceptibility of the most
+brilliant colors; and therefore the attempt to turn painted windows into
+pretty pictures is one of the most gross and ridiculous barbarisms of
+this pre-eminently barbarous century. It originated, I suppose, with the
+Germans, who seem for the present distinguished among European nations
+by the loss of the sense of color; but it appears of late to have
+considerable chance of establishing itself in England: and it is a
+two-edged error, striking in two directions; first at the healthy
+appreciation of painting, and then at the healthy appreciation of glass.
+Color, ground with oil, and laid on a solid opaque ground, furnishes to
+the human hand the most exquisite means of expression which the human
+sight and invention can find or require. By its two opposite qualities,
+each naturally and easily attainable, of transparency in shadow and
+opacity in light, it complies with the conditions of nature; and by its
+perfect governableness it permits the utmost possible fulness and
+subtlety in the harmonies of color, as well as the utmost perfection in
+the drawing. Glass, considered as a material for a picture, is exactly
+as bad as oil paint is good. It sets out by reversing the conditions of
+nature, by making the lights transparent and the shadows opaque; and the
+ungovernableness of its color (changing in the furnace), and its
+violence (being always on a high key, because produced by actual light),
+render it so disadvantageous in every way, that the result of working in
+it for pictorial effect would infallibly be the destruction of all the
+appreciation of the noble qualities of pictorial color.
+
+In the second place, this modern barbarism destroys the true
+appreciation of the qualities of glass. It denies, and endeavors as far
+as possible to conceal, the transparency, which is not only its great
+virtue in a merely utilitarian point of view, but its great spiritual
+character; the character by which in church architecture it becomes
+most touchingly impressive, as typical of the entrances of the Holy
+Spirit into the heart of man; a typical expression rendered specific and
+intense by the purity and brilliancy of its sevenfold hues;[165] and
+therefore in endeavoring to turn the window into a picture, we at once
+lose the sanctity and power of the noble material, and employ it to an
+end which is utterly impossible it should ever worthily attain. The true
+perfection of a painted window is to be serene, intense, brilliant, like
+flaming jewellery; full of easily legible and quaint subjects, and
+exquisitely subtle, yet simple, in its harmonies. In a word, this
+perfection has been consummated in the designs, never to be surpassed,
+if ever again to be approached by human art, of the French windows of
+the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [163] I do not like to hear Protestants speaking with gross and
+    uncharitable contempt even of the worship of relics. Elisha once
+    trusted his own staff too far; nor can I see any reasonable ground
+    for the scorn, or the unkind rebuke, of those who have been taught
+    from their youth upwards that to hope even in the hem of the garment
+    may sometimes be better than to spend the living on physicians.
+
+  [164] Casa Tiepolo (?) in Lazari's Guide.
+
+  [165] I do not think that there is anything more necessary to the
+    progress of European art in the present day than the complete
+    understanding of this sanctity of Color. I had much pleasure in
+    finding it, the other day, fully understood and thus sweetly
+    expressed in a little volume of poems by a Miss Maynard:
+
+      "For still in every land, though to Thy name
+       Arose no temple,--still in every age,
+       Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise,
+       _We_ praised Thee; and at rise and set of sun
+       Did we assemble duly, and intone
+       A choral hymn that all the lands might hear.
+       In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee,
+       Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood.
+       But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come,
+       Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house,
+       We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise
+       Thee, Light of Light! Thee, God of very God!"
+
+                                         _A Dream of Fair Colors._
+
+    These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable for a very unobtrusive
+    and pure religious feeling in subjects connected with art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
+
+Page 58: 'endeavoring to imagine its aspect' corrected from 'aspeet.'
+
+Page 84: 'inadmissible altogether, or objectionable' from
+    'objecjectionable.'
+
+Page 179: 'the surface sculpture will' corrected from 'wiil.'
+
+Page 188: 'central class will always' originally 'aways.'
+
+Page 191: 'with the rest of the spirit' originally 'spirt.'
+
+Page 204: 'the heart of that languor' originally 'langour.'
+
+Page 263: 'merely noting this one assured fact' changed from 'nothing.'
+
+Footnote 130: Appendi corrected to Appendix.
+
+
+
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+<div class="pg">
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3), by
+John Ruskin</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3), </p>
+<p>Author: John Ruskin</p>
+<p>Release Date: December 31, 2009  [eBook #30755]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STONES OF VENICE, VOLUME II (OF 3), ***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Marius Masi, Juliet Sutherland,<br />
+    and the<br />
+    Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ddddee; color: #000000; " summary="Transcriber's note">
+<tr>
+<td style="width:25%; vertical-align:top">
+Transcriber's note:</td>
+<td>A few typographical errors have been corrected. They
+appear in the text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like this</span>, and the
+explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked
+passage. <br />
+</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td style="width:25%; vertical-align:top">
+Linked volumes
+</td>
+<td class="norm">
+The index of this three-volume work is in Volume III, with links to
+all three volumes; and some footnotes are linked between volumes.
+These links are designed to work when the book is read on line. For
+information on the downloading of all three interlinked volumes so
+that the links work on your own computer, see the
+<a name="tn" id="tn"></a><a href="#tntag">Transcriber's Note</a>
+at the end of this book.
+</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>Links to</h3>
+<h3><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm">Volume I</a></h3>
+<h3><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm">Volume III</a></h3>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<table class="allbctr" style="width: 60%; " summary="Front page">
+<tr>  <td class="pd" style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; " colspan="2"><h5>Library Edition</h5> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td style="padding-top: 3em; " colspan="2"><h3>THE COMPLETE WORKS</h3> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td colspan="2"><h6>OF</h6> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td style="padding-bottom: 5em; " colspan="2"><h2>JOHN RUSKIN</h2> </td> </tr>
+
+
+<tr>  <td style="padding-bottom: 5em; " colspan="2"><h5>STONES OF VENICE<br />
+<span class="sc">Volumes I-II</span><br /></h5> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td style="border-top: black 1px solid; padding-top: 1.5em; " colspan="2"><h3>NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION</h3> </td> </tr>
+<tr>  <td><h3 style="text-align: left; padding-left: 3em; ">NEW YORK</h3></td>
+      <td><h3 style="text-align: right; padding-right: 3em; ">CHICAGO</h3></td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<h3>THE COMPLETE WORKS</h3>
+
+<h5>OF</h5>
+
+<h3>JOHN RUSKIN</h3>
+
+<h4>VOLUME VIII</h4>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h4>STONES OF VENICE</h4>
+
+<h4>VOLUME II</h4>
+
+
+
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<h2>THE</h2>
+<h2>STONES OF VENICE</h2>
+
+<h3>VOLUME II.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE SEA STORIES</h3>
+
+
+
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<h3>ADVERTISEMENT.</h3>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>It was originally intended that this Work should consist of
+two volumes only; the subject has extended to three. The
+second volume, however, will conclude the account of the
+ancient architecture of Venice. The third will embrace the
+Early, the Roman, and the Grotesque Renaissance; and an
+Index, which, as it gives, in alphabetical order, a brief account
+of all the buildings in Venice, or references to the places
+where they are mentioned in the text, will be found a convenient
+guide for the traveller. In order to make it more serviceable,
+I have introduced some notices of the pictures which I
+think most interesting in the various churches, and in the
+Scuola di San Rocco.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD.</h5>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER I. </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td>&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><span class="sc">page</span> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="lsp">The Throne, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page001">1</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER II. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="lsp">Torcello, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page011">11</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER III. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="lsp">Murano, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page027">27</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="lsp">St. Mark&rsquo;s, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page057">57</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER V. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="lsp">Byzantine Palaces, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page118">118</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2"><h5>SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD.</h5> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="lsp">The Nature of Gothic, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page151">151</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="lsp">Gothic Palaces, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page231">231</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="lsp">The Ducal Palace, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page281">281</a> </td> </tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<h5>APPENDIX.</h5>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2" style="width: 1.5em; ">1.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">The Gondolier&rsquo;s Cry, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page375">375</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">2.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Our Lady of Salvation, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page378">378</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">3.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Tides of Venice and Measures at Torcello, </td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page378">378</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">4.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Date of the Duomo of Torcello,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page380">380</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">5.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Modern Pulpits,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page380">380</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">6.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Apse of Murano,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page382">382</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">7.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Early Venetian Dress,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page383">383</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">8.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Inscriptions at Murano,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page384">384</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">9.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Shafts of St. Mark&rsquo;s,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page384">384</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">10.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Proper Sense of the Word Idolatry,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page388">388</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">11.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Situations of Byzantine Palaces,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page391">391</a> </td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">12.</td>
+     <td class="tc3">Modern Paintings on Glass,</td>
+     <td class="rsp"><a href="#page394">394</a> </td> </tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div style="padding-top: 3em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<h3>LIST OF PLATES.</h3>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1" style="width: 3em; ">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="tc2" style="width: 1em; ">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="tc3">&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><span style="font-size: 75%; ">Facing Page</span></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">Plate</td>
+      <td class="tc2">1.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Plans of Torcello and Murano,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page014">14</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">2.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">The Acanthus of Torcello,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page015">15</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">3.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Inlaid Bands of Murano,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page040">40</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">4.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Sculptures of Murano,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page042">42</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">5.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page045">45</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">6.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">The Vine, Free and in Service,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page096">96</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">7.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Byzantine Capitals&mdash;Convex Group,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page131">131</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">8.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Byzantine Capitals&mdash;Concave Group,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page132">132</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">9.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Lily Capital of St. Mark&rsquo;s,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page136">136</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">10.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">The Four Venetian Flower Order,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page137">137</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">11.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Byzantine Sculptures,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page138">138</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">12.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Linear and Surface Gothic,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page224">224</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">13.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Balconies,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page247">247</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">14.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">The Orders of Venetian Arches,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page248">248</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">15.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Windows of the Second Order,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page254">254</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">16.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Windows of the Fourth Order,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page257">257</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">17.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Windows of the Early Gothic Palaces,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page259">259</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">18.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Windows of the Fifth Order,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page266">266</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">19.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Leafage of the Vine Angle,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page308">308</a></td>  </tr>
+
+<tr>  <td class="tc1">"</td>
+      <td class="tc2">20.</td>
+      <td class="tc3">Leafage of the Venetian Capitals,</td>
+      <td class="tc4"><a href="#page368">368</a></td>  </tr>
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page001"></a>1</span></p>
+
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h2>STONES OF VENICE.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h3>FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD.</h3>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="chap_1"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h5>THE THRONE.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I.</span> In the olden days of travelling, now to return no more,
+in which distance could not be vanquished without toil, but in
+which that toil was rewarded, partly by the power of deliberate
+survey of the countries through which the journey lay, and
+partly by the happiness of the evening hours, when, from the
+top of the last hill he had surmounted, the traveller beheld the
+quiet village where he was to rest, scattered among the meadows
+beside its valley stream; or, from the long-hoped-for turn
+in the dusty perspective of the causeway, saw, for the first time,
+the towers of some famed city, faint in the rays of sunset&mdash;hours
+of peaceful and thoughtful pleasure, for which the rush
+of the arrival in the railway station is perhaps not always, or to
+all men, an equivalent,&mdash;in those days, I say, when there was
+something more to be anticipated and remembered in the first
+aspect of each successive halting-place, than a new arrangement
+of glass roofing and iron girder, there were few moments of
+which the recollection was more fondly cherished by the
+traveller than that which, as I endeavored to describe in the
+close of the last chapter, brought him within sight of Venice,
+as his gondola shot into the open lagoon from the canal of
+Mestre. Not but that the aspect of the city itself was generally
+the source of some slight disappointment, for, seen in this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page002"></a>2</span>
+direction, its buildings are far less characteristic than those of
+the other great towns of Italy; but this inferiority was partly
+disguised by distance, and more than atoned for by the strange
+rising of its walls and towers out of the midst, as it seemed, of
+the deep sea, for it was impossible that the mind or the eye
+could at once comprehend the shallowness of the vast sheet of
+water which stretched away in leagues of rippling lustre to the
+north and south, or trace the narrow line of islets bounding it
+to the east. The salt breeze, the white moaning sea-birds, the
+masses of black weed separating and disappearing gradually, in
+knots of heaving shoal, under the advance of the steady tide,
+all proclaimed it to be indeed the ocean on whose bosom the
+great city rested so calmly; not such blue, soft, lake-like ocean
+as bathes the Neapolitan promontories, or sleeps beneath the
+marble rocks of Genoa, but a sea with the bleak power of our
+own northern waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious rest,
+and changed from its angry pallor into a field of burnished
+gold, as the sun declined behind the belfry tower of the lonely
+island church, fitly named &ldquo;St. George of the Seaweed.&rdquo; As
+the boat drew nearer to the city, the coast which the traveller
+had just left sank behind him into one long, low, sad-colored
+line, tufted irregularly with brushwood and willows: but, at
+what seemed its northern extremity, the hills of Arqua rose in
+a dark cluster of purple pyramids, balanced on the bright mirage
+of the lagoon; two or three smooth surges of inferior hill extended
+themselves about their roots, and beyond these, beginning
+with the craggy peaks above Vicenza, the chain of the
+Alps girded the whole horizon to the north&mdash;a wall of jagged
+blue, here and there showing through its clefts a wilderness of
+misty precipices, fading far back into the recesses of Cadore,
+and itself rising and breaking away eastward, where the sun
+struck opposite upon its snow, into mighty fragments of
+peaked light, standing up behind the barred clouds of evening,
+one after another, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea, until
+the eye turned back from pursuing them, to rest upon the
+nearer burning of the campaniles of Murano, and on the great
+city, where it magnified itself along the waves, as the quick
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page003"></a>3</span>
+silent pacing of the gondola drew nearer and nearer. And at
+last, when its walls were reached, and the outmost of its untrodden
+streets was entered, not through towered gate or
+guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two rocks of
+coral in the Indian sea; when first upon the traveller&rsquo;s sight
+opened the long ranges of columned palaces,&mdash;each with its
+black boat moored at the portal,&mdash;each with its image cast
+down, beneath its feet, upon that green pavement which every
+breeze broke into new fantasies of rich tessellation; when first,
+at the extremity of the bright vista, the shadowy Rialto threw
+its colossal curve slowly forth from behind the palace of the
+Camerlenghi; that strange curve, so delicate, so adamantine,
+strong as a mountain cavern, graceful as a bow just bent;
+when first, before its moonlike circumference was all risen, the
+gondolier&rsquo;s cry, &ldquo;Ah! Stalí,&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"><span class="sp">1</span></a> struck sharp upon the ear, and
+the prow turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met
+over the narrow canal, where the plash of the water followed
+close and loud, ringing along the marble by the boat&rsquo;s side;
+and when at last that boat darted forth upon the breadth of
+silver sea, across which the front of the Ducal palace, flushed
+with its sanguine veins, looks to the snowy dome of Our Lady
+of Salvation,<a name="FnAnchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"><span class="sp">2</span></a> it was no marvel that the mind should be so
+deeply entranced by the visionary charm of a scene so beautiful
+and so strange, as to forget the darker truths of its history
+and its being. Well might it seem that such a city had owed
+her existence rather to the rod of the enchanter, than the fear
+of the fugitive; that the waters which encircled her had been
+chosen for the mirror of her state, rather than the shelter of
+her nakedness; and that all which in nature was wild or merciless,&mdash;Time
+and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests,&mdash;had
+been won to adorn her instead of to destroy, and might
+still spare, for ages to come, that beauty which seemed to have
+fixed for its throne the sands of the hour-glass as well as of the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II.</span> And although the last few eventful years, fraught with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page004"></a>4</span>
+change to the face of the whole earth, have been more fatal in
+their influence on Venice than the five hundred that preceded
+them; though the noble landscape of approach to her can now
+be seen no more, or seen only by a glance, as the engine slackens
+its rushing on the iron line; and though many of her palaces
+are for ever defaced, and many in desecrated ruins, there is
+still so much of magic in her aspect, that the hurried traveller,
+who must leave her before the wonder of that first aspect has
+been worn away, may still be led to forget the humility of her
+origin, and to shut his eyes to the depth of her desolation.
+They, at least, are little to be envied, in whose hearts the great
+charities of the imagination lie dead, and for whom the fancy
+has no power to repress the importunity of painful impressions,
+or to raise what is ignoble, and disguise what is discordant, in a
+scene so rich in its remembrances, so surpassing in its beauty.
+But for this work of the imagination there must be no permission
+during the task which is before us. The impotent feelings
+of romance, so singularly characteristic of this century,
+may indeed gild, but never save the remains of those mightier
+ages to which they are attached like climbing flowers; and
+they must be torn away from the magnificent fragments, if we
+would see them as they stood in their own strength. Those
+feelings, always as fruitless as they are fond, are in Venice not
+only incapable of protecting, but even of discerning, the objects
+to which they ought to have been attached. The Venice of
+modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence
+of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight
+must dissipate into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth
+remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed
+that &ldquo;Bridge of Sighs,&rdquo; which is the centre of the Byronic
+ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that
+Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless
+interest: the statue which Byron makes Faliero address as of
+one of his great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune a
+hundred and fifty years after Faliero&rsquo;s death; and the most
+conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely altered in
+the course of the last three centuries, that if Henry Dandolo or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page005"></a>5</span>
+Francis Foscari could be summoned from their tombs, and
+stood each on the deck of his galley at the entrance of the
+Grand Canal, that renowned entrance, the painter&rsquo;s favorite
+subject, the novelist&rsquo;s favorite scene, where the water first narrows
+by the steps of the Church of La Salute,&mdash;the mighty
+Doges would not know in what spot of the world they stood,
+would literally not recognize one stone of the great city, for
+whose sake, and by whose ingratitude, their grey hairs had
+been brought down with bitterness to the grave. The remains
+of <i>their</i> Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which
+were the delight of the nation in its dotage; hidden in many a
+grass-grown court, and silent pathway, and lightless canal, where
+the slow waves have sapped their foundations for five hundred
+years, and must soon prevail over them for ever. It must be
+our task to glean and gather them forth, and restore out of
+them some faint image of the lost city, more gorgeous a thousand-fold
+than that which now exists, yet not created in the
+day-dream of the prince, nor by the ostentation of the noble,
+but built by iron hands and patient hearts, contending against
+the adversity of nature and the fury of man, so that its wonderfulness
+cannot be grasped by the indolence of imagination, but
+only after frank inquiry into the true nature of that wild and
+solitary scene, whose restless tides and trembling sands did indeed
+shelter the birth of the city, but long denied her dominion.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III.</span> When the eye falls casually on a map of Europe, there
+is no feature by which it is more likely to be arrested than the
+strange sweeping loop formed by the junction of the Alps and
+Apennines, and enclosing the great basin of Lombardy. This
+return of the mountain chain upon itself causes a vast difference
+in the character of the distribution of its débris on its opposite
+sides. The rock fragments and sediment which the torrents on
+the north side of the Alps bear into the plains are distributed
+over a vast extent of country, and, though here and there
+lodged in beds of enormous thickness, soon permit the firm
+substrata to appear from underneath them; but all the torrents
+which descend from the southern side of the High Alps, and
+from the northern slope of the Apennines, meet concentrically
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page006"></a>6</span>
+in the recess or mountain bay which the two ridges enclose;
+every fragment which thunder breaks out of their battlements,
+and every grain of dust which the summer rain washes from
+their pastures, is at last laid at rest in the blue sweep of the
+Lombardic plain; and that plain must have risen within its
+rocky barriers as a cup fills with wine, but for two contrary influences
+which continually depress, or disperse from its surface,
+the accumulation of the ruins of ages.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV.</span> I will not tax the reader&rsquo;s faith in modern science by
+insisting on the singular depression of the surface of Lombardy,
+which appears for many centuries to have taken place steadily
+and continually; the main fact with which we have to do is
+the gradual transport, by the Po and its great collateral rivers,
+of vast masses of the finer sediment to the sea. The character
+of the Lombardic plains is most strikingly expressed by the
+ancient walls of its cities, composed for the most part of large
+rounded Alpine pebbles alternating with narrow courses of
+brick; and was curiously illustrated in 1848, by the ramparts
+of these same pebbles thrown up four or five feet high round
+every field, to check the Austrian cavalry in the battle under
+the walls of Verona. The finer dust among which these pebbles
+are dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed into continual
+strength by the Alpine snow, so that, however pure their waters
+may be when they issue from the lakes at the foot of the great
+chain, they become of the color and opacity of clay before they
+reach the Adriatic; the sediment which they bear is at once
+thrown down as they enter the sea, forming a vast belt of low
+land along the eastern coast of Italy. The powerful stream of
+the Po of course builds forward the fastest; on each side of it,
+north and south, there is a tract of marsh, fed by more feeble
+streams, and less liable to rapid change than the delta of the
+central river. In one of these tracts is built <span class="sc">Ravenna</span>, and in
+the other <span class="sc">Venice</span>.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V.</span> What circumstances directed the peculiar arrangement
+of this great belt of sediment in the earliest times, it is not here
+the place to inquire. It is enough for us to know that from
+the mouths of the Adige to those of the Piave there stretches,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page007"></a>7</span>
+at a variable distance of from three to five miles from the
+actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into long islands by narrow
+channels of sea. The space between this bank and the true
+shore consists of the sedimentary deposits from these and other
+rivers, a great plain of calcareous mud, covered, in the neighborhood
+of Venice, by the sea at high water, to the depth in
+most places of a foot or a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere
+exposed at low tide, but divided by an intricate network of
+narrow and winding channels, from which the sea never retires.
+In some places, according to the run of the currents, the land
+has risen into marshy islets, consolidated, some by art, and some
+by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon, or fruitful
+enough to be cultivated: in others, on the contrary, it has not
+reached the sea-level; so that, at the average low water, shallow
+lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of seaweed.
+In the midst of the largest of these, increased in importance by
+the confluence of several large river channels towards one of
+the openings in the sea bank, the city of Venice itself is built,
+on a crowded cluster of islands; the various plots of higher
+ground which appear to the north and south of this central
+cluster, have at different periods been also thickly inhabited,
+and now bear, according to their size, the remains of cities, villages,
+or isolated convents and churches, scattered among spaces
+of open ground, partly waste and encumbered by ruins, partly
+under cultivation for the supply of the metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI</span>. The average rise and fall of the tide is about three
+feet (varying considerably with the seasons<a name="FnAnchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"><span class="sp">3</span></a>); but this fall, on
+so flat a shore, is enough to cause continual movement in the
+waters, and in the main canals to produce a reflux which frequently
+runs like a mill stream. At high water no land is
+visible for many miles to the north or south of Venice, except
+in the form of small islands crowned with towers or gleaming
+with villages: there is a channel, some three miles wide, between
+the city and the mainland, and some mile and a half
+wide between it and the sandy breakwater called the Lido,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page008"></a>8</span>
+which divides the lagoon from the Adriatic, but which is so
+low as hardly to disturb the impression of the city&rsquo;s having been
+built in the midst of the ocean, although the secret of its true
+position is partly, yet not painfully, betrayed by the clusters of
+piles set to mark the deep-water channels, which undulate far
+away in spotty chains like the studded backs of huge sea-snakes,
+and by the quick glittering of the crisped and crowded waves
+that flicker and dance before the strong winds upon the unlifted
+level of the shallow sea. But the scene is widely different at
+low tide. A fall of eighteen or twenty inches is enough to
+show ground over the greater part of the lagoon; and at the
+complete ebb the city is seen standing in the midst of a dark
+plain of seaweed, of gloomy green, except only where the
+larger branches of the Brenta and its associated streams converge
+towards the port of the Lido. Through this salt and sombre
+plain the gondola and the fishing-boat advance by tortuous
+channels, seldom more than four or five feet deep, and often so
+choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow the bottom
+till their crossing tracks are seen through the clear sea water
+like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes
+upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the
+thick weed that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen
+waves, leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted
+tide. The scene is often profoundly oppressive, even
+at this day, when every plot of higher ground bears some fragment
+of fair building: but, in order to know what it was once,
+let the traveller follow in his boat at evening the windings of
+some unfrequented channel far into the midst of the melancholy
+plain; let him remove, in his imagination, the brightness
+of the great city that still extends itself in the distance, and the
+walls and towers from the islands that are near; and so wait,
+until the bright investiture and sweet warmth of the sunset
+are withdrawn from the waters, and the black desert of their
+shore lies in its nakedness beneath the night, pathless, comfortless,
+infirm, lost in dark languor and fearful silence, except
+where the salt runlets plash into the tideless pools, or the sea-birds
+flit from their margins with a questioning cry; and he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page009"></a>9</span>
+will be enabled to enter in some sort into the horror of heart
+with which this solitude was anciently chosen by man for his
+habitation. They little thought, who first drove the stakes into
+the sand, and strewed the ocean reeds for their rest, that their
+children were to be the princes of that ocean, and their palaces
+its pride; and yet, in the great natural laws that rule that sorrowful
+wilderness, let it be remembered what strange preparation
+had been made for the things which no human imagination
+could have foretold, and how the whole existence and fortune
+of the Venetian nation were anticipated or compelled, by
+the setting of those bars and doors to the rivers and the sea.
+Had deeper currents divided their islands, hostile navies would
+again and again have reduced the rising city into servitude;
+had stronger surges beaten their shores, all the richness and refinement
+of the Venetian architecture must have been exchanged
+for the walls and bulwarks of an ordinary sea-port.
+Had there been no tide, as in other parts of the Mediterranean,
+the narrow canals of the city would have become noisome, and
+the marsh in which it was built pestiferous. Had the tide
+been only a foot or eighteen inches higher in its rise, the water-access
+to the doors of the palaces would have been impossible:
+even as it is, there is sometimes a little difficulty, at the ebb, in
+landing without setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps:
+and the highest tides sometimes enter the courtyards, and overflow
+the entrance halls. Eighteen inches more of difference
+between the level of the flood and ebb would have rendered
+the doorsteps of every palace, at low water, a treacherous mass
+of weeds and limpets, and the entire system of water-carriage
+for the higher classes, in their easy and daily intercourse, must
+have been done away with. The streets of the city would have
+been widened, its network of canals filled up, and all the peculiar
+character of the place and the people destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII</span>. The reader may perhaps have felt some pain in the
+contrast between this faithful view of the site of the Venetian
+Throne, and the romantic conception of it which we ordinarily
+form; but this pain, if he have felt it, ought to be more than
+counterbalanced by the value of the instance thus afforded to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page010"></a>10</span>
+us at once of the inscrutableness and the wisdom of the ways of
+God. If, two thousand years ago, we had been permitted to
+watch the slow settling of the slime of those turbid rivers into
+the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters
+of the lifeless, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could
+we have understood the purpose with which those islands were
+shaped out of the void, and the torpid waters enclosed with
+their desolate walls of sand! How little could we have known,
+any more than of what now seems to us most distressful, dark,
+and objectless, the glorious aim which was then in the mind of
+Him in whose hand are all the corners of the earth! how little
+imagined that in the laws which were stretching forth the
+gloomy margins of those fruitless banks, and feeding the bitter
+grass among their shallows, there was indeed a preparation, and
+<i>the only preparation possible</i>, for the founding of a city which
+was to be set like a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to
+write her history on the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to
+word it in their thunder, and to gather and give forth, in worldwide
+pulsation, the glory of the West and of the East, from the
+burning heart of her Fortitude and Splendor.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FnAnchor_1"><span class="fn">1</span></a> <a href="#app_1">Appendix 1</a>, &ldquo;The Gondolier&rsquo;s Cry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FnAnchor_2"><span class="fn">2</span></a> <a href="#app_2">Appendix 2</a>, &ldquo;Our Lady of Salvation.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FnAnchor_3"><span class="fn">3</span></a> <a href="#app_3">Appendix 3</a>, &ldquo;Tides of Venice.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page011"></a>11</span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="chap_2"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h5>TORCELLO.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I</span>. Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand,
+which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by
+degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of
+salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted
+by narrow creeks of sea. One of the feeblest of these
+inlets, after winding for some time among buried fragments of
+masonry, and knots of sunburnt weeds whitened with webs of
+fucus, stays itself in an utterly stagnant pool beside a plot of
+greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this
+mound is built a rude brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic
+type, which if we ascend towards evening (and there are
+none to hinder us, the door of its ruinous staircase swinging
+idly on its hinges), we may command from it one of the most
+notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far as the eye can
+reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey; not like
+our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple
+heath, but lifeless, the color of sackcloth, with the corrupted
+sea-water soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and
+gleaming hither and thither through its snaky channels. No
+gathering of fantastic mists, nor coursing of clouds across it;
+but melancholy clearness of space in the warm sunset, oppressive,
+reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To the very
+horizon, on the north-east; but, to the north and west, there is
+a blue line of higher land along the border of it, and above this,
+but farther back, a misty band of mountains, touched with
+snow. To the east, the paleness and roar of the Adriatic,
+louder at momentary intervals as the surf breaks on the bars of
+sand; to the south, the widening branches of the calm lagoon,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page012"></a>12</span>
+alternately purple and pale green, as they reflect the evening
+clouds or twilight sky; and almost beneath our feet, on the
+same field which sustains the tower we gaze from, a group
+of four buildings, two of them little larger than cottages
+(though built of stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry),
+the third an octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little
+more than the flat red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a
+considerable church with nave and aisles, but of which, in like
+manner, we can see little but the long central ridge and lateral
+slopes of roof, which the sunlight separates in one glowing mass
+from the green field beneath and grey moor beyond. There
+are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any vestige of
+village or city round about them. They lie like a little company
+of ships becalmed on a far-away sea.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II</span>. Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening
+branches of the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into
+which they gather, there are a multitude of towers, dark, and
+scattered among square-set shapes of clustered palaces, a long
+and irregular line fretting the southern sky.</p>
+
+<p>Mother and daughter, you behold them both in their
+widowhood,&mdash;<span class="sc">Torcello</span> and <span class="sc">Venice</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Thirteen hundred years ago, the grey moorland looked as it
+does this day, and the purple mountains stood as radiantly in
+the deep distances of evening; but on the line of the horizon,
+there were strange fires mixed with the light of sunset, and the
+lament of many human voices mixed with the fretting of the
+waves on their ridges of sand. The flames rose from the ruins
+of Altinum; the lament from the multitude of its people, seeking,
+like Israel of old, a refuge from the sword in the paths of
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The cattle are feeding and resting upon the site of the city
+that they left; the mower&rsquo;s scythe swept this day at dawn over
+the chief street of the city that they built, and the swathes of
+soft grass are now sending up their scent into the night air, the
+only incense that fills the temple of their ancient worship.
+Let us go down into that little space of meadow land.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III</span>. The inlet which runs nearest to the base of the campanile
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page013"></a>13</span>
+is not that by which Torcello is commonly approached.
+Another, somewhat broader, and overhung by alder copse,
+winds out of the main channel of the lagoon up to the very
+edge of the little meadow which was once the Piazza of the
+city, and there, stayed by a few grey stones which present some
+semblance of a quay, forms its boundary at one extremity.
+Hardly larger than an ordinary English farmyard, and roughly
+enclosed on each side by broken palings and hedges of honeysuckle
+and briar, the narrow field retires from the water&rsquo;s
+edge, traversed by a scarcely traceable footpath, for some forty
+or fifty paces, and then expanding into the form of a small
+square, with buildings on three sides of it, the fourth being
+that which opens to the water. Two of these, that on our left
+and that in front of us as we approach from the canal, are so
+small that they might well be taken for the out-houses of the
+farm, though the first is a conventual building, and the other
+aspires to the title of the &ldquo;Palazzo publico,&rdquo; both dating as far
+back as the beginning of the fourteenth century; the third, the
+octagonal church of Santa Fosca, is far more ancient than
+either, yet hardly on a larger scale. Though the pillars of the
+portico which surrounds it are of pure Greek marble, and their
+capitals are enriched with delicate sculpture, they, and the
+arches they sustain, together only raise the roof to the height
+of a cattle-shed; and the first strong impression which the
+spectator receives from the whole scene is, that whatever sin it
+may have been which has on this spot been visited with so
+utter a desolation, it could not at least have been ambition.
+Nor will this impression be diminished as we approach, or
+enter, the larger church to which the whole group of building
+is subordinate. It has evidently been built by men in flight
+and distress,<a name="FnAnchor_4" href="#Footnote_4"><span class="sp">4</span></a> who sought in the hurried erection of their island
+church such a shelter for their earnest and sorrowful worship
+as, on the one hand, could not attract the eyes of their enemies
+by its splendor, and yet, on the other, might not awaken too
+bitter feelings by its contrast with the churches which they had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page014"></a>14</span>
+seen destroyed. There is visible everywhere a simple and tender
+effort to recover some of the form of the temples which
+they had loved, and to do honor to God by that which they
+were erecting, while distress and humiliation prevented the
+desire, and prudence precluded the admission, either of luxury
+of ornament or magnificence of plan. The exterior is absolutely
+devoid of decoration, with the exception only of the western
+entrance and the lateral door, of which the former has
+carved sideposts and architrave, and the latter, crosses of rich
+sculpture; while the massy stone shutters of the windows,
+turning on huge rings of stone, which answer the double purpose
+of stanchions and brackets, cause the whole building
+rather to resemble a refuge from Alpine storm than the cathedral
+of a populous city; and, internally, the two solemn mosaics
+of the eastern and western extremities,&mdash;one representing
+the Last Judgment, the other the Madonna, her tears falling
+as her hands are raised to bless,&mdash;and the noble range of pillars
+which enclose the space between, terminated by the high
+throne for the pastor and the semicircular raised seats for the
+superior clergy, are expressive at once of the deep sorrow and
+the sacred courage of men who had no home left them upon
+earth, but who looked for one to come, of men &ldquo;persecuted but
+not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV</span>. I am not aware of any other early church in Italy
+which has this peculiar expression in so marked a degree; and
+it is so consistent with all that Christian architecture ought to
+express in every age (for the actual condition of the exiles who
+built the cathedral of Torcello is exactly typical of the spiritual
+condition which every Christian ought to recognize in himself,
+a state of homelessness on earth, except so far as he can make
+the Most High his habitation), that I would rather fix the mind
+of the reader on this general character than on the separate details,
+however interesting, of the architecture itself. I shall
+therefore examine these only so far as is necessary to give a
+clear idea of the means by which the peculiar expression of the
+building is attained.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">I.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_1"><img src="images/img014.jpg" width="393" height="650" alt="PLANS OF TORCELLO AND MURANO." title="PLANS OF TORCELLO AND MURANO." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">PLANS OF TORCELLO AND MURANO.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V</span>. On the opposite page, the uppermost figure, 1, is a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page015"></a>15</span>
+rude plan of the church. I do not answer for the thickness and
+external disposition of the walls, which are not to our present
+purpose, and which I have not carefully examined; but the
+interior arrangement is given with sufficient accuracy. The
+church is built on the usual plan of the Basilica<a name="FnAnchor_5" href="#Footnote_5"><span class="sp">5</span></a> that is to say,
+its body divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of massive
+shafts, the roof of the nave being raised high above the aisles
+by walls sustained on two ranks of pillars, and pierced with
+small arched windows. At Torcello the aisles are also lighted
+in the same manner, and the nave is nearly twice their breadth.<a name="FnAnchor_6" href="#Footnote_6"><span class="sp">6</span></a></p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">II.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_2"><img src="images/img015.jpg" width="414" height="650" alt="THE ACANTHUS OF TORCELLO." title="THE ACANTHUS OF TORCELLO." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">THE ACANTHUS OF TORCELLO.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The capitals of all the great shafts are of white marble, and
+are among the best I have ever seen, as examples of perfectly
+calculated effect from every touch of the chisel. Mr. Hope
+calls them &ldquo;indifferently imitated from the Corinthian:&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_7" href="#Footnote_7"><span class="sp">7</span></a> but
+the expression is as inaccurate as it is unjust; every one of
+them is different in design, and their variations are as graceful
+as they are fanciful. I could not, except by an elaborate drawing,
+give any idea of the sharp, dark, deep penetrations of the
+chisel into their snowy marble, but a single example is given
+in the opposite plate, fig. 1, of the nature of the changes effected
+in them from the Corinthian type. In this capital, although
+a kind of acanthus (only with rounded lobes) is indeed used for
+the upper range of leaves, the lower range is not acanthus at
+all, but a kind of vine, or at least that species of plant which
+stands for vine in all early Lombardic and Byzantine work
+(vide Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#app_8">Appendix 8</a>); the leaves are trefoiled, and the
+stalks cut clear so that they might be grasped with the hand,
+and cast sharp dark shadows, perpetually changing, across the
+bell of the capital behind them. I have drawn one of these
+vine plants larger in fig. 2, that the reader may see how little
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page016"></a>16</span>
+imitation of the Corinthian there is in them, and how boldly
+the stems of the leaves are detached from the ground. But
+there is another circumstance in this ornament still more noticeable.
+The band which encircles the shaft beneath the spring
+of the leaves is copied from the common classical wreathed or
+braided fillet, of which the reader may see
+examples on almost every building of any
+pretensions in modern London. But the
+medićval builders could not be content with
+the dead and meaningless scroll: the Gothic energy and love
+of life, mingled with the early Christian religious symbolism,
+were struggling daily into more vigorous expression, and they
+turned the wreathed band into a serpent of three times the
+length necessary to undulate round the shaft, which, knotting
+itself into a triple chain, shows at one side of the shaft its tail
+and head, as if perpetually gliding round it beneath the stalks
+of the vines. The vine, as is well known, was one of the early
+symbols of Christ, and the serpent is here typical either of the
+eternity of his dominion, or of the Satanic power subdued.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft1">
+    <a name="fig_1"><img src="images/img016.jpg" width="130" height="49" alt="Fig. 1." title="Fig. 1." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption"><span class="sc">Fig. 1.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI.</span> Nor even when the builder confines himself to the
+acanthus leaf (or to that representation of it, hereafter to be
+more particularly examined, constant in Romanesque work) can
+his imagination allow him to rest content with its accustomed
+position. In a common Corinthian capital the leaves nod forward
+only, thrown out on every side from the bell which they
+surround: but at the base of one of the capitals on the opposite
+side of the nave from this of the vines,<a name="FnAnchor_8" href="#Footnote_8"><span class="sp">8</span></a> two leaves are introduced
+set with their sides outwards, forming spirals by curling
+back, half-closed, in the position shown in fig. 4 in <a href="#plate_2">Plate
+II.</a>, there represented as in a real acanthus leaf; for it will assist
+our future inquiries into the ornamentation of capitals that
+the reader should be acquainted with the form of the acanthus
+leaf itself. I have drawn it, therefore, in the two positions,
+figs. 3 and 4 in <a href="#plate_2">Plate II.</a>; while fig. 5 is the translation of the
+latter form into marble by the sculptor of Torcello. It is not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page017"></a>17</span>
+very like the acanthus, but much liker than any Greek work;
+though still entirely conventional in its cinquefoiled lobes.
+But these are disposed with the most graceful freedom of line,
+separated at the roots by deep drill holes, which tell upon the
+eye far away like beads of jet; and changed, before they become
+too crowded to be effective, into a vigorous and simple
+zigzagged edge, which saves the designer some embarrassment
+in the perspective of the terminating spiral. But his feeling
+of nature was greater than his knowledge of perspective; and
+it is delightful to see how he has rooted the whole leaf in the
+strong rounded under-stem, the indication of its closing with
+its face inwards, and has thus given organization and elasticity
+to the lovely group of spiral lines; a group of which, even in
+the lifeless sea-shell, we are never weary, but which becomes
+yet more delightful when the ideas of elasticity and growth
+are joined to the sweet succession of its involution.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII.</span> It is not, however, to be expected that either the
+mute language of early Christianity (however important a part
+of the expression of the building at the time of its erection), or
+the delicate fancies of the Gothic leafage springing into new
+life, should be read, or perceived, by the passing traveller who
+has never been taught to expect anything in architecture except
+five orders: yet he can hardly fail to be struck by the
+simplicity and dignity of the great shafts themselves; by the
+frank diffusion of light, which prevents their severity from
+becoming oppressive; by the delicate forms and lovely carving
+of the pulpit and chancel screen; and, above all, by the peculiar
+aspect of the eastern extremity of the church, which, instead
+of being withdrawn, as in later cathedrals, into a chapel
+dedicated to the Virgin, or contributing by the brilliancy of
+its windows to the splendor of the altar, and theatrical effect of
+the ceremonies performed there, is a simple and stern semicircular
+recess, filled beneath by three ranks of seats, raised one
+above the other, for the bishop and presbyters, that they might
+watch as well as guide the devotions of the people, and discharge
+literally in the daily service the functions of bishops or
+<i>overseers</i> of the flock of God.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page018"></a>18</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VIII.</span> Let us consider a little each of these characters in
+succession; and first (for of the shafts enough has been said
+already), what is very peculiar to this church, its luminousness.
+This perhaps strikes the traveller more from its contrast with
+the excessive gloom of the Church of St. Mark&rsquo;s; but it is
+remarkable when we compare the Cathedral of Torcello with
+any of the contemporary basilicas in South Italy or Lombardic
+churches in the North. St. Ambrogio at Milan, St. Michele
+at Pavia, St. Zeno at Verona, St. Frediano at Lucca, St. Miniato
+at Florence, are all like sepulchral caverns compared with Torcello,
+where the slightest details of the sculptures and mosaics
+are visible, even when twilight is deepening. And there is
+something especially touching in our finding the sunshine thus
+freely admitted into a church built by men in sorrow. They
+did not need the darkness; they could not perhaps bear it.
+There was fear and depression upon them enough, without a
+material gloom. They sought for comfort in their religion, for
+tangible hopes and promises, not for threatenings or mysteries;
+and though the subjects chosen for the mosaics on the walls
+are of the most solemn character, there are no artificial shadows
+cast upon them, nor dark colors used in them: all is fair and
+bright, and intended evidently to be regarded in hopefulness,
+and not with terror.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IX.</span> For observe this choice of subjects. It is indeed possible
+that the walls of the nave and aisles, which are now
+whitewashed, may have been covered with fresco or mosaic,
+and thus have supplied a series of subjects, on the choice of
+which we cannot speculate. I do not, however, find record of
+the destruction of any such works; and I am rather inclined
+to believe that at any rate the central division of the building
+was originally decorated, as it is now, simply by mosaics representing
+Christ, the Virgin, and the apostles, at one extremity,
+and Christ coming to judgment at the other. And if so, I repeat,
+observe the significance of this choice. Most other early
+churches are covered with imagery sufficiently suggestive of
+the vivid interest of the builders in the history and occupations
+of the world. Symbols or representations of political
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page019"></a>19</span>
+events, portraits of living persons, and sculptures of satirical,
+grotesque, or trivial subjects are of constant occurrence, mingled
+with the more strictly appointed representations of scriptural
+or ecclesiastical history; but at Torcello even these
+usual, and one should have thought almost necessary, successions
+of Bible events do not appear. The mind of the worshipper
+was fixed entirely upon two great facts, to him the
+most precious of all facts,&mdash;the present mercy of Christ to His
+Church, and His future coming to judge the world. That
+Christ&rsquo;s mercy was, at this period, supposed chiefly to be attainable
+through the pleading of the Virgin, and that therefore
+beneath the figure of the Redeemer is seen that of the
+weeping Madonna in the act of intercession, may indeed be
+matter of sorrow to the Protestant beholder, but ought not to
+blind him to the earnestness and singleness of the faith with
+which these men sought their sea-solitudes; not in hope of
+founding new dynasties, or entering upon new epochs of prosperity,
+but only to humble themselves before God, and to pray
+that in His infinite mercy He would hasten the time when the
+sea should give up the dead which were in it, and Death and
+Hell give up the dead which were in them, and when they
+might enter into the better kingdom, &ldquo;where the wicked cease
+from troubling and the weary are at rest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">X.</span> Nor were the strength and elasticity of their minds,
+even in the least matters, diminished by thus looking forward
+to the close of all things. On the contrary, nothing is more
+remarkable than the finish and beauty of all the portions of
+the building, which seem to have been actually executed for
+the place they occupy in the present structure. The rudest
+are those which they brought with them from the mainland;
+the best and most beautiful, those which appear to have been
+carved for their island church: of these, the new capitals already
+noticed, and the exquisite panel ornaments of the chancel
+screen, are the most conspicuous; the latter form a low
+wall across the church between the six small shafts whose
+places are seen in the plan, and serve to enclose a space raised
+two steps above the level of the nave, destined for the singers,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page020"></a>20</span>
+and indicated also in the plan by an open line <i>a b c d</i>. The
+bas-reliefs on this low screen are groups of peacocks and lions,
+two face to face on each panel, rich and fantastic beyond description,
+though not expressive of very accurate knowledge
+either of leonine or pavonine forms. And it is not until we
+pass to the back of the stair of the pulpit, which is connected
+with the northern extremity of this screen, that we find evidence
+of the haste with which the church was constructed.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XI.</span> The pulpit, however, is not among the least noticeable
+of its features. It is sustained on the four small detached
+shafts marked at <i>p</i> in the plan, between the two pillars at the
+north side of the screen; both pillars and pulpit studiously
+plain, while the staircase which ascends to it is a compact mass
+of masonry (shaded in the plan), faced by carved slabs of marble;
+the parapet of the staircase being also formed of solid
+blocks like paving-stones, lightened by rich, but not deep, exterior
+carving. Now these blocks, or at least those which
+adorn the staircase towards the aisle, have been brought from
+the mainland; and, being of size and shape not easily to be
+adjusted to the proportions of the stair, the architect has cut
+out of them pieces of the size he needed, utterly regardless of
+the subject or symmetry of the original design. The pulpit is
+not the only place where this rough procedure has been permitted:
+at the lateral door of the church are two crosses, cut
+out of slabs of marble, formerly covered with rich sculpture
+over their whole surfaces, of which portions are left on the surface
+of the crosses; the lines of the original design being, of
+course, just as arbitrarily cut by the incisions between the
+arms, as the patterns upon a piece of silk which has been
+shaped anew. The fact is, that in all early Romanesque work,
+large surfaces are covered with sculpture for the sake of enrichment
+only; sculpture which indeed had always meaning,
+because it was easier for the sculptor to work with some chain
+of thought to guide his chisel, than without any; but it was
+not always intended, or at least not always hoped, that this
+chain of thought might be traced by the spectator. All that
+was proposed appears to have been the enrichment of surface,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page021"></a>21</span>
+so as to make it delightful to the eye; and this being once
+understood, a decorated piece of marble became to the architect
+just what a piece of lace or embroidery is to a dressmaker, who
+takes of it such portions as she may require, with little regard
+to the places where the patterns are divided. And though it
+may appear, at first sight, that the procedure is indicative of
+bluntness and rudeness of feeling, we may perceive, upon reflection,
+that it may also indicate the redundance of power
+which sets little price upon its own exertion. When a barbarous
+nation builds its fortress-walls out of fragments of the
+refined architecture it has overthrown, we can read nothing
+but its savageness in the vestiges of art which may thus chance
+to have been preserved; but when the new work is equal, if
+not superior, in execution, to the pieces of the older art which
+are associated with it, we may justly conclude that the rough
+treatment to which the latter have been subjected is rather a
+sign of the hope of doing better things, than of want of feeling
+for those already accomplished. And, in general, this careless
+fitting of ornament is, in very truth, an evidence of life in the
+school of builders, and of their making a due distinction between
+work which is to be used for architectural effect, and
+work which is to possess an abstract perfection; and it commonly
+shows also that the exertion of design is so easy to
+them, and their fertility so inexhaustible, that they feel no remorse
+in using somewhat injuriously what they can replace
+with so slight an effort.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XII.</span> It appears however questionable in the present instance,
+whether, if the marbles had not been carved to his hand,
+the architect would have taken the trouble to enrich them. For
+the execution of the rest of the pulpit is studiously simple, and
+it is in this respect that its design possesses, it seems to me,
+an interest to the religious spectator greater than he will take
+in any other portion of the building. It is supported, as I said,
+on a group of four slender shafts; itself of a slightly oval form,
+extending nearly from one pillar of the nave to the next, so as
+to give the preacher free room for the action of the entire
+person, which always gives an unaffected impressiveness to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page022"></a>22</span>
+eloquence of the southern nations. In the centre of its curved
+front, a small bracket and detached shaft sustain the projection
+of a narrow marble desk (occupying the place of a cushion in a
+modern pulpit), which is hollowed out into a shallow curve on
+the upper surface, leaving a ledge at the bottom of the slab, so
+that a book laid upon it, or rather into it, settles itself there,
+opening as if by instinct, but without the least chance of slipping
+to the side, or in any way moving beneath the preacher&rsquo;s
+hands.<a name="FnAnchor_9" href="#Footnote_9"><span class="sp">9</span></a> Six balls, or rather almonds, of purple marble veined
+with white are set round the edge of the pulpit, and form its
+only decoration. Perfectly graceful, but severe and almost cold
+in its simplicity, built for permanence and service, so that no
+single member, no stone of it, could be spared, and yet all are
+firm and uninjured as when they were first set together, it
+stands in venerable contrast both with the fantastic pulpits of
+medićval cathedrals and with the rich furniture of those of our
+modern churches. It is worth while pausing for a moment to
+consider how far the manner of decorating a pulpit may have
+influence on the efficiency of its service, and whether our modern
+treatment of this, to us all-important, feature of a church be the
+best possible.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIII.</span> When the sermon is good we need not much concern
+ourselves about the form of the pulpit. But sermons cannot
+always be good; and I believe that the temper in which the
+congregation set themselves to listen may be in some degree
+modified by their perception of fitness or unfitness, impressiveness
+or vulgarity, in the disposition of the place appointed for
+the speaker,&mdash;not to the same degree, but somewhat in the
+same way, that they may be influenced by his own gestures or
+expression, irrespective of the sense of what he says. I believe,
+therefore, in the first place, that pulpits ought never to be
+highly decorated; the speaker is apt to look mean or diminutive
+if the pulpit is either on a very large scale or covered with
+splendid ornament, and if the interest of the sermon should
+flag the mind is instantly tempted to wander. I have observed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page023"></a>23</span>
+that in almost all cathedrals, when the pulpits are peculiarly
+magnificent, sermons are not often preached from them; but
+rather, and especially if for any important purpose, from some
+temporary erection in other parts of the building: and though
+this may often be done because the architect has consulted the
+effect upon the eye more than the convenience of the ear in the
+placing of his larger pulpit, I think it also proceeds in some
+measure from a natural dislike in the preacher to match himself
+with the magnificence of the rostrum, lest the sermon
+should not be thought worthy of the place. Yet this will
+rather hold of the colossal sculptures, and pyramids of fantastic
+tracery which encumber the pulpits of Flemish and German
+churches, than of the delicate mosaics and ivory-like carving of
+the Romanesque basilicas, for when the form is kept simple,
+much loveliness of color and costliness of work may be introduced,
+and yet the speaker not be thrown into the shade by
+them.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIV.</span> But, in the second place, whatever ornaments we admit
+ought clearly to be of a chaste, grave, and noble kind; and
+what furniture we employ, evidently more for the honoring of
+God&rsquo;s word than for the ease of the preacher. For there are
+two ways of regarding a sermon, either as a human composition,
+or a Divine message. If we look upon it entirely as the first,
+and require our clergymen to finish it with their utmost care
+and learning, for our better delight whether of ear or intellect,
+we shall necessarily be led to expect much formality and stateliness
+in its delivery, and to think that all is not well if the
+pulpit have not a golden fringe round it, and a goodly cushion
+in front of it, and if the sermon be not fairly written in a
+black book, to be smoothed upon the cushion in a majestic
+manner before beginning; all this we shall duly come to expect:
+but we shall at the same time consider the treatise thus
+prepared as something to which it is our duty to listen without
+restlessness for half an hour or three quarters, but which, when
+that duty has been decorously performed, we may dismiss from
+our minds in happy confidence of being provided with another
+when next it shall be necessary. But if once we begin to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page024"></a>24</span>
+regard the preacher, whatever his faults, as a man sent with a
+message to us, which it is a matter of life or death whether we
+hear or refuse; if we look upon him as set in charge over
+many spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed to him but
+an hour or two in the seven days to speak to them; if we make
+some endeavor to conceive how precious these hours ought to
+be to him, a small vantage on the side of God after his flock
+have been exposed for six days together to the full weight of
+the world&rsquo;s temptation, and he has been forced to watch the
+thorn and the thistle springing in their hearts, and to see
+what wheat had been scattered there snatched from the wayside
+by this wild bird and the other, and at last, when breathless
+and weary with the week&rsquo;s labor they give him this interval of
+imperfect and languid hearing, he has but thirty minutes to get
+at the separate hearts of a thousand men, to convince them of
+all their weaknesses, to shame them for all their sins, to warn
+them of all their dangers, to try by this way and that to stir the
+hard fastenings of those doors where the Master himself has
+stood and knocked yet none opened, and to call at the openings
+of those dark streets where Wisdom herself hath stretched forth
+her hands and no man regarded,&mdash;thirty minutes to raise the
+dead in,&mdash;let us but once understand and feel this, and we shall
+look with changed eyes upon that frippery of gay furniture
+about the place from which the message of judgment must be
+delivered, which either breathes upon the dry bones that they
+may live, or, if ineffectual, remains recorded in condemnation,
+perhaps against the utterer and listener alike, but assuredly
+against one of them. We shall not so easily bear with the silk
+and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of oratory
+in the mouth of the messenger: we shall wish that his
+words may be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the
+place from which he speaks like a marble rock in the desert,
+about which the people have gathered in their thirst.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XV.</span> But the severity which is so marked in the pulpit at
+Torcello is still more striking in the raised seats and episcopal
+throne which occupy the curve of the apse. The arrangement
+at first somewhat recalls to the mind that of the Roman amphitheatres;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page025"></a>25</span>
+the flight of steps which lead up to the central throne
+divides the curve of the continuous steps or seats (it appears in
+the first three ranges questionable which were intended, for
+they seem too high for the one, and too low and close for the
+other), exactly as in an amphitheatre the stairs for access intersect
+the sweeping ranges of seats. But in the very rudeness of
+this arrangement, and especially in the want of all appliances
+of comfort (for the whole is of marble, and the arms of the
+central throne are not for convenience, but for distinction, and
+to separate it more conspicuously from the undivided seats),
+there is a dignity which no furniture of stalls nor carving of
+canopies ever could attain, and well worth the contemplation
+of the Protestant, both as sternly significative of an episcopal
+authority which in the early days of the Church was never disputed,
+and as dependent for all its impressiveness on the utter
+absence of any expression either of pride or self-indulgence.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVI.</span> But there is one more circumstance which we ought
+to remember as giving peculiar significance to the position
+which the episcopal throne occupies in this island church,
+namely, that in the minds of all early Christians the Church
+itself was most frequently symbolized under the image of a
+ship, of which the bishop was the pilot. Consider the force
+which this symbol would assume in the imaginations of men
+to whom the spiritual Church had become an ark of refuge in
+the midst of a destruction hardly less terrible than that from
+which the eight souls were saved of old, a destruction in which
+the wrath of man had become as broad as the earth and as
+merciless as the sea, and who saw the actual and literal edifice
+of the Church raised up, itself like an ark in the midst of the
+waters. No marvel if with the surf of the Adriatic rolling between
+them and the shores of their birth, from which they
+were separated for ever, they should have looked upon each
+other as the disciples did when the storm came down on the
+Tiberias Lake, and have yielded ready and loving obedience to
+those who ruled them in His name, who had there rebuked the
+winds and commanded stillness to the sea. And if the stranger
+would yet learn in what spirit it was that the dominion of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page026"></a>26</span>
+Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth conquering
+and to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the
+wealth of her arsenals or number of her armies, nor look upon
+the pageantry of her palaces, nor enter into the secrets of her
+councils; but let him ascend the highest tier of the stern
+ledges that sweep round the altar of Torcello, and then, looking
+as the pilot did of old along the marble ribs of the goodly
+temple ship, let him repeople its veined deck with the shadows
+of its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the strength
+of heart that was kindled within them, when first, after the
+pillars of it had settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been
+closed against the angry sky that was still reddened by the
+fires of their homesteads,&mdash;first, within the shelter of its knitted
+walls, amidst the murmur of the waste of waves and the
+beating of the wings of the sea-birds round the rock that was
+strange to them,&mdash;rose that ancient hymn, in the power of their
+gathered voices:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poem sc">
+<p>The sea is His, and He made it:</p>
+<p>And His hands prepared the dry land.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" href="#FnAnchor_4"><span class="fn">4</span></a> <a href="#app_4">Appendix 4</a>, &ldquo;Date of the Duomo of Torcello.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" href="#FnAnchor_5"><span class="fn">5</span></a> For a full account of the form and symbolical meaning of the Basilica,
+see Lord Lindsay&rsquo;s &ldquo;Christian Art,&rdquo; vol. i. p. 12. It is much to be regretted
+that the Chevalier Bunsen&rsquo;s work on the Basilicas of Rome is not translated
+into English.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" href="#FnAnchor_6"><span class="fn">6</span></a> The measures are given in <a href="#app_3">Appendix 3</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" href="#FnAnchor_7"><span class="fn">7</span></a> Hope&rsquo;s &ldquo;Historical Essay on Architecture&rdquo; (third edition, 1840), chap.
+ix. p. 95. In other respects Mr. Hope has done justice to this building, and
+to the style of the early Christian churches in general.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" href="#FnAnchor_8"><span class="fn">8</span></a> A sketch has been given of this capital in my folio work.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9" href="#FnAnchor_9"><span class="fn">9</span></a> <a href="#app_5">Appendix 5</a>, &ldquo;Modern Pulpits.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page027"></a>27</span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="chap_3"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h5>MURANO.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I.</span> The decay of the city of Venice is, in many respects,
+like that of an outwearied and aged human frame; the cause
+of its decrepitude is indeed at the heart, but the outward
+appearances of it are first at the extremities. In the centre of
+the city there are still places where some evidence of vitality
+remains, and where, with kind closing of the eyes to signs, too
+manifest even there, of distress and declining fortune, the
+stranger may succeed in imagining, for a little while, what
+must have been the aspect of Venice in her prime. But this
+lingering pulsation has not force enough any more to penetrate
+into the suburbs and outskirts of the city; the frost of death
+has there seized upon it irrevocably, and the grasp of mortal
+disease is marked daily by the increasing breadth of its belt of
+ruin. Nowhere is this seen more grievously than along the
+great north-eastern boundary, once occupied by the smaller
+palaces of the Venetians, built for pleasure or repose; the
+nobler piles along the grand canal being reserved for the pomp
+and business of daily life. To such smaller palaces some
+garden ground was commonly attached, opening to the water-side;
+and, in front of these villas and gardens, the lagoon was
+wont to be covered in the evening by gondolas: the space of
+it between this part of the city and the island group of Murano
+being to Venice, in her time of power, what its parks are to
+London; only gondolas were used instead of carriages, and the
+crowd of the population did not come out till towards sunset,
+and prolonged their pleasures far into the night, company
+answering to company with alternate singing.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II.</span> If, knowing this custom of the Venetians, and with a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page028"></a>28</span>
+vision in his mind of summer palaces lining the shore, and
+myrtle gardens sloping to the sea, the traveller now seeks this
+suburb of Venice, he will be strangely and sadly surprised to
+find a new but perfectly desolate quay, about a mile in length,
+extending from the arsenal to the Sacca della Misericordia, in
+front of a line of miserable houses built in the course of the
+last sixty or eighty years, yet already tottering to their ruin;
+and not less to find that the principal object in the view which
+these houses (built partly in front and partly on the ruins of
+the ancient palaces) now command is a dead brick wall, about
+a quarter of a mile across the water, interrupted only by a kind
+of white lodge, the cheerfulness of which prospect is not enhanced
+by his finding that this wall encloses the principal
+public cemetery of Venice. He may, perhaps, marvel for a
+few moments at the singular taste of the old Venetians in taking
+their pleasure under a churchyard wall: but, on further
+inquiry, he will find that the building on the island, like those
+on the shore, is recent, that it stands on the ruins of the
+Church of St. Cristoforo della Pace; and that with a singular,
+because unintended, moral, the modern Venetians have replaced
+the Peace of the Christ-bearer by the Peace of Death,
+and where they once went, as the sun set daily, to their pleasure,
+now go, as the sun sets to each of them for ever, to their
+graves.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III.</span> Yet the power of Nature cannot be shortened by the
+folly, nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery, of
+man. The broad tides still ebb and flow brightly about the
+island of the dead, and the linked conclave of the Alps know
+no decline from their old pre-eminence, nor stoop from their
+golden thrones in the circle of the horizon. So lovely is the
+scene still, in spite of all its injuries, that we shall find ourselves
+drawn there again and again at evening out of the narrow
+canals and streets of the city, to watch the wreaths of the
+sea-mists weaving themselves like mourning veils around the
+mountains far away, and listen to the green waves as they fret
+and sigh along the cemetery shore.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV.</span> But it is morning now: we have a hard day&rsquo;s work to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page029"></a>29</span>
+do at Murano, and our boat shoots swiftly from beneath the
+last bridge of Venice, and brings us out into the open sea and
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>The pure cumuli of cloud lie crowded and leaning against
+one another, rank beyond rank, far over the shining water, each
+cut away at its foundation by a level line, trenchant and clear,
+till they sink to the horizon like a flight of marble steps, except
+where the mountains meet them, and are lost in them, barred
+across by the grey terraces of those cloud foundations, and
+reduced into one crestless bank of blue, spotted here and
+there with strange flakes of wan, aerial, greenish light, strewed
+upon them like snow. And underneath is the long dark line
+of the mainland, fringed with low trees; and then the wide-waving
+surface of the burnished lagoon trembling slowly, and
+shaking out into forked bands of lengthening light the images
+of the towers of cloud above. To the north, there is first the
+great cemetery wall, then the long stray buildings of Murano,
+and the island villages beyond, glittering in intense crystalline
+vermilion, like so much jewellery scattered on a mirror, their
+towers poised apparently in the air a little above the horizon,
+and their reflections, as sharp and vivid and substantial as
+themselves, thrown on the vacancy between them and the sea.
+And thus the villages seem standing on the air; and, to the
+east, there is a cluster of ships that seem sailing on the land;
+for the sandy line of the Lido stretches itself between us and
+them, and we can see the tall white sails moving beyond it,
+but not the sea, only there is a sense of the great sea being
+indeed there, and a solemn strength of gleaming light in sky
+above.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V.</span> The most discordant feature in the whole scene is the
+cloud which hovers above the glass furnaces of Murano; but
+this we may not regret, as it is one of the last signs left of
+human exertion among the ruinous villages which surround us.
+The silent gliding of the gondola brings it nearer to us every
+moment; we pass the cemetery, and a deep sea-channel which
+separates it from Murano, and finally enter a narrow water-street,
+with a paved footpath on each side, raised three or four
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page030"></a>30</span>
+feet above the canal, and forming a kind of quay between the
+water and the doors of the houses. These latter are, for the
+most part, low, but built with massy doors and windows of
+marble or Istrian stone, square-set and barred with iron; buildings
+evidently once of no mean order, though now inhabited
+only by the poor. Here and there an ogee window of the
+fourteenth century, or a doorway deeply enriched with cable
+mouldings, shows itself in the midst of more ordinary features;
+and several houses, consisting of one story only carried on
+square pillars, forming a short arcade along the quay, have
+windows sustained on shafts of red Verona marble, of singular
+grace and delicacy. All now in vain: little care is there for
+their delicacy or grace among the rough fishermen sauntering
+on the quay with their jackets hanging loose from their shoulders,
+jacket and cap and hair all of the same dark-greenish sea-grey.
+But there is some life in the scene, more than is usual
+in Venice: the women are sitting at their doors knitting busily,
+and various workmen of the glass-houses sifting glass dust upon
+the pavement, and strange cries coming from one side of the
+canal to the other, and ringing far along the crowded water,
+from venders of figs and grapes, and gourds and shell-fish;
+cries partly descriptive of the eatables in question, but interspersed
+with others of a character unintelligible in proportion
+to their violence, and fortunately so if we may judge by a sentence
+which is stencilled in black, within a garland, on the
+whitewashed walls of nearly every other house in the street,
+but which, how often soever written, no one seems to regard:
+&ldquo;Bestemme non piů. Lodate Gesů.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI.</span> We push our way on between large barges laden with
+fresh water from Fusina, in round white tubs seven feet across,
+and complicated boats full of all manner of nets that look as if
+they could never be disentangled, hanging from their masts
+and over their sides; and presently pass under a bridge with
+the lion of St. Mark on its archivolt, and another on a pillar
+at the end of the parapet, a small red lion with much of the
+puppy in his face, looking vacantly up into the air (in passing
+we may note that, instead of feathers, his wings are covered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page031"></a>31</span>
+with hair, and in several other points the manner of his sculpture
+is not uninteresting). Presently the canal turns a little to
+the left, and thereupon becomes more quiet, the main bustle of
+the water-street being usually confined to the first straight
+reach of it, some quarter of a mile long, the Cheapside of
+Murano. We pass a considerable church on the left, St. Pietro,
+and a little square opposite to it with a few acacia trees, and
+then find our boat suddenly seized by a strong green eddy, and
+whirled into the tide-way of one of the main channels of the
+lagoon, which divides the town of Murano into two parts by a
+deep stream some fifty yards over, crossed only by one wooden
+bridge. We let ourselves drift some way down the current,
+looking at the low line of cottages on the other side of it,
+hardly knowing if there be more cheerfulness or melancholy
+in the way the sunshine glows on their ruinous but whitewashed
+walls, and sparkles on the rushing of the green water
+by the grass-grown quay. It needs a strong stroke of the oar
+to bring us into the mouth of another quiet canal on the farther
+side of the tide-way, and we are still somewhat giddy when we
+run the head of the gondola into the sand on the left-hand side
+of this more sluggish stream, and land under the east end of
+the Church of San Donato, the &ldquo;Matrice&rdquo; or &ldquo;Mother&rdquo; Church
+of Murano.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII.</span> It stands, it and the heavy campanile detached from
+it a few yards, in a small triangular field of somewhat fresher
+grass than is usual near Venice, traversed by a paved walk
+with green mosaic of short grass between the rude squares of
+its stones, bounded on one side by ruinous garden walls, on
+another by a line of low cottages, on the third, the base of the
+triangle, by the shallow canal from which we have just landed.
+Near the point of the triangular space is a simple well, bearing
+date 1502; in its widest part, between the canal and campanile,
+is a four-square hollow pillar, each side formed by a
+separate slab of stone, to which the iron hasps are still attached
+that once secured the Venetian standard.</p>
+
+<p>The cathedral itself occupies the northern angle of the
+field, encumbered with modern buildings, small outhouse-like
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page032"></a>32</span>
+chapels, and wastes of white wall with blank square windows,
+and itself utterly defaced in the whole body of it, nothing
+but the apse having been spared; the original plan is only
+discoverable by careful examination, and even then but partially.
+The whole impression and effect of the building are
+irretrievably lost, but the fragments of it are still most precious.</p>
+
+<p>We must first briefly state what is known of its history.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VIII.</span> The legends of the Romish Church, though generally
+more insipid and less varied than those of Paganism, deserve
+audience from us on this ground, if on no other, that
+they have once been sincerely believed by good men, and have
+had no ineffective agency in the foundation of the existent
+European mind. The reader must not therefore accuse me of
+trifling, when I record for him the first piece of information I
+have been able to collect respecting the cathedral of Murano:
+namely, that the emperor Otho the Great, being overtaken by
+a storm on the Adriatic, vowed, if he were preserved, to build
+and dedicate a church to the Virgin, in whatever place might
+be most pleasing to her; that the storm thereupon abated; and
+the Virgin appearing to Otho in a dream showed him, covered
+with red lilies, that very triangular field on which we were but
+now standing, amidst the ragged weeds and shattered pavement.
+The emperor obeyed the vision; and the church was consecrated
+on the 15th of August, 957.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IX.</span> Whatever degree of credence we may feel disposed
+to attach to this piece of history, there is no question that a
+church was built on this spot before the close of the tenth
+century: since in the year 999 we find the incumbent of the
+Basilica (note this word, it is of some importance) di Santa
+Maria Plebania di Murano taking an oath of obedience to the
+Bishop of the Altinat church, and engaging at the same time
+to give the said bishop his dinner on the Domenica in Albis,
+when the prelate held a confirmation in the mother church, as
+it was then commonly called, of Murano. From this period,
+for more than a century, I can find no records of any alterations
+made in the fabric of the church, but there exist very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page033"></a>33</span>
+full details of the quarrels which arose between its incumbents
+and those of San Stefano, San Cipriano, San Salvatore, and
+the other churches of Murano, touching the due obedience
+which their less numerous or less ancient brotherhoods owed
+to St. Mary&rsquo;s.</p>
+
+<p>These differences seem to have been renewed at the election
+of every new abbot by each of the fraternities, and must
+have been growing serious when the patriarch of Grado, Henry
+Dandolo, interfered in 1102, and, in order to seal a peace between
+the two principal opponents, ordered that the abbot of
+St. Stephen&rsquo;s should be present at the service in St. Mary&rsquo;s on
+the night of the Epiphany, and that the abbot of St. Mary&rsquo;s
+should visit him of St. Stephen&rsquo;s on St. Stephen&rsquo;s day; and
+that then the two abbots &ldquo;should eat apples and drink good
+wine together, in peace and charity.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_10" href="#Footnote_10"><span class="sp">10</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">X.</span> But even this kindly effort seems to have been without
+result: the irritated pride of the antagonists remained unsoothed
+by the love-feast of St. Stephen&rsquo;s day; and the breach
+continued to widen until the abbot of St. Mary&rsquo;s obtained a
+timely accession to his authority in the year 1125. The Doge
+Domenico Michele, having in the second crusade secured such
+substantial advantages for the Venetians as might well counterbalance
+the loss of part of their trade with the East,
+crowned his successes by obtaining possession in Cephalonia
+of the body of St. Donato, bishop of Eur&oelig;a; which treasure
+he having presented on his return to the Murano basilica, that
+church was thenceforward called the church of Sts. Mary and
+Donato. Nor was the body of the saint its only acquisition:
+St. Donato&rsquo;s principal achievement had been the destruction of
+a terrible dragon in Epirus; Michele brought home the bones
+of the dragon as well as of the saint; the latter were put in a
+marble sarcophagus, and the former hung up over the high altar.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page034"></a>34</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XI.</span> But the clergy of St. Stefano were indomitable. At
+the very moment when their adversaries had received this formidable
+accession of strength, they had the audacity &ldquo;ad onta
+de&rsquo; replicati giuramenti, e dell&rsquo;inveterata consuetudine,&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_11" href="#Footnote_11"><span class="sp">11</span></a> to
+refuse to continue in the obedience which they had vowed to
+their mother church. The matter was tried in a provincial
+council; the votaries of St. Stephen were condemned, and remained
+quiet for about twenty years, in wholesome dread of
+the authority conferred on the abbot of St. Donate, by the
+Pope&rsquo;s legate, to suspend any o the clergy of the island from
+their office if they refused submission. In 1172, however, they
+appealed to Pope Alexander III, and were condemned again:
+and we find the struggle renewed at every promising opportunity,
+during the course of the 12th and 13th centuries; until
+at last, finding St. Donate and the dragon together too
+strong for him, the abbot of St. Stefano &ldquo;discovered&rdquo; in his
+church the bodies of two hundred martyrs at once!&mdash;a discovery,
+it is to be remembered, in some sort equivalent in those
+days to that of California in ours. The inscription, however,
+on the façade of the church, recorded it with quiet dignity:&mdash;
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">MCCCLXXIV.</span> a di <span class="scs">XIV.</span> di Aprile. Furono trovati nella presente
+chiesa del protomartire San Stefano, duecento e piů corpi de&rsquo;
+Santi Martiri, dal Ven. Prete Matteo Fradello, piovano della
+chiesa.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_12" href="#Footnote_12"><span class="sp">12</span></a> Corner, who gives this inscription, which no longer
+exists, goes on to explain with infinite gravity, that the bodies
+in question, &ldquo;being of infantile form and stature, are reported
+by tradition to have belonged to those fortunate innocents who
+suffered martyrdom under King Herod; but that when, or by
+whom, the church was enriched with so vast a treasure, is not
+manifested by any document.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_13" href="#Footnote_13"><span class="sp">13</span></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page035"></a>35</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XII.</span> The issue of the struggle is not to our present purpose.
+We have already arrived at the fourteenth century
+without finding record of any effort made by the clergy of St.
+Mary&rsquo;s to maintain their influence by restoring or beautifying
+their basilica; which is the only point at present of importance
+to us. That great alterations were made in it at the time
+of the acquisition of the body of St. Donato is however highly
+probable, the mosaic pavement of the interior, which bears its
+date inscribed, 1140, being probably the last of the additions.
+I believe that no part of the ancient church can be shown to
+be of more recent date than this; and I shall not occupy the
+reader&rsquo;s time by any inquiry respecting the epochs or authors
+of the destructive modern restorations; the wreck of the old
+fabric, breaking out beneath them here and there, is generally
+distinguishable from them at a glance; and it is enough for
+the reader to know that none of these truly ancient fragments
+can be assigned to a more recent date than 1140, and that some
+of them may with probability be looked upon as remains of
+the shell of the first church, erected in the course of the latter
+half of the tenth century. We shall perhaps obtain some further
+reason for this belief as we examine these remains themselves.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIII.</span> Of the body of the church, unhappily, they are few
+and obscure; but the general form and extent of the building,
+as shown in the plan, <a href="#plate_1">Plate I.</a> fig. 2, are determined, first, by
+the breadth of the uninjured east end D E; secondly, by some
+remains of the original brickwork of the clerestory, and in all
+probability of the side walls also, though these have been refaced;
+and finally by the series of nave shafts, which are still
+perfect. The doors A and B may or may not be in their original
+positions; there must of course have been always, as now,
+a principal entrance at the west end. The ground plan is composed,
+like that of Torcello, of nave and aisles only, but the
+clerestory has transepts extending as far as the outer wall of
+the aisles. The semicircular apse, thrown out in the centre of
+the east end, is now the chief feature of interest in the church,
+though the nave shafts and the eastern extremities of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page036"></a>36</span>
+aisles, outside, are also portions of the original building; the
+latter having been modernized in the interior, it cannot now
+be ascertained whether, as is probable, the aisles had once round
+ends as well as the choir. The spaces F G form small chapels,
+of which G has a straight terminal wall behind its altar, and F
+a curved one, marked by the dotted line; the partitions which
+divide these chapels from the presbytery are also indicated by
+dotted lines, being modern work.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIV.</span> The plan is drawn carefully to scale, but the relation
+in which its proportions are disposed can hardly be appreciated
+by the eye. The width of the nave from shaft to opposite
+shaft is 32 feet 8 inches: of the aisles, from the shaft to the
+wall, 16 feet 2 inches, or allowing 2 inches for the thickness of
+the modern wainscot, 16 feet 4 inches, half the breadth of the
+nave exactly. The intervals between the shafts are exactly
+one fourth of the width of the nave, or 8 feet 2 inches, and
+the distance between the great piers which form the pseudo-transept
+is 24 feet 6 inches, exactly three times the interval of
+the shafts. So the four distances are accurately in arithmetical
+proportion; i.e.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Interval of shafts</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td>
+    <td class="tc2">2</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Width of aisle</td>
+    <td class="tc2">16</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Width of transept</td>
+    <td class="tc2">24</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Width of nave</td>
+    <td class="tc2">32</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The shafts average 5 feet 4 inches in circumference, as near
+the base as they can be got at, being covered with wood; and
+the broadest sides of the main piers are 4 feet 7 inches wide,
+their narrowest sides 3 feet 6 inches. The distance <i>a c</i> from
+the outmost angle of these piers to the beginning of the curve
+of the apse is 25 feet, and from that point the apse is nearly
+semicircular, but it is so encumbered with renaissance fittings
+that its form cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy. It
+is roofed by a concha, or semi-dome; and the external arrangement
+of its walls provides for the security of this dome by
+what is, in fact, a system of buttresses as effective and definite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page037"></a>37</span>
+as that of any of the northern churches, although the buttresses
+are obtained entirely by adaptations of the Roman shaft and
+arch, the lower story being formed by a thick mass of wall
+lightened by ordinary semicircular round-headed niches, like
+those used so extensively afterwards in renaissance architecture,
+each niche flanked by a pair of shafts standing clear of
+the wall, and bearing deeply moulded arches thrown over the
+niche. The wall with its pillars thus forms a series of massy
+buttresses (as seen in the ground plan), on the top of which is
+an open gallery, backed by a thinner wall, and roofed by arches
+whose shafts are set above the pairs of shafts below. On the
+heads of these arches rests the roof. We have, therefore, externally
+a heptagonal apse, chiefly of rough and common brick,
+only with marble shafts and a few marble ornaments; but for
+that very reason all the more interesting, because it shows us
+what may be done, and what was done, with materials such as
+are now at our own command; and because in its proportions,
+and in the use of the few ornaments it possesses, it displays a
+delicacy of feeling rendered doubly notable by the roughness
+of the work in which laws so subtle are observed, and with
+which so thoughtful ornamentation is associated.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XV.</span> First, for its proportions: I shall have occasion in
+Chapter V. to dwell at some length on the peculiar subtlety of
+the early Venetian perception for ratios of magnitude; the
+relations of the sides of this heptagonal apse supply one of the
+first and most curious instances of it. The proportions above
+given of the nave and aisles might have been dictated by a
+mere love of mathematical precision; but those of the apse
+could only have resulted from a true love of harmony.</p>
+
+<p>In fig. 6, <a href="#plate_1">Plate I.</a> the plan of this part of the church is
+given on a large scale, showing that its seven external sides are
+arranged on a line less than a semicircle, so that if the figure
+were completed, it would have sixteen sides; and it will be
+observed also, that the seven sides are arranged in four magnitudes,
+the widest being the central one. The brickwork is
+so much worn away, that the measures of the arches are not
+easily ascertainable, but those of the plinth on which they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page038"></a>38</span>
+stand, which is nearly uninjured, may be obtained accurately.
+This plinth is indicated by the open line in the ground plan,
+and its sides measure respectively:</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td class="tc5" style="width: 2em; ">&nbsp;</td> <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">1st.</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>a b</i> in plan</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">2nd.</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>b c</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">3rd.</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>c d</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">4th.</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>d e</i> (central)</td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td>
+    <td class="tc2">10</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">5th.</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>e f</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">6th</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>f g</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">7th.</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>g h</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td>
+    <td class="tc2">10</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVI.</span> Now observe what subtle feeling is indicated by this
+delicacy of proportion. How fine must the perceptions of
+grace have been in those builders who could not be content
+without <i>some</i> change between the second and third, the fifth
+and sixth terms of proportion, such as should oppose the general
+direction of its cadence, and yet <i>were</i> content with a diminution
+of two inches on a breadth of seven feet and a half!
+For I do not suppose that the reader will think the curious
+lessening of the third and fifth arch a matter of accident, and
+even if he did so, I shall be able to prove to him hereafter that
+it was not, but that the early builders were always desirous of
+obtaining some alternate proportion of this kind. The relations
+of the numbers are not easily comprehended in the form
+of feet and inches, but if we reduce the first four of them into
+inches, and then subtract some constant number, suppose 75,
+from them all, the remainders 4, 16, 14, 19, will exhibit the
+ratio of proportion in a clearer, though exaggerated form.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVII.</span> The pairs of circular spots at <i>b</i>, <i>c</i>, <i>d</i>, etc., on the
+ground plan fig. 6, represent the bearing shafts, which are all
+of solid marble as well as their capitals. Their measures and
+various other particulars respecting them are given in <a href="#app_6">Appendix
+6</a>. &ldquo;Apse of Murano;&rdquo; here I only wish the reader to
+note the coloring of their capitals. Those of the two single
+shafts in the angles (<i>a</i>, <i>h</i>) are both of deep purple marble; the
+two next pairs, <i>b</i> and <i>g</i>, are of white marble; the pairs <i>c</i> and <i>f</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page039"></a>39</span>
+are of purple, and <i>d</i> and <i>e</i> are of white: thus alternating with
+each other on each side; two white meeting in the centre.
+Now observe, <i>the purple capitals are all left plain; the white
+are all sculptured</i>. For the old builders knew that by carving
+the purple capitals they would have injured them in two ways:
+first, they would have mixed a certain quantity of grey shadow
+with the surface hue, and so adulterated the purity of the
+color; secondly, they would have drawn away the thoughts
+from the color, and prevented the mind from fixing upon it
+or enjoying it, by the degree of attention which the sculpture
+would have required. So they left their purple capitals full
+broad masses of color; and sculptured the white ones, which
+would otherwise have been devoid of interest.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVIII.</span> But the feature which is most to be noted in this
+apse is a band of ornament, which runs round it like a silver
+girdle, composed of sharp wedges of marble, preciously inlaid,
+and set like jewels into the brickwork; above it there is another
+band of triangular recesses in the bricks, of nearly similar
+shape, and it seems equally strange that all the marbles should
+have fallen from it, or that it should have been originally
+destitute of them. The reader may choose his hypothesis;
+but there is quite enough left to interest us in the lower band,
+which is fortunately left in its original state, as is sufficiently
+proved by the curious niceties in the arrangement of its
+colors, which are assuredly to be attributed to the care of the
+first builder. A word or two, in the first place, respecting the
+means of color at his disposal.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIX.</span> I stated that the building was, for the most part,
+composed of yellow brick. This yellow is very nearly pure,
+much more positive and somewhat darker than that of our
+English light brick, and the material of the brick is very good
+and hard, looking, in places, almost vitrified, and so compact
+as to resemble stone. Together with this brick occurs another
+of a deep full red, and more porous substance, which is used
+for decoration chiefly, while all the parts requiring strength
+are composed of the yellow brick. Both these materials are
+<i>cast into any shape and size</i> the builder required, either into
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page040"></a>40</span>
+curved pieces for the arches, or flat tiles for filling the triangles;
+and, what is still more curious, the thickness of the
+yellow bricks used for the walls varies considerably, from two
+inches to four; and their length also, some of the larger pieces
+used in important positions being a foot and a half long.</p>
+
+<p>With these two kinds of brick, the builder employed five
+or six kinds of marble: pure white, and white veined with purple;
+a brecciated marble of white and black; a brecciated
+marble of white and deep green; another, deep red, or nearly
+of the color of Egyptian porphyry; and a grey and black
+marble, in fine layers.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XX.</span> The method of employing these materials will be
+understood at once by a reference to the opposite plate (<a href="#plate_3">Plate
+III.</a>), which represents two portions of the lower band. I
+could not succeed in expressing the variation and chequering
+of color in marble, by real tints in the print; and have been
+content, therefore, to give them in line engraving. The different
+triangles are, altogether, of ten kinds:</p>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>a. Pure white marble with sculptured surface (as the third and fifth
+in the upper series of <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>).</p>
+
+<p>b. Cast triangle of red brick with a sculptured round-headed piece of
+white marble inlaid (as the first and seventh of the upper series,
+<a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>).</p>
+
+<p>c. A plain triangle of greenish black marble, now perhaps considerably
+paler in color than when first employed (as the second
+and sixth of the upper series of <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>).</p>
+
+<p>d. Cast red brick triangle, with a diamond inlaid of the above-mentioned
+black marble (as the fourth in the upper series of
+<a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>).</p>
+
+<p>e. Cast white brick, with an inlaid round-headed piece of marble,
+variegated with black and yellow, or white and violet (not seen
+in the plate).</p>
+
+<p>f. Occurs only once, a green-veined marble, forming the upper part
+of the triangle, with a white piece below.</p>
+
+<p>g. Occurs only once. A brecciated marble of intense black and pure
+white, the centre of the lower range in <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a></p>
+
+<p>h. Sculptured white marble with a triangle of veined purple marble
+inserted (as the first, third, fifth, and seventh of the lower range
+in <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>).</p>
+
+<p>i. Yellow or white marble veined with purple (as the second and
+sixth of the lower range in <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>).</p>
+
+<p>k. Pure purple marble, not seen in this plate.</p>
+</div>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">III.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_3"><img src="images/img040.jpg" width="645" height="395" alt="Inlaid Bands of Murano." title="Inlaid Bands of Murano." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption"><span class="sc">Inlaid Bands of Murano.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page041"></a>41</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXI.</span> The band, then, composed of these triangles, set
+close to each other in varied but not irregular relations, is
+thrown, like a necklace of precious stones, round the apse and
+along the ends of the aisles; each side of the apse taking, of
+course, as many triangles as its width permits. If the reader
+will look back to the measures of the sides of the apse, given
+before, <a href="#page042">p. 42</a>, he will see that the first and seventh of the
+series, being much narrower than the rest, cannot take so
+many triangles in their band. Accordingly, they have only
+six each, while the other five sides have seven. Of these
+groups of seven triangles each, that used for the third and
+fifth sides of the apse is the uppermost in <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>; and that
+used for the centre of the apse, and of the whole series, is the
+lowermost in the same plate; <i>the piece of black and white
+marble being used to emphasize the centre of the chain</i>, exactly
+as a painter would use a dark touch for a similar purpose.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXII.</span> And now, with a little trouble, we can set before the
+reader, at a glance, the arrangement of the groups along the
+entire extremity of the church.</p>
+
+<p>There are thirteen recesses, indicative of thirteen arches,
+seen in the ground plan, fig. 2, <a href="#plate_1">Plate I.</a> Of these, the second
+and twelfth arches rise higher than the rest; so high as to
+break the decorated band; and the groups of triangles we
+have to enumerate are, therefore, only eleven in number; one
+above each of the eleven low arches. And of these eleven,
+the first and second, tenth and eleventh, are at the ends of the
+aisles; while the third to the ninth, inclusive, go round the
+apse. Thus, in the following table, the numerals indicate the
+place of each entire group (counting from the south to the
+north side of the church, or from left to right), and the letters
+indicate the species of triangle of which it is composed, as
+described in the list given above.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<p>
+<span style="padding-left: 7em; ">6. h. i. h. g. h. i. h.</span> <br />
+<span style="padding-left: 3em; ">5. b. c. a. d. a. c. b.</span><span style="padding-left: 2em; ">7. b. c. a. d. a. c. b.</span> <br />
+<span style="padding-left: 2em; ">4. b. a. b. c. a. e. a.</span><span style="padding-left: 4em; ">8. a. e. a. c. b. a. b.</span> <br />
+<span style="padding-left: 1em; ">3. b. a. b. e. b. a.</span><span style="padding-left: 8em; ">9. a. b. e. b. a. b.</span> <br />
+2. a. b. c.<span style="padding-left: 13em; ">10. a. b. c. b.</span> <br />
+1. a. b. c. b. a.<span style="padding-left: 11em; ">11. b. a. c. f. a. a.</span>
+</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page042"></a>42</span></p>
+
+<p>The central group is put first, that it may be seen how the
+series on the two sides of the apse answer each other. It was
+a very curious freak to insert the triangle e, in the outermost
+place <i>but one</i> of both the fourth and eighth sides of the apse,
+and in the outermost <i>but two</i> in the third and ninth; in neither
+case having any balance to it in its own group, and the real
+balance being only effected on the other side of the apse, which
+it is impossible that any one should see at the same time.
+This is one of the curious pieces of system which so often
+occur in medićval work, of which the key is now lost. The
+groups at the ends of the transepts correspond neither in number
+nor arrangement; we shall presently see why, but must
+first examine more closely the treatment of the triangles themselves,
+and the nature of the floral sculpture employed upon
+them.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">IV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_4"><img src="images/img042.jpg" width="407" height="650" alt="SCULPTURES OF MURANO." title="SCULPTURES OF MURANO." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">SCULPTURES OF MURANO.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIII.</span> As the scale of <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a> is necessarily small, I
+have given three of the sculptured triangles on a larger scale
+in <a href="#plate_4">Plate IV.</a> opposite. Fig. 3 is one of the four in the lower
+series of <a href="#plate_4">Plate IV.</a>, and figs. 4 and 5 from another group.
+The forms of the trefoils are here seen more clearly; they, and
+all the other portions of the design, are thrown out in low and
+flat relief, the intermediate spaces being cut out to the depth
+of about a quarter of an inch. I believe these vacant spaces
+were originally filled with a black composition, which is used
+in similar sculptures at St. Mark&rsquo;s, and of which I found some
+remains in an archivolt moulding here, though not in the triangles.
+The surface of the whole would then be perfectly
+smooth, and the ornamental form relieved by a ground of dark
+grey; but, even though this ground is lost, the simplicity of
+the method insures the visibility of all its parts at the necessary
+distance (17 or 18 feet), and the quaint trefoils have a
+crispness and freshness of effect which I found it almost impossible
+to render in a drawing. Nor let us fail to note in
+passing how strangely delightful to the human mind the trefoil
+always is. We have it here repeated five or six hundred
+times in the space of a few yards, and yet are never weary of
+it. In fact, there are two mystical feelings at the root of our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page043"></a>43</span>
+enjoyment of this decoration: the one is the love of trinity in
+unity, the other that of the sense of fulness with order; of
+every place being instantly filled, and yet filled with propriety
+and ease; the leaves do not push each other, nor put themselves
+out of their own way, and yet whenever there is a
+vacant space, a leaf is always ready to step in and occupy it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIV.</span> I said the trefoil was five or six hundred times
+repeated. It is so, but observe, it is hardly ever twice of the
+same size; and this law is studiously and resolutely observed.
+In the carvings <i>a</i> and <i>b</i> of the upper series, <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>, the
+diminution of the leaves might indeed seem merely representative
+of the growth of the plant. But look at the lower: the
+triangles of inlaid purple marble are made much more nearly
+equilateral than those of white marble, into whose centres they
+are set, so that the leaves may continually diminish in size as
+the ornament descends at the sides. The reader may perhaps
+doubt the accuracy of the drawing on the smaller scale, but in
+that given larger, fig. 3, <a href="#plate_4">Plate IV.</a>, the angles are all measured,
+and the <i>purposeful</i> variation of width in the border therefore
+admits of no dispute.<a name="FnAnchor_14" href="#Footnote_14"><span class="sp">14</span></a> Remember how absolutely this principle
+is that of nature; the same leaf continually repeated,
+but never twice of the same size. Look at the clover under
+your feet, and then you will see what this Murano builder
+meant, and that he was not altogether a barbarian.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXV.</span> Another point I wish the reader to observe is, the
+importance attached to <i>color</i> in the mind of the designer.
+Note especially&mdash;for it is of the highest importance to see how
+the great principles of art are carried out through the whole
+building&mdash;that, as only the white capitals are sculptured below,
+only the white triangles are sculptured above. No colored
+triangle is touched with sculpture; note also, that in the two
+principal groups of the apse, given in <a href="#plate_3">Plate III.</a>, the centre of
+the group is color, not sculpture, and the eye is evidently
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page044"></a>44</span>
+intended to be drawn as much to the chequers of the stone, as
+to the intricacies of the chiselling. It will be noticed also
+how much more precious the lower series, which is central in
+the apse, is rendered, than the one above it in the plate, which
+flanks it: there is no brick in the lower one, and three kinds
+of variegated marble are used in it, whereas the upper is composed
+of brick, with black and white marble only; and lastly&mdash;for
+this is especially delightful&mdash;see how the workman made
+his chiselling finer where it was to go with the variegated
+marbles, and used a bolder pattern with the coarser brick and
+dark stone. The subtlety and perfection of artistical feeling
+in all this are so redundant, that in the building itself the eye
+can rest upon this colored chain with the same kind of delight
+that it has in a piece of the embroidery of Paul Veronese.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. II.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft1">
+    <a name="fig_2"><img src="images/img044.jpg" width="250" height="216" alt="Fig. II." title="Fig. II." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVI.</span> Such being the construction of the lower band,
+that of the upper is remarkable only for the curious change in
+its proportions.  The two are separated,
+as seen in the little woodcut
+here at the side, by a string-course
+composed of two layers of red bricks,
+of which the uppermost projects as a
+cornice, and is sustained by an intermediate
+course of irregular brackets,
+obtained by setting the thick yellow
+bricks edgeways, in the manner common
+to this day. But the wall above is carried up perpendicularly
+from this projection, so that the whole upper band is
+advanced to the thickness of a brick over the lower one. The
+result of this is, of course, that each side of the apse is four
+or five inches broader above than below; so that the same
+number of triangles which filled a whole side of the lower
+band, leave an inch or two blank at each angle in the upper.
+This would have looked awkward, if there had been the least
+appearance of its being an accidental error; so that, in order
+to draw the eye to it, and show that it is done on purpose, the
+upper triangles are made about two inches higher than the
+lower ones, so as to be much more acute in proportion and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page045"></a>45</span>
+effect, and actually to look considerably narrower, though of
+the same width at the base. By this means they are made
+lighter in effect, and subordinated to the richly decorated series
+of the lower band, and the two courses, instead of repeating,
+unite with each other, and become a harmonious whole.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">V.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_5"><img src="images/img045.jpg" width="650" height="418" alt="Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano." title="Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In order, however, to make still more sure that this difference
+in the height of the triangles should not escape the eye,
+another course of plain bricks is added above their points,
+increasing the width of the band by another two inches.
+There are five courses of bricks in the lower band, and it
+measures 1 ft. 6 in. in height: there are seven courses in the
+upper (of which six fall between the triangles), and it measures
+1 ft. 10 in. in height, except at the extremity of the
+northern aisle, where for some mysterious reason the intermediate
+cornice is sloped upwards so as to reduce the upper
+triangles to the same height as those below. And here, finally,
+observe how determined the builder was that the one series
+should not be a mere imitation of the other; he could not now
+make them acute by additional height&mdash;so he here, and here
+only, <i>narrowed their bases</i>, and we have seven of them above,
+to six below.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVII.</span> We come now to the most interesting portion of
+the whole east end, the archivolt at the end of the northern
+aisle.</p>
+
+<p>It was above stated, that the band of triangles was broken
+by two higher arches at the ends of the aisles. That, however,
+on the northern side of the apse does not entirely interrupt,
+but lifts it, and thus forms a beautiful and curious archivolt,
+drawn opposite, in <a href="#plate_5">Plate V.</a> The upper band of triangles
+cannot rise together with the lower, as it would otherwise
+break the cornice prepared to receive the second story; and
+the curious zigzag with which its triangles die away against the
+sides of the arch, exactly as waves break upon the sand, is one
+of the most curious features in the structure.</p>
+
+<p>It will be also seen that there is a new feature in the treatment
+of the band itself when it turns the arch. Instead of
+leaving the bricks projecting between the sculptured or colored
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page046"></a>46</span>
+stones, reversed triangles of marble are used, inlaid to an equal
+depth with the others in the brickwork, but projecting beyond
+them so as to produce a sharp dark line of zigzag at their
+junctions. Three of these supplementary stones have unhappily
+fallen out, so that it is now impossible to determine the
+full harmony of color in which they were originally arranged.
+The central one, corresponding to the keystone in a common
+arch, is, however, most fortunately left, with two lateral ones
+on the right hand, and one on the left.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVIII.</span> The keystone, if it may be so called, is of white
+marble, the lateral voussoirs of purple; and these are the only
+colored stones in the whole building which are sculptured;
+but they are sculptured in a way which, more satisfactorily
+proves that the principle above stated was understood by the
+builders, than if they had been left blank. The object, observe,
+was to make the archivolt as rich as possible; eight of
+the white sculptured marbles were used upon it in juxtaposition.
+Had the purple marbles been left altogether plain, they
+would have been out of harmony with the elaboration of the
+rest. It became necessary to touch them with sculpture as a
+mere sign of carefulness and finish, but at the same time destroying
+their colored surface as little as possible. <i>The ornament
+is merely outlined upon them with a fine incision</i>, as if
+it had been etched out on their surface preparatory to being
+carved. In two of them it is composed merely of three concentric
+lines, parallel with the sides of the triangle; in the third,
+it is a wreath of beautiful design, which I have drawn of
+larger size in fig. 2, <a href="#plate_5">Plate V.</a>, that the reader may see how
+completely the surface is left undestroyed by the delicate incisions
+of the chisel, and may compare the method of working
+with that employed on the white stones, two of which are
+given in that plate, figs. 4 and 5. The keystone, of which we
+have not yet spoken, is the only white stone worked with the
+light incision; its design not being capable of the kind of
+workmanship given to the floral ornaments, and requiring
+either to be carved in complete relief, or left as we see it. It
+is given at fig. 1 of <a href="#plate_4">Plate IV.</a> The sun and moon on each
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page047"></a>47</span>
+side of the cross are, as we shall see in the fifth Chapter, constantly
+employed on the keystones of Byzantine arches.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIX.</span> We must not pass without notice the grey and
+green pieces of marble inserted at the flanks of the arch.
+For, observe, there was a difficulty in getting the forms of the
+triangle into anything like reconciliation at this point, and a
+medićval artist always delights in a difficulty: instead of concealing
+it, he boasts of it; and just as we saw above that he
+directed the eye to the difficulty of filling the expanded sides
+of the upper band by elongating his triangles, so here, having
+to put in a piece of stone of awkward shape, he makes that
+very stone the most conspicuous in the whole arch, on both
+sides, by using in one case a dark, cold grey; in the other a
+vigorous green, opposed to the warm red and purple and white
+of the stones above and beside it. The green and white piece
+on the right is of a marble, as far as I know, exceedingly rare.
+I at first thought the white fragments were inlaid, so sharply
+are they defined upon their ground. They are indeed inlaid,
+but I believe it is by nature; and that the stone is a calcareous
+breccia of great mineralogical interest. The white spots are
+of singular value in giving piquancy to the whole range of
+more delicate transitional hues above. The effect of the whole
+is, however, generally injured by the loss of the three large
+triangles above. I have no doubt they were purple, like those
+which remain, and that the whole arch was thus one zone of
+white, relieved on a purple ground, encircled by the scarlet
+cornices of brick, and the whole chord of color contrasted
+by the two precious fragments of grey and green at either
+side.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXX.</span> The two pieces of carved stone inserted at each side
+of the arch, as seen at the bottom of <a href="#plate_5">Plate V.</a>, are of different
+workmanship from the rest; they do not match each other, and
+form part of the evidence which proves that portions of the
+church had been brought from the mainland. One bears an
+inscription, which, as its antiquity is confirmed by the shapelessness
+of its letters, I was much gratified by not being able
+to read; but M. Lazari, the intelligent author of the latest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page048"></a>48</span>
+and best Venetian guide, with better skill, has given as much
+of it as remains, thus:</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <a name="fig_048"><img src="images/img048.jpg" width="700" height="72" alt="Inscription." title="Inscription." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>I have printed the letters as they are placed in the inscription,
+in order that the reader may form some idea of the difficulty
+of reading such legends when the letters, thus thrown
+into one heap, are themselves of strange forms, and half worn
+away; any gaps which at all occur between them coming in
+the wrong places. There is no doubt, however, as to the reading
+of this fragment:&mdash;&ldquo;T ... Sancte Marie Domini
+Genetricis et beati Estefani martiri ego indignus et peccator
+Domenicus T.&rdquo; On these two initial and final T&rsquo;s, expanding
+one into Templum, the other into Torcellanus, M. Lazari
+founds an ingenious conjecture that the inscription records the
+elevation of the church under a certain bishop Dominic of
+Torcello (named in the Altinat Chronicle), who flourished in
+the middle of the ninth century. If this were so, as the
+inscription occurs broken off on a fragment inserted scornfully
+in the present edifice, this edifice must be of the twelfth century,
+worked with fragments taken from the ruins of that
+built in the ninth. The two T&rsquo;s are, however, hardly a foundation
+large enough to build the church upon, a hundred years
+before the date assigned to it both by history and tradition
+(see above, § <span class="scs">VIII</span>.): and the reader has yet to be made aware
+of the principal fact bearing on the question.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXI.</span> Above the first story of the apse runs, as he knows
+already, a gallery under open arches, protected by a light
+balustrade. This balustrade is worked on the <i>outside</i> with
+mouldings, of which I shall only say at present that they are
+of exactly the same school as the greater part of the work of
+the existing church. But the great horizontal pieces of stone
+which form the top of this balustrade are fragments of an
+older building turned inside out. They are covered with
+sculptures on the back, only to be seen by mounting into the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page049"></a>49</span>
+gallery. They have once had an arcade of low wide arches
+traced on their surface, the spandrils filled with leafage, and
+archivolts enriched with studded chainwork and with crosses
+in their centres. These pieces have been used as waste marble
+by the architect of the existing apse. The small arches of the
+present balustrade are cut mercilessly through the old work,
+and the profile of the balustrade is cut out of what was once
+the back of the stone; only some respect is shown for the
+crosses in the old design, the blocks are cut so that these
+shall be not only left uninjured, but come in the centre of the
+balustrades.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXII.</span> Now let the reader observe carefully that this
+balustrade of Murano is a fence of other things than the low
+gallery round the deserted apse. It is a barrier between two
+great schools of early architecture. On one side it was cut by
+Romanesque workmen of the early Christian ages, and furnishes
+us with a distinct type of a kind of ornament which,
+as we meet with other examples of it, we shall be able to describe
+in generic terms, and to throw back behind this balustrade,
+out of our way. The <i>front</i> of the balustrade presents
+us with a totally different condition of design, less rich, more
+graceful, and here shown in its simplest possible form. From
+the outside of this bar of marble we shall commence our progress
+in the study of existing Venetian architecture. The
+only question is, do we begin from the tenth or from the
+twelfth century?</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIII.</span> I was in great hopes once of being able to determine
+this positively; but the alterations in all the early buildings
+of Venice are so numerous, and the foreign fragments
+introduced so innumerable, that I was obliged to leave the
+question doubtful. But one circumstance must be noted,
+bearing upon it closely.</p>
+
+<p>In the woodcut on <a href="#page050">page 50</a>, <a href="#fig_3">Fig. III.</a>, <i>b</i> is an archivolt of
+Murano, <i>a</i> one of St. Mark&rsquo;s; the latter acknowledged by all
+historians and all investigators to be of the twelfth century.</p>
+
+<p><i>All</i> the twelfth century archivolts in Venice, without exception,
+are on the model of <i>a</i>, differing only in their decorations
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page050"></a>50</span>
+and sculpture. There is not one which resembles that of
+Murano.</p>
+
+<p>But the deep mouldings of Murano are almost exactly similar
+to those of St. Michele of Pavia, and other Lombard
+churches built, some as early as the seventh, others in the
+eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries.</p>
+
+<p>On this ground it seems to me probable that the existing
+apse of Murano is part of the original earliest church, and that
+the inscribed fragments used in it have been brought from the
+mainland. The balustrade, however, may still be later than
+the rest; it will be examined, hereafter, more carefully.<a name="FnAnchor_15" href="#Footnote_15"><span class="sp">15</span></a></p>
+
+<p>I have not space to give any farther account of the exterior
+of the building, though one half of what is remarkable in it
+remains untold. We must now see what is left of interest
+within the walls.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. III.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_3"><img src="images/img050.jpg" width="600" height="233" alt="Fig. III." title="Fig. III." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIV.</span> All hope is taken away by our first glance; for it
+falls on a range of shafts whose bases are concealed by wooden
+panelling, and which sustain arches decorated in the most
+approved style of Renaissance upholstery, with stucco roses in
+squares under the soffits, and egg and arrow mouldings on the
+architraves, gilded, on a ground of spotty black and green, with
+a small pink-faced and black-eyed cherub on every keystone;
+the rest of the church being for the most part concealed either
+by dirty hangings, or dirtier whitewash, or dim pictures on
+warped and wasting canvas; all vulgar, vain, and foul. Yet
+let us not turn back, for in the shadow of the apse our more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page051"></a>51</span>
+careful glance shows us a Greek Madonna, pictured on a field
+of gold; and we feel giddy at the first step we make on the
+pavement, for it, also, is of Greek mosaic waved like the sea,
+and dyed like a dove&rsquo;s neck.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXV.</span> Nor are the original features of the rest of the
+edifice altogether indecipherable; the entire series of shafts
+marked in the ground plan on each side of the nave, from the
+western entrance to the apse, are nearly uninjured; and I
+believe the stilted arches they sustain are those of the original
+fabric, though the masonry is covered by the Renaissance
+stucco mouldings. Their capitals, for a wonder, are left bare,
+and appear to have sustained no farther injury than has resulted
+from the insertion of a large brass chandelier into each of their
+abaci, each chandelier carrying a sublime wax candle two inches
+thick, fastened with wire to the wall above. The due arrangement
+of these appendages, previous to festal days, can only be
+effected from a ladder set against the angle of the abacus; and
+ten minutes before I wrote this sentence, I had the privilege
+of watching the candlelighter at his work, knocking his ladder
+about the heads of the capitals as if they had given him personal
+offence. He at last succeeded in breaking away one of
+the lamps altogether, with a bit of the marble of the abacus;
+the whole falling in ruin to the pavement, and causing much
+consultation and clamor among a tribe of beggars who were
+assisting the sacristan with their wisdom respecting the festal
+arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVI.</span> It is fortunate that the capitals themselves, being
+somewhat rudely cut, can bear this kind of treatment better
+than most of those in Venice. They are all founded on the
+Corinthian type, but the leaves are in every one different:
+those of the easternmost capital of the southern range are the
+best, and very beautiful, but presenting no feature of much
+interest, their workmanship being inferior to most of the imitations
+of Corinthian common at the period; much more to
+the rich fantasies which we have seen at Torcello. The apse
+itself, to-day (12th September, 1851), is not to be described;
+for just in front of it, behind the altar, is a magnificent curtain
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page052"></a>52</span>
+of new red velvet with a gilt edge and two golden tassels,
+held up in a dainty manner by two angels in the upholsterer&rsquo;s
+service; and above all, for concentration of effect, a star or
+sun, some five feet broad, the spikes of which conceal the
+whole of the figure of the Madonna except the head and
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVII.</span> The pavement is however still left open, and it is
+of infinite interest, although grievously distorted and defaced.
+For whenever a new chapel has been built, or a new altar
+erected, the pavement has been broken up and readjusted so
+as to surround the newly inserted steps or stones with some
+appearance of symmetry; portions of it either covered or
+carried away, others mercilessly shattered or replaced by
+modern imitations, and those of very different periods, with
+pieces of the old floor left here and there in the midst of them,
+and worked round so as to deceive the eye into acceptance
+of the whole as ancient. The portion, however, which occupies
+the western extremity of the nave, and the parts immediately
+adjoining it in the aisles, are, I believe, in their original
+positions, and very little injured: they are composed chiefly of
+groups of peacocks, lions, stags, and griffins,&mdash;two of each in
+a group, drinking out of the same vase, or shaking claws
+together,&mdash;enclosed by interlacing bands, and alternating with
+chequer or star patterns, and here and there an attempt at
+representation of architecture, all worked in marble mosaic.
+The floors of Torcello and of St. Mark&rsquo;s are executed in the
+same manner; but what remains at Murano is finer than either,
+in the extraordinary play of color obtained by the use of variegated
+marbles. At St. Mark&rsquo;s the patterns are more intricate,
+and the pieces far more skilfully set together; but each piece
+is there commonly of one color: at Murano every fragment is
+itself variegated, and all are arranged with a skill and feeling
+not to be caught, and to be observed with deep reverence, for
+that pavement is not dateless, like the rest of the church; it
+bears its date on one of its central circles, 1140, and is, in my
+mind, one of the most precious monuments in Italy, showing
+thus early, and in those rude chequers which the bared knee of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page053"></a>53</span>
+the Murano fisher wears in its daily bending, the beginning of
+that mighty spirit of Venetian color, which was to be consummated
+in Titian.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVIII.</span> But we must quit the church for the present, for
+its garnishings are completed; the candles are all upright in
+their sockets, and the curtains drawn into festoons, and a paste-board
+crescent, gay with artificial flowers, has been attached to
+the capital of every pillar, in order, together with the gilt
+angels, to make the place look as much like Paradise as possible.
+If we return to-morrow, we shall find it filled with woful
+groups of aged men and women, wasted and fever-struck, fixed
+in paralytic supplication, half-kneeling, half-couched upon the
+pavement; bowed down, partly in feebleness, partly in a fearful
+devotion, with their grey clothes cast far over their faces,
+ghastly and settled into a gloomy animal misery, all but the
+glittering eyes and muttering lips.</p>
+
+<p>Fit inhabitants, these, for what was once the Garden of
+Venice, &ldquo;a terrestrial paradise,&mdash;a place of nymphs and demi-gods!&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_16" href="#Footnote_16"><span class="sp">16</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIX.</span> We return, yet once again, on the following day.
+Worshippers and objects of worship, the sickly crowd and
+gilded angels, all are gone; and there, far in the apse, is seen
+the sad Madonna standing in her folded robe, lifting her hands
+in vanity of blessing. There is little else to draw away our
+thoughts from the solitary image. An old wooden tablet,
+carved into a rude effigy of San Donato, which occupies the
+central niche in the lower part of the tribune, has an interest
+of its own, but is unconnected with the history of the older
+church. The faded frescoes of saints, which cover the upper
+tier of the wall of the apse, are also of comparatively recent
+date, much more the piece of Renaissance workmanship, shaft
+and entablature, above the altar, which has been thrust into
+the midst of all, and has cut away part of the feet of the
+Madonna. Nothing remains of the original structure but the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page054"></a>54</span>
+semi-dome itself, the cornice whence it springs, which is the
+same as that used on the exterior of the church, and the border
+and face-arch which surround it. The ground of the dome
+is of gold, unbroken except by the upright Madonna, and
+usual inscription, M R &#920; V. The figure wears a robe of
+blue, deeply fringed with gold, which seems to be gathered on
+the head and thrown back on the shoulders, crossing the breast,
+and falling in many folds to the ground. The under robe,
+shown beneath it where it opens at the breast, is of the same
+color; the whole, except the deep gold fringe, being simply
+the dress of the women of the time. &ldquo;Le donne, anco elle del
+1100, vestivano <i>di turchino con manti in spalla</i>, che le coprivano
+dinanzi e di dietro.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_17" href="#Footnote_17"><span class="sp">17</span></a></p>
+
+<p>Round the dome there is a colored mosaic border; and on
+the edge of its arch, legible by the whole congregation, this
+inscription:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr sc">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;quos Eva contrivit, pia virgo Maria redemit;</p>
+<p>hanc cuncti laudent, qui Cristi munere gaudent.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_18" href="#Footnote_18"><span class="sp">18</span></a></p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The whole edifice is, therefore, simply a temple to the
+Virgin: to her is ascribed the fact of Redemption, and to her
+its praise.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XL.</span> &ldquo;And is this,&rdquo; it will be asked of me, &ldquo;the time, is
+this the worship, to which you would have us look back with
+reverence and regret?&rdquo; Inasmuch as redemption is ascribed to
+the Virgin, No. Inasmuch as redemption is a thing desired,
+believed, rejoiced in, Yes,&mdash;and Yes a thousand times. As
+far as the Virgin is worshipped in place of God, No; but as
+far as there is the evidence of worship itself, and of the sense
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page055"></a>55</span>
+of a Divine presence, Yes. For there is a wider division of
+men than that into Christian and Pagan: before we ask what a
+man worships, we have to ask whether he worships at all.
+Observe Christ&rsquo;s own words on this head: &ldquo;God is a spirit;
+and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit, <i>and</i>
+in truth.&rdquo; The worshipping in spirit comes first, and it does
+not necessarily imply the worshipping in truth. Therefore,
+there is first the broad division of men into Spirit worshippers
+and Flesh worshippers; and then, of the Spirit worshippers,
+the farther division into Christian and Pagan,&mdash;worshippers in
+Falsehood or in Truth. I therefore, for the moment, omit all
+inquiry how far the Mariolatry of the early church did indeed
+eclipse Christ, or what measure of deeper reverence for the
+Son of God was still felt through all the grosser forms of Madonna
+worship. Let that worship be taken at its worst; let
+the goddess of this dome of Murano be looked upon as just in
+the same sense an idol as the Athene of the Acropolis, or the
+Syrian Queen of Heaven; and then, on this darkest assumption,
+balance well the difference between those who worship
+and those who worship not;&mdash;that difference which there is in
+the sight of God, in all ages, between the calculating, smiling,
+self-sustained, self-governed man, and the believing, weeping,
+wondering, struggling, Heaven-governed man;&mdash;between the
+men who say in their hearts &ldquo;there is no God,&rdquo; and those who
+acknowledge a God at every step, &ldquo;if haply they might feel
+after Him and find Him.&rdquo; For that is indeed the difference
+which we shall find, in the end, between the builders of this
+day and the builders on that sand island long ago. They <i>did</i>
+honor something out of themselves; they did believe in
+spiritual presence judging, animating, redeeming them; they
+built to its honor and for its habitation; and were content to
+pass away in nameless multitudes, so only that the labor of
+their hands might fix in the sea-wilderness a throne for their
+guardian angel. In this was their strength, and there was
+indeed a Spirit walking with them on the waters, though they
+could not discern the form thereof, though the Masters voice
+came not to them, &ldquo;It is I.&rdquo; What their error cost them, we
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page056"></a>56</span>
+shall see hereafter; for it remained when the majesty and the
+sincerity of their worship had departed, and remains to this
+day. Mariolatry is no special characteristic of the twelfth century;
+on the outside of that very tribune of San Donato, in
+its central recess, is an image of the Virgin which receives the
+reverence once paid to the blue vision upon the inner dome.
+With rouged cheeks and painted brows, the frightful doll
+stands in wretchedness of rags, blackened with the smoke of
+the votive lamps at its feet; and if we would know what has
+been lost or gained by Italy in the six hundred years that have
+worn the marbles of Murano, let us consider how far the
+priests who set up this to worship, the populace who have this
+to adore, may be nobler than the men who conceived that
+lonely figure standing on the golden field, or than those to
+whom it seemed to receive their prayer at evening, far away,
+where they only saw the blue clouds rising out of the burning
+sea.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10" href="#FnAnchor_10"><span class="fn">10</span></a> &ldquo;Mela, e buon vino, con pace e caritŕ,&rdquo; Memorie Storiche de&rsquo; Veneti
+Primi e Secondi, di Jacopo Filiasi (Padua, 1811), tom. iii. cap. 23. Perhaps,
+in the choice of the abbot&rsquo;s cheer, there was some occult reference
+to the verse of Solomon&rsquo;s Song: &ldquo;Stay me with flagons, comfort me with
+apples.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11" href="#FnAnchor_11"><span class="fn">11</span></a> Notizie Storiche delle Chiese di Venezia, illustrate da Flaminio Corner
+(Padua, 1758), p. 615.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12" href="#FnAnchor_12"><span class="fn">12</span></a> &ldquo;On the 14th day of April, 1374, there were found, in this church
+of the first martyr St. Stefano, two hundred and more bodies of holy
+martyrs, by the venerable priest, Matthew Fradello, incumbent of the
+church.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13" href="#FnAnchor_13"><span class="fn">13</span></a> Notizie Storiche, p. 620.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14" href="#FnAnchor_14"><span class="fn">14</span></a> The intention is farther confirmed by the singular variation in the
+breadth of the small fillet which encompasses the inner marble. It is
+much narrower at the bottom than at the sides, so as to recover the original
+breadth in the lower border.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15" href="#FnAnchor_15"><span class="fn">15</span></a> Its elevation is given to scale in fig. 4, <a href="#plate_13">Plate XIII.</a>, below.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16" href="#FnAnchor_16"><span class="fn">16</span></a> &ldquo;Luogo de&rsquo; ninfe e de&rsquo; semidei.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>M. Andrea Calmo</i>, quoted by Mutinelli,
+Annali Urbani di Venezia (Venice, 1841), p. 362.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17" href="#FnAnchor_17"><span class="fn">17</span></a> &ldquo;The women, even as far back as 1100, wore dresses of blue, with
+mantles on the shoulder, which clothed them before and behind.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansorino</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to imagine a dress more modest and beautiful. See
+<a href="#app_7">Appendix 7</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18" href="#FnAnchor_18"><span class="fn">18</span></a></p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="ind05">&ldquo;Whom Eve destroyed, the pious Virgin Mary redeemed;</p>
+<p>All praise her, who rejoice in the Grace of Christ.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Vide <a href="#app_8">Appendix 8</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page057"></a>57</span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="chap_4"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h5>ST. MARK&rsquo;S.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I.</span> &ldquo;And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus.&rdquo;
+If as the shores of Asia lessened upon his sight, the spirit of
+prophecy had entered into the heart of the weak disciple who
+had turned back when his hand was on the plough, and who
+had been judged, by the chiefest of Christ&rsquo;s captains, unworthy
+thenceforward to go forth with him to the work,<a name="FnAnchor_19" href="#Footnote_19"><span class="sp">19</span></a> how
+wonderful would he have thought it, that by the lion symbol
+in future ages he was to be represented among men! how
+woful, that the war-cry of his name should so often reanimate
+the rage of the soldier, on those very plains where he himself
+had failed in the courage of the Christian, and so often dye
+with fruitless blood that very Cypriot Sea, over whose waves,
+in repentance and shame, he was following the Son of Consolation!</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II.</span> That the Venetians possessed themselves of his body
+in the ninth century, there appears no sufficient reason to
+doubt, nor that it was principally in consequence of their having
+done so, that they chose him for their patron saint. There
+exists, however, a tradition that before he went into Egypt he
+had founded the Church at Aquileia, and was thus, in some
+sort, the first bishop of the Venetian isles and people. I believe
+that this tradition stands on nearly as good grounds as
+that of St. Peter having been the first bishop of Rome;<a name="FnAnchor_20" href="#Footnote_20"><span class="sp">20</span></a>
+but, as usual, it is enriched by various later additions and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page058"></a>58</span>
+embellishments, much resembling the stories told respecting
+the church of Murano. Thus we find it recorded by the
+Santo Padre who compiled the &ldquo;Vite de&rsquo; Santi spettanti alle
+Chiese di Venezia,&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_21" href="#Footnote_21"><span class="sp">21</span></a> that &ldquo;St. Mark having seen the people
+of Aquileia well grounded in religion, and being called to
+Rome by St. Peter, before setting off took with him the holy
+bishop Hermagoras, and went in a small boat to the marshes
+of Venice. There were at that period some houses built upon
+a certain high bank called Rialto, and the boat being driven
+by the wind was anchored in a marshy place, when St. Mark,
+snatched into ecstasy, heard the voice of an angel saying to
+him: &lsquo;Peace be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+The angel goes on to foretell the building of &ldquo;una stupenda,
+ne piů veduta Cittŕ;&rdquo; but the fable is hardly ingenious
+enough to deserve farther relation.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III.</span> But whether St. Mark was first bishop of Aquileia or
+not, St. Theodore was the first patron of the city; nor can
+he yet be considered as having entirely abdicated his early
+right, as his statue, standing on a crocodile, still companions
+the winged lion on the opposing pillar of the piazzetta. A
+church erected to this Saint is said to have occupied, before
+the ninth century, the site of St. Mark&rsquo;s; and the traveller,
+dazzled by the brilliancy of the great square, ought not to
+leave it without endeavoring to imagine its <span class="correction" title="aspeet in the original">aspect</span> in that
+early time, when it was a green field cloister-like and quiet,<a name="FnAnchor_22" href="#Footnote_22"><span class="sp">22</span></a>
+divided by a small canal, with a line of trees on each side;
+and extending between the two churches of St. Theodore and
+St. Geminian, as the little piazza of Torcello lies between its
+&ldquo;palazzo&rdquo; and cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV.</span> But in the year 813, when the seat of government
+was finally removed to the Rialto, a Ducal Palace, built on
+the spot where the present one stands, with a Ducal Chapel
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page059"></a>59</span>
+beside it,<a name="FnAnchor_23" href="#Footnote_23"><span class="sp">23</span></a> gave a very different character to the Square of
+St. Mark; and fifteen years later, the acquisition of the body
+of the Saint, and its deposition in the Ducal Chapel, perhaps
+not yet completed, occasioned the investiture of that chapel
+with all possible splendor. St. Theodore was deposed from
+his patronship, and his church destroyed, to make room for
+the aggrandizement of the one attached to the Ducal Palace,
+and thenceforward known as &ldquo;St. Mark&rsquo;s.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_24" href="#Footnote_24"><span class="sp">24</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V.</span> This first church was however destroyed by fire, when
+the Ducal Palace was burned in the revolt against Candiano,
+in 976. It was partly rebuilt by his successor, Pietro Orseolo,
+on a larger scale; and, with the assistance of Byzantine
+architects, the fabric was carried on under successive Doges
+for nearly a hundred years; the main building being completed
+in 1071, but its incrustation with marble not till considerably
+later. It was consecrated on the 8th of October,
+1085,<a name="FnAnchor_25" href="#Footnote_25"><span class="sp">25</span></a> according to Sansovino and the author of the &ldquo;Chiesa
+Ducale di S. Marco,&rdquo; in 1094 according to Lazari, but certainly
+between 1084 and 1096, those years being the limits of the
+reign of Vital Falier; I incline to the supposition that it was
+soon after his accession to the throne in 1085, though Sansovino
+writes, by mistake, Ordelafo instead of Vital Falier.
+But, at all events, before the close of the eleventh century the
+great consecration of the church took place. It was again
+injured by fire in 1106, but repaired; and from that time to
+the fall of Venice there was probably no Doge who did not
+in some slight degree embellish or alter the fabric, so that few
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page060"></a>60</span>
+parts of it can be pronounced boldly to be of any given date.
+Two periods of interference are, however, notable above the
+rest: the first, that in which the Gothic school, had superseded
+the Byzantine towards the close of the fourteenth century,
+when the pinnacles, upper archivolts, and window traceries
+were added to the exterior, and the great screen, with various
+chapels and tabernacle-work, to the interior; the second, when
+the Renaissance school superseded the Gothic, and the pupils
+of Titian and Tintoret substituted, over one half of the
+church, their own compositions for the Greek mosaics with
+which it was originally decorated;<a name="FnAnchor_26" href="#Footnote_26"><span class="sp">26</span></a> happily, though with no
+good will, having left enough to enable us to imagine and
+lament what they destroyed. Of this irreparable loss we shall
+have more to say hereafter; meantime, I wish only to fix in
+the reader&rsquo;s mind the succession of periods of alteration as
+firmly and simply as possible.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI.</span> We have seen that the main body of the church may
+be broadly stated to be of the eleventh century, the Gothic
+additions of the fourteenth, and the restored mosaics of the
+seventeenth. There is no difficulty in distinguishing at a
+glance the Gothic portions from the Byzantine; but there is
+considerable difficulty in ascertaining how long, during the
+course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, additions were
+made to the Byzantine church, which cannot be easily distinguished
+from the work of the eleventh century, being purposely
+executed in the same manner. Two of the most important
+pieces of evidence on this point are, a mosaic in the
+south transept, and another over the northern door of the
+façade; the first representing the interior, the second the exterior,
+of the ancient church.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII.</span> It has just been stated that the existing building was
+consecrated by the Doge Vital Falier. A peculiar solemnity
+was given to that act of consecration, in the minds of the Venetian
+people, by what appears to have been one of the best
+arranged and most successful impostures ever attempted by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page061"></a>61</span>
+the clergy of the Romish church. The body of St. Mark had,
+without doubt, perished in the conflagration of 976; but the
+revenues of the church depended too much upon the devotion
+excited by these relics to permit the confession of their loss.
+The following is the account given by Corner, and believed to
+this day by the Venetians, of the pretended miracle by which
+it was concealed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;After the repairs undertaken by the Doge Orseolo, the
+place in which the body of the holy Evangelist rested had
+been altogether forgotten; so that the Doge Vital Falier was
+entirely ignorant of the place of the venerable deposit. This
+was no light affliction, not only to the pious Doge, but to all
+the citizens and people; so that at last, moved by confidence
+in the Divine mercy, they determined to implore, with prayer
+and fasting, the manifestation of so great a treasure, which
+did not now depend upon any human effort. A general fast
+being therefore proclaimed, and a solemn procession appointed
+for the 25th day of June, while the people assembled in the
+church interceded with God in fervent prayers for the desired
+boon, they beheld, with as much amazement as joy, a slight
+shaking in the marbles of a pillar (near the place where the
+altar of the Cross is now), which, presently falling to the
+earth, exposed to the view of the rejoicing people the chest of
+bronze in which the body of the Evangelist was laid.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VIII.</span> Of the main facts of this tale there is no doubt.
+They were embellished afterwards, as usual, by many fanciful
+traditions; as, for instance, that, when the sarcophagus was
+discovered, St. Mark extended his hand out of it, with a gold
+ring on one of the fingers, which he permitted a noble of
+the Dolfin family to remove; and a quaint and delightful
+story was further invented of this ring, which I shall not
+repeat here, as it is now as well known as any tale of the
+Arabian Nights. But the fast and the discovery of the
+coffin, by whatever means effected, are facts; and they are
+recorded in one of the best-preserved mosaics of the north
+transept, executed very certainly not long after the event had
+taken place, closely resembling in its treatment that of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page062"></a>62</span>
+Bayeux tapestry, and showing, in a conventional manner, the
+interior of the church, as it then was, filled by the people, first
+in prayer, then in thanksgiving, the pillar standing open before
+them, and the Doge, in the midst of them, distinguished
+by his crimson bonnet embroidered with gold, but more unmistakably
+by the inscription &ldquo;Dux&rdquo; over his head, as uniformly
+is the case in the Bayeux tapestry, and most other pictorial
+works of the period. The church is, of course, rudely
+represented, and the two upper stories of it reduced to a small
+scale in order to form a background to the figures; one of
+those bold pieces of picture history which we in our pride of
+perspective, and a thousand things besides, never dare attempt.
+We should have put in a column or two of the real or perspective
+size, and subdued it into a vague background: the old
+workman crushed the church together that he might get it all
+in, up to the cupolas; and has, therefore, left us some useful
+notes of its ancient form, though any one who is familiar with
+the method of drawing employed at the period will not push
+the evidence too far. The two pulpits are there, however, as
+they are at this day, and the fringe of mosaic flower-work
+which then encompassed the whole church, but which modern
+restorers have destroyed, all but one fragment still left in the
+south aisle. There is no attempt to represent the other
+mosaics on the roof, the scale being too small to admit of their
+being represented with any success; but some at least of those
+mosaics had been executed at that period, and their absence in
+the representation of the entire church is especially to be observed,
+in order to show that we must not trust to any negative
+evidence in such works. M. Lazari has rashly concluded
+that the central archivolt of St. Mark&rsquo;s <i>must</i> be posterior to
+the year 1205, because it does not appear in the representation
+of the exterior of the church over the northern door;<a name="FnAnchor_27" href="#Footnote_27"><span class="sp">27</span></a> but he
+justly observes that this mosaic (which is the other piece
+of evidence we possess respecting the ancient form of the
+building) cannot itself be earlier than 1205, since it represents
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page063"></a>63</span>
+the bronze horses which were brought from Constantinople
+in that year. And this one fact renders it very
+difficult to speak with confidence respecting the date of any
+part of the exterior of St. Mark&rsquo;s; for we have above seen
+that it was consecrated in the eleventh century, and yet here
+is one of its most important exterior decorations assuredly retouched,
+if not entirely added, in the thirteenth, although its
+style would have led us to suppose it had been an original part
+of the fabric. However, for all our purposes, it will be enough
+for the reader to remember that the earliest parts of the building
+belong to the eleventh, twelfth, and first part of the thirteenth
+century; the Gothic portions to the fourteenth; some
+of the altars and embellishments to the fifteenth and sixteenth;
+and the modern portion of the mosaics to the seventeenth.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IX.</span> This, however, I only wish him to recollect in order
+that I may speak generally of the Byzantine architecture of
+St. Mark&rsquo;s, without leading him to suppose the whole church
+to have been built and decorated by Greek artists. Its later
+portions, with the single exception of the seventeenth century
+mosaics, have been so dexterously accommodated to the original
+fabric that the general effect is still that of a Byzantine
+building; and I shall not, except when it is absolutely necessary,
+direct attention to the discordant points, or weary the
+reader with anatomical criticism. Whatever in St. Mark&rsquo;s arrests
+the eye, or affects the feelings, is either Byzantine, or has
+been modified by Byzantine influence; and our inquiry into
+its architectural merits need not therefore be disturbed by the
+anxieties of antiquarianism, or arrested by the obscurities of
+chronology.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">X.</span> And now I wish that the reader, before I bring him
+into St. Mark&rsquo;s Place, would imagine himself for a little time
+in a quiet English cathedral town, and walk with me to the
+west front of its cathedral. Let us go together up the more
+retired street, at the end of which we can see the pinnacles of
+one of the towers, and then through the low grey gateway,
+with its battlemented top and small latticed window in the
+centre, into the inner private-looking road or close, where
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page064"></a>64</span>
+nothing goes in but the carts of the tradesmen who supply the
+bishop and the chapter, and where there are little shaven grass-plots,
+fenced in by neat rails, before old-fashioned groups of
+somewhat diminutive and excessively trim houses, with little
+oriel and bay windows jutting out here and there, and deep
+wooden cornices and eaves painted cream color and white, and
+small porches to their doors in the shape of cockle-shells, or
+little, crooked, thick, indescribable wooden gables warped a
+little on one side; and so forward till we come to larger
+houses, also old-fashioned, but of red brick, and with gardens
+behind them, and fruit walls, which show here and there,
+among the nectarines, the vestiges of an old cloister arch or
+shaft, and looking in front on the cathedral square itself, laid
+out in rigid divisions of smooth grass and gravel walk, yet not
+uncheerful, especially on the sunny side where the canons&rsquo;
+children are walking with their nurserymaids. And so, taking
+care not to tread on the grass, we will go along the straight
+walk to the west front, and there stand for a time, looking up
+at its deep-pointed porches and the dark places between their
+pillars where there were statues once, and where the fragments,
+here and there, of a stately figure are still left, which
+has in it the likeness of a king, perhaps indeed a king on
+earth, perhaps a saintly king long ago in heaven; and so higher
+and higher up to the great mouldering wall of rugged sculpture
+and confused arcades, shattered, and grey, and grisly with
+heads of dragons and mocking fiends, worn by the rain and
+swirling winds into yet unseemlier shape, and colored on their
+stony scales by the deep russet-orange lichen, melancholy
+gold; and so, higher still, to the bleak towers, so far above
+that the eye loses itself among the bosses of their traceries,
+though they are rude and strong, and only sees like a drift of
+eddying black points, now closing, now scattering, and now
+settling suddenly into invisible places among the bosses and
+flowers, the crowed of restless birds that fill the whole square
+with that strange clangor of theirs, so harsh and yet so soothing,
+like the cries of birds on a solitary coast between the cliffs
+and sea.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page065"></a>65</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XI.</span> Think for a little while of that scene, and the meaning
+of all its small formalisms, mixed with its serene sublimity.
+Estimate its secluded, continuous, drowsy felicities,
+and its evidence of the sense and steady performance of such
+kind of duties as can be regulated by the cathedral clock; and
+weigh the influence of those dark towers on all who have
+passed through the lonely square at their feet for centuries,
+and on all who have seen them rising far away over the wooded
+plain, or catching on their square masses the last rays of the
+sunset, when the city at their feet was indicated only by the
+mist at the bend of the river. And then let us quickly recollect
+that we are in Venice, and land at the extremity of the
+Calle Lunga San Moisč, which may be considered as there
+answering to the secluded street that led us to our English
+cathedral gateway.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XII.</span> We find ourselves in a paved alley, some seven feet
+wide where it is widest, full of people, and resonant with cries
+of itinerant salesmen,&mdash;a shriek in their beginning, and dying
+away into a kind of brazen ringing, all the worse for its confinement
+between the high houses of the passage along which
+we have to make our way. Over-head an inextricable confusion
+of rugged shutters, and iron balconies and chimney
+flues pushed out on brackets to save room, and arched windows
+with projecting sills of Istrian stone, and gleams of green
+leaves here and there where a fig-tree branch escapes over a
+lower wall from some inner cortile, leading the eye up to the
+narrow stream of blue sky high over all. On each side, a row
+of shops, as densely set as may be, occupying, in fact, intervals
+between the square stone shafts, about eight feet high, which
+carry the first floors: intervals of which one is narrow and
+serves as a door; the other is, in the more respectable shops,
+wainscoted to the height of the counter and glazed above, but
+in those of the poorer tradesmen left open to the ground, and
+the wares laid on benches and tables in the open air, the light
+in all cases entering at the front only, and fading away in a
+few feet from the threshold into a gloom which the eye from
+without cannot penetrate, but which is generally broken by a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page066"></a>66</span>
+ray or two from a feeble lamp at the back of the shop, suspended
+before a print of the Virgin. The less pious shop-keeper
+sometimes leaves his lamp unlighted, and is contented
+with a penny print; the more religious one has his print
+colored and set in a little shrine with a gilded or figured
+fringe, with perhaps a faded flower or two on each side, and
+his lamp burning brilliantly. Here at the fruiterer&rsquo;s, where
+the dark-green water-melons are heaped upon the counter like
+cannon balls, the Madonna has a tabernacle of fresh laurel
+leaves; but the pewterer next door has let his lamp out, and
+there is nothing to be seen in his shop but the dull gleam of
+the studded patterns on the copper pans, hanging from his
+roof in the darkness. Next comes a &ldquo;Vendita Frittole e
+Liquori,&rdquo; where the Virgin, enthroned in a very humble manner
+beside a tallow candle on a back shelf, presides over certain
+ambrosial morsels of a nature too ambiguous to be defined
+or enumerated. But a few steps farther on, at the regular
+wine-shop of the calle, where we are offered &ldquo;Vino Nostrani
+a Soldi 28ˇ32,&rdquo; the Madonna is in great glory, enthroned above
+ten or a dozen large red casks of three-year-old vintage, and
+flanked by goodly ranks of bottles of Maraschino, and two
+crimson lamps; and for the evening, when the gondoliers will
+come to drink out, under her auspices, the money they have
+gained during the day, she will have a whole chandelier.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIII.</span> A yard or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the
+Black Eagle, and, glancing as we pass through the square door
+of marble, deeply moulded, in the outer wall, we see the shadows
+of its pergola of vines resting on an ancient well, with a
+pointed shield carved on its side; and so presently emerge on
+the bridge and Campo San Moisč, whence to the entrance into
+St. Mark&rsquo;s Place, called the Bocca di Piazza (mouth of the
+square), the Venetian character is nearly destroyed, first by the
+frightful façade of San Moisč, which we will pause at another
+time to examine, and then by the modernizing of the shops as
+they near the piazza, and the mingling with the lower Venetian
+populace of lounging groups of English and Austrians.
+We will push fast through them into the shadow of the pillars
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page067"></a>67</span>
+at the end of the &ldquo;Bocca di Piazza,&rdquo; and then we forget them
+all; for between those pillars there opens a great light, and, in
+the midst of it, as we advance slowly, the vast tower of St.
+Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level field of
+chequered stones; and, on each side, the countless arches prolong
+themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and
+irregular houses that pressed together above us in the dark
+alley had been struck back into sudden obedience and lovely
+order, and all their rude casements and broken walls had been
+transformed into arches charged with goodly sculpture, and
+fluted shafts of delicate stone.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIV.</span> And well may they fall back, for beyond those
+troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth,
+and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a
+kind of awe, that we may see it far away;&mdash;a multitude of
+pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of
+colored light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and
+partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five
+great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with
+sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory,&mdash;sculpture
+fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and
+grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering
+among the branches, all twined together into an endless network
+of buds and plumes; and, in the midst of it, the solemn
+forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and leaning
+to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among
+the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside
+them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded
+back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were
+angel-guarded long ago. And round the walls of the porches
+there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry,
+and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and
+marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like,
+&ldquo;their bluest veins to kiss&rdquo;&mdash;the shadow, as it steals
+back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation,
+as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich
+with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page068"></a>68</span>
+leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning
+and ending in the Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts,
+a continuous chain of language and of life&mdash;angels, and
+the signs of heaven, and the labors of men, each in its appointed
+season upon the earth; and above these, another range
+of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged with
+scarlet flowers,&mdash;a confusion of delight, amidst which the
+breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of
+golden strength, and the St. Mark&rsquo;s Lion, lifted on a blue field
+covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of
+the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far
+into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray,
+as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frost-bound before
+they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral
+and amethyst.</p>
+
+<p>Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an
+interval! There is a type of it in the very birds that haunt
+them; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and
+sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper air, the St. Mark&rsquo;s
+porches are full of doves, that nestle among the marble foliage,
+and mingle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, changing
+at every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely, that
+have stood unchanged for seven hundred years.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XV.</span> And what effect has this splendor on those who pass
+beneath it? You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro,
+before the gateway of St. Mark&rsquo;s, and you will not see an eye
+lifted to it, nor a countenance brightened by it. Priest and
+layman, soldier and civilian, rich and poor, pass by it alike
+regardlessly. Up to the very recesses of the porches, the
+meanest tradesmen of the city push their counters; nay, the
+foundations of its pillars are themselves the seats&mdash;not &ldquo;of
+them that sell doves&rdquo; for sacrifice, but of the vendors of toys
+and caricatures. Round the whole square in front of the
+church there is almost a continuous line of cafés, where the
+idle Venetians of the middle classes lounge, and read empty
+journals; in its centre the Austrian bands play during the
+time of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page069"></a>69</span>
+notes,&mdash;the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen
+crowd thickening round them,&mdash;a crowd, which, if it had its
+will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the
+recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest
+classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like
+lizards; and unregarded children,&mdash;every heavy glance of
+their young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and
+their throats hoarse with cursing,&mdash;gamble, and fight, and
+snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised centesimi
+upon the marble ledges of the church porch. And the
+images of Christ and His angels look down upon it continually.</p>
+
+<p>That we may not enter the church out of the midst of the
+horror of this, let us turn aside under the portico which looks
+towards the sea, and passing round within the two massive
+pillars brought from St. Jean d&rsquo;Acre, we shall find the gate of
+the Baptistery; let us enter there. The heavy door closes
+behind us instantly, and the light, and the turbulence of the
+Piazzetta, are together shut out by it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVI.</span> We are in a low vaulted room; vaulted, not with
+arches, but with small cupolas starred with gold, and chequered
+with gloomy figures: in the centre is a bronze font charged
+with rich bas-reliefs, a small figure of the Baptist standing above
+it in a single ray of light that glances across the narrow room,
+dying as it falls from a window high in the wall, and the first
+thing that it strikes, and the only thing that it strikes brightly,
+is a tomb. We hardly know if it be a tomb indeed; for it is
+like a narrow couch set beside the window, low-roofed and
+curtained, so that it might seem, but that it has some height
+above the pavement, to have been drawn towards the window,
+that the sleeper might be wakened early;&mdash;only there are
+two angels who have drawn the curtain back, and are looking
+down upon him. Let us look also, and thank that gentle
+light that rests upon his forehead for ever, and dies away upon
+his breast.</p>
+
+<p>The face is of a man in middle life, but there are two deep
+furrows right across the forehead, dividing it like the foundations
+of a tower: the height of it above is bound by the fillet
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page070"></a>70</span>
+of the ducal cap. The rest of the features are singularly
+small and delicate, the lips sharp, perhaps the sharpness of
+death being added to that of the natural lines; but there is a
+sweet smile upon them, and a deep serenity upon the whole
+countenance. The roof of the canopy above has been blue,
+filled with stars; beneath, in the centre of the tomb on which
+the figure rests, is a seated figure of the Virgin, and the border
+of it all around is of flowers and soft leaves, growing rich and
+deep, as if in a field in summer.</p>
+
+<p>It is the Doge Andrea Dandolo, a man early great among
+the great of Venice; and early lost. She chose him for her
+king in his 36th year; he died ten years later, leaving behind
+him that history to which we owe half of what we know of her
+former fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVII.</span> Look round at the room in which he lies. The floor
+of it is of rich mosaic, encompassed by a low seat of red marble,
+and its walls are of alabaster, but worn and shattered,
+and darkly stained with age, almost a ruin,&mdash;in places the slabs
+of marble have fallen away altogether, and the rugged brickwork
+is seen through the rents, but all beautiful; the ravaging
+fissures fretting their way among the islands and channelled
+zones of the alabaster, and the time-stains on its translucent
+masses darkened into fields of rich golden brown, like the color
+of seaweed when the sun strikes on it through deep sea. The
+light fades away into the recess of the chamber towards the
+altar, and the eye can hardly trace the lines of the bas-relief
+behind it of the baptism of Christ: but on the vaulting of the
+roof the figures are distinct, and there are seen upon it two
+great circles, one surrounded by the &ldquo;Principalities and
+powers in heavenly places,&rdquo; of which Milton has expressed
+the ancient division in the single massy line,</p>
+
+<p class="pquote">&ldquo;Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="noind">and around the other, the Apostles; Christ the centre of both;
+and upon the walls, again and again repeated, the gaunt figure
+of the Baptist, in every circumstance of his life and death;
+and the streams of the Jordan running down between their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page071"></a>71</span>
+cloven rocks; the axe laid to the root of a fruitless tree that
+springs upon their shore. &ldquo;Every tree that bringeth not forth
+good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire.&rdquo; Yes,
+verily: to be baptized with fire, or to be cast therein; it is the
+choice set before all men. The march-notes still murmur
+through the grated window, and mingle with the sounding in
+our ears of the sentence of judgment, which the old Greek
+has written on that Baptistery wall. Venice has made her
+choice.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVIII.</span> He who lies under that stony canopy would have
+taught her another choice, in his day, if she would have
+listened to him; but he and his counsels have long been forgotten
+by her, and the dust lies upon his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Through the heavy door whose bronze network closes the
+place of his rest, let us enter the church itself. It is lost in
+still deeper twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for
+some moments before the form of the building can be traced;
+and then there opens before us a vast cave, hewn out into the
+form of a Cross, and divided into shadowy aisles by many
+pillars. Round the domes of its roof the light enters only
+through narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there
+a ray or two from some far away casement wanders into the
+darkness, and casts a narrow phosphoric stream upon the waves
+of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colors along the
+floor. What else there is of light is from torches, or silver
+lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of the chapels;
+the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered
+with alabaster, give back at every curve and angle some
+feeble gleaming to the flames; and the glories round the
+heads of the sculptured saints flash out upon us as we pass
+them, and sink again into the gloom. Under foot and over
+head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture
+passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and
+terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening
+beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them
+drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal;
+the passions and the pleasures of human life symbolized
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page072"></a>72</span>
+together, and the mystery of its redemption; for the mazes
+of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at last
+to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every
+stone; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt round it,
+sometimes with doves beneath its arms, and sweet herbage
+growing forth from its feet; but conspicuous most of all on
+the great rood that crosses the church before the altar, raised in
+bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse. And although
+in the recesses of the aisles and chapels, when the mist of the
+incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure traced
+in faint lines upon their marble, a woman standing with her
+eyes raised to heaven, and the inscription above her, &ldquo;Mother
+of God,&rdquo; she is not here the presiding deity. It is the Cross
+that is first seen, and always, burning in the centre of the
+temple; and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure
+of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, or returning
+in judgment.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIX.</span> Nor is this interior without effect on the minds of
+the people. At every hour of the day there are groups
+collected before the various shrines, and solitary worshippers
+scattered through the darker places of the church, evidently
+in prayer both deep and reverent, and, for the most part,
+profoundly sorrowful. The devotees at the greater number
+of the renowned shrines of Romanism may be seen murmuring
+their appointed prayers with wandering eyes and
+unengaged gestures; but the step of the stranger does not
+disturb those who kneel on the pavement of St. Mark&rsquo;s; and
+hardly a moment passes, from early morning to sunset, in
+which we may not see some half-veiled figure enter beneath
+the Arabian porch, cast itself into long abasement on the floor
+of the temple, and then rising slowly with more confirmed
+step, and with a passionate kiss and clasp of the arms given to
+the feet of the crucifix, by which the lamps burn always in the
+northern aisle, leave the church, as if comforted.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XX.</span> But we must not hastily conclude from this that the
+nobler characters of the building have at present any influence
+in fostering a devotional spirit. There is distress enough in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page073"></a>73</span>
+Venice to bring many to their knees, without excitement
+from external imagery; and whatever there may be in the
+temper of the worship offered in St. Mark&rsquo;s more than can be
+accounted for by reference to the unhappy circumstances of
+the city, is assuredly not owing either to the beauty of its
+architecture or to the impressiveness of the Scripture histories
+embodied in its mosaics. That it has a peculiar effect, however
+slight, on the popular mind, may perhaps be safely conjectured
+from the number of worshippers which it attracts,
+while the churches of St. Paul and the Frari, larger in size and
+more central in position, are left comparatively empty.<a name="FnAnchor_28" href="#Footnote_28"><span class="sp">28</span></a> But
+this effect is altogether to be ascribed to its richer assemblage
+of those sources of influence which address themselves to the
+commonest instincts of the human mind, and which, in all
+ages and countries, have been more or less employed in the
+support of superstition. Darkness and mystery; confused
+recesses of building; artificial light employed in small quantity,
+but maintained with a constancy which seems to give it
+a kind of sacredness; preciousness of material easily comprehended
+by the vulgar eye; close air loaded with a sweet and
+peculiar odor associated only with religious services, solemn
+music, and tangible idols or images having popular legends
+attached to them,&mdash;these, the stage properties of superstition,
+which have been from the beginning of the world, and must
+be to the end of it, employed by all nations, whether openly
+savage or nominally civilized, to produce a false awe in minds
+incapable of apprehending the true nature of the Deity, are
+assembled in St. Mark&rsquo;s to a degree, as far as I know, unexampled
+in any other European church. The arts of the Magus
+and the Brahmin are exhausted in the animation of a paralyzed
+Christianity; and the popular sentiment which these arts excite
+is to be regarded by us with no more respect than we should
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page074"></a>74</span>
+have considered ourselves justified in rendering to the devotion
+of the worshippers at Eleusis, Ellora, or Edfou.<a name="FnAnchor_29" href="#Footnote_29"><span class="sp">29</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXI.</span> Indeed, these inferior means of exciting religious
+emotion were employed in the ancient Church as they are at
+this day, but not employed alone. Torchlight there was, as
+there is now; but the torchlight illumined Scripture histories
+on the walls, which every eye traced and every heart comprehended,
+but which, during my whole residence in Venice, I
+never saw one Venetian regard for an instant. I never heard
+from any one the most languid expression of interest in any
+feature of the church, or perceived the slightest evidence of
+their understanding the meaning of its architecture; and while,
+therefore, the English cathedral, though no longer dedicated
+to the kind of services for which it was intended by its builders,
+and much at variance in many of its characters with the
+temper of the people by whom it is now surrounded, retains
+yet so much of its religious influence that no prominent feature
+of its architecture can be said to exist altogether in vain,
+we have in St. Mark&rsquo;s a building apparently still employed in
+the ceremonies for which it was designed, and yet of which the
+impressive attributes have altogether ceased to be comprehended
+by its votaries. The beauty which it possesses is
+unfelt, the language it uses is forgotten; and in the midst of
+the city to whose service it has so long been consecrated, and
+still filled by crowds of the descendants of those to whom it
+owes its magnificence, it stands, in reality, more desolate than
+the ruins through which the sheep-walk passes unbroken in our
+English valleys; and the writing on its marble walls is less
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page075"></a>75</span>
+regarded and less powerful for the teaching of men, than the
+letters which the shepherd follows with his finger, where the
+moss is lightest on the tombs in the desecrated cloister.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXII.</span> It must therefore be altogether without reference to
+its present usefulness, that we pursue our inquiry into the
+merits and meaning of the architecture of this marvellous
+building; and it can only be after we have terminated that
+inquiry, conducting it carefully on abstract grounds, that we
+can pronounce with any certainty how far the present neglect
+of St. Mark&rsquo;s is significative of the decline of the Venetian
+character, or how far this church is to be considered as the
+relic of a barbarous age, incapable of attracting the admiration,
+or influencing the feelings of a civilized community.</p>
+
+<p>The inquiry before us is twofold. Throughout the first
+volume, I carefully kept the study of <i>expression</i> distinct from
+that of abstract architectural perfection; telling the reader that
+in every building we should afterwards examine, he would
+have first to form a judgment of its construction and decorative
+merit, considering it merely as a work of art; and then to
+examine farther, in what degree it fulfilled its expressional
+purposes. Accordingly, we have first to judge of St. Mark&rsquo;s
+merely as a piece of architecture, not as a church; secondly,
+to estimate its fitness for its special duty as a place of worship,
+and the relation in which it stands, as such, to those
+northern cathedrals that still retain so much of the power over
+the human heart, which the Byzantine domes appear to have
+lost for ever.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIII.</span> In the two succeeding sections of this work, devoted
+respectively to the examination of the Gothic and Renaissance
+buildings in Venice, I have endeavored to analyze and
+state, as briefly as possible, the true nature of each school,&mdash;first
+in Spirit, then in Form. I wished to have given a similar
+analysis, in this section, of the nature of Byzantine architecture;
+but could not make my statements general, because I
+have never seen this kind of building on its native soil.
+Nevertheless, in the following sketch of the principles exemplified
+in St. Mark&rsquo;s, I believe that most of the leading features
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page076"></a>76</span>
+and motives of the style will be found clearly enough distinguished
+to enable the reader to judge of it with tolerable
+fairness, as compared with the better known systems of European
+architecture in the middle ages.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIV.</span> Now the first broad characteristic of the building,
+and the root nearly of every other important peculiarity in it,
+is its confessed <i>incrustation</i>. It is the purest example in Italy
+of the great school of architecture in which the ruling principle
+is the incrustation of brick with more precious materials;
+and it is necessary before we proceed to criticise any one of
+its arrangements, that the reader should carefully consider the
+principles which are likely to have influenced, or might legitimately
+influence, the architects of such a school, as distinguished
+from those whose designs are to be executed in massive
+materials.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, that among different nations, and at different
+times, we may find examples of every sort and degree of incrustation,
+from the mere setting of the larger and more compact
+stones by preference at the outside of the wall, to the
+miserable construction of that modern brick cornice, with its
+coating of cement, which, but the other day, in London, killed
+its unhappy workmen in its fall.<a name="FnAnchor_30" href="#Footnote_30"><span class="sp">30</span></a> But just as it is perfectly
+possible to have a clear idea of the opposing characteristics of
+two different species of plants or animals, though between the
+two there are varieties which it is difficult to assign either to
+the one or the other, so the reader may fix decisively in his
+mind the legitimate characteristics of the incrusted and the
+massive styles, though between the two there are varieties
+which confessedly unite the attributes of both. For instance,
+in many Roman remains, built of blocks of tufa and incrusted
+with marble, we have a style, which, though truly solid,
+possesses some of the attributes of incrustation; and in the
+Cathedral of Florence, built of brick and coated with marble,
+the marble facing is so firmly and exquisitely set, that the
+building, though in reality incrusted, assumes the attributes of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page077"></a>77</span>
+solidity. But these intermediate examples need not in the
+least confuse our generally distinct ideas of the two families of
+buildings: the one in which the substance is alike throughout,
+and the forms and conditions of the ornament assume or prove
+that it is so, as in the best Greek buildings, and for the most
+part in our early Norman and Gothic; and the other, in which
+the substance is of two kinds, one internal, the other external,
+and the system of decoration is founded on this duplicity, as
+pre-eminently in St. Mark&rsquo;s.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXV.</span> I have used the word duplicity in no depreciatory
+sense. In chapter ii. of the &ldquo;Seven Lamps,&rdquo; § 18, I especially
+guarded this incrusted school from the imputation of insincerity,
+and I must do so now at greater length. It appears insincere
+at first to a Northern builder, because, accustomed to build
+with solid blocks of freestone, he is in the habit of supposing
+the external superficies of a piece of masonry to be some criterion
+of its thickness. But, as soon as he gets acquainted with
+the incrusted style, he will find that the Southern builders had
+no intention to deceive him. He will see that every slab of
+facial marble is fastened to the next by a confessed <i>rivet</i>, and
+that the joints of the armor are so visibly and openly accommodated
+to the contours of the substance within, that he has no
+more right to complain of treachery than a savage would have,
+who, for the first time in his life seeing a man in armor, had
+supposed him to be made of solid steel. Acquaint him with
+the customs of chivalry, and with the uses of the coat of mail,
+and he ceases to accuse of dishonesty either the panoply or the
+knight.</p>
+
+<p>These laws and customs of the St. Mark&rsquo;s architectural
+chivalry it must be our business to develope.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVI.</span> First, consider the natural circumstances which give
+rise to such a style. Suppose a nation of builders, placed far
+from any quarries of available stone, and having precarious access
+to the mainland where they exist; compelled therefore
+either to build entirely with brick, or to import whatever stone
+they use from great distances, in ships of small tonnage, and
+for the most part dependent for speed on the oar rather than
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page078"></a>78</span>
+the sail. The labor and cost of carriage are just as great,
+whether they import common or precious stone, and therefore
+the natural tendency would always be to make each shipload as
+valuable as possible. But in proportion to the preciousness of
+the stone, is the limitation of its possible supply; limitation
+not determined merely by cost, but by the physical conditions
+of the material, for of many marbles, pieces above a certain
+size are not to be had for money. There would also be a tendency
+in such circumstances to import as much stone as possible
+ready sculptured, in order to save weight; and therefore,
+if the traffic of their merchants led them to places where there
+were ruins of ancient edifices, to ship the available fragments
+of them home. Out of this supply of marble, partly composed
+of pieces of so precious a quality that only a few tons of them
+could be on any terms obtained, and partly of shafts, capitals,
+and other portions of foreign buildings, the island architect has
+to fashion, as best he may, the anatomy of his edifice. It is at
+his choice either to lodge his few blocks of precious marble
+here and there among his masses of brick, and to cut out of the
+sculptured fragments such new forms as may be necessary for
+the observance of fixed proportions in the new building; or
+else to cut the colored stones into thin pieces, of extent sufficient
+to face the whole surface of the walls, and to adopt a
+method of construction irregular enough to admit the insertion
+of fragmentary sculptures; rather with a view of displaying
+their intrinsic beauty, than of setting them to any regular service
+in the support of the building.</p>
+
+<p>An architect who cared only to display his own skill, and
+had no respect for the works of others, would assuredly have
+chosen the former alternative, and would have sawn the old
+marbles into fragments in order to prevent all interference
+with his own designs. But an architect who cared for the preservation
+of noble work, whether his own or others&rsquo;, and more
+regarded the beauty of his building than his own fame, would
+have done what those old builders of St. Mark&rsquo;s did for us,
+and saved every relic with which he was entrusted.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVII.</span> But these were not the only motives which influenced
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page079"></a>79</span>
+the Venetians in the adoption of their method of architecture.
+It might, under all the circumstances above stated,
+have been a question with other builders, whether to import
+one shipload of costly jaspers, or twenty of chalk flints; and
+whether to build a small church faced with porphyry and paved
+with agate, or to raise a vast cathedral in freestone. But with
+the Venetians it could not be a question for an instant; they
+were exiles from ancient and beautiful cities, and had been accustomed
+to build with their ruins, not less in affection than in
+admiration: they had thus not only grown familiar with the
+practice of inserting older fragments in modern buildings, but
+they owed to that practice a great part of the splendor of their
+city, and whatever charm of association might aid its change
+from a Refuge into a Home. The practice which began in the
+affections of a fugitive nation, was prolonged in the pride of a
+conquering one; and beside the memorials of departed happiness,
+were elevated the trophies of returning victory. The
+ship of war brought home more marble in triumph than the
+merchant vessel in speculation; and the front of St. Mark&rsquo;s
+became rather a shrine at which to dedicate the splendor of
+miscellaneous spoil, than the organized expression of any fixed
+architectural law, or religious emotion.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVIII.</span> Thus far, however, the justification of the style of
+this church depends on circumstances peculiar to the time of
+its erection, and to the spot where it arose. The merit of its
+method, considered in the abstract, rests on far broader grounds.</p>
+
+<p>In the fifth chapter of the &ldquo;Seven Lamps,&rdquo; § 14, the reader
+will find the opinion of a modern architect of some reputation,
+Mr. Wood, that the chief thing remarkable in this church &ldquo;is
+its extreme ugliness;&rdquo; and he will find this opinion associated
+with another, namely, that the works of the Caracci are far
+preferable to those of the Venetian painters. This second
+statement of feeling reveals to us one of the principal causes of
+the first; namely, that Mr. Wood had not any perception of
+color, or delight in it. The perception of color is a gift just as
+definitely granted to one person, and denied to another, as an
+ear for music; and the very first requisite for true judgment
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page080"></a>80</span>
+of St. Mark&rsquo;s, is the perfection of that color-faculty which few
+people ever set themselves seriously to find out whether they
+possess or not. For it is on its value as a piece of perfect and
+unchangeable coloring, that the claims of this edifice to our respect
+are finally rested; and a deaf man might as well pretend
+to pronounce judgment on the merits of a full orchestra, as an
+architect trained in the composition of form only, to discern
+the beauty of St. Mark&rsquo;s. It possesses the charm of color in
+common with the greater part of the architecture, as well as
+of the manufactures, of the East; but the Venetians deserve
+especial note as the only European people who appear to have
+sympathized to the full with the great instinct of the Eastern
+races. They indeed were compelled to bring artists from Constantinople
+to design the mosaics of the vaults of St. Mark&rsquo;s,
+and to group the colors of its porches; but they rapidly took
+up and developed, under more masculine conditions, the system
+of which the Greeks had shown them the example: while
+the burghers and barons of the North were building their dark
+streets and grisly castles of oak and sandstone, the merchants
+of Venice were covering their palaces with porphyry and gold;
+and at last, when her mighty painters had created for her a
+color more priceless than gold or porphyry, even this, the richest
+of her treasures, she lavished upon walls whose foundations
+were beaten by the sea; and the strong tide, as it runs beneath
+the Rialto, is reddened to this day by the reflection of the frescoes
+of Giorgione.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIX.</span> If, therefore, the reader does not care for color,
+I must protest against his endeavor to form any judgment
+whatever of this church of St. Mark&rsquo;s. But, if he both
+cares for and loves it, let him remember that the school of
+incrusted architecture is <i>the only one in which perfect and
+permanent chromatic decoration is possible</i>; and let him
+look upon every piece of jasper and alabaster given to the
+architect as a cake of very hard color, of which a certain
+portion is to be ground down or cut off, to paint the walls
+with. Once understand this thoroughly, and accept the condition
+that the body and availing strength of the edifice are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page081"></a>81</span>
+to be in brick, and that this under muscular power of brickwork
+is to be clothed with the defence and the brightness
+of the marble, as the body of an animal is protected and
+adorned by its scales or its skin, and all the consequent fitnesses
+and laws of the structure will be easily discernible:
+These I shall state in their natural order.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXX.</span> <span class="sc">Law I.</span> <i>That the plinths and cornices used for
+binding the armor are to be light and delicate.</i> A certain
+thickness, at least two or three inches, must be required in the
+covering pieces (even when composed of the strongest stone,
+and set on the least exposed parts), in order to prevent the
+chance of fracture, and to allow for the wear of time. And
+the weight of this armor must not be trusted to cement; the
+pieces must not be merely glued to the rough brick surface,
+but connected with the mass which they protect by binding
+cornices and string courses; and with each other, so as to secure
+mutual support, aided by the rivetings, but by no means
+dependent upon them. And, for the full honesty and straight-forwardness
+of the work, it is necessary that these string
+courses and binding plinths should not be of such proportions
+as would fit them for taking any important part in the hard
+work of the inner structure, or render them liable to be mistaken
+for the great cornices and plinths already explained as
+essential parts of the best solid building. They must be delicate,
+slight, and visibly incapable of severer work than that assigned
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXI.</span> <span class="sc">Law II.</span> <i>Science of inner structure is to be abandoned.</i>
+As the body of the structure is confessedly of inferior,
+and comparatively incoherent materials, it would be absurd to
+attempt in it any expression of the higher refinements of construction.
+It will be enough that by its mass we are assured
+of its sufficiency and strength; and there is the less reason for
+endeavoring to diminish the extent of its surface by delicacy of
+adjustment, because on the breadth of that surface we are to
+depend for the better display of the color, which is to be the
+chief source of our pleasure in the building. The main body
+of the work, therefore, will be composed of solid walls and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page082"></a>82</span>
+massive piers; and whatever expression of finer structural
+science we may require, will be thrown either into subordinate
+portions of it, or entirely directed to the support of the external
+mail, where in arches or vaults it might otherwise appear
+dangerously independent of the material within.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXII.</span> <span class="sc">Law III.</span> <i>All shafts are to be solid.</i> Wherever, by
+the smallness of the parts, we may be driven to abandon the incrusted
+structure at all, it must be abandoned altogether. The
+eye must never be left in the least doubt as to what is solid
+and what is coated. Whatever appears <i>probably</i> solid, must be
+<i>assuredly</i> so, and therefore it becomes an inviolable law that
+no shaft shall ever be incrusted. Not only does the whole virtue
+of a shaft depend on its consolidation, but the labor of cutting
+and adjusting an incrusted coat to it would be greater than
+the saving of material is worth. Therefore the shaft, of whatever
+size, is always to be solid; and because the incrusted character
+of the rest of the building renders it more difficult for
+the shafts to clear themselves from suspicion, they must not,
+in this incrusted style, be in any place jointed. No shaft must
+ever be used but of one block; and this the more, because the
+permission given to the builder to have his walls and piers as
+ponderous as he likes, renders it quite unnecessary for him to
+use shafts of any fixed size. In our Norman and Gothic,
+where definite support is required at a definite point, it becomes
+lawful to build up a tower of small stones in the shape
+of a shaft. But the Byzantine is allowed to have as much support
+as he wants from the walls in every direction, and he has
+no right to ask for further license in the structure of his shafts.
+Let him, by generosity in the substance of his pillars, repay us
+for the permission we have given him to be superficial in his
+walls. The builder in the chalk valleys of France and England
+may be blameless in kneading his clumsy pier out of
+broken flint and calcined lime; but the Venetian, who has
+access to the riches of Asia and the quarries of Egypt, must
+frame at least his shafts out of flawless stone.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIII.</span> And this for another reason yet. Although, as
+we have said, it is impossible to cover the walls of a large
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page083"></a>83</span>
+building with color, except on the condition of dividing the
+stone into plates, there is always a certain appearance of meanness
+and niggardliness in the procedure. It is necessary that
+the builder should justify himself from this suspicion; and
+prove that it is not in mere economy or poverty, but in the
+real impossibility of doing otherwise, that he has sheeted his
+walls so thinly with the precious film. Now the shaft is exactly
+the portion of the edifice in which it is fittest to recover
+his honor in this respect. For if blocks of jasper or porphyry
+be inserted in the walls, the spectator cannot tell their thickness,
+and cannot judge of the costliness of the sacrifice. But
+the shaft he can measure with his eye in an instant, and estimate
+the quantity of treasure both in the mass of its existing
+substance, and in that which has been hewn away to bring it
+into its perfect and symmetrical form. And thus the shafts of
+all buildings of this kind are justly regarded as an expression
+of their wealth, and a form of treasure, just as much as the
+jewels or gold in the sacred vessels; they are, in fact, nothing
+else than large jewels,<a name="FnAnchor_31" href="#Footnote_31"><span class="sp">31</span></a> the block of precious serpentine or
+jasper being valued according to its size and brilliancy of
+color, like a large emerald or ruby; only the bulk required to
+bestow value on the one is to be measured in feet and tons,
+and on the other in lines and carats. The shafts must therefore
+be, without exception, of one block in all buildings of
+this kind; for the attempt in any place to incrust or joint
+them would be a deception like that of introducing a false
+stone among jewellery (for a number of joints of any precious
+stone are of course not equal in value to a single piece of equal
+weight), and would put an end at once to the spectator&rsquo;s confidence
+in the expression of wealth in any portion of the structure,
+or of the spirit of sacrifice in those who raised it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page084"></a>84</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIV.</span> <span class="sc">Law IV.</span> <i>The shafts may sometimes be independent
+of the construction.</i> Exactly in proportion to the importance
+which the shaft assumes as a large jewel, is the diminution
+of its importance as a sustaining member; for the delight
+which we receive in its abstract bulk, and beauty of
+color, is altogether independent of any perception of its adaptation
+to mechanical necessities. Like other beautiful things
+in this world, its end is to <i>be</i> beautiful; and, in proportion to
+its beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We
+do not blame emeralds and rubies because we cannot make
+them into heads of hammers. Nay, so far from our admiration
+of the jewel shaft being dependent on its doing work for
+us, it is very possible that a chief part of its preciousness may
+consist in a delicacy, fragility, and tenderness of material,
+which must render it utterly unfit for hard work; and therefore
+that we shall admire it the more, because we perceive that
+if we were to put much weight upon it, it would be crushed.
+But, at all events, it is very clear that the primal object in the
+placing of such shafts must be the display of their beauty to
+the best advantage, and that therefore all imbedding of them
+in walls, or crowding of them into groups, in any position in
+which either their real size or any portion of their surface
+would be concealed, is either inadmissible altogether, or <span class="correction" title="objecjectionable in the original">objectionable</span>
+in proportion to their value; that no symmetrical
+or scientific arrangements of pillars are therefore ever to be
+expected in buildings of this kind, and that all such are even
+to be looked upon as positive errors and misapplications of materials:
+but that, on the contrary, we must be constantly prepared
+to see, and to see with admiration, shafts of great size
+and importance set in places where their real service is little
+more than nominal, and where the chief end of their existence
+is to catch the sunshine upon their polished sides, and lead the
+eye into delighted wandering among the mazes of their azure
+veins.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXV.</span> <span class="sc">Law V.</span> <i>The shafts may be of variable size.</i> Since
+the value of each shaft depends upon its bulk, and diminishes
+with the diminution of its mass, in a greater ratio than the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page085"></a>85</span>
+size itself diminishes, as in the case of all other jewellery, it is
+evident that we must not in general expect perfect symmetry
+and equality among the series of shafts, any more than definiteness
+of application; but that, on the contrary, an accurately
+observed symmetry ought to give us a kind of pain, as proving
+that considerable and useless loss has been sustained by some of
+the shafts, in being cut down to match with the rest. It is
+true that symmetry is generally sought for in works of smaller
+jewellery; but, even there, not a perfect symmetry, and obtained
+under circumstances quite different from those which
+affect the placing of shafts in architecture. First: the symmetry
+is usually imperfect. The stones that seem to match each
+other in a ring or necklace, appear to do so only because they
+are so small that their differences are not easily measured by
+the eye; but there is almost always such difference between
+them as would be strikingly apparent if it existed in the same
+proportion between two shafts nine or ten feet in height.
+Secondly: the quantity of stones which pass through a jeweller&rsquo;s
+hands, and the facility of exchange of such small objects,
+enable the tradesman to select any number of stones of approximate
+size; a selection, however, often requiring so much
+time, that perfect symmetry in a group of very fine stones adds
+enormously to their value. But the architect has neither the
+time nor the facilities of exchange. He cannot lay aside one
+column in a corner of his church till, in the course of traffic,
+he obtain another that will match it; he has not hundreds of
+shafts fastened up in bundles, out of which he can match sizes
+at his ease; he cannot send to a brother-tradesman and exchange
+the useless stones for available ones, to the convenience
+of both. His blocks of stone, or his ready hewn shafts, have
+been brought to him in limited number, from immense distances;
+no others are to be had; and for those which he does
+not bring into use, there is no demand elsewhere. His only
+means of obtaining symmetry will therefore be, in cutting
+down the finer masses to equality with the inferior ones; and
+this we ought not to desire him often to do. And therefore,
+while sometimes in a Baldacchino, or an important chapel or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page086"></a>86</span>
+shrine, this costly symmetry may be necessary, and admirable
+in proportion to its probable cost, in the general fabric we
+must expect to see shafts introduced of size and proportion
+continually varying, and such symmetry as may be obtained
+among them never altogether perfect, and dependent for its
+charm frequently on strange complexities and unexpected rising
+and falling of weight and accent in its marble syllables;
+bearing the same relation to a rigidly chiselled and proportioned
+architecture that the wild lyric rhythm of Ćschylus or
+Pindar bears to the finished measures of Pope.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVI.</span> The application of the principles of jewellery to the
+smaller as well as the larger blocks, will suggest to us another
+reason for the method of incrustation adopted in the walls. It
+often happens that the beauty of the veining in some varieties
+of alabaster is so great, that it becomes desirable to exhibit it
+by dividing the stone, not merely to economize its substance,
+but to display the changes in the disposition of its fantastic
+lines. By reversing one of two thin plates successively taken
+from the stone, and placing their corresponding edges in contact,
+a perfectly symmetrical figure may be obtained, which
+will enable the eye to comprehend more thoroughly the position
+of the veins. And this is actually the method in which,
+for the most part, the alabasters of St. Mark are employed;
+thus accomplishing a double good,&mdash;directing the spectator, in
+the first place, to close observation of the nature of the stone
+employed, and in the second, giving him a farther proof of
+the honesty of intention in the builder: for wherever similar
+veining is discovered in two pieces, the fact is declared that
+they have been cut from the same stone. It would have been
+easy to disguise the similarity by using them in different parts
+of the building; but on the contrary they are set edge to edge,
+so that the whole system of the architecture may be discovered
+at a glance by any one acquainted with the nature of the stones
+employed. Nay, but, it is perhaps answered me, not by an
+ordinary observer; a person ignorant of the nature of alabaster
+might perhaps fancy all these symmetrical patterns to have
+been found in the stone itself, and thus be doubly deceived,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page087"></a>87</span>
+supposing blocks to be solid and symmetrical which were in
+reality subdivided and irregular. I grant it; but be it remembered,
+that in all things, ignorance is liable to be deceived, and
+has no right to accuse anything but itself as the source of the
+deception. The style and the words are dishonest, not which
+are liable to be misunderstood if subjected to no inquiry, but
+which are deliberately calculated to lead inquiry astray. There
+are perhaps no great or noble truths, from those of religion
+downwards, which present no mistakeable aspect to casual or
+ignorant contemplation. Both the truth and the lie agree in
+hiding themselves at first, but the lie continues to hide itself
+with effort, as we approach to examine it; and leads us, if undiscovered,
+into deeper lies; the truth reveals itself in proportion
+to our patience and knowledge, discovers itself kindly to
+our pleading, and leads us, as it is discovered, into deeper
+truths.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVII.</span> <span class="sc">Law VI.</span> <i>The decoration must be shallow in cutting.</i>
+The method of construction being thus systematized, it
+is evident that a certain style of decoration must arise out of
+it, based on the primal condition that over the greater part of
+the edifice there can be <i>no deep cutting</i>. The thin sheets of
+covering stones do not admit of it; we must not cut them
+through to the bricks; and whatever ornaments we engrave
+upon them cannot, therefore, be more than an inch deep at the
+utmost. Consider for an instant the enormous differences
+which this single condition compels between the sculptural
+decoration of the incrusted style, and that of the solid stones
+of the North, which may be hacked and hewn into whatever
+cavernous hollows and black recesses we choose; struck into
+grim darknesses and grotesque projections, and rugged ploughings
+up of sinuous furrows, in which any form or thought may
+be wrought out on any scale,&mdash;mighty statues with robes of
+rock and crowned foreheads burning in the sun, or venomous
+goblins and stealthy dragons shrunk into lurking-places of untraceable
+shade: think of this, and of the play and freedom
+given to the sculptor&rsquo;s hand and temper, to smite out and in,
+hither and thither, as he will; and then consider what must
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page088"></a>88</span>
+be the different spirit of the design which is to be wrought on
+the smooth surface of a film of marble, where every line and
+shadow must be drawn with the most tender pencilling and
+cautious reserve of resource,&mdash;where even the chisel must not
+strike hard, lest it break through the delicate stone, nor the
+mind be permitted in any impetuosity of conception inconsistent
+with the fine discipline of the hand. Consider that whatever
+animal or human form is to be suggested, must be projected on
+a flat surface; that all the features of the countenance, the
+folds of the drapery, the involutions of the limbs, must be so
+reduced and subdued that the whole work becomes rather a
+piece of fine drawing than of sculpture; and then follow out,
+until you begin to perceive their endlessness, the resulting
+differences of character which will be necessitated in every
+part of the ornamental designs of these incrusted churches, as
+compared with that of the Northern schools. I shall endeavor
+to trace a few of them only.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVIII.</span> The first would of course be a diminution of the
+builder&rsquo;s dependence upon human form as a source of ornament:
+since exactly in proportion to the dignity of the form
+itself is the loss which it must sustain in being reduced to a shallow
+and linear bas-relief, as well as the difficulty of expressing
+it at all under such conditions. Wherever sculpture can be
+solid, the nobler characters of the human form at once lead
+the artist to aim at its representation, rather than at that of
+inferior organisms; but when all is to be reduced to outline, the
+forms of flowers and lower animals are always more intelligible,
+and are felt to approach much more to a satisfactory rendering
+of the objects intended, than the outlines of the human
+body. This inducement to seek for resources of ornament in
+the lower fields of creation was powerless in the minds of the
+great Pagan nations, Ninevite, Greek, or Egyptian: first, because
+their thoughts were so concentrated on their own capacities
+and fates, that they preferred the rudest suggestion of
+human form to the best of an inferior organism; secondly,
+because their constant practice in solid sculpture, often colossal,
+enabled them to bring a vast amount of science into the treatment
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page089"></a>89</span>
+of the lines, whether of the low relief, the monochrome
+vase, or shallow hieroglyphic.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIX.</span> But when various ideas adverse to the representation
+of animal, and especially of human, form, originating
+with the Arabs and iconoclast Greeks, had begun at any rate
+to direct the builders&rsquo; minds to seek for decorative materials in
+inferior types, and when diminished practice in solid sculpture
+had rendered it more difficult to find artists capable of satisfactorily
+reducing the high organisms to their elementary outlines,
+the choice of subject for surface sculpture would be
+more and more uninterruptedly directed to floral organisms,
+and human and animal form would become diminished in size,
+frequency, and general importance. So that, while in the
+Northern solid architecture we constantly find the effect of its
+noblest features dependent on ranges of statues, often colossal,
+and full of abstract interest, independent of their architectural
+service, in the Southern incrusted style we must expect to find
+the human form for the most part subordinate and diminutive,
+and involved among designs of foliage and flowers, in
+the manner of which endless examples had been furnished by
+the fantastic ornamentation of the Romans, from which the
+incrusted style had been directly derived.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XL.</span> Farther. In proportion to the degree in which his
+subject must be reduced to abstract outline will be the tendency
+in the sculptor to abandon naturalism of representation,
+and subordinate every form to architectural service. Where
+the flower or animal can be hewn into bold relief, there will
+always be a temptation to render the representation of it more
+complete than is necessary, or even to introduce details and
+intricacies inconsistent with simplicity of distant effect. Very
+often a worse fault than this is committed; and in the endeavor
+to give vitality to the stone, the original ornamental
+purpose of the design is sacrificed or forgotten. But when
+nothing of this kind can be attempted, and a slight outline is
+all that the sculptor can command, we may anticipate that this
+outline will be composed with exquisite grace; and that the
+richness of its ornamental arrangement will atone for the feebleness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page090"></a>90</span>
+of its power of portraiture. On the porch of a Northern
+cathedral we may seek for the images of the flowers that
+grow in the neighboring fields, and as we watch with wonder
+the grey stones that fret themselves into thorns, and soften
+into blossoms, we may care little that these knots of ornament,
+as we retire from them to contemplate the whole building, appear
+unconsidered or confused. On the incrusted building we
+must expect no such deception of the eye or thoughts. It may
+sometimes be difficult to determine, from the involutions of its
+linear sculpture, what were the natural forms which originally
+suggested them: but we may confidently expect that the grace
+of their arrangement will always be complete; that there will
+not be a line in them which could be taken away without
+injury, nor one wanting which could be added with advantage.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLI.</span> Farther. While the sculptures of the incrusted
+school will thus be generally distinguished by care and purity
+rather than force, and will be, for the most part, utterly
+wanting in depth of shadow, there will be one means of obtaining
+darkness peculiarly simple and obvious, and often in
+the sculptor&rsquo;s power. Wherever he can, without danger,
+leave a hollow behind his covering slabs, or use them, like
+glass, to fill an aperture in the wall, he can, by piercing
+them with holes, obtain points or spaces of intense blackness
+to contrast with the light tracing of the rest of his design. And
+we may expect to find this artifice used the more extensively,
+because, while it will be an effective means of ornamentation
+on the exterior of the building, it will be also the safest
+way of admitting light to the interior, still totally excluding
+both rain and wind. And it will naturally follow that the
+architect, thus familiarized with the effect of black and sudden
+points of shadow, will often seek to carry the same principle
+into other portions of his ornamentation, and by deep
+drill-holes, or perhaps inlaid portions of black color, to refresh
+the eye where it may be wearied by the lightness of
+the general handling.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLII.</span> Farther. Exactly in proportion to the degree in
+which the force of sculpture is subdued, will be the importance
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page091"></a>91</span>
+attached to color as a means of effect or constituent
+of beauty. I have above stated that the incrusted style was
+the only one in which perfect or permanent color decoration
+was <i>possible</i>. It is also the only one in which a true system
+of color decoration was ever likely to be invented. In order
+to understand this, the reader must permit me to review with
+some care the nature of the principles of coloring adopted
+by the Northern and Southern nations.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIII.</span> I believe that from the beginning of the world
+there has never been a true or fine school of art in which
+color was despised. It has often been imperfectly attained
+and injudiciously applied, but I believe it to be one of the
+essential signs of life in a school of art, that it loves color;
+and I know it to be one of the first signs of death in the
+Renaissance schools, that they despised color.</p>
+
+<p>Observe, it is not now the question whether our Northern
+cathedrals are better with color or without. Perhaps the great
+monotone grey of Nature and of Time is a better color than
+any that the human hand can give; but that is nothing to
+our present business. The simple fact is, that the builders of
+those cathedrals laid upon them the brightest colors they
+could obtain, and that there is not, as far as I am aware, in
+Europe, any monument of a truly noble school which has
+not been either painted all over, or vigorously touched with
+paint, mosaic, and gilding in its prominent parts. Thus far
+Egyptians, Greeks, Goths, Arabs, and medićval Christians all
+agree: none of them, when in their right senses, ever think
+of doing without paint; and, therefore, when I said above that
+the Venetians were the only people who had thoroughly sympathized
+with the Arabs in this respect, I referred, first, to
+their intense love of color, which led them to lavish the
+most expensive decorations on ordinary dwelling-houses; and,
+secondly, to that perfection of the color-instinct in them, which
+enabled them to render whatever they did, in this kind, as just
+in principle as it was gorgeous in appliance. It is this principle
+of theirs, as distinguished from that of the Northern
+builders, which we have finally to examine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page092"></a>92</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIV.</span> In the second chapter of the first volume, it
+was noticed that the architect of Bourges Cathedral liked
+hawthorn, and that the porch of his cathedral was therefore
+decorated with a rich wreath of it; but another of the predilections
+of that architect was there unnoticed, namely, that
+he did not at all like <i>grey</i> hawthorn, but preferred it green,
+and he painted it green accordingly, as bright as he could. The
+color is still left in every sheltered interstice of the foliage. He
+had, in fact, hardly the choice of any other color; he might
+have gilded the thorns, by way of allegorizing human life, but
+if they were to be painted at all, they could hardly be painted
+any tiling but green, and green all over. People would have
+been apt to object to any pursuit of abstract harmonies of
+color, which might have induced him to paint his hawthorn
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLV.</span> In the same way, whenever the subject of the
+sculpture was definite, its color was of necessity definite also;
+and, in the hands of the Northern builders, it often became,
+in consequence, rather the means of explaining and animating
+the stories of their stone-work, than a matter of abstract decorative
+science. Flowers were painted red, trees green, and
+faces flesh-color; the result of the whole being often far more
+entertaining than beautiful. And also, though in the lines of
+the mouldings and the decorations of shafts or vaults, a richer
+and more abstract method of coloring was adopted (aided by
+the rapid development of the best principles of color in early
+glass-painting), the vigorous depths of shadow in the Northern
+sculpture confused the architect&rsquo;s eye, compelling him to use
+violent colors in the recesses, if these were to be seen as color
+at all, and thus injured his perception of more delicate color
+harmonies; so that in innumerable instances it becomes very
+disputable whether monuments even of the best times were
+improved by the color bestowed upon them, or the contrary.
+But, in the South, the flatness and comparatively vague forms
+of the sculpture, while they appeared to call for color in order
+to enhance their interest, presented exactly the conditions
+which would set it off to the greatest advantage; breadth of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page093"></a>93</span>
+surface displaying even the most delicate tints in the lights,
+and faintness of shadow joining with the most delicate and
+pearly greys of color harmony; while the subject of the design
+being in nearly all cases reduced to mere intricacy of ornamental
+line, might be colored in any way the architect chose without
+any loss of rationality. Where oak-leaves and roses were
+carved into fresh relief and perfect bloom, it was necessary to
+paint the one green and the other red; but in portions of
+ornamentation where there was nothing which could be definitely
+construed into either an oak-leaf or a rose, but a mere
+labyrinth of beautiful lines, becoming here something like a
+leaf, and there something like a flower, the whole tracery of
+the sculpture might be left white, and grounded with gold or
+blue, or treated in any other manner best harmonizing with the
+colors around it. And as the necessarily feeble character of
+the sculpture called for and was ready to display the best arrangements
+of color, so the precious marbles in the architect&rsquo;s
+hands give him at once the best examples and the best means
+of color. The best examples, for the tints of all natural stones
+are as exquisite in quality as endless in change; and the best
+means, for they are all permanent.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVI.</span> Every motive thus concurred in urging him to the
+study of chromatic decoration, and every advantage was given
+him in the pursuit of it; and this at the very moment when,
+as presently to be noticed, the <i>naďveté</i> of barbaric Christianity
+could only be forcibly appealed to by the help of colored pictures:
+so that, both externally and internally, the architectural
+construction became partly merged in pictorial effect; and the
+whole edifice is to be regarded less as a temple wherein to
+pray, than as itself a Book of Common Prayer, a vast illuminated
+missal, bound with alabaster instead of parchment,
+studded with porphyry pillars instead of jewels, and written
+within and without in letters of enamel and gold.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVII.</span> <span class="sc">Law VII.</span> <i>That the impression of the architecture
+is not to be dependent on size.</i> And now there is but one final
+consequence to be deduced. The reader understands, I trust,
+by this time, that the claims of these several parts of the building
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page094"></a>94</span>
+upon his attention will depend upon their delicacy of design,
+their perfection of color, their preciousness of material,
+and their legendary interest. All these qualities are independent
+of size, and partly even inconsistent with it. Neither delicacy
+of surface sculpture, nor subtle gradations of color, can
+be appreciated by the eye at a distance; and since we have
+seen that our sculpture is generally to be only an inch or two
+in depth, and that our coloring is in great part to be produced
+with the soft tints and veins of natural stones, it will follow
+necessarily that none of the parts of the building can be removed
+far from the eye, and therefore that the whole mass of
+it cannot be large. It is not even desirable that it should be
+so; for the temper in which the mind addresses itself to contemplate
+minute and beautiful details is altogether different
+from that in which it submits itself to vague impressions of
+space and size. And therefore we must not be disappointed,
+but grateful, when we find all the best work of the building
+concentrated within a space comparatively small; and that, for
+the great cliff-like buttresses and mighty piers of the North,
+shooting up into indiscernible height, we have here low walls
+spread before us like the pages of a book, and shafts whose
+capitals we may touch with our hand.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVIII.</span> The due consideration of the principles above
+stated will enable the traveller to judge with more candor and
+justice of the architecture of St. Mark&rsquo;s than usually it would
+have been possible for him to do while under the influence of
+the prejudices necessitated by familiarity with the very different
+schools of Northern art. I wish it were in my power to lay also
+before the general reader some exemplification of the manner in
+which these strange principles are developed in the lovely building.
+But exactly in proportion to the nobility of any work,
+is the difficulty of conveying a just impression of it; and
+wherever I have occasion to bestow high praise, there it is exactly
+most dangerous for me to endeavor to illustrate my meaning,
+except by reference to the work itself. And, in fact, the
+principal reason why architectural criticism is at this day so far
+behind all other, is the impossibility of illustrating the best
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page095"></a>95</span>
+architecture faithfully. Of the various schools of painting,
+examples are accessible to every one, and reference to the
+works themselves is found sufficient for all purposes of criticism;
+but there is nothing like St. Mark&rsquo;s or the Ducal Palace
+to be referred to in the National Gallery, and no faithful
+illustration of them is possible on the scale of such a volume
+as this. And it is exceedingly difficult on any scale. Nothing
+is so rare in art, as far as my own experience goes, as a fair
+illustration of architecture; <i>perfect</i> illustration of it does not
+exist. For all good architecture depends upon the adaptation
+of its chiselling to the effect at a certain distance from the eye;
+and to render the peculiar confusion in the midst of order, and
+uncertainty in the midst of decision, and mystery in the midst
+of trenchant lines, which are the result of distance, together
+with perfect expression of the peculiarities of the design, requires
+the skill of the most admirable artist, devoted to the
+work with the most severe conscientiousness, neither the skill
+nor the determination having as yet been given to the subject.
+And in the illustration of details, every building of any pretensions
+to high architectural rank would require a volume of
+plates, and those finished with extraordinary care. With respect
+to the two buildings which are the principal subjects of
+the present volume, St. Mark&rsquo;s and the Ducal Palace, I have
+found it quite impossible to do them the slightest justice by
+any kind of portraiture; and I abandoned the endeavor in the
+case of the latter with less regret, because in the new Crystal
+Palace (as the poetical public insist upon calling it, though it
+is neither a palace, nor of crystal) there will be placed, I believe,
+a noble cast of one of its angles. As for St. Mark&rsquo;s, the
+effort was hopeless from the beginning. For its effect depends
+not only upon the most delicate sculpture in every part, but,
+as we have just stated, eminently on its color also, and that the
+most subtle, variable, inexpressible color in the world,&mdash;the
+color of glass, of transparent alabaster, of polished marble, and
+lustrous gold. It would be easier to illustrate a crest of Scottish
+mountain, with its purple heather and pale harebells at
+their fullest and fairest, or a glade of Jura forest, with its floor
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page096"></a>96</span>
+of anemone and moss, than a single portico of St. Mark&rsquo;s. The
+fragment of one of its archivolts, given at the bottom of the
+opposite Plate, is not to illustrate the thing itself, but to illustrate
+the impossibility of illustration.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIX.</span> It is left a fragment, in order to get it on a larger
+scale; and yet even on this scale it is too small to show the
+sharp folds and points of the marble vine-leaves with sufficient
+clearness. The ground of it is gold, the sculpture in the spandrils
+is not more than an inch and a half deep, rarely so much.
+It is in fact nothing more than an exquisite sketching of outlines
+in marble, to about the same depth as in the Elgin frieze;
+the draperies, however, being filled with close folds, in the
+manner of the Byzantine pictures, folds especially necessary
+here, as large masses could not be expressed in the shallow
+sculpture without becoming insipid; but the disposition of
+these folds is always most beautiful, and often opposed by
+broad and simple spaces, like that obtained by the scroll in the
+hand of the prophet, seen in the plate.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">VI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_6"><img src="images/img096.jpg" width="393" height="650" alt="THE VINE TREE, AND IN SERVICE." title="THE VINE TREE, AND IN SERVICE." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">THE VINE TREE, AND IN SERVICE.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The balls in the archivolt project considerably, and the interstices
+between their interwoven bands of marble are filled
+with colors like the illuminations of a manuscript; violet, crimson,
+blue, gold, and green alternately: but no green is ever used
+without an intermixture of blue pieces in the mosaic, nor any
+blue without a little centre of pale green; sometimes only a
+single piece of glass a quarter of an inch square, so subtle was
+the feeling for color which was thus to be satisfied.<a name="FnAnchor_32" href="#Footnote_32"><span class="sp">32</span></a> The intermediate
+circles have golden stars set on an azure ground,
+varied in the same manner; and the small crosses seen in the
+intervals are alternately blue and subdued scarlet, with two
+small circles of white set in the golden ground above and beneath
+them, each only about half an inch across (this work, remember,
+being on the outside of the building, and twenty feet
+above the eye), while the blue crosses have each a pale green
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page097"></a>97</span>
+centre. Of all this exquisitely mingled hue, no plate, however
+large or expensive, could give any adequate conception; but,
+if the reader will supply in imagination to the engraving what
+he supplies to a common woodcut of a group of flowers, the
+decision of the respective merits of modern and of Byzantine
+architecture may be allowed to rest on this fragment of St.
+Mark&rsquo;s alone.</p>
+
+<p>From the vine-leaves of that archivolt, though there is no
+direct imitation of nature in them, but on the contrary a studious
+subjection to architectural purpose more particularly to be
+noticed hereafter, we may yet receive the same kind of pleasure
+which we have in seeing true vine-leaves and wreathed
+branches traced upon golden light; its stars upon their azure
+ground ought to make us remember, as its builder remembered,
+the stars that ascend and fall in the great arch of the sky: and
+I believe that stars, and boughs, and leaves, and bright colors
+are everlastingly lovely, and to be by all men beloved; and,
+moreover, that church walls grimly seared with squared lines,
+are not better nor nobler things than these. I believe the
+man who designed and the men who delighted in that archivolt
+to have been wise, happy, and holy. Let the reader look
+back to the archivolt I have already given out of the streets of
+London (<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#plate_13">Plate XIII.</a> Vol. I.), and see what there is in it to
+make us any of the three. Let him remember that the men
+who design such work as that call St. Mark&rsquo;s a barbaric monstrosity,
+and let him judge between us.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">L.</span> Some farther details of the St. Mark&rsquo;s architecture, and
+especially a general account of Byzantine capitals, and of the
+principal ones at the angles of the church, will be found in the
+following chapter.<a name="FnAnchor_33" href="#Footnote_33"><span class="sp">33</span></a> Here I must pass on to the second part of
+our immediate subject, namely, the inquiry how far the exquisite
+and varied ornament of St. Mark&rsquo;s fits it, as a Temple,
+for its sacred purpose, and would be applicable in the churches
+of modern times. We have here evidently two questions: the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page098"></a>98</span>
+first, that wide and continually agitated one, whether richness
+of ornament be right in churches at all; the second, whether
+the ornament of St. Mark&rsquo;s be of a truly ecclesiastical and
+Christian character.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LI.</span> In the first chapter of the &ldquo;Seven Lamps of Architecture&rdquo;
+I endeavored to lay before the reader some reasons
+why churches ought to be richly adorned, as being the only
+places in which the desire of offering a portion of all precious
+things to God could be legitimately expressed. But I left
+wholly untouched the question: whether the church, as such,
+stood in need of adornment, or would be better fitted for its
+purposes by possessing it. This question I would now ask the
+reader to deal with briefly and candidly.</p>
+
+<p>The chief difficulty in deciding it has arisen from its being
+always presented to us in an unfair form. It is asked of us, or
+we ask of ourselves, whether the sensation which we now feel
+in passing from our own modern dwelling-house, through a
+newly built street, into a cathedral of the thirteenth century, be
+safe or desirable as a preparation for public worship. But we
+never ask whether that sensation was at all calculated upon by
+the builders of the cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LII.</span> Now I do not say that the contrast of the ancient
+with the modern building, and the strangeness with which the
+earlier architectural forms fall upon the eye, are at this day disadvantageous.
+But I do say, that their effect, whatever it may
+be, was entirely uncalculated upon by the old builder. He endeavored
+to make his work beautiful, but never expected it to
+be strange. And we incapacitate ourselves altogether from fair
+judgment of its intention, if we forget that, when it was built,
+it rose in the midst of other work fanciful and beautiful as itself;
+that every dwelling-house in the middle ages was rich with
+the same ornaments and quaint with the same grotesques which
+fretted the porches or animated the gargoyles of the cathedral;
+that what we now regard with doubt and wonder, as well as
+with delight, was then the natural continuation, into the principal
+edifice of the city, of a style which was familiar to every
+eye throughout all its lanes and streets; and that the architect
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page099"></a>99</span>
+had often no more idea of producing a peculiarly devotional
+impression by the richest color and the most elaborate carving,
+than the builder of a modern meeting-house has by his
+whitewashed walls and square-cut casements.<a name="FnAnchor_34" href="#Footnote_34"><span class="sp">34</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIII.</span> Let the reader fix this great fact well in his mind,
+and then follow out its important corollaries. We attach, in
+modern days, a kind of sacredness to the pointed arch and the
+groined roof, because, while we look habitually out of square
+windows and live under flat ceilings, we meet with the more
+beautiful forms in the ruins of our abbeys. But when those
+abbeys were built, the pointed arch was used for every shop
+door, as well as for that of the cloister, and the feudal baron
+and freebooter feasted, as the monk sang, under vaulted roofs;
+not because the vaulting was thought especially appropriate to
+either the revel or psalm, but because it was then the form in
+which a strong roof was easiest built. We have destroyed the
+goodly architecture of our cities; we have substituted one
+wholly devoid of beauty or meaning; and then we reason respecting
+the strange effect upon our minds of the fragments
+which, fortunately, we have left in our churches, as if those
+churches had always been designed to stand out in strong relief
+from all the buildings around them, and Gothic architecture
+had always been, what it is now, a religious language, like
+Monkish Latin. Most readers know, if they would arouse their
+knowledge, that this was not so; but they take no pains to reason
+the matter out: they abandon themselves drowsily to the
+impression that Gothic is a peculiarly ecclesiastical style; and
+sometimes, even, that richness in church ornament is a condition
+or furtherance of the Romish religion. Undoubtedly it
+has become so in modern times: for there being no beauty in
+our recent architecture, and much in the remains of the past,
+and these remains being almost exclusively ecclesiastical, the
+High Church and Romanist parties have not been slow in
+availing themselves of the natural instincts which were deprived
+of all food except from this source; and have willingly
+promulgated the theory, that because all the good architecture
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100"></a>100</span>
+that is now left is expressive of High Church or Romanist
+doctrines, all good architecture ever has been and must be so,&mdash;a
+piece of absurdity from which, though here and there a
+country clergyman may innocently believe it, I hope the common
+sense of the nation will soon manfully quit itself. It
+needs but little inquiry into the spirit of the past, to ascertain
+what, once for all, I would desire here clearly and forcibly to
+assert, that wherever Christian church architecture has been
+good and lovely, it has been merely the perfect development
+of the common dwelling-house architecture of the period;
+that when the pointed arch was used in the street, it was used
+in the church; when the round arch was used in the street, it
+was used in the church; when the pinnacle was set over the
+garret window, it was set over the belfry tower; when the flat
+roof was used for the drawing-room, it was used for the nave.
+There is no sacredness in round arches, nor in pointed; none
+in pinnacles, nor in buttresses; none in pillars, nor in traceries.
+Churches were larger than most other buildings, because they
+had to hold more people; they were more adorned than most
+other buildings, because they were safer from violence, and
+were the fitting subjects of devotional offering: but they were
+never built in any separate, mystical, and religious style; they
+were built in the manner that was common and familiar to
+everybody at the time. The flamboyant traceries that adorn
+the façade of Rouen Cathedral had once their fellows in every
+window of every house in the market-place; the sculptures
+that adorn the porches of St. Mark&rsquo;s had once their match on
+the walls of every palace on the Grand Canal; and the only
+difference between the church and the dwelling-house was, that
+there existed a symbolical meaning in the distribution of the
+parts of all buildings meant for worship, and that the painting
+or sculpture was, in the one case, less frequently of profane
+subject than in the other. A more severe distinction cannot
+be drawn: for secular history was constantly introduced into
+church architecture; and sacred history or allusion generally
+formed at least one half of the ornament of the dwelling-house.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIV.</span> This fact is so important, and so little considered,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101"></a>101</span>
+that I must be pardoned for dwelling upon it at some length,
+and accurately marking the limits of the assertion I have
+made. I do not mean that every dwelling-house of medićval
+cities was as richly adorned and as exquisite in composition as
+the fronts of their cathedrals, but that they presented features
+of the same kind, often in parts quite as beautiful; and that
+the churches were not separated by any change of style from
+the buildings round them, as they are now, but were merely
+more finished and full examples of a universal style, rising out
+of the confused streets of the city as an oak tree does out of
+an oak copse, not differing in leafage, but in size and symmetry.
+Of course the quainter and smaller forms of turret
+and window necessary for domestic service, the inferior materials,
+often wood instead of stone, and the fancy of the inhabitants,
+which had free play in the design, introduced oddnesses,
+vulgarities, and variations into house architecture, which
+were prevented by the traditions, the wealth, and the skill of
+the monks and freemasons; while, on the other hand, conditions
+of vaulting, buttressing, and arch and tower building,
+were necessitated by the mere size of the cathedral, of which it
+would be difficult to find examples elsewhere. But there was
+nothing more in these features than the adaptation of mechanical
+skill to vaster requirements; there was nothing intended
+to be, or felt to be, especially ecclesiastical in any of the
+forms so developed; and the inhabitants of every village and
+city, when they furnished funds for the decoration of their
+church, desired merely to adorn the house of God as they
+adorned their own, only a little more richly, and with a somewhat
+graver temper in the subjects of the carving. Even this
+last difference is not always clearly discernible: all manner of
+ribaldry occurs in the details of the ecclesiastical buildings of
+the North, and at the time when the best of them were built,
+every man&rsquo;s house was a kind of temple; a figure of the Madonna,
+or of Christ, almost always occupied a niche over the
+principal door, and the Old Testament histories were curiously
+interpolated amidst the grotesques of the brackets and the
+gables.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page102"></a>102</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LV.</span> And the reader will now perceive that the question
+respecting fitness of church decoration rests in reality on
+totally different grounds from those commonly made foundations
+of argument. So long as our streets are walled with barren
+brick, and our eyes rest continually, in our daily life, on
+objects utterly ugly, or of inconsistent and meaningless design,
+it may be a doubtful question whether the faculties of eye and
+mind which are capable of perceiving beauty, having been left
+without food during the whole of our active life, should be
+suddenly feasted upon entering a place of worship; and color,
+and music, and sculpture should delight the senses, and stir the
+curiosity of men unaccustomed to such appeal, at the moment
+when they are required to compose themselves for acts of devotion;&mdash;this,
+I say, may be a doubtful question: but it cannot
+be a question at all, that if once familiarized with beautiful
+form and color, and accustomed to see in whatever human
+hands have executed for us, even for the lowest services, evidence
+of noble thought and admirable skill, we shall desire to
+see this evidence also in whatever is built or labored for the
+house of prayer; that the absence of the accustomed loveliness
+would disturb instead of assisting devotion; and that we should
+feel it as vain to ask whether, with our own house full of
+goodly craftsmanship, we should worship God in a house destitute
+of it, as to ask whether a pilgrim whose day&rsquo;s journey had
+led him through fair woods and by sweet waters, must at evening
+turn aside into some barren place to pray.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVI.</span> Then the second question submitted to us, whether
+the ornament of St. Mark&rsquo;s be truly ecclesiastical and Christian,
+is evidently determined together with the first; for, if
+not only the permission of ornament at all, but the beautiful
+execution of it, be dependent on our being familiar with it in
+daily life, it will follow that no style of noble architecture <i>can</i>
+be exclusively ecclesiastical. It must be practised in the dwelling
+before it be perfected in the church, and it is the test of a
+noble style that it shall be applicable to both; for if essentially
+false and ignoble, it may be made to fit the dwelling-house, but
+never can be made to fit the church: and just as there are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103"></a>103</span>
+many principles which will bear the light of the world&rsquo;s opinion,
+yet will not bear the light of God&rsquo;s word, while all principles
+which will bear the test of Scripture will also bear that of
+practice, so in architecture there are many forms which expediency
+and convenience may apparently justify, or at least
+render endurable, in daily use, which will yet be found offensive
+the moment they are used for church service; but there
+are none good for church service, which cannot bear daily use.
+Thus the Renaissance manner of building is a convenient style
+for dwelling-houses, but the natural sense of all religious men
+causes them to turn from it with pain when it has been used in
+churches; and this has given rise to the popular idea that the
+Roman style is good for houses and the Gothic for churches.
+This is not so; the Roman style is essentially base, and we can
+bear with it only so long as it gives us convenient windows and
+spacious rooms; the moment the question of convenience is set
+aside, and the expression or beauty of the style is tried by its
+being used in a church, we find it fail. But because the
+Gothic and Byzantine styles are fit for churches they are not
+therefore less fit for dwellings. They are in the highest sense
+fit and good for both, nor were they ever brought to perfection
+except where they were used for both.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVII.</span> But there is one character of Byzantine work which,
+according to the time at which it was employed, may be considered
+as either fitting or unfitting it for distinctly ecclesiastical
+purposes; I mean the essentially pictorial character of its
+decoration. We have already seen what large surfaces it
+leaves void of bold architectural features, to be rendered interesting
+merely by surface ornament or sculpture. In this respect
+Byzantine work differs essentially from pure Gothic
+styles, which are capable of filling every vacant space by features
+purely architectural, and may be rendered, if we please,
+altogether independent of pictorial aid. A Gothic church may
+be rendered impressive by mere successions of arches, accumulations
+of niches, and entanglements of tracery. But a Byzantine
+church requires expression and interesting decoration over
+vast plane surfaces,&mdash;decoration which becomes noble only by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104"></a>104</span>
+becoming pictorial; that is to say, by representing natural objects,&mdash;men,
+animals, or flowers. And, therefore, the question
+whether the Byzantine style be fit for church service in
+modern days, becomes involved in the inquiry, what effect
+upon religion has been or may yet be produced by pictorial art,
+and especially by the art of the mosaicist?</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVIII.</span> The more I have examined the subject the more
+dangerous I have found it to dogmatize respecting the character
+of the art which is likely, at a given period, to be most useful
+to the cause of religion. One great fact first meets me. I
+cannot answer for the experience of others, but I never yet met
+with a Christian whose heart was thoroughly set upon the
+world to come, and, so far as human judgment could pronounce,
+perfect and right before God, who cared about art at
+all. I have known several very noble Christian men who loved
+it intensely, but in them there was always traceable some entanglement
+of the thoughts with the matters of this world,
+causing them to fall into strange distresses and doubts, and
+often leading them into what they themselves would confess to
+be errors in understanding, or even failures in duty. I do not
+say that these men may not, many of them, be in very deed
+nobler than those whose conduct is more consistent; they may
+be more tender in the tone of all their feelings, and farther-sighted
+in soul, and for that very reason exposed to greater
+trials and fears, than those whose hardier frame and naturally
+narrower vision enable them with less effort to give their hands
+to God and walk with Him. But still, the general fact is indeed
+so, that I have never known a man who seemed altogether
+right and calm in faith, who seriously cared about art;
+and when casually moved by it, it is quite impossible to say
+beforehand by what class of art this impression will on such
+men be made. Very often it is by a theatrical commonplace,
+more frequently still by false sentiment. I believe that the
+four painters who have had, and still have, the most influence,
+such as it is, on the ordinary Protestant Christian mind, are
+Carlo Dolci, Guercino, Benjamin West, and John Martin.
+Raphael, much as he is talked about, is, I believe in very fact,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105"></a>105</span>
+rarely looked at by religious people; much less his master, or
+any of the truly great religious men of old. But a smooth
+Magdalen of Carlo Dolci with a tear on each cheek, or a Guercino
+Christ or St. John, or a Scripture illustration of West&rsquo;s,
+or a black cloud with a flash of lightning in it of Martin&rsquo;s,
+rarely fails of being verily, often deeply, felt for the time.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIX.</span> There are indeed many very evident reasons for this;
+the chief one being that, as all truly great religious painters
+have been hearty Romanists, there are none of their works
+which do not embody, in some portions of them, definitely
+Romanist doctrines. The Protestant mind is instantly struck
+by these, and offended by them, so as to be incapable of entering,
+or at least rendered indisposed to enter, farther into the
+heart of the work, or to the discovering those deeper characters
+of it, which are not Romanist, but Christian, in the everlasting
+sense and power of Christianity. Thus most Protestants,
+entering for the first time a Paradise of Angelico, would
+be irrevocably offended by finding that the first person the
+painter wished them to speak to was St. Dominic; and would
+retire from such a heaven as speedily as possible,&mdash;not giving
+themselves time to discover, that whether dressed in black, or
+white, or grey, and by whatever name in the calendar they
+might be called, the figures that filled that Angelico heaven
+were indeed more saintly, and pure, and full of love in every
+feature, than any that the human hand ever traced before or
+since. And thus Protestantism, having foolishly sought for
+the little help it requires at the hand of painting from the
+men who embodied no Catholic doctrine, has been reduced to
+receive it from those who believed neither Catholicism nor
+Protestantism, but who read the Bible in search of the picturesque.
+We thus refuse to regard the painters who passed
+their lives in prayer, but are perfectly ready to be taught by
+those who spent them in debauchery. There is perhaps no
+more popular Protestant picture than Salvator&rsquo;s &ldquo;Witch of
+Endor,&rdquo; of which the subject was chosen by the painter simply
+because, under the names of Saul and the Sorceress, he could
+paint a captain of banditti, and a Neapolitan hag.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page106"></a>106</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LX.</span> The fact seems to be that strength of religious feeling
+is capable of supplying for itself whatever is wanting in
+the rudest suggestions of art, and will either, on the one hand,
+purify what is coarse into inoffensiveness, or, on the other,
+raise what is feeble into impressiveness. Probably all art, as
+such, is unsatisfactory to it; and the effort which it makes to
+supply the void will be induced rather by association and accident
+than by the real merit of the work submitted to it. The
+likeness to a beloved friend, the correspondence with a habitual
+conception, the freedom from any strange or offensive particularity,
+and, above all, an interesting choice of incident, will
+win admiration for a picture when the noblest efforts of religious
+imagination would otherwise fail of power. How much
+more, when to the quick capacity of emotion is joined a childish
+trust that the picture does indeed represent a fact! it
+matters little whether the fact be well or ill told; the moment
+we believe the picture to be true, we complain little of its being
+ill-painted. Let it be considered for a moment, whether the
+child, with its colored print, inquiring eagerly and gravely
+which is Joseph, and which is Benjamin, is not more capable
+of receiving a strong, even a sublime, impression from the rude
+symbol which it invests with reality by its own effort, than the
+connoisseur who admires the grouping of the three figures in
+Raphael&rsquo;s &ldquo;Telling of the Dreams;&rdquo; and whether also, when
+the human mind is in right religious tone, it has not always
+this childish power&mdash;I speak advisedly, this power&mdash;a noble
+one, and possessed more in youth than at any period of after
+life, but always, I think, restored in a measure by religion&mdash;of
+raising into sublimity and reality the rudest symbol which is
+given to it of accredited truth.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXI.</span> Ever since the period of the Renaissance, however,
+the truth has not been accredited; the painter of religious subject
+is no longer regarded as the narrator of a fact, but as the
+inventor of an idea.<a name="FnAnchor_35" href="#Footnote_35"><span class="sp">35</span></a> We do not severely criticise the manner
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107"></a>107</span>
+in which a true history is told, but we become harsh investigators
+of the faults of an invention; so that in the modern religious
+mind, the capacity of emotion, which renders judgment
+uncertain, is joined with an incredulity which renders it
+severe; and this ignorant emotion, joined with ignorant observance
+of faults, is the worst possible temper in which any
+art can be regarded, but more especially sacred art. For as religious
+faith renders emotion facile, so also it generally renders
+expression simple; that is to say a truly religious painter will
+very often be ruder, quainter, simpler, and more faulty in his
+manner of working, than a great irreligious one. And it was
+in this artless utterance, and simple acceptance, on the part of
+both the workman and the beholder, that all noble schools of
+art have been cradled; it is in them that they <i>must</i> be cradled
+to the end of time. It is impossible to calculate the enormous
+loss of power in modern days, owing to the imperative requirement
+that art shall be methodical and learned: for as long as
+the constitution of this world remains unaltered, there will be
+more intellect in it than there can be education; there will be
+many men capable of just sensation and vivid invention, who
+never will have time to cultivate or polish their natural
+powers. And all unpolished power is in the present state of
+society lost; in other things as well as in the arts, but in the
+arts especially: nay, in nine cases out of ten, people mistake
+the polish for the power. Until a man has passed through a
+course of academy studentship, and can draw in an approved
+manner with French chalk, and knows foreshortening, and
+perspective, and something of anatomy, we do not think he
+can possibly be an artist; what is worse, we are very apt to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108"></a>108</span>
+think that we can <i>make</i> him an artist by teaching him anatomy,
+and how to draw with French chalk; whereas the real
+gift in him is utterly independent of all such accomplishments:
+and I believe there are many peasants on every estate, and
+laborers in every town, of Europe, who have imaginative
+powers of a high order, which nevertheless cannot be used for
+our good, because we do not choose to look at anything but
+what is expressed in a legal and scientific way. I believe there
+is many a village mason who, set to carve a series of Scripture
+or any other histories, would find many a strange and noble
+fancy in his head, and set it down, roughly enough indeed, but
+in a way well worth our having. But we are too grand to let
+him do this, or to set up his clumsy work when it is done; and
+accordingly the poor stone-mason is kept hewing stones smooth
+at the corners, and we build our church of the smooth square
+stones, and consider ourselves wise.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXII.</span> I shall pursue this subject farther in another place;
+but I allude to it here in order to meet the objections of those
+persons who suppose the mosaics of St. Mark&rsquo;s, and others of
+the period, to be utterly barbarous as representations of religious
+history. Let it be granted that they are so; we are not
+for that reason to suppose they were ineffective in religious
+teaching. I have above spoken of the whole church as a great
+Book of Common Prayer; the mosaics were its illuminations,
+and the common people of the time were taught their Scripture
+history by means of them, more impressively perhaps,
+though far less fully, than ours are now by Scripture reading.
+They had no other Bible, and&mdash;Protestants do not often enough
+consider this&mdash;<i>could</i> have no other. We find it somewhat difficult
+to furnish our poor with printed Bibles; consider what
+the difficulty must have been when they could be given only
+in manuscript. The walls of the church necessarily became
+the poor man&rsquo;s Bible, and a picture was more easily read upon
+the walls than a chapter. Under this view, and considering
+them merely as the Bible pictures of a great nation in its
+youth, I shall finally invite the reader to examine the connexion
+and subjects of these mosaics; but in the meantime I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109"></a>109</span>
+have to deprecate the idea of their execution being in any
+sense barbarous. I have conceded too much to modern prejudice,
+in permitting them to be rated as mere childish efforts at
+colored portraiture: they have characters in them of a very
+noble kind; nor are they by any means devoid of the remains
+of the science of the later Roman empire. The character of
+the features is almost always fine, the expression stern and
+quiet, and very solemn, the attitudes and draperies always majestic
+in the single figures, and in those of the groups which
+are not in violent action;<a name="FnAnchor_36" href="#Footnote_36"><span class="sp">36</span></a> while the bright coloring and disregard
+of chiaroscuro cannot be regarded as imperfections, since
+they are the only means by which the figures could be rendered
+clearly intelligible in the distance and darkness of the
+vaulting. So far am I from considering them barbarous, that
+I believe of all works of religious art whatsoever, these, and
+such as these, have been the most effective. They stand exactly
+midway between the debased manufacture of wooden and
+waxen images which is the support of Romanist idolatry all
+over the world, and the great art which leads the mind away
+from the religious subject to the art itself. Respecting neither
+of these branches of human skill is there, nor can there be, any
+question. The manufacture of puppets, however influential on
+the Romanist mind of Europe, is certainly not deserving of
+consideration as one of the fine arts. It matters literally nothing
+to a Romanist what the image he worships is like. Take
+the vilest doll that is screwed together in a cheap toy-shop,
+trust it to the keeping of a large family of children, let it be
+beaten about the house by them till it is reduced to a shapeless
+block, then dress it in a satin frock and declare it to have fallen
+from heaven, and it will satisfactorily answer all Romanist purposes.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110"></a>110</span>
+Idolatry,<a name="FnAnchor_37" href="#Footnote_37"><span class="sp">37</span></a> it cannot be too often repeated, is no encourager
+of the fine arts. But, on the other hand, the highest
+branches of the fine arts are no encouragers either of idolatry
+or of religion.  No picture of Leonardo&rsquo;s or Raphael&rsquo;s, no
+statue of Michael Angelo&rsquo;s, has ever been worshipped, except
+by accident. Carelessly regarded, and by ignorant persons,
+there is less to attract in them than in commoner works. Carefully
+regarded, and by intelligent persons, they instantly divert
+the mind from their subject to their art, so that admiration
+takes the place of devotion. I do not say that the Madonna di
+S. Sisto, the Madonna del Cardellino, and such others, have not
+had considerable religious influence on certain minds, but I say
+that on the mass of the people of Europe they have had none
+whatever; while by far the greater number of the most celebrated
+statues and pictures are never regarded with any other
+feelings than those of admiration of human beauty, or reverence
+for human skill. Effective religious art, therefore, has
+always lain, and I believe must always lie, between the two extremes&mdash;of
+barbarous idol-fashioning on one side, and magnificent
+craftsmanship on the other. It consists partly in missal
+painting, and such book-illustrations as, since the invention
+of printing, have taken its place; partly in glass-painting;
+partly in rude sculpture on the outsides of buildings; partly in
+mosaics; and partly in the frescoes and tempera pictures
+which, in the fourteenth century, formed the link between this
+powerful, because imperfect, religious art, and the impotent
+perfection which succeeded it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIII.</span> But of all these branches the most important are
+the inlaying and mosaic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
+represented in a central manner by these mosaics of St. Mark&rsquo;s.
+Missal-painting could not, from its minuteness, produce the
+same sublime impressions, and frequently merged itself in mere
+ornamentation of the page. Modern book-illustration has been
+so little skilful as hardly to be worth naming. Sculpture,
+though in some positions it becomes of great importance, has
+always a tendency to lose itself in architectural effect; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111"></a>111</span>
+was probably seldom deciphered, in all its parts, by the common
+people, still less the traditions annealed in the purple
+burning of the painted window. Finally, tempera pictures
+and frescoes were often of limited size or of feeble color. But
+the great mosaics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries covered
+the walls and roofs of the churches with inevitable lustre;
+they could not be ignored or escaped from; their size rendered
+them majestic, their distance mysterious, their color attractive.
+They did not pass into confused or inferior decorations; neither
+were they adorned with any evidences of skill or science, such
+as might withdraw the attention from their subjects. They
+were before the eyes of the devotee at every interval of his
+worship; vast shadowings forth of scenes to whose realization
+he looked forward, or of spirits whose presence he invoked.
+And the man must be little capable of receiving a religious
+impression of any kind, who, to this day, does not acknowledge
+some feeling of awe, as he looks up at the pale countenances
+and ghastly forms which haunt the dark roofs of the Baptisteries
+of Parma and Florence, or remains altogether untouched
+by the majesty of the colossal images of apostles, and
+of Him who sent apostles, that look down from the darkening
+gold of the domes of Venice and Pisa.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIV.</span> I shall, in a future portion of this work, endeavor
+to discover what probabilities there are of our being able to
+use this kind of art in modern churches; but at present it remains
+for us to follow out the connexion of the subjects represented
+in St. Mark&rsquo;s so as to fulfil our immediate object, and
+form an adequate conception of the feelings of its builders,
+and of its uses to those for whom it was built.</p>
+
+<p>Now there is one circumstance to which I must, in the outset,
+direct the reader&rsquo;s special attention, as forming a notable
+distinction between ancient and modern days. Our eyes are
+now familiar and wearied with writing; and if an inscription
+is put upon a building, unless it be large and clear, it is ten to
+one whether we ever trouble ourselves to decipher it. But
+the old architect was sure of readers. He knew that every one
+would be glad to decipher all that he wrote; that they would
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112"></a>112</span>
+rejoice in possessing the vaulted leaves of his stone manuscript;
+and that the more he gave them, the more grateful would the
+people be. We must take some pains, therefore, when we
+enter St. Mark&rsquo;s, to read all that is inscribed, or we shall not
+penetrate into the feeling either of the builder or of his times.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXV.</span> A large atrium or portico is attached to two sides of
+the church, a space which was especially reserved for unbaptized
+persons and new converts. It was thought right that,
+before their baptism, these persons should be led to contemplate
+the great facts of the Old Testament history; the history
+of the Fall of Man, and of the lives of Patriarchs up to the
+period of the Covenant by Moses: the order of the subjects in
+this series being very nearly the same as in many Northern
+churches, but significantly closing with the Fall of the Manna,
+in order to mark to the catechumen the insufficiency of the
+Mosaic covenant for salvation,&mdash;&ldquo;Our fathers did eat manna
+in the wilderness, and are dead,&rdquo;&mdash;and to turn his thoughts to
+the true Bread of which that manna was the type.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVI.</span> Then, when after his baptism he was permitted to
+enter the church, over its main entrance he saw, on looking
+back, a mosaic of Christ enthroned, with the Virgin on one
+side and St. Mark on the other, in attitudes of adoration.
+Christ is represented as holding a book open upon his knee, on
+which is written: &ldquo;<span class="sc">I am the door; by me if any man enter
+in, he shall be saved.</span>&rdquo; On the red marble moulding which
+surrounds the mosaic is written: &ldquo;<span class="sc">I am the gate of life;
+Let those who are mine enter by me.</span>&rdquo; Above, on the red
+marble fillet which forms the cornice of the west end of the
+church, is written, with reference to the figure of Christ below:
+&ldquo;<span class="sc">Who he was, and from whom he came, and at what
+price he redeemed thee, and why he made thee, and gave
+thee all things, do thou consider.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Now observe, this was not to be seen and read only by the
+catechumen when he first entered the church; every one who
+at any time entered, was supposed to look back and to read
+this writing; their daily entrance into the church was thus
+made a daily memorial of their first entrance into the spiritual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"></a>113</span>
+Church; and we shall find that the rest of the book which was
+opened for them upon its walls continually led them in the
+same manner to regard the visible temple as in every part a
+type of the invisible Church of God.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVII.</span> Therefore the mosaic of the first dome, which is
+over the head of the spectator as soon as he has entered by
+the great door (that door being the type of baptism), represents
+the effusion of the Holy Spirit, as the first consequence
+and seal of the entrance into the Church of God. In the
+centre of the cupola is the Dove, enthroned in the Greek manner,
+as the Lamb is enthroned, when the Divinity of the
+Second and Third Persons is to be insisted upon together with
+their peculiar offices. From the central symbol of the Holy
+Spirit twelve streams of fire descend upon the heads of the
+twelve apostles, who are represented standing around the
+dome; and below them, between the windows which are
+pierced in its walls, are represented, by groups of two figures
+for each separate people, the various nations who heard the
+apostles speak, at Pentecost, every man in his own tongue.
+Finally, on the vaults, at the four angles which support the
+cupola, are pictured four angels, each bearing a tablet upon
+the end of a rod in his hand: on each of the tablets of the
+three first angels is inscribed the word &ldquo;Holy;&rdquo; on that of the
+fourth is written &ldquo;Lord;&rdquo; and the beginning of the hymn
+being thus put into the mouths of the four angels, the words
+of it are continued around the border of the dome, uniting
+praise to God for the gift of the Spirit, with welcome to the
+redeemed soul received into His Church:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poem sc">
+  <p>&ldquo;Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth:</p>
+    <p style="padding-left: 1.5em; ">Heaven and Earth are full of thy Glory.</p>
+      <p style="padding-left: 3em; ">Hosanna in the Highest:</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 3em; ">Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>And observe in this writing that the convert is required to
+regard the outpouring of the Holy Spirit especially as a work
+of <i>sanctification</i>. It is the <i>holiness</i> of God manifested in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114"></a>114</span>
+giving of His Spirit to sanctify those who had become His
+children, which the four angels celebrate in their ceaseless
+praise; and it is on account of this holiness that the heaven
+and earth are said to be full of His glory.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVIII.</span> After thus hearing praise rendered to God by the
+angels for the salvation of the newly-entered soul, it was
+thought fittest that the worshipper should be led to contemplate,
+in the most comprehensive forms possible, the past evidence
+and the future hopes of Christianity, as summed up in
+three facts without assurance of which all faith is vain;
+namely that Christ died, that He rose again, and that He ascended
+into heaven, there to prepare a place for His elect.
+On the vault between the first and second cupolas are represented
+the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, with the
+usual series of intermediate scenes,&mdash;the treason of Judas, the
+judgment of Pilate, the crowning with thorns, the descent into
+Hades, the visit of the women to the sepulchre, and the apparition
+to Mary Magdalene. The second cupola itself, which is
+the central and principal one of the church, is entirely occupied
+by the subject of the Ascension. At the highest point of it
+Christ is represented as rising into the blue heaven, borne
+up by four angels, and throned upon a rainbow, the type of
+reconciliation. Beneath him, the twelve apostles are seen
+upon the Mount of Olives, with the Madonna, and, in the midst
+of them, the two men in white apparel who appeared at the
+moment of the Ascension, above whom, as uttered by them,
+are inscribed the words, &ldquo;Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye
+gazing up into heaven? This Christ, the Son of God, as He
+is taken from you, shall so come, the arbiter of the earth,
+trusted to do judgment and justice.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIX.</span> Beneath the circle of the apostles, between the
+windows of the cupola, are represented the Christian virtues,
+as sequent upon the crucifixion of the flesh, and the spiritual
+ascension together with Christ. Beneath them, on the vaults
+which support the angles of the cupola, are placed the four
+Evangelists, because on their evidence our assurance of the
+fact of the ascension rests; and, finally, beneath their feet, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115"></a>115</span>
+symbols of the sweetness and fulness of the Gospel which they
+declared, are represented the four rivers of Paradise, Pison,
+Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXX.</span> The third cupola, that over the altar, represents the
+witness of the Old Testament to Christ; showing him enthroned
+in its centre, and surrounded by the patriarchs and
+prophets. But this dome was little seen by the people;<a name="FnAnchor_38" href="#Footnote_38"><span class="sp">38</span></a> their
+contemplation was intended to be chiefly drawn to that of the
+centre of the church, and thus the mind of the worshipper was
+at once fixed on the main groundwork and hope of Christianity,&mdash;&ldquo;Christ
+is risen,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Christ shall come.&rdquo; If he had time
+to explore the minor lateral chapels and cupolas, he could find
+in them the whole series of New Testament history, the events
+of the Life of Christ, and the Apostolic miracles in their order,
+and finally the scenery of the Book of Revelation;<a name="FnAnchor_39" href="#Footnote_39"><span class="sp">39</span></a> but if he
+only entered, as often the common people do to this hour,
+snatching a few moments before beginning the labor of the day
+to offer up an ejaculatory prayer, and advanced but from the
+main entrance as far as the altar screen, all the splendor of the
+glittering nave and variegated dome, if they smote upon his
+heart, as they might often, in strange contrast with his reed
+cabin among the shallows of the lagoon, smote upon it only
+that they might proclaim the two great messages&mdash;&ldquo;Christ is
+risen,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Christ shall come.&rdquo; Daily, as the white cupolas
+rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the shadowy
+campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the
+night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph,&mdash;&ldquo;Christ
+is risen;&rdquo; and daily, as they looked down upon the tumult of
+the people, deepening and eddying in the wide square that
+opened from their feet to the sea, they uttered above them the
+sentence of warning,&mdash;&ldquo;Christ shall come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXI.</span> And this thought may surely dispose the reader to
+look with some change of temper upon the gorgeous building
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116"></a>116</span>
+and wild blazonry of that shrine of St. Mark&rsquo;s. He now perceives
+that it was in the hearts of the old Venetian people far
+more than a place of worship. It was at once a type of the
+Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the written word of
+God. It was to be to them, both an image of the Bride, all
+glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold; and the actual
+Table of the Law and the Testimony, written within and without.
+And whether honored as the Church or as the Bible, was
+it not fitting that neither the gold nor the crystal should be
+spared in the adornment of it; that, as the symbol of the
+Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper,<a name="FnAnchor_40" href="#Footnote_40"><span class="sp">40</span></a>
+and the foundations of it garnished with all manner of precious
+stones; and that, as the channel of the World, that triumphant
+utterance of the Psalmist should be true of it,&mdash;&ldquo;I have rejoiced
+in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches?&rdquo;
+And shall we not look with changed temper down the long
+perspective of St. Mark&rsquo;s Place towards the sevenfold gates
+and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what
+solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pavement
+of the populous square? Men met there from all countries of
+the earth, for traffic or for pleasure; but, above the crowd
+swaying for ever to and fro in the restlessness of avarice or
+thirst of delight, was seen perpetually the glory of the temple,
+attesting to them, whether they would hear or whether they
+would forbear, that there was one treasure which the merchantmen
+might buy without a price, and one delight better than all
+others, in the word and the statutes of God. Not in the wantonness
+of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the
+eyes or the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into transparent
+strength, and those arches arrayed in the colors of the
+iris. There is a message written in the dyes of them, that
+once was written in blood; and a sound in the echoes of their
+vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of heaven,&mdash;&ldquo;He shall
+return, to do judgment and justice.&rdquo; The strength of Venice
+was given her, so long as she remembered this: her destruction
+found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117"></a>117</span>
+irrevocably, because she forgot it without excuse. Never had
+city a more glorious Bible. Among the nations of the North,
+a rude and shadowy sculpture filled their temples with confused
+and hardly legible imagery; but, for her, the skill and
+the treasures of the East had gilded every letter, and illumined
+every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like the
+star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of the people
+were often in places withdrawn from religious association, subject
+to violence and to change; and on the grass of the dangerous
+rampart, and in the dust of the troubled street, there
+were deeds done and counsels taken, which, if we cannot justify,
+we may sometimes forgive. But the sins of Venice,
+whether in her palace or in her piazza, were done with the
+Bible at her right hand. The walls on which its testimony
+was written were separated but by a few inches of marble from
+those which guarded the secrets of her councils, or confined the
+victims of her policy. And when in her last hours she threw
+off all shame and all restraint, and the great square of the city
+became filled with the madness of the whole earth, be it remembered
+how much her sin was greater, because it was done
+in the face of the House of God, burning with the letters of
+His Law. Mountebank and masquer laughed their laugh, and
+went their way; and a silence has followed them, not unforetold;
+for amidst them all, through century after century of
+gathering vanity and festering guilt, that white dome of St.
+Mark&rsquo;s had uttered in the dead ear of Venice, &ldquo;Know thou,
+that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19" href="#FnAnchor_19"><span class="fn">19</span></a> Acts, xiii. 13; xv. 38, 39.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20" href="#FnAnchor_20"><span class="fn">20</span></a> The reader who desires to investigate it may consult Galliciolli, &ldquo;Delle
+Memorie Venete&rdquo; (Venice, 1795), tom. ii. p. 332, and the authorities quoted
+by him.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21" href="#FnAnchor_21"><span class="fn">21</span></a> Venice, 1761, tom. i. p. 126.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22" href="#FnAnchor_22"><span class="fn">22</span></a> St. Mark&rsquo;s Place, &ldquo;partly covered by turf, and planted with a few
+trees; and on account of its pleasant aspect called Brollo or Broglio, that
+is to say, Garden.&rdquo; The canal passed through it, over which is built the
+bridge of the Malpassi, Galliciolli, lib. i. cap. viii.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23" href="#FnAnchor_23"><span class="fn">23</span></a> My authorities for this statement are given below, in the chapter on
+the Ducal Palace.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24" href="#FnAnchor_24"><span class="fn">24</span></a> In the Chronicles, &ldquo;Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25" href="#FnAnchor_25"><span class="fn">25</span></a> &ldquo;To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the Protector
+St. Mark.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Corner</i>, p. 14. It is needless to trouble the reader with
+the various authorities for the above statements: I have consulted the best.
+The previous inscription once existing on the church itself:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="ind05">&ldquo;Anno milleno transacto bisque trigeno</p>
+<p>Desuper undecimo fuit facta primo,&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>is no longer to be seen, and is conjectured by Corner, with much probability,
+to have perished &ldquo;in qualche ristauro.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26" href="#FnAnchor_26"><span class="fn">26</span></a> Signed Bartolomeus Bozza, 1634, 1647, 1656, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27" href="#FnAnchor_27"><span class="fn">27</span></a> Guida di Venezia, p. 6.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28" href="#FnAnchor_28"><span class="fn">28</span></a> The mere warmth of St. Mark&rsquo;s in winter, which is much greater than
+that of the other two churches above named, must, however, be taken into
+consideration, as one of the most efficient causes of its being then more
+frequented.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29" href="#FnAnchor_29"><span class="fn">29</span></a> I said above that the larger number of the devotees entered by the
+&ldquo;Arabian&rdquo; porch; the porch, that is to say, on the north side of the church,
+remarkable for its rich Arabian archivolt, and through which access is gained
+immediately to the northern transept. The reason is, that in that transept
+is the chapel of the Madonna, which has a greater attraction for the Venetians
+than all the rest of the church besides. The old builders kept their
+images of the Virgin subordinate to those of Christ; but modern Romanism
+has retrograded from theirs, and the most glittering portions of the whole
+church are the two recesses behind this lateral altar, covered with silver
+hearts dedicated to the Virgin.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30" href="#FnAnchor_30"><span class="fn">30</span></a> Vide &ldquo;Builder,&rdquo; for October, 1851.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31" href="#FnAnchor_31"><span class="fn">31</span></a> &ldquo;Quivi presso si vedi una colonna di tanta bellezza e finezza che e riputato
+<i>piutosto gioia che pietra</i>.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansovino</i>, of the verd-antique pillar in San
+Jacomo dell&rsquo; Orio. A remarkable piece of natural history and moral philosophy,
+connected with this subject, will be found in the second chapter of
+our third volume, quoted from the work of a Florentine architect of the
+fifteenth century.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32" href="#FnAnchor_32"><span class="fn">32</span></a> The fact is, that no two tesserć of the glass are exactly of the same tint,
+the greens being all varied with blues, the blues of different depths, the reds
+of different clearness, so that the effect of each mass of color is full of variety,
+like the stippled color of a fruit piece.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33" href="#FnAnchor_33"><span class="fn">33</span></a> Some illustration, also, of what was said in § <span class="scs">XXXIII.</span> above, respecting
+the value of the shafts of St. Mark&rsquo;s as large jewels, will be found in <a href="#app_9">Appendix
+9</a>, &ldquo;Shafts of St. Mark&rsquo;s.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_34" href="#FnAnchor_34"><span class="fn">34</span></a> See the farther notice of this subject in Vol. III. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#chap_4">Chap. IV.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_35" href="#FnAnchor_35"><span class="fn">35</span></a> I do not mean that modern Christians believe less in the <i>facts</i> than
+ancient Christians, but they do not believe in the representation of the facts
+as true. We look upon the picture as this or that painter&rsquo;s conception; the
+elder Christians looked upon it as this or that painter&rsquo;s description of what
+had actually taken place. And in the Greek Church all painting is, to this
+day, strictly a branch of tradition. See M. Dideron&rsquo;s admirably written
+introduction to his Iconographie Chrétienne, p. 7:&mdash;&ldquo;Un de mes compagnons
+s&rsquo;étonnait de retrouver ŕ la Panagia de St. Luc, le saint Jean Chrysostome
+qu&rsquo;il avait dessiné dans le baptistčre de St. Marc, ŕ Venise. Le costume
+des personnages est partout et en tout temps le męme, non-seulement
+pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour le dessin, mais jusque pour
+le nombre et l&rsquo;épaisseur des plis.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_36" href="#FnAnchor_36"><span class="fn">36</span></a> All the effects of Byzantine art to represent violent action are inadequate,
+most of them ludicrously so, even when the sculptural art is in other
+respects far advanced. The early Gothic sculptors, on the other hand, fail
+in all points of refinement, but hardly ever in expression of action. This
+distinction is of course one of the necessary consequences of the difference
+in all respects between the repose of the Eastern, and activity of the Western,
+mind, which we shall have to trace out completely in the inquiry into
+the nature of Gothic.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_37" href="#FnAnchor_37"><span class="fn">37</span></a> <a href="#app_10">Appendix 10</a>, &ldquo;Proper Sense of the word Idolatry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_38" href="#FnAnchor_38"><span class="fn">38</span></a> It is also of inferior workmanship, and perhaps later than the rest.
+Vide Lord Lindsay, vol. i. p. 124, note.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_39" href="#FnAnchor_39"><span class="fn">39</span></a> The old mosaics from the Revelation have perished, and have been replaced
+by miserable work of the seventeenth century.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_40" href="#FnAnchor_40"><span class="fn">40</span></a> Rev. xxi. 18.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page118"></a>118</span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="chap_5"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<h5>BYZANTINE PALACES.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I.</span> The account of the architecture of St. Mark&rsquo;s given
+in the previous chapter has, I trust, acquainted the reader sufficiently
+with the spirit of the Byzantine style: but he has
+probably, as yet, no clear idea of its generic forms. Nor would
+it be safe to define these after an examination of St. Mark&rsquo;s
+alone, built as it was upon various models, and at various
+periods. But if we pass through the city, looking for buildings
+which resemble St. Mark&rsquo;s&mdash;first, in the most important
+feature of incrustation; secondly, in the character of the
+mouldings,&mdash;we shall find a considerable number, not indeed
+very attractive in their first address to the eye, but agreeing
+perfectly, both with each other, and with the earliest portions
+of St. Mark&rsquo;s, in every important detail; and to be regarded,
+therefore, with profound interest, as indeed the remains of an
+ancient city of Venice, altogether different in aspect from that
+which now exists. From these remains we may with safety
+deduce general conclusions touching the forms of Byzantine
+architecture, as practised in Eastern Italy, during the eleventh,
+twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II.</span> They agree in another respect, as well as in style. All
+are either ruins, or fragments disguised by restoration. Not
+one of them is uninjured or unaltered; and the impossibility
+of finding so much as an angle or a single story in perfect
+condition is a proof, hardly less convincing than the method of
+their architecture, that they were indeed raised during the
+earliest phases of the Venetian power. The mere fragments,
+dispersed in narrow streets, and recognizable by a single capital,
+or the segment of an arch, I shall not enumerate: but, of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119"></a>119</span>
+important remains, there are six in the immediate neighborhood
+of the Rialto, one in the Rio di Ca&rsquo; Foscari, and one
+conspicuously placed opposite the great Renaissance Palace
+known as the Vendramin Calerghi, one of the few palaces still
+inhabited<a name="FnAnchor_41" href="#Footnote_41"><span class="sp">41</span></a> and well maintained; and noticeable, moreover, as
+having a garden beside it, rich with evergreens, and decorated
+by gilded railings and white statues that cast long streams of
+snowy reflection down into the deep water. The vista of
+canal beyond is terminated by the Church of St. Geremia,
+another but less attractive work of the Renaissance; a mass of
+barren brickwork, with a dull leaden dome above, like those of
+our National Gallery. So that the spectator has the richest
+and meanest of the late architecture of Venice before him at
+once: the richest, let him observe, a piece of private luxury;
+the poorest, that which was given to God. Then, looking to
+the left, he will see the fragment of the work of earlier ages,
+testifying against both, not less by its utter desolation than by
+the nobleness of the traces that are still left of it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III.</span> It is a ghastly ruin; whatever is venerable or sad in
+its wreck being disguised by attempts to put it to present uses
+of the basest kind. It has been composed of arcades borne
+by marble shafts, and walls of brick faced with marble: but
+the covering stones have been torn away from it like the
+shroud from a corpse; and its walls, rent into a thousand
+chasms, are filled and refilled with fresh brickwork, and the
+seams and hollows are choked with clay and whitewash, oozing
+and trickling over the marble,&mdash;itself blanched into dusty
+decay by the frosts of centuries. Soft grass and wandering
+leafage have rooted themselves in the rents, but they are not
+suffered to grow in their own wild and gentle way, for the
+place is in a sort inhabited; rotten partitions are nailed across
+its corridors, and miserable rooms contrived in its western
+wing; and here and there the weeds are indolently torn down,
+leaving their haggard fibres to struggle again into unwholesome
+growth when the spring next stirs them: and thus, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120"></a>120</span>
+contest between death and life, the unsightly heap is festering
+to its fall.</p>
+
+<p>Of its history little is recorded, and that little futile. That
+it once belonged to the dukes of Ferrara, and was bought from
+them in the sixteenth century, to be made a general receptacle
+for the goods of the Turkish merchants, whence it is now
+generally known as the Fondaco, or Fontico, de&rsquo; Turchi, are
+facts just as important to the antiquary, as that, in the year
+1852, the municipality of Venice allowed its lower story to be
+used for a &ldquo;deposito di Tabacchi.&rdquo; Neither of this, nor of
+any other remains of the period, can we know anything but
+what their own stones will tell us.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV.</span> The reader will find in <a href="#app_11">Appendix 11</a>, written chiefly
+for the traveller&rsquo;s benefit, an account of the situation and
+present state of the other seven Byzantine palaces. Here I
+shall only give a general account of the most interesting points
+in their architecture.</p>
+
+<p>They all agree in being round-arched and incrusted with
+marble, but there are only six in which the original disposition
+of the parts is anywise traceable; namely, those distinguished
+in the Appendix as the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, Casa Loredan,
+Caso Farsetti, Rio-Foscari House, Terraced House, and Madonnetta
+House:<a name="FnAnchor_42" href="#Footnote_42"><span class="sp">42</span></a> and these six agree farther in having continuous
+arcades along their entire fronts from one angle to the
+other, and in having their arcades divided, in each case, into
+a centre and wings; both by greater size in the midmost
+arches, and by the alternation of shafts in the centre, with pilasters,
+or with small shafts, at the flanks.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V.</span> So far as their structure can be traced, they agree also
+in having tall and few arches in their lower stories, and shorter
+and more numerous arches above: but it happens most unfortunately
+that in the only two cases in which the second stories
+are left the ground floors are modernized, and in the others
+where the sea stories are left the second stories are modernized;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121"></a>121</span>
+so that we never have more than two tiers of the Byzantine
+arches, one above the other. These, however, are quite
+enough to show the first main point on which I wish to insist,
+namely, the subtlety of the feeling for proportion in the Greek
+architects; and I hope that even the general reader will not
+allow himself to be frightened by the look of a few measurements,
+for, if he will only take the little pains necessary to
+compare them, he will, I am almost certain, find the result not
+devoid of interest.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. IV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <a name="fig_4"><img src="images/img121.jpg" width="650" height="487" alt="Fig. IV." title="Fig. IV." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI.</span> I had intended originally to give elevations of all
+these palaces; but have not had time to prepare plates requiring
+so much labor and care. I must, therefore, explain the
+position of their parts in the simplest way in my power.</p>
+
+<p>The Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi has sixteen arches in its sea story,
+and twenty-six above them in its first story, the whole based
+on a magnificent foundation, built of blocks of red marble,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122"></a>122</span>
+some of them seven feet long by a foot and a half thick, and
+raised to a height of about five feet above high-water mark.
+At this level, the elevation of one half of the building, from
+its flank to the central pillars of its arcades, is rudely given in
+<a href="#fig_4">Fig. IV.</a>, in the previous page. It is only drawn to show the
+arrangement of the parts, as the sculptures which are indicated
+by the circles and upright oblongs between the arches are too
+delicate to be shown in a sketch three times the size of this.
+The building once was crowned with an Arabian parapet; but
+it was taken down some years since, and I am aware of no
+authentic representation of its details. The greater part of the
+sculptures between the arches, indicated in the woodcut only
+by blank circles, have also fallen, or been removed, but enough
+remain on the two flanks to justify the representation given in
+the diagram of their original arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>And now observe the dimensions. The small arches of the
+wings in the ground story, <i>a</i>, <i>a</i>, <i>a</i>, measure, in breadth, from</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2.5em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">shaft to shaft</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">interval <i>b</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6&frac12;</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">interval <i>c</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">7</td>
+    <td class="tc2">11</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">intervals <i>d</i>, <i>e</i>, <i>f</i>, &amp;c.</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td>
+    <td class="tc2">1</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The difference between the width of the arches <i>b</i> and <i>c</i> is
+necessitated by the small recess of the cornice on the left hand
+as compared with that of the great capitals; but this sudden
+difference of half a foot between the two extreme arches of
+the centre offended the builder&rsquo;s eye, so he diminished the
+next one, <i>unnecessarily</i>, two inches, and thus obtained the
+gradual cadence to the flanks, from eight feet down to four
+and a half, in a series of continually increasing steps. Of
+course the effect cannot be shown in the diagram, as the first
+difference is less than the thickness of its lines. In the upper
+story the capitals are all nearly of the same height, and there
+was no occasion for the difference between the extreme arches.
+Its twenty-six arches are placed, four small ones above each
+lateral three of the lower arcade, and eighteen larger above the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123"></a>123</span>
+central ten; thus throwing the shafts into all manner of relative
+positions, and completely confusing the eye in any effort
+to count them: but there is an exquisite symmetry running
+through their apparent confusion; for it will be seen that the
+four arches in each flank are arranged in two groups, of which
+one has a large single shaft in the centre, and the other a pilaster
+and two small shafts. The way in which the large shaft is
+used as an echo of those in the central arcade, dovetailing
+them, as it were, into the system of the pilasters,&mdash;just as a great
+painter, passing from one tone of color to another, repeats,
+over a small space, that which he has left,&mdash;is highly characteristic
+of the Byzantine care in composition. There are other
+evidences of it in the arrangement of the capitals, which will
+be noticed below in the seventh chapter. The lateral arches of
+this upper arcade measure 3 ft. 2 in. across, and the central 3
+ft. 11 in., so that the arches in the building are altogether of
+six magnitudes.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII.</span> Next let us take the Casa Loredan. The mode of
+arrangement of its pillars is precisely like that of the Fondaco
+de&rsquo; Turchi, so that I shall merely indicate them by vertical
+lines in order to be able to letter the intervals. It has five
+arches in the centre of the lower story, and two in each of its
+wings.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <a name="fig_123"><img src="images/img123.jpg" width="650" height="132" alt="arches" title="arches" /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2.5em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">The midmost interval, <i>a</i>, of the central five, is</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td>
+    <td class="tc2">1</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">The two on each side, <i>b</i>, <i>b</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td>
+    <td class="tc2">2</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">The two extremes, <i>c</i>, <i>c</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td>
+    <td class="tc2">9</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Inner arches of the wings, <i>d</i>, <i>d</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Outer arches of the wings, <i>e</i>, <i>e</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The gradation of these dimensions is visible at a glance;
+the boldest step being here taken nearest the centre, while in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124"></a>124</span>
+the Fondaco it is farthest from the centre. The first loss here
+is of eleven inches, the second of five, the third of five, and
+then there is a most subtle increase of two inches in the extreme
+arches, as if to contradict the principle of diminution,
+and stop the falling away of the building by firm resistance at
+its flanks.</p>
+
+<p>I could not get the measures of the upper story accurately,
+the palace having been closed all the time I was in Venice; but
+it has seven central arches above the five below, and three at
+the flanks above the two below, the groups being separated by
+double shafts.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VIII.</span> Again, in the Casa Farsetti, the lower story has a
+centre of five arches, and wings of two. Referring, therefore,
+to the last figure, which will answer for this palace also, the
+measures of the intervals are:</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2.5em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><i>a</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td>
+    <td class="tc2">0</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><i>b</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td>
+    <td class="tc2">10</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><i>c</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><i>d</i> and <i>e</i></td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td>
+    <td class="tc2">3</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It is, however, possible that the interval <i>c</i> and the wing arches
+may have been intended to be similar; for one of the wing
+arches measures 5 ft. 4 in. We have thus a simpler proportion
+than any we have hitherto met with; only two losses taking
+place, the first of 2 ft. 2 in., the second of 6 inches.</p>
+
+<p>The upper story has a central group of seven arches, whose
+widths are 4 ft. 1 in.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2.5em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">The next arch on each side</td>
+    <td class="tc2">3</td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">The three arches of each wing</td>
+    <td class="tc2">3</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here again we have a most curious instance of the subtlety of
+eye which was not satisfied without a third dimension, but
+<i>could</i> be satisfied with a difference of an inch on three feet and
+a half.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IX.</span> In the Terraced House, the ground floor is modernized,
+but the first story is composed of a centre of five arches,
+with wings of two, measuring as follows:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page125"></a>125</span></p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2.5em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Three midmost arches of the central group</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td>
+    <td class="tc2">0</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Outermost arch of the central group</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Innermost arch of the wing</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td>
+    <td class="tc2">10</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Outermost arch of the wing<a name="FnAnchor_43" href="#Footnote_43"><span class="sp">43</span></a></td>
+    <td class="tc2">5</td>
+    <td class="tc2">0</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here the greatest step is towards the centre; but the increase,
+which is unusual, is towards the outside, the gain being successively
+six, four, and two inches.</p>
+
+<p>I could not obtain the measures of the second story, in
+which only the central group is left; but the two outermost
+arches are visibly larger than the others, thus beginning a correspondent
+proportion to the one below, of which the lateral
+quantities have been destroyed by restorations.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">X.</span> Finally, in the Rio-Foscari House, the central arch is
+the principal feature, and the four lateral ones form one magnificent
+wing; the dimensions being from the centre to the
+side:</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td class="tc5" style="width: 3.5em; ">&nbsp;</td> <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2.5em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Central</td>
+    <td class="tc5">arch</td>
+    <td class="tc2">9</td>
+    <td class="tc2">9</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Second</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+    <td class="tc2">3</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Third</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+    <td class="tc2">3</td>
+    <td class="tc2">10</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Fourth</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+    <td class="tc2">3</td>
+    <td class="tc2">10</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Fifth</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+    <td class="tc2">3</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The difference of two inches on nearly three feet in the two
+midmost arches being all that was necessary to satisfy the
+builder&rsquo;s eye.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XI.</span> I need not point out to the reader that these singular
+and minute harmonies of proportion indicate, beyond all dispute,
+not only that the buildings in which they are found are
+of one school, but (so far as these subtle coincidences of measurement
+can still be traced in them) in their original form.
+No modern builder has any idea of connecting his arches in
+this manner, and restorations in Venice are carried on with too
+violent hands to admit of the supposition that such refinements
+would be even noticed in the progress of demolition, much less
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126"></a>126</span>
+imitated in heedless reproduction. And as if to direct our
+attention especially to this character, as indicative of Byzantine
+workmanship, the most interesting example of all will be
+found in the arches of the front of St. Mark&rsquo;s itself, whose
+proportions I have not noticed before, in order that they might
+here be compared with those of the contemporary palaces.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. V.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_5"><img src="images/img126.jpg" width="500" height="218" alt="Fig. V." title="Fig. V." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XII.</span> The doors actually employed for entrance in the western
+façade are as usual five, arranged as at <i>a</i> in the annexed
+woodcut, <a href="#fig_5">Fig. V.</a>; but the Byzantine builder could not be satisfied
+with so simple a group, and he introduced, therefore,
+two minor arches at the extremities, as at <i>b</i>, by adding two
+small porticos which are of <i>no use whatever</i> except to consummate
+the proportions of the façade, and themselves to exhibit
+the most exquisite proportions in arrangements of shaft and
+archivolt with which I am acquainted in the entire range of
+European architecture.</p>
+
+<p>Into these minor particulars I cannot here enter; but observe
+the dimensions of the range of arches in the façade, as
+thus completed by the flanking porticos:</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Table of distances.">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; ">Ft.</td>
+    <td class="tc2" style="font-size: 80%; width: 2.5em; ">In.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">The space of its central archivolt is</td>
+    <td class="tc2">31</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><span style="letter-spacing: 2em; ">&nbsp;" </span>the two on each side, about<a name="FnAnchor_44" href="#Footnote_44"><span class="sp">44</span></a></td>
+    <td class="tc2">19</td>
+    <td class="tc2">8</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><span style="letter-spacing: 2em; ">&nbsp;" </span>the two succeeding, about</td>
+    <td class="tc2">20</td>
+    <td class="tc2">4</td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><span style="letter-spacing: 2em; ">&nbsp;" </span>small arches at flanks, about</td>
+    <td class="tc2">6</td>
+    <td class="tc2">0</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page127"></a>127</span></p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. VI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_6"><img src="images/img127.jpg" width="200" height="125" alt="Fig. VI." title="Fig. VI." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>I need not make any comment upon the subtle difference of
+eight inches on twenty feet between the second and third
+dimensions. If the reader will be at the pains to compare the
+whole evidence now laid before him, with that deduced above
+from the apse of Murano, he cannot but confess that it amounts
+to an irrefragable proof of an intense perception of harmony
+in the relation of quantities, on the part of the Byzantine architects;
+a perception which we have at present lost so utterly as
+hardly to be able even to conceive it. And let it not be said,
+as it was of the late discoveries of subtle curvature in the
+Parthenon,<a name="FnAnchor_45" href="#Footnote_45"><span class="sp">45</span></a> that what is not to be demonstrated without laborious
+measurement, cannot have influence on the beauty of the
+design. The eye is continually influenced by what it cannot
+detect; nay, it is not going too far to say, that it is most influenced
+by what it detects least. Let the painter define, if he
+can, the variations of lines on which depend the changes of
+expression in the human countenance. The greater he is, the
+more he will feel their subtlety, and the intense difficulty of
+perceiving all their relations, or answering for the consequences
+of a variation of a hair&rsquo;s breadth
+in a single curve. Indeed, there
+is nothing truly noble either in
+color or in form, but its power
+depends on circumstances infinitely
+too intricate to be explained,
+and almost too subtle to
+be traced. And as for these Byzantine
+buildings, we only do not feel them because we do not
+<i>watch</i> them; otherwise we should as much enjoy the variety
+of proportion in their arches, as we do at present that of the
+natural architecture of flowers and leaves. Any of us can feel
+in an instant the grace of the leaf group, <i>b</i>, in the annexed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128"></a>128</span>
+figure; and yet that grace is simply owing to its being proportioned
+like the façade of St. Mark&rsquo;s; each leaflet answering to
+an arch,&mdash;the smallest at the root, to those of the porticos. I
+have tried to give the proportion quite accurately in <i>b</i>; but as
+the difference between the second and third leaflets is hardly
+discernible on so small a scale, it is somewhat exaggerated in
+<i>a</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_46" href="#Footnote_46"><span class="sp">46</span></a> Nature is often far more subtle in her proportions. In
+looking at some of the nobler species of lilies, full in the front
+of the flower, we may fancy for a moment that they form a
+symmetrical six-petaled star; but on examining
+them more closely, we shall find that they are
+thrown into a group of three magnitudes by
+the expansion of two of the inner petals
+above the stamens to a breadth greater than
+any of the four others; while the third inner
+petal, on which the stamens rest, contracts
+itself into the narrowest of the six, and the
+three under petals remain of one intermediate magnitude, as
+seen in the annexed figure.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. VII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_7"><img src="images/img128.jpg" width="150" height="154" alt="Fig. VII." title="Fig. VII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIII.</span> I must not, however, weary the reader with this
+subject, which has always been a favorite one with me, and is
+apt to lead too far; we will return to the palaces on the Grand
+Canal. Admitting, then, that their fragments are proved, by
+the minute correspondences of their arrangement, to be still
+in their original positions, they indicate to us a form, whether
+of palace or dwelling-house, in which there were, universally,
+central galleries, or loggias, opening into apartments on each
+wing, the amount of light admitted being immense; and the
+general proportions of the building, slender, light, and graceful
+in the utmost degree, it being in fact little more than an
+aggregate of shafts and arches. Of the interior disposition of
+these palaces there is in no instance the slightest trace left, nor
+am I well enough acquainted with the existing architecture of
+the East to risk any conjecture on this subject. I pursue the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129"></a>129</span>
+statement of the facts which still are ascertainable respecting
+their external forms.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIV.</span> In every one of the buildings above mentioned, except
+the Rio-Foscari House (which has only one great entrance
+between its wings), the central arcades are sustained, at least
+in one story, and generally in both, on bold detached cylindrical
+shafts, with rich capitals, while the arches of the wings are
+carried on smaller shafts assisted by portions of wall, which become
+pilasters of greater or less width.</p>
+
+<p>And now I must remind the reader of what was pointed
+out above (Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_27">Chap. XXVII</a>. §§ <span class="scs">III. XXXV. XL.</span>), that there
+are two great orders of capitals in the world; that one of these
+is convex in its contour, the other concave; and that richness
+of ornament, with all freedom of fancy, is for the most part
+found in the one, and severity of ornament, with stern discipline
+of the fancy, in the other.</p>
+
+<p>Of these two families of capitals both occur in the Byzantine
+period, but the concave group is the longest-lived, and extends
+itself into the Gothic times. In the account which I
+gave of them in the first volume, they were illustrated by giving
+two portions of a simple curve, that of a salvia leaf. We
+must now investigate their characters more in detail; and these
+may be best generally represented by considering both families
+as formed upon the types of flowers,&mdash;the one upon that of the
+water-lily, the other upon that of the convolvulus. There was
+no intention in the Byzantine architects to imitate either one
+or the other of these flowers; but, as I have already so often
+repeated, all beautiful works of art must either intentionally
+imitate or accidentally resemble natural forms; and the direct
+comparison with the natural forms which these capitals most
+resemble, is the likeliest mode of fixing their distinctions in
+the reader&rsquo;s mind.</p>
+
+<p>The one then, the convex family, is modelled according to
+the commonest shapes of that great group of flowers which
+form rounded cups, like that of the water-lily, the leaves springing
+horizontally from the stalk, and closing together upwards.
+The rose is of this family, but her cup is filled with the luxuriance
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130"></a>130</span>
+of her leaves; the crocus, campanula, ranunculus, anemone,
+and almost all the loveliest children of the field, are
+formed upon the same type.</p>
+
+<p>The other family resembles the convolvulus, trumpet-flower,
+and such others, in which the lower part of the bell is slender,
+and the lip curves outwards at the top. There are fewer flowers
+constructed on this than on the convex model; but in the
+organization of trees and of clusters of herbage it is seen continually.
+Of course, both of these conditions are modified,
+when applied to capitals, by the enormously greater thickness
+of the stalk or shaft, but in other respects the parallelism is
+close and accurate; and the reader had better at once fix the
+flower outlines in his mind,<a name="FnAnchor_47" href="#Footnote_47"><span class="sp">47</span></a> and remember them as representing
+the only two orders of capitals that the world has ever seen,
+or can see.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XV.</span> The examples of the concave family in the Byzantine
+times are found principally either in large capitals founded
+on the Greek Corinthian, used chiefly for the nave pillars of
+churches, or in the small lateral shafts of the palaces. It appears
+somewhat singular that the pure Corinthian form should
+have been reserved almost exclusively for nave pillars, as at
+Torcello, Murano, and St. Mark&rsquo;s; it occurs, indeed, together
+with almost every other form, on the exterior of St. Mark&rsquo;s
+also, but never so definitely as in the nave and transept shafts.
+Of the conditions assumed by it at Torcello enough has been
+said; and one of the most delicate of the varieties occurring
+in St. Mark&rsquo;s is given in <a href="#plate_8">Plate VIII.</a>, fig. 15, remarkable for
+the cutting of the sharp thistle-like leaves into open relief, so
+that the light sometimes shines through them from behind,
+and for the beautiful curling of the extremities of the leaves
+outwards, joining each other at the top, as in an undivided
+flower.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVI.</span> The other characteristic examples of the concave
+groups in the Byzantine times are as simple as those resulting
+from the Corinthian are rich. They occur on the <i>small</i> shafts
+at the flanks of the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, the Casa Farsetti, Casa
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131"></a>131</span>
+Loredan, Terraced House, and upper story of the Madonnetta
+House, in forms so exactly similar that the two figures 1 and
+2 in <a href="#plate_8">Plate VIII.</a> may sufficiently represent them all. They
+consist merely of portions cut out of the plinths or string-courses
+which run along all the faces of these palaces, by four
+truncations in the form of arrowy leaves (fig. 1, Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi),
+and the whole rounded a little at the bottom so as to fit the
+shaft. When they occur between two arches they assume the
+form of the group fig. 2 (Terraced House). Fig. 3 is from
+the central arches of the Casa Farsetti, and is only given because
+either it is a later restoration or a form absolutely unique
+in the Byzantine period.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">VII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_7"><img src="images/img131.jpg" width="437" height="650" alt="BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONVEX GROUP." title="BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONVEX GROUP." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONVEX GROUP.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVII.</span> The concave group, however, was not naturally
+pleasing to the Byzantine mind. Its own favorite capital was
+of the bold convex or cushion shape, so conspicuous in all the
+buildings of the period that I have devoted <a href="#plate_7">Plate VII.</a>, opposite,
+entirely to its illustration. The form in which it is first
+used is practically obtained from a square block laid on the
+head of the shaft (fig. 1, <a href="#plate_7">Plate VII.</a>), by first cutting off the
+lower corners, as in fig. 2, and then rounding the edges, as in
+fig. 3; this gives us the bell stone: on this is laid a simple
+abacus, as seen in fig. 4, which is the actual form used in the
+upper arcade of Murano, and the framework of the capital is
+complete. Fig. 5 shows the general manner and effect of its
+decoration on the same scale; the other figures, 6 and 7, both
+from the apse of Murano, 8, from the Terraced House, and 9,
+from the Baptistery of St. Mark&rsquo;s, show the method of chiselling
+the surfaces in capitals of average richness, such as occur
+everywhere, for there is no limit to the fantasy and beauty of
+the more elaborate examples.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVIII.</span> In consequence of the peculiar affection entertained
+for these massy forms by the Byzantines, they were apt, when
+they used any condition of capital founded on the Corinthian,
+to modify the concave profile by making it bulge out at the
+bottom. Fig. 1, <i>a</i>, <a href="#plate_10">Plate X.</a>, is the profile of a capital of the
+pure concave family; and observe, it needs a fillet or cord
+round the neck of the capital to show where it separates from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132"></a>132</span>
+the shaft. Fig. 4, <i>a</i>, on the other hand, is the profile of the
+pure convex group, which not only needs no such projecting
+fillet, but would be encumbered by it; while fig. 2, <i>a</i>, is the
+profile of one of the Byzantine capitals (Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi,
+lower arcade) founded on Corinthian, of which the main sweep
+is concave, but which bends below into the convex bell-shape,
+where it joins the shaft. And, lastly, fig. 3, <i>a</i>, is the profile of
+the nave shafts of St. Mark&rsquo;s, where, though very delicately
+granted, the concession to the Byzantine temper is twofold;
+first at the spring of the curve from the base, and secondly
+the top, where it again becomes convex, though the expression
+of the Corinthian bell is still given to it by the bold concave
+leaves.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIX.</span> These, then, being the general modifications of Byzantine
+profiles, I have thrown together in <a href="#plate_8">Plate VIII.</a>, opposite,
+some of the most characteristic examples of the decoration
+of the concave and transitional types; their localities are given
+in the note below,<a name="FnAnchor_48" href="#Footnote_48"><span class="sp">48</span></a> and the following are the principal points
+to be observed respecting them.</p>
+
+<p>The purest concave forms, 1 and 2, were never decorated
+in the earliest times, except sometimes by an incision or rib
+down the centre of their truncations on the angles.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">VIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_8"><img src="images/img132.jpg" width="426" height="650" alt="BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONCAVE GROUP." title="BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONCAVE GROUP." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONCAVE GROUP.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 show some of the modes of application
+of a peculiarly broad-lobed acanthus leaf, very characteristic
+of native Venetian work; 4 and 5 are from the same
+building, two out of a group of four, and show the boldness of
+the variety admitted in the management even of the capitals
+most closely derived from the Corinthian. I never saw one of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133"></a>133</span>
+these Venetian capitals in all respects like another. The trefoils
+into which the leaves fall at the extremities are, however,
+for the most part similar, though variously disposed, and generally
+niche themselves one under the other, as very characteristically
+in fig. 7. The form 8 occurs in St. Mark&rsquo;s only, and
+there very frequently: 9 at Venice occurs, I think, in St.
+Mark&rsquo;s only; but it is a favorite early Lombardic form. 10,
+11, and 12 are all highly characteristic. 10 occurs with more
+fantastic interweaving upon its sides in the upper stories of St.
+Mark&rsquo;s; 11 is derived, in the Casa Loredan, from the great
+lily capitals of St. Mark&rsquo;s, of which more presently. 13 and
+15 are peculiar to St. Mark&rsquo;s. 14 is a lovely condition, occurring
+both there and in the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi.</p>
+
+<p>The modes in which the separate portions of the leaves are
+executed in these and other Byzantine capitals, will be noticed
+more at length hereafter. Here I only wish the reader to observe
+two things, both with respect to these and the capitals of
+the convex family on the former Plate: first the Life, secondly,
+the Breadth, of these capitals, as compared with Greek forms.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XX.</span> I say, first, the Life. Not only is every one of these
+capitals differently fancied, but there are many of them which
+<i>have no two sides alike</i>. Fig. 5, for instance, varies on every
+side in the arrangement of the pendent leaf in its centre; fig.
+6 has a different plant on each of its four upper angles. The
+birds are each cut with a different play of plumage in figs. 9
+and 12, and the vine-leaves are every one varied in their
+position in fig. 13. But this is not all. The differences in the
+character of ornamentation between them and the Greek
+capitals, all show a greater love of nature; the leaves are,
+every one of them, more founded on realities, sketched, however
+rudely, more directly from the truth; and are continually
+treated in a manner which shows the mind of the workman to
+have been among the living herbage, not among Greek precedents.
+The hard outlines in which, for the sake of perfect intelligibility,
+I have left this Plate, have deprived the examples
+of the vitality of their light and shade; but the reader can
+nevertheless observe the <i>ideas</i> of life occurring perpetually:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134"></a>134</span>
+at the top of fig. 4, for instance, the small leaves turned sideways;
+in fig. 5, the formal volutes of the old Corinthian
+transformed into a branching tendril; in fig. 6, the bunch of
+grapes thrown carelessly in at the right-hand corner, in defiance
+of all symmetry; in fig. 7, the volutes knitted into wreaths
+of ivy; in fig. 14, the leaves, drifted, as it were, by a whirlwind
+round the capital by which they rise; while figs. 13 and
+15 are as completely living leaves as any of the Gothic time.
+These designs may or may not be graceful; what grace or
+beauty they have is not to be rendered in mere outline,&mdash;but
+they are indisputably more <i>natural</i> than any Greek ones, and
+therefore healthier, and tending to greatness.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXI.</span> In the second place, note in all these examples, the
+excessive breadth of the masses, however afterwards they may
+be filled with detail. Whether we examine the contour of the
+simpler convex bells, or those of the leaves which bend outwards
+from the richer and more Corinthian types, we find they
+are all outlined by grand and simple curves, and that the whole
+of their minute fretwork and thistle-work is cast into a gigantic
+mould which subdues all their multitudinous points and
+foldings to its own inevitable dominion. And the fact is, that
+in the sweeping lines and broad surfaces of these Byzantine
+sculptures we obtain, so far as I know, for the first time in the
+history of art, the germ of that unity of perfect ease in every
+separate part, with perfect subjection to an enclosing form or
+directing impulse, which was brought to its most intense expression
+in the compositions of the two men in whom the art
+of Italy consummated itself and expired&mdash;Tintoret and Michael
+Angelo.</p>
+
+<p>I would not attach too much importance to the mere habit
+of working on the rounded surface of the stone, which is often
+as much the result of haste or rudeness as of the desire for
+breadth, though the result obtained is not the less beautiful.
+But in the capital from the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, fig. 6, it will
+be seen that while the sculptor had taken the utmost care to
+make his leaves free, graceful, and sharp in effect, he was dissatisfied
+with their separation, and could not rest until he had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135"></a>135</span>
+enclosed them with an unbroken line, like that of a pointed
+arch; and the same thing is done in many different ways in
+other capitals of the same building, and in many of St. Mark&rsquo;s:
+but one such instance would have been enough to prove, if the
+loveliness of the profiles themselves did not do so, that the
+sculptor understood and loved the laws of generalization; and
+that the feeling which bound his prickly leaves, as they waved
+or drifted round the ridges of his capital, into those broad
+masses of unbroken flow, was indeed one with that which made
+Michael Angelo encompass the principal figure in his Creation
+of Adam with the broad curve of its cloudy drapery. It may
+seem strange to assert any connexion between so great a conception
+and these rudely hewn fragments of ruined marble; but
+all the highest principles of art are as universal as they are
+majestic, and there is nothing too small to receive their influence.
+They rule at once the waves of the mountain outline,
+and the sinuosities of the minutest lichen that stains its shattered
+stones.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXII.</span> We have not yet spoken of the three braided and
+chequered capitals, numbered 10, 11, and 12. They are representations
+of a group, with which many most interesting associations
+are connected. It was noticed in the last chapter, that
+the method of covering the exterior of buildings with thin
+pieces of marble was likely to lead to a system of lighting the
+interior by minute perforation. In order to obtain both light
+and air, without admitting any unbroken body of sunshine, in
+warm countries, it became a constant habit of the Arabian
+architects to pierce minute and starlike openings in slabs of
+stone; and to employ the stones so pierced where the Gothic
+architects employ traceries. Internally, the form of stars
+assumed by the light as it entered<a name="FnAnchor_49" href="#Footnote_49"><span class="sp">49</span></a> was, in itself, an exquisite
+decoration; but, externally, it was felt necessary to add some
+slight ornament upon the surface of the perforated stone; and
+it was soon found that, as the small perforations had a tendency
+to look scattered and spotty, the most effective treatment
+of the intermediate surfaces would be one which bound
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136"></a>136</span>
+them together, and gave unity and repose to the pierced and
+disturbed stone: universally, therefore, those intermediate
+spaces were carved into the semblance of interwoven fillets,
+which alternately sank beneath and rose above each other as
+they met. This system of braided or woven ornament was not
+confined to the Arabs; it is universally pleasing to the instinct
+of mankind. I believe that nearly all early ornamentation is
+full of it,&mdash;more especially, perhaps, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon;
+and illuminated manuscripts depend upon it for their
+loveliest effects of intricate color, up to the close of the thirteenth
+century. There are several very interesting metaphysical
+reasons for this strange and unfailing delight, felt in a
+thing so simple. It is not often that any idea of utility has
+power to enhance the true impressions of beauty; but it is
+possible that the enormous importance of the art of weaving
+to mankind may give some interest, if not actual attractiveness,
+to any type or image of the invention to which we owe,
+at once, our comfort and our pride. But the more profound
+reason lies in the innate love of mystery and unity; in the joy
+that the human mind has in contemplating any kind of maze
+or entanglement, so long as it can discern, through its confusion,
+any guiding clue or connecting plan: a pleasure increased
+and solemnized by some dim feeling of the setting
+forth, by such symbols, of the intricacy, and alternate rise and
+fall, subjection and supremacy, of human fortune; the</p>
+
+<p class="pquote">"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,"</p>
+
+<p class="noind">of Fate and Time.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">IX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_9"><img src="images/img136.jpg" width="482" height="665" alt="LILY CAPITAL OF ST. MARKS." title="LILY CAPITAL OF ST. MARKS." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">LILY CAPITAL OF ST. MARKS.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIII.</span> But be this as it may, the fact is that we are never
+tired of contemplating this woven involution; and that, in
+some degree, the sublime pleasure which we have in watching
+the branches of trees, the intertwining of the grass, and the
+tracery of the higher clouds, is owing to it, not less than that
+which we receive from the fine meshes of the robe, the braiding
+of the hair, and the various glittering of the linked net or
+wreathed chain. Byzantine ornamentation, like that of almost
+all nations in a state of progress, is full of this kind of work:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137"></a>137</span>
+but it occurs most conspicuously, though most simply, in the
+minute traceries which surround their most solid capitals;
+sometimes merely in a reticulated veil, as in the tenth figure
+in the Plate, sometimes resembling a basket, on the edges of
+which are perched birds and other animals. The diamonded
+ornament in the eleventh figure is substituted for it in the
+Casa Loredan, and marks a somewhat later time and a tendency
+to the ordinary Gothic chequer; but the capitals which
+show it most definitely are those already so often spoken of as
+the lily capitals of St. Mark&rsquo;s, of which the northern one is
+carefully drawn in <a href="#plate_9">Plate IX.</a></p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">X.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_10"><img src="images/img137.jpg" width="413" height="650" alt="THE FOUR VENETIAN FLOWER ORDERS." title="THE FOUR VENETIAN FLOWER ORDERS." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">THE FOUR VENETIAN FLOWER ORDERS.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIV.</span> These capitals, called barbarous by our architects,
+are without exception the most subtle pieces of composition in
+broad contour which I have ever met with in architecture.
+Their profile is given in the opposite <a href="#plate_10">Plate X.</a> fig. 3, <i>b</i>; the
+inner line in the figure being that of the stone behind the lily,
+the outer that of the external network, taken through the
+side of the capital; while fig. 3, <i>c</i> is the outer profile at its
+angle; and the reader will easily understand that the passing
+of the one of these lines into the other is productive of the
+most exquisite and wonderful series of curvatures possible
+within such compass, no two views of the capital giving the
+same contour. Upon these profoundly studied outlines, as remarkable
+for their grace and complexity as the general mass
+of the capital is for solid strength and proportion to its necessary
+service, the braided work is wrought with more than
+usual care; perhaps, as suggested by the Marchese Selvatico,
+with some idea of imitating those &ldquo;nets of chequerwork and
+wreaths of chainwork&rdquo; on the chapiters of Solomon&rsquo;s temple,
+which are, I suppose, the first instances on record of an ornamentation
+of this kind thus applied. The braided work encloses
+on each of the four sides of the capital a flower whose
+form, derived from that of the lily, though as usual modified,
+in every instance of its occurrence, in some minor particulars,
+is generally seen as represented in fig. 11 of <a href="#plate_8">Plate VIII.</a> It
+is never without the two square or oblong objects at the extremity
+of the tendrils issuing from its root, set like vessels to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"></a>138</span>
+catch the dew from the points of its leaves; but I do not understand
+their meaning. The abacus of the capital has already
+been given at <i>a</i>, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#plate_16">Plate XVI.</a>, Vol. I.; but no amount of illustrations
+or eulogium would be enough to make the reader understand
+the perfect beauty of the thing itself, as the sun steals
+from interstice to interstice of its marble veil, and touches with
+the white lustre of its rays at mid-day the pointed leaves of
+its thirsty lilies.</p>
+
+<p>In all the capitals hitherto spoken of, the form of the head
+of the bell has been square, and its varieties of outline have
+been obtained in the transition from the square of the abacus
+to the circular outline of the shafts. A far more complex
+series of forms results from the division of the bell by recesses
+into separate lobes or leaves, like those of a rose or tulip, which
+are each in their turn covered with flower-work or hollowed
+into reticulation. The example (fig. 10, <a href="#plate_7">Plate VII.</a>) from St.
+Mark&rsquo;s will give some idea of the simplest of these conditions:
+perhaps the most exquisite in Venice, on the whole, is the
+central capital of the upper arcade of the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the principal generic conditions of the Byzantine
+capital; but the reader must always remember that the
+examples given are single instances, and those not the most
+beautiful but the most intelligible, chosen out of thousands:
+the designs of the capitals of St. Mark&rsquo;s alone would form a
+volume.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_11"><img src="images/img138.jpg" width="435" height="650" alt="BYZANTINE SCULPTURE." title="BYZANTINE SCULPTURE." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">BYZANTINE SCULPTURE.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXV.</span> Of the archivolts which these capitals generally sustain,
+details are given in the Appendix and in the notice of
+Venetian doors in Chapter VII. In the private palaces, the
+ranges of archivolt are for the most part very simple, with
+dentilled mouldings; and all the ornamental effect is entrusted
+to pieces of sculpture set in the wall above or between the
+arches, in the manner shown in <a href="#plate_15">Plate XV.</a>, below, Chapter
+VII. These pieces of sculpture are either crosses, upright
+oblongs, or circles: of all the three forms an example is given
+in <a href="#plate_11">Plate XI.</a> opposite. The cross was apparently an invariable
+ornament, placed either in the centre of the archivolt of the
+doorway, or in the centre of the first story above the windows;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139"></a>139</span>
+on each side of it the circular and oblong ornaments were used
+in various alternation. In too many instances the wall marbles
+have been torn away from the earliest Byzantine palaces, so
+that the crosses are left on their archivolts only. The best examples
+of the cross set above the windows are found in houses
+of the transitional period: one in the Campo St<span class="sp">a</span> M. Formosa;
+another, in which a cross is placed between every window, is
+still well preserved in the Campo St<span class="sp">a</span> Maria Mater Domini;
+another, on the Grand Canal, in the parish of the Apostoli, has
+two crosses, one on each side of the first story, and a bas-relief
+of Christ enthroned in the centre; and finally, that from
+which the larger cross in the Plate was taken in the house
+once belonging to Marco Polo, at San Giovanni Grisostomo.</p>
+
+<p>§ XXVI. This cross, though graceful and rich, and given
+because it happens to be one of the best preserved, is uncharacteristic
+in one respect; for, instead of the central rose at the
+meeting of the arms, we usually find a hand raised in the attitude
+of blessing, between the sun and moon, as in the two
+smaller crosses seen in the Plate. In nearly all representations
+of the Crucifixion, over the whole of Europe, at the period in
+question, the sun and the moon are introduced, one on each
+side of the cross,&mdash;the sun generally, in paintings, as a red star;
+but I do not think with any purpose of indicating the darkness
+at the time of the agony; especially because, had this been the
+intention, the moon ought not to have been visible, since it
+could not have been in the heavens during the day at the time
+of passover. I believe rather that the two luminaries are set
+there in order to express the entire dependence of the heavens
+and the earth upon the work of the Redemption: and this
+view is confirmed by our frequently finding the sun and moon
+set in the same manner beside the figure of Christ, as in the
+centre of the great archivolt of St. Mark&rsquo;s, or beside the hand
+signifying benediction, without any cross, in some other early
+archivolts;<a name="FnAnchor_50" href="#Footnote_50"><span class="sp">50</span></a> while, again, not unfrequently they are absent
+from the symbol of the cross itself, and its saving power over
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140"></a>140</span>
+the whole of creation is indicated only by fresh leaves springing
+from its foot, or doves feeding beside it; and so also, in
+illuminated Bibles, we find the series of pictures representing
+the Creation terminate in the Crucifixion, as the work by which
+all the families of created beings subsist, no less than that in
+sympathy with which &ldquo;the whole creation groaneth and travaileth
+in pain together until now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVII.</span> This habit of placing the symbol of the Christian
+faith in the centres of their palaces was, as I above said, universal
+in early Venice; it does not cease till about the middle
+of the fourteenth century. The other sculptures, which were
+set above or between the arches, consist almost invariably of
+groups of birds or beasts; either standing opposite to each
+other with a small pillar or spray of leafage between them, or
+else tearing and devouring each other. The multitude of these
+sculptures, especially of the small ones enclosed in circles, as
+figs 5 and 6, <a href="#plate_11">Plate XI.</a>, which are now scattered through the
+city of Venice, is enormous, but they are seldom to be seen in
+their original positions. When the Byzantine palaces were
+destroyed, these fragments were generally preserved, and inserted
+again in the walls of the new buildings, with more or
+less attempt at symmetry; fragments of friezes and mouldings
+being often used in the same manner; so that the mode of
+their original employment can only be seen in St. Mark&rsquo;s, the
+Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, Braided House, and one or two others.
+The most remarkable point about them is, that the groups of
+beasts or birds on each side of the small pillars bear the closest
+possible resemblance to the group of Lions over the gate of
+Mycenć; and the whole of the ornamentation of that gate, as
+far as I can judge of it from drawings, is so like Byzantine
+sculpture, that I cannot help sometimes suspecting the original
+conjecture of the French antiquarians, that it was a work of
+the middle ages, to be not altogether indefensible. By far the
+best among the sculptures at Venice are those consisting of
+groups thus arranged; the first figure in <a href="#plate_11">Plate XI.</a> is one of
+those used on St. Mark&rsquo;s, and, with its chain of wreathen work
+round it, is very characteristic of the finest kind, except that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141"></a>141</span>
+the immediate trunk or pillar often branches into luxuriant
+leafage, usually of the vine, so that the whole ornament seems
+almost composed from the words of Ezekiel. &ldquo;A great eagle
+with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which had
+divers colors, came into Lebanon, and took the highest branch
+of the cedar: He cropped off the top of his young twigs; and
+<i>carried it into a city of traffic; he set it in a city of merchants</i>.
+He took also of the seed of the land, ... and it
+grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature, <i>whose
+branches turned towards him, and the roots thereof were under
+him</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVIII.</span> The groups of contending and devouring animals
+are always much ruder in cutting, and take somewhat the place
+in Byzantine sculpture which the lower grotesques do in the
+Gothic; true, though clumsy, grotesques being sometimes
+mingled among them, as four bodies joined to one head in the
+centre;<a name="FnAnchor_51" href="#Footnote_51"><span class="sp">51</span></a> but never showing any attempt at variety of invention,
+except only in the effective disposition of the light and
+shade, and in the vigor and thoughtfulness of the touches
+which indicate the plumes of the birds or foldings of the leaves.
+Care, however, is always taken to secure variety enough to
+keep the eye entertained, no two sides of these Byzantine ornaments
+being in all respects the same: for instance, in the
+chainwork round the first figure in <a href="#plate_11">Plate XI.</a> there are two
+circles enclosing squares on the left-hand side of the arch at
+the top, but two smaller circles and a diamond on the other,
+enclosing one square, and two small circular spots or bosses;
+and in the line of chain at the bottom there is a circle on the
+right, and a diamond on the left, and so down to the working
+of the smallest details. I have represented this upper sculpture
+as dark, in order to give some idea of the general effect of
+these ornaments when seen in shadow against light; an effect
+much calculated upon by the designer, and obtained by the use
+of a golden ground formed of glass mosaic inserted in the
+hollows of the marble. Each square of glass has the leaf gold
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142"></a>142</span>
+upon its surface protected by another thin film of glass above
+it, so that no time or weather can affect its lustre, until the
+pieces of glass are bodily torn from their setting. The smooth
+glazed surface of the golden ground is washed by every shower
+of rain, but the marble usually darkens into an amber color in
+process of time; and when the whole ornament is cast into
+shadow, the golden surface, being perfectly reflective, refuses
+the darkness, and shows itself in bright and burnished light
+behind the dark traceries of the ornament. Where the marble
+has retained its perfect whiteness, on the other hand, and is
+seen in sunshine, it is shown as a snowy tracery on a golden
+ground; and the alternations and intermingling of these two
+effects form one of the chief enchantments of Byzantine ornamentation.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIX.</span> How far the system of grounding with gold and
+color, universal in St. Mark&rsquo;s, was carried out in the sculptures
+of the private palaces, it is now impossible to say. The wrecks
+of them which remain, as above noticed, show few of their
+ornamental sculptures in their original position; and from
+those marbles which were employed in succeeding buildings,
+during the Gothic period, the fragments of their mosaic
+grounds would naturally rather have been removed than restored.
+Mosaic, while the most secure of all decorations if
+carefully watched and refastened when it loosens, may, if neglected
+and exposed to weather, in process of time disappear so
+as to leave no vestige of its existence. However this may have
+been, the assured facts are, that both the shafts of the pillars
+and the facing of the old building were of veined or variously
+colored marble: the capitals and sculptures were either, as they
+now appear, of pure white marble, relieved upon the veined
+ground; or, which is infinitely the more probable, grounded in
+the richer palaces with mosaic of gold, in the inferior ones
+with blue color; and only the leaves and edges of the sculpture
+gilded. These brighter hues were opposed by bands of
+deeper color, generally alternate russet and green, in the archivolts,&mdash;bands
+which still remain in the Casa Loredan and Fondaco
+de&rsquo; Turchi, and in a house in the Corte del Remer, near
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143"></a>143</span>
+the Rialto, as well as in St. Mark&rsquo;s; and by circular disks of
+green serpentine and porphyry, which, together with the circular
+sculptures, appear to have been an ornament peculiarly
+grateful to the Eastern mind, derived probably in the first
+instance from the suspension of shields upon the wall, as in
+the majesty of ancient Tyre. &ldquo;The men of Arvad with thine
+army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadins
+were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls
+round about; they have made thy beauty perfect.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_52" href="#Footnote_52"><span class="sp">52</span></a> The
+sweet and solemn harmony of purple with various green (the
+same, by the by, to which the hills of Scotland owe their best
+loveliness) remained a favorite chord of color with the Venetians,
+and was constantly used even in the later palaces; but
+never could have been seen in so great perfection as when
+opposed to the pale and delicate sculpture of the Byzantine
+time.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXX.</span> Such, then, was that first and fairest Venice which
+rose out of the barrenness of the lagoon, and the sorrow of her
+people; a city of graceful arcades and gleaming walls, veined
+with azure and warm with gold, and fretted with white sculpture
+like frost upon forest branches turned to marble. And
+yet, in this beauty of her youth, she was no city of thoughtless
+pleasure. There was still a sadness of heart upon her, and
+a depth of devotion, in which lay all her strength. I do not
+insist upon the probable religious signification of many of the
+sculptures which are now difficult of interpretation; but the
+temper which made the cross the principal ornament of every
+building is not to be misunderstood, nor can we fail to perceive,
+in many of the minor sculptural subjects, meanings perfectly
+familiar to the mind of early Christianity. The peacock, used
+in preference to every other bird, is the well-known symbol of
+the resurrection; and when drinking from a fountain (<a href="#plate_11">Plate
+XI.</a> fig. 1) or from a font (<a href="#plate_11">Plate XI.</a> fig. 5), is, I doubt not,
+also a type of the new life received in faithful baptism. The
+vine, used in preference to all other trees, was equally recognized
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144"></a>144</span>
+as, in all cases, a type either of Christ himself<a name="FnAnchor_53" href="#Footnote_53"><span class="sp">53</span></a> or of
+those who were in a state of visible or professed union with
+him. The dove, at its foot, represents the coming of the Comforter;
+and even the groups of contending animals had, probably,
+a distinct and universally apprehended reference to the
+powers of evil. But I lay no stress on these more occult meanings.
+The principal circumstance which marks the seriousness
+of the early Venetian mind is perhaps the last in which the
+reader would suppose it was traceable;&mdash;that love of bright
+and pure color which, in a modified form, was afterwards the
+root of all the triumph of the Venetian schools of painting,
+but which, in its utmost simplicity, was characteristic of the
+Byzantine period only; and of which, therefore, in the close
+of our review of that period, it will be well that we should
+truly estimate the significance. The fact is, we none of us
+enough appreciate the nobleness and sacredness of color.
+Nothing is more common than to hear it spoken of as a
+subordinate beauty,&mdash;nay, even as the mere source of a sensual
+pleasure; and we might almost believe that we were
+daily among men who</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Could strip, for aught the prospect yields</p>
+<p>To them, their verdure from the fields;</p>
+<p>And take the radiance from the clouds</p>
+<p>With which the sun his setting shrouds.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>But it is not so. Such expressions are used for the most part
+in thoughtlessness; and if the speakers would only take the
+pains to imagine what the world and their own existence would
+become, if the blue were taken from the sky, and the gold
+from the sunshine, and the verdure from the leaves, and the
+crimson from the blood which is the life of man, the flush
+from the cheek, the darkness from the eye, the radiance from
+the hair,&mdash;if they could but see for an instant, white human
+creatures living in a white world,&mdash;they would soon feel what
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145"></a>145</span>
+they owe to color. The fact is, that, of all God&rsquo;s gifts to the
+sight of man, color is the holiest, the most divine, the most
+solemn. We speak rashly of gay color, and sad color, for
+color cannot at once be good and gay. All good color is in
+some degree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy, and the purest
+and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the
+most.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXI.</span> I know that this will sound strange in many ears,
+and will be especially startling to those who have considered
+the subject chiefly with reference to painting; for the great
+Venetian schools of color are not usually understood to be
+either pure or pensive, and the idea of its pre-eminence is
+associated in nearly every mind with the coarseness of Rubens,
+and the sensualities of Correggio and Titian. But a more
+comprehensive view of art will soon correct this impression.
+It will be discovered, in the first place, that the more faithful
+and earnest the religion of the painter, the more pure and
+prevalent is the system of his color. It will be found, in the
+second place, that where color becomes a primal intention with
+a painter otherwise mean or sensual, it instantly elevates him,
+and becomes the one sacred and saving element in his work.
+The very depth of the stoop to which the Venetian painters
+and Rubens sometimes condescend, is a consequence of their
+feeling confidence in the power of their color to keep them
+from falling. They hold on by it, as by a chain let down from
+heaven, with one hand, though they may sometimes seem to
+gather dust and ashes with the other. And, in the last place,
+it will be found that so surely as a painter is irreligious,
+thoughtless, or obscene in disposition, so surely is his coloring
+cold, gloomy, and valueless. The opposite poles of art in this
+respect are Frŕ Angelico and Salvator Rosa; of whom the
+one was a man who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed constantly,
+and never harbored an impure thought. His pictures
+are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the colors of the
+draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a painted
+window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon a gold
+ground. Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146"></a>146</span>
+who spent his life in masquing and revelry. But his pictures
+are full of horror, and their color is for the most part gloomy
+grey. Truly it would seem as if art had so much of eternity
+in it, that it must take its dye from the close rather than the
+course of life:&mdash;&ldquo;In such laughter the heart of man is sorrowful,
+and the end of that mirth is heaviness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXII.</span> These are no singular instances. I know no law
+more severely without exception than this of the connexion
+of pure color with profound and noble thought. The late
+Flemish pictures, shallow in conception and obscene in subject,
+are always sober in color. But the early religious painting
+of the Flemings is as brilliant in hue as it is holy in
+thought. The Bellinis, Francias, Peruginos painted in crimson,
+and blue, and gold. The Caraccis, Guidos, and Rembrandts
+in brown and grey. The builders of our great cathedrals
+veiled their casements and wrapped their pillars with one
+robe of purple splendor. The builders of the luxurious
+Renaissance left their palaces filled only with cold white light,
+and in the paleness of their native stone.<a name="FnAnchor_54" href="#Footnote_54"><span class="sp">54</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIII.</span> Nor does it seem difficult to discern a noble reason
+for this universal law. In that heavenly circle which binds
+the statutes of color upon the front of the sky, when it became
+the sign of the covenant of peace, the pure hues of
+divided light were sanctified to the human heart for ever; nor
+this, it would seem, by mere arbitrary appointment, but in
+consequence of the fore-ordained and marvellous constitution
+of those hues into a sevenfold, or, more strictly still, a threefold
+order, typical of the Divine nature itself. Observe also,
+the name Shem, or Splendor, given to that son of Noah in
+whom this covenant with mankind was to be fulfilled, and see
+how that name was justified by every one of the Asiatic races
+which descended from him. Not without meaning was the
+love of Israel to his chosen son expressed by the coat &ldquo;of
+many colors;&rdquo; not without deep sense of the sacredness of
+that symbol of purity, did the lost daughter of David tear it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147"></a>147</span>
+from her breast:&mdash;&ldquo;With such robes were the king&rsquo;s daughters
+that were virgins apparelled.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_55" href="#Footnote_55"><span class="sp">55</span></a> We know it to have been by
+Divine command that the Israelite, rescued from servitude,
+veiled the tabernacle with its rain of purple and scarlet, while
+the under sunshine flashed through the fall of the color from
+its tenons of gold: but was it less by Divine guidance that the
+Mede, as he struggled out of anarchy, encompassed his king
+with the sevenfold burning of the battlements of Ecbatana?&mdash;of
+which one circle was golden like the sun, and another silver
+like the moon; and then came the great sacred chord of color,
+blue, purple, and scarlet; and then a circle white like the day,
+and another dark, like night; so that the city rose like a great
+mural rainbow, a sign of peace amidst the contending of lawless
+races, and guarded, with color and shadow, that seemed to
+symbolize the great order which rules over Day, and Night,
+and Time, the first organization of the mighty statutes,&mdash;the
+law of the Medes and Persians, that altereth not.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIV.</span> Let us not dream that it is owing to the accidents
+of tradition or education that those races possess the supremacy
+over color which has always been felt, though but lately
+acknowledged among men. However their dominion might
+be broken, their virtue extinguished, or their religion defiled,
+they retained alike the instinct and the power: the instinct
+which made even their idolatry more glorious than that of
+others, bursting forth in fire-worship from pyramid, cave, and
+mountain, taking the stars for the rulers of its fortune, and
+the sun for the God of its life; the power which so dazzled
+and subdued the rough crusader into forgetfulness of sorrow
+and of shame, that Europe put on the splendor which she had
+learnt of the Saracen, as her sackcloth of mourning for what
+she suffered from his sword;&mdash;the power which she confesses
+to this day, in the utmost thoughtlessness of her pride, or her
+beauty, as it treads the costly carpet, or veils itself with the
+variegated Cachemire; and in the emulation of the concourse
+of her workmen, who, but a few months back, perceived, or at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148"></a>148</span>
+least admitted, for the first time, the pre-eminence which has
+been determined from the birth of mankind, and on whose
+charter Nature herself has set a mysterious seal, granting to
+the Western races, descended from that son of Noah whose
+name was Extension, the treasures of the sullen rock, and
+stubborn ore, and gnarled forest, which were to accomplish
+their destiny across all distance of earth and depth of sea,
+while she matured the jewel in the sand, and rounded the
+pearl in the shell, to adorn the diadem of him whose name
+was Splendor.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXV.</span> And observe, farther, how in the Oriental mind a
+peculiar seriousness is associated with this attribute of the love
+of color; a seriousness rising out of repose, and out of the
+depth and breadth of the imagination, as contrasted with the
+activity, and consequent capability of surprise, and of laughter,
+characteristic of the Western mind: as a man on a journey
+must look to his steps always, and view things narrowly
+and quickly; while one at rest may command a wider view,
+though an unchanging one, from which the pleasure he receives
+must be one of contemplation, rather than of amusement
+or surprise. Wherever the pure Oriental spirit manifests
+itself definitely, I believe its work is serious; and the
+meeting of the influences of the Eastern and Western races is
+perhaps marked in Europe more by the dying away of the
+grotesque laughter of the Goth than by any other sign. I
+shall have more to say on this head in other places of this
+volume; but the point I wish at present to impress upon the
+reader is, that the bright hues of the early architecture of
+Venice were no sign of gaiety of heart, and that the investiture
+with the mantle of many colors by which she is known
+above all other cities of Italy and of Europe, was not granted
+to her in the fever of her festivity, but in the solemnity of her
+early and earnest religion. She became in after times the
+revel of the earth, the masque of Italy; and <i>therefore</i> is she
+now desolate: but her glorious robe of gold and purple was
+given her when first she rose a vestal from the sea, not when
+she became drunk with the wine of her fornication.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page149"></a>149</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVI.</span> And we have never yet looked with enough reverence
+upon the separate gift which was thus bestowed upon
+her; we have never enough considered what an inheritance
+she has left us, in the works of those mighty painters who
+were the chief of her children. That inheritance is indeed
+less than it ought to have been, and other than it ought to
+have been; for before Titian and Tintoret arose,&mdash;the men in
+whom her work and her glory should have been together consummated,&mdash;she
+had already ceased to lead her sons in the way
+of truth and life, and they erred much, and fell short of that
+which was appointed for them. There is no subject of thought
+more melancholy, more wonderful, than the way in which God
+permits so often His best gifts to be trodden under foot of
+men, His richest treasures to be wasted by the moth, and the
+mightiest influences of His Spirit, given but once in the world&rsquo;s
+history, to be quenched and shortened by miseries of chance
+and guilt. I do not wonder at what men Suffer, but I wonder
+often at what they Lose. We may see how good rises out of
+pain and evil; but the dead, naked, eyeless loss, what good
+comes of that? The fruit struck to the earth before its ripeness;
+the glowing life and goodly purpose dissolved away in
+sudden death; the words, half spoken, choked upon the lips
+with clay for ever; or, stranger than all, the whole majesty of
+humanity raised to its fulness, and every gift and power necessary
+for a given purpose, at a given moment, centred in one
+man, and all this perfected blessing permitted to be refused,
+perverted, crushed, cast aside by those who need it most,&mdash;the
+city which is Not set on a hill, the candle that giveth light
+to None that are in the house:&mdash;these are the heaviest mysteries
+of this strange world, and, it seems to me, those which mark
+its curse the most. And it is true that the power with which
+this Venice had been entrusted, was perverted, when at its
+highest, in a thousand miserable ways; still, it was possessed
+by her alone; to her all hearts have turned which could be
+moved by its manifestation, and none without being made
+stronger and nobler by what her hand had wrought. That
+mighty Landscape, of dark mountains that guard the horizon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150"></a>150</span>
+with their purple towers, and solemn forests, that gather their
+weight of leaves, bronzed with sunshine, not with age, into
+those gloomy masses fixed in heaven, which storm and frost
+have power no more to shake, or shed;&mdash;that mighty Humanity,
+so perfect and so proud, that hides no weakness beneath the
+mantle, and gains no greatness from the diadem; the majesty
+of thoughtful form, on which the dust of gold and flame of
+jewels are dashed as the sea-spray upon the rock, and still the
+great Manhood seems to stand bare against the blue sky;&mdash;that
+mighty Mythology, which fills the daily walks of men
+with spiritual companionship, and beholds the protecting
+angels break with their burning presence through the arrow-flights
+of battle:&mdash;measure the compass of that field of creation,
+weigh the value of the inheritance that Venice thus left
+to the nations of Europe, and then judge if so vast, so beneficent
+a power could indeed have been rooted in dissipation or
+decay. It was when she wore the ephod of the priest, not the
+motley of the masquer, that the fire fell upon her from
+heaven; and she saw the first rays of it through the rain of
+her own tears, when, as the barbaric deluge ebbed from the
+hills of Italy, the circuit of her palaces, and the orb of her
+fortunes, rose together, like the Iris, painted upon the Cloud.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_41" href="#FnAnchor_41"><span class="fn">41</span></a> In the year 1851, by the Duchesse de Berri.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_42" href="#FnAnchor_42"><span class="fn">42</span></a> Of the Braided House and Casa Businello, described in the Appendix,
+only the great central arcades remain.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_43" href="#FnAnchor_43"><span class="fn">43</span></a> Only one wing of the first story is left. See <a href="#app_11">Appendix 11</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_44" href="#FnAnchor_44"><span class="fn">44</span></a> I am obliged to give these measures approximately, because, this front
+having been studied by the builder with unusual care, not one of its measures
+is the same as another; and the symmetries between the correspondent
+arches are obtained by changes in the depth of their mouldings and
+variations in their heights, far too complicated for me to enter into here;
+so that of the two arches stated as 19 ft. 8 in. in span, one is in reality 19
+ft. 6˝ in., the other 19 ft. 10 in., and of the two stated as 20 ft. 4 in., one
+is 20 ft. and the other 20 ft. 8 in.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_45" href="#FnAnchor_45"><span class="fn">45</span></a> By Mr. Penrose.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_46" href="#FnAnchor_46"><span class="fn">46</span></a> I am sometimes obliged, unfortunately, to read my woodcuts backwards
+owing to my having forgotten to reverse them on the wood.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_47" href="#FnAnchor_47"><span class="fn">47</span></a> Vide <a href="#plate_10">Plate X.</a> figs. 1 and 4.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_48" href="#FnAnchor_48"><span class="fn">48</span></a></p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="list">
+
+<tr> <td class="tc5">
+<p>1. Fondaco de&rsquo; Turehi, lateral pillars.</p>
+<p>2. Terraced House, lateral pillars.</p>
+<p>3. Casa Farsetti, central pillars, upper arcade.</p>
+<p>4. Casa Loredan, lower arcade.</p>
+<p>5. Casa Loredan, lower arcade.</p>
+<p>6. Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, upper arcade.</p>
+<p>7. Casa Loredan, upper arcade.</p>
+<p>8. St. Mark&rsquo;s.</p> </td>
+
+<td class="tc5" style="vertical-align: top;">
+<p>&nbsp;9. St. Mark&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>10. Braided House, upper arcade.</p>
+<p>11. Casa Loredan, upper arcade.</p>
+<p>12. St. Mark&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>13. St. Mark&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>14. Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, upper arcade.</p>
+<p>15. St. Mark&rsquo;s.</p></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_49" href="#FnAnchor_49"><span class="fn">49</span></a> Compare &ldquo;Seven Lamps,&rdquo; chap. ii. § 22.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_50" href="#FnAnchor_50"><span class="fn">50</span></a> Two of these are represented in the second number of my folio work
+upon Venice.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_51" href="#FnAnchor_51"><span class="fn">51</span></a> The absence of the true grotesque spirit in Byzantine work will be
+examined in the third chapter of the third volume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_52" href="#FnAnchor_52"><span class="fn">52</span></a> Ezekiel, xxvii. 11.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_53" href="#FnAnchor_53"><span class="fn">53</span></a> Perhaps this type is in no place of Scripture more touchingly used than
+in Lamentations, i. 12, where the word &ldquo;afflicted&rdquo; is rendered in the Vulgate
+&ldquo;vindemiavit,&rdquo; &ldquo;vintaged.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_54" href="#FnAnchor_54"><span class="fn">54</span></a> <a href="#app_12">Appendix 12</a>, &ldquo;Modern Painting on Glass.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_55" href="#FnAnchor_55"><span class="fn">55</span></a> 2 Samuel, xiii. 18.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page151"></a>151</span></p>
+
+<h3>SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD.</h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<h3><a name="chap_6"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<h5>THE NATURE OF GOTHIC.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I.</span> If the reader will look back to the division of our subject
+which was made in the first chapter of the first volume, he
+will find that we are now about to enter upon the examination
+of that school of Venetian architecture which forms an intermediate
+step between the Byzantine and Gothic forms; but
+which I find may be conveniently considered in its connexion
+with the latter style. In order that we may discern the tendency
+of each step of this change, it will be wise in the outset
+to endeavor to form some general idea of its final result. We
+know already what the Byzantine architecture is from which
+the transition was made, but we ought to know something of
+the Gothic architecture into which it led. I shall endeavor
+therefore to give the reader in this chapter an idea, at once
+broad and definite, of the true nature of <i>Gothic</i> architecture,
+properly so called; not of that of Venice only, but of universal
+Gothic: for it will be one of the most interesting parts of
+our subsequent inquiry, to find out how far Venetian architecture
+reached the universal or perfect type of Gothic, and
+how far it either fell short of it, or assumed foreign and independent
+forms.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II.</span> The principal difficulty in doing this arises from the
+fact that every building of the Gothic period differs in some
+important respect from every other; and many include features
+which, if they occurred in other buildings, would not be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page152"></a>152</span>
+considered Gothic at all; so that all we have to reason upon is
+merely, if I may be allowed so to express it, a greater or less
+degree of <i>Gothicness</i> in each building we examine. And it is
+this Gothicness,&mdash;the character which, according as it is found
+more or less in a building, makes it more or less Gothic,&mdash;of
+which I want to define the nature; and I feel the same kind
+of difficulty in doing so which would be encountered by any
+one who undertook to explain, for instance, the nature of Redness,
+without any actual red thing to point to, but only orange
+and purple things. Suppose he had only a piece of heather
+and a dead oak-leaf to do it with. He might say, the color
+which is mixed with the yellow in this oak-leaf, and with the
+blue in this heather, would be red, if you had it separate; but
+it would be difficult, nevertheless, to make the abstraction perfectly
+intelligible: and it is so in a far greater degree to make
+the abstraction of the Gothic character intelligible, because
+that character itself is made up of many mingled ideas, and
+can consist only in their union. That is to say, pointed arches
+do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor flying buttresses,
+nor grotesque sculptures; but all or some of these
+things, and many other things with them, when they come together
+so as to have life.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III.</span> Observe also, that, in the definition proposed, I shall
+only endeavor to analyze the idea which I suppose already to
+exist in the reader&rsquo;s mind. We all have some notion, most of
+us a very determined one, of the meaning of the term Gothic;
+but I know that many persons have this idea in their minds
+without being able to define it: that is to say, understanding
+generally that Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and St. Paul&rsquo;s
+is not, that Strasburg Cathedral is Gothic, and St. Peter&rsquo;s is
+not, they have, nevertheless, no clear notion of what it is that
+they recognize in the one or miss in the other, such as would
+enable them to say how far the work at Westminster or Strasburg
+is good and pure of its kind: still less to say of any non-descript
+building, like St. James&rsquo;s Palace or Windsor Castle,
+how much right Gothic element there is in it, and how much
+wanting, And I believe this inquiry to be a pleasant and profitable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153"></a>153</span>
+one; and that there will be found something more than
+usually interesting in tracing out this grey, shadowy, many-pinnacled
+image of the Gothic spirit within us; and discerning
+what fellowship there is between it and our Northern hearts.
+And if, at any point of the inquiry, I should interfere with
+any of the reader&rsquo;s previously formed conceptions, and use the
+term Gothic in any sense which he would not willingly attach
+to it, I do not ask him to accept, but only to examine and understand,
+my interpretation, as necessary to the intelligibility
+of what follows in the rest of the work.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV.</span> We have, then, the Gothic character submitted to our
+analysis, just as the rough mineral is submitted to that of the
+chemist, entangled with many other foreign substances, itself
+perhaps in no place pure, or ever to be obtained or seen in
+purity for more than an instant; but nevertheless a thing of
+definite and separate nature, however inextricable or confused
+in appearance. Now observe: the chemist defines his mineral
+by two separate kinds of character; one external, its crystalline
+form, hardness, lustre, &amp;c.; the other internal, the proportions
+and nature of its constituent atoms. Exactly in the same
+manner, we shall find that Gothic architecture has external
+forms, and internal elements. Its elements are certain mental
+tendencies of the builders, legibly expressed in it; as fancifulness,
+love of variety, love of richness, and such others. Its
+external forms are pointed arches, vaulted roofs, &amp;c. And
+unless both the elements and the forms are there, we have no
+right to call the style Gothic. It is not enough that it has the
+Form, if it have not also the power and life. It is not enough
+that it has the Power, if it have not the form. We must therefore
+inquire into each of these characters successively; and
+determine first, what is the Mental Expression, and secondly,
+what the Material Form, of Gothic architecture, properly so
+called.</p>
+
+<p>1st. Mental Power or Expression. What characters, we
+have to discover, did the Gothic builders love, or instinctively
+express in their work, as distinguished from all other builders?</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V.</span> Let us go back for a moment to our chemistry, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154"></a>154</span>
+note that, in defining a mineral by its constituent parts, it is
+not one nor another of them, that can make up the mineral,
+but the union of all: for instance, it is neither in charcoal, nor
+in oxygen, nor in lime, that there is the making of chalk, but
+in the combination of all three in certain measures; they are
+all found in very different things from chalk, and there is
+nothing like chalk either in charcoal or in oxygen, but they are
+nevertheless necessary to its existence.</p>
+
+<p>So in the various mental characters which make up the soul
+of Gothic. It is not one nor another that produces it; but
+their union in certain measures. Each one of them is found
+in many other architectures besides Gothic; but Gothic cannot
+exist where they are not found, or, at least, where their
+place is not in some way supplied. Only there is this great
+difference between the composition of the mineral, and of the
+architectural style, that if we withdraw one of its elements
+from the stone, its form is utterly changed, and its existence
+as such and such a mineral is destroyed; but if we withdraw
+one of its mental elements from the Gothic style, it is only a
+little less Gothic than it was before, and the union of two or
+three of its elements is enough already to bestow a certain
+Gothicness of character, which gains in intensity as we add the
+others, and loses as we again withdraw them.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI.</span> I believe, then, that the characteristic or moral elements
+of Gothic are the following, placed in the order of their
+importance:</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" summary="list">
+<tr><td>
+<p>1. Savageness.</p>
+<p>2. Changefulness.</p>
+<p>3. Naturalism.</p>
+<p>4. Grotesqueness.</p>
+<p>5. Rigidity.</p>
+<p>6. Redundance.</p>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>These characters are here expressed as belonging to the
+building; as belonging to the builder, they would be expressed
+thus:&mdash;1. Savageness, or Rudeness. 2. Love of Change. 3.
+Love of Nature. 4. Disturbed Imagination. 5, Obstinacy.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155"></a>155</span>
+6. Generosity. And I repeat, that the withdrawal of any one,
+or any two, will not at once destroy the Gothic character of a
+building, but the removal of a majority of them will. I shall
+proceed to examine them in their order.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII.</span> 1. <span class="sc">Savageness</span>. I am not sure when the word
+&ldquo;Gothic&rdquo; was first generically applied to the architecture of the
+North; but I presume that, whatever the date of its original
+usage, it was intended to imply reproach, and express the barbaric
+character of the nations among whom that architecture
+arose. It never implied that they were literally of Gothic
+lineage, far less that their architecture had been originally invented
+by the Goths themselves; but it did imply that they
+and their buildings together exhibited a degree of sternness
+and rudeness, which, in contradistinction to the character of
+Southern and Eastern nations, appeared like a perpetual reflection
+of the contrast between the Goth and the Roman in their
+first encounter. And when that fallen Roman, in the utmost
+impotence of his luxury, and insolence of his guilt, became the
+model for the imitation of civilized Europe, at the close of the
+so-called Dark ages, the word Gothic became a term of unmitigated
+contempt, not unmixed with aversion. From that contempt,
+by the exertion of the antiquaries and architects of this
+century, Gothic architecture has been sufficiently vindicated;
+and perhaps some among us, in our admiration of the magnificent
+science of its structure, and sacredness of its expression,
+might desire that the term of ancient reproach should be withdrawn,
+and some other, of more apparent honorableness, adopted
+in its place. There is no chance, as there is no need, of such
+a substitution. As far as the epithet was used scornfully, it
+was used falsely; but there is no reproach in the word, rightly
+understood; on the contrary, there is a profound truth, which
+the instinct of mankind almost unconsciously recognizes. It
+is true, greatly and deeply true, that the architecture of the
+North is rude and wild; but it is not true, that, for this reason,
+we are to condemn it, or despise. Far otherwise: I believe it
+is in this very character that it deserves our profoundest reverence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page156"></a>156</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VIII.</span> The charts of the world which have been drawn up
+by modern science have thrown into a narrow space the expression
+of a vast amount of knowledge, but I have never yet
+seen any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine
+the kind of contrast in physical character which exists between
+Northern and Southern countries. We know the differences
+in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which
+would enable us to feel them in their fulness. We know that
+gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but
+we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic
+of the world&rsquo;s surface which a bird sees in its migration, that
+difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive
+which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon
+the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves
+even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean
+lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient
+promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an angry spot
+of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning
+field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano
+smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part
+a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain,
+laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased,
+as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain
+chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers
+heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and
+orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows
+the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry
+sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards
+the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually
+into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland,
+and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the
+Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire
+to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud
+and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low
+along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the
+earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy
+moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157"></a>157</span>
+of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly
+islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm and chilled
+by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending
+tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill
+ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks
+into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron,
+sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar
+twilight. And, having once traversed in thought its gradation
+of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness,
+let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in
+the belt of animal life: the multitudes of swift and brilliant
+creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of
+the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening
+serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us
+contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of
+motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering,
+and dusky plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian
+horse with the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the
+wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise
+with the osprey: and then, submissively acknowledging the
+great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled
+throughout their being, let us not condemn, but rejoice at the
+expression by man of his own rest in the statutes of the lands
+that gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he
+sets side by side the burning gems, and smoothes with soft
+sculpture the jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine,
+and rise into a cloudless sky: but not with less reverence
+let us stand by him, when, with rough strength and hurried
+stroke, he smites an uncouth animation out of the rocks
+which he has torn from among the moss of the moorland, and
+heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged
+wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and
+wayward as the northern sea; creations of ungainly shape and
+rigid limb, but full of wolfish life; fierce as the winds that
+beat, and changeful as the clouds that shade them.</p>
+
+<p>There is, I repeat, no degradation, no reproach in this, but
+all dignity and honorableness; and we should err grievously in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158"></a>158</span>
+refusing either to recognise as an essential character of the existing
+architecture of the North, or to admit as a desirable character
+in that which it yet may be, this wildness of thought,
+and roughness of work; this look of mountain brotherhood
+between the cathedral and the Alp; this magnificence of sturdy
+power, put forth only the more energetically because the fine
+finger-touch was chilled away by the frosty wind, and the eye
+dimmed by the moor-mist, or blinded by the hail; this outspeaking
+of the strong spirit of men who may not gather redundant
+fruitage from the earth, nor bask in dreamy benignity
+of sunshine, but must break the rock for bread, and cleave the
+forest for fire, and show, even in what they did for their delight,
+some of the hard habits of the arm and heart that grew
+on them as they swung the axe or pressed the plough.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IX.</span> If, however, the savageness of Gothic architecture,
+merely as an expression of its origin among Northern nations,
+may be considered, in some sort, a noble character, it possesses
+a higher nobility still, when considered as an index, not of climate,
+but of religious principle.</p>
+
+<p>In the 13th and 14th paragraphs of <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_21">Chapter XXI.</a> of the
+first volume of this work, it was noticed that the systems of architectural
+ornament, properly so called, might be divided into
+three:&mdash;1. Servile ornament, in which the execution or power
+of the inferior workman is entirely subjected to the intellect of
+the higher:&mdash;2. Constitutional ornament, in which the executive
+inferior power is, to a certain point, emancipated and independent,
+having a will of its own, yet confessing its inferiority
+and rendering obedience to higher powers;&mdash;and 3.
+Revolutionary ornament, in which no executive inferiority is
+admitted at all. I must here explain the nature of these divisions
+at somewhat greater length.</p>
+
+<p>Of Servile ornament, the principal schools are the Greek,
+Ninevite, and Egyptian; but their servility is of different kinds.
+The Greek master-workman was far advanced in knowledge
+and power above the Assyrian or Egyptian. Neither he nor
+those for whom he worked could endure the appearance of
+imperfection in anything; and, therefore, what ornament he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159"></a>159</span>
+appointed to be done by those beneath him was composed of
+mere geometrical forms,&mdash;balls, ridges, and perfectly symmetrical
+foliage,&mdash;which could be executed with absolute precision
+by line and rule, and were as perfect in their way when completed,
+as his own figure sculpture. The Assyrian and Egyptian,
+on the contrary, less cognizant of accurate form in anything,
+were content to allow their figure sculpture to be executed
+by inferior workmen, but lowered the method of its
+treatment to a standard which every workman could reach, and
+then trained him by discipline so rigid, that there was no chance
+of his falling beneath the standard appointed. The Greek gave
+to the lower workman no subject which he could not perfectly
+execute. The Assyrian gave him subjects which he could only
+execute imperfectly, but fixed a legal standard for his imperfection.
+The workman was, in both systems, a slave.<a name="FnAnchor_56" href="#Footnote_56"><span class="sp">56</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">X.</span> But in the medićval, or especially Christian, system of
+ornament, this slavery is done away with altogether; Christianity
+having recognized, in small things as well as great, the
+individual value of every soul. But it not only recognizes its
+value; it confesses its imperfection, in only bestowing dignity
+upon the acknowledgment of unworthiness. That admission
+of lost power and fallen nature, which the Greek or Ninevite
+felt to be intensely painful, and, as far as might be, altogether
+refused, the Christian makes daily and hourly, contemplating
+the fact of it without fear, as tending, in the end, to God&rsquo;s
+greater glory. Therefore, to every spirit which Christianity
+summons to her service, her exhortation is: Do what you can,
+and confess frankly what you are unable to do; neither let
+your effort be shortened for fear of failure, nor your confession
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160"></a>160</span>
+silenced for fear of shame. And it is, perhaps, the principal
+admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture, that they
+thus receive the results of the labor of inferior minds; and out
+of fragments full of imperfection, and betraying that imperfection
+in every touch, indulgently raise up a stately and unaccusable
+whole.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XI.</span> But the modern English mind has this much in common
+with that of the Greek, that it intensely desires, in all
+things, the utmost completion or perfection compatible with
+their nature. This is a noble character in the abstract, but
+becomes ignoble when it causes us to forget the relative dignities
+of that nature itself, and to prefer the perfectness of the
+lower nature to the imperfection of the higher; not considering
+that as, judged by such a rule, all the brute animals would
+be preferable to man, because more perfect in their functions
+and kind, and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in
+the works of man, those which are more perfect in their kind
+are always inferior to those which are, in their nature, liable to
+more faults and shortcomings. For the finer the nature, the
+more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a
+law of this universe, that the best things shall be seldomest
+seen in their best form. The wild grass grows well and
+strongly, one year with another; but the wheat is, according
+to the greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer
+blight. And therefore, while in all things that we see, or do,
+we are to desire perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless
+not to set the meaner thing, in its narrow accomplishment,
+above the nobler thing, in its mighty progress; not to esteem
+smooth minuteness above shattered majesty; not to prefer
+mean victory to honorable defeat; not to lower the level of
+our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency
+of success. But, above all, in our dealings with the souls of
+other men, we are to take care how we check, by severe requirement
+or narrow caution, efforts which might otherwise
+lead to a noble issue; and, still more, how we withhold our
+admiration from great excellences, because they are mingled
+with rough faults. Now, in the make and nature of every
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161"></a>161</span>
+man, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual
+labor, there are some powers for better things: some tardy
+imagination, torpid capacity of emotion, tottering steps of
+thought, there are, even at the worst; and in most cases it is
+all our own fault that they <i>are</i> tardy or torpid. But they cannot
+be strengthened, unless we are content to take them in
+their feebleness, and unless we prize and honor them in their
+imperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill.
+And this is what we have to do with all our laborers; to
+look for the <i>thoughtful</i> part of them, and get that out of
+them, whatever we lose for it, whatever faults and errors
+we are obliged to take with it. For the best that is in them
+cannot manifest itself, but in company with much error.
+Understand this clearly: You can teach a man to draw a
+straight line, and to cut one; to strike a curved line, and to
+carve it; and to copy and carve any number of given lines
+or forms, with admirable speed and perfect precision; and
+you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him to
+think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find
+any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes
+hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten
+to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his
+work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him
+for all that. He was only a machine before, an animated
+tool.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XII.</span> And observe, you are put to stern choice in this
+matter. You must either made a tool of the creature, or a
+man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended
+to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect
+in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of
+them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog-wheels,
+and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize
+them. All the energy of their spirits must be given
+to make cogs and compasses of themselves. All their attention
+and strength must go to the accomplishment of the mean
+act. The eye of the soul must be bent upon the finger-point,
+and the soul&rsquo;s force must fill all the invisible nerves that guide
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162"></a>162</span>
+it, ten hours a day, that it may not err from its steely precision,
+and so soul and sight be worn away, and the whole
+human being be lost at last&mdash;a heap of sawdust, so far as its
+intellectual work in this world is concerned; saved only by
+its Heart, which cannot go into the form of cogs and compasses,
+but expands, after the ten hours are over, into fireside
+humanity. On the other hand, if you will make a man of
+the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let him but
+begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing;
+and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out
+come all his roughness, all his dulness, all his incapability;
+shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause:
+but out comes the whole majesty of him also; and we know
+the height of it only, when we see the clouds settling upon
+him. And, whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will
+be transfiguration behind and within them.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIII.</span> And now, reader, look round this English room of
+yours, about which you have been proud so often, because the
+work of it was so good and strong, and the ornaments of it
+so finished. Examine again all those accurate mouldings, and
+perfect polishings, and unerring adjustments of the seasoned
+wood and tempered steel. Many a time you have exulted
+over them, and thought how great England was, because her
+slightest work was done so thoroughly. Alas! if read rightly,
+these perfectnesses are signs of a slavery in our England a
+thousand times more bitter and more degrading than that of
+the scourged African, or helot Greek. Men may be beaten,
+chained, tormented, yoked like cattle, slaughtered like summer
+flies, and yet remain in one sense, and the best sense, free.
+But to smother their souls within them, to blight and hew into
+rotting pollards the suckling branches of their human intelligence,
+to make the flesh and skin which, after the worm&rsquo;s
+work on it, is to see God, into leathern thongs to yoke machinery
+with,&mdash;this it is to be slave-masters indeed; and there
+might be more freedom in England, though her feudal lords&rsquo;
+lightest words were worth men&rsquo;s lives, and though the blood
+of the vexed husbandman dropped in the furrows of her fields,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page163"></a>163</span>
+than there is while the animation of her multitudes is sent
+like fuel to feed the factory smoke, and the strength of them
+is given daily to be wasted into the fineness of a web, or racked
+into the exactness of a line.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIV.</span> And, on the other hand, go forth again to gaze upon
+the old cathedral front, where you have smiled so often at the
+fantastic ignorance of the old sculptors: examine once more
+those ugly goblins, and formless monsters, and stern statues,
+anatomiless and rigid; but do not mock at them, for they are
+signs of the life and liberty of every workman who struck the
+stone; a freedom of thought, and rank in scale of being, such
+as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure; but which it
+must be the first aim of all Europe at this day to regain for
+her children.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XV.</span> Let me not be thought to speak wildly or extravagantly.
+It is verily this degradation of the operative into a
+machine, which, more than any other evil of the times, is leading
+the mass of the nations everywhere into vain, incoherent,
+destructive struggling for a freedom of which they cannot explain
+the nature to themselves. Their universal outcry against
+wealth, and against nobility, is not forced from them either
+by the pressure of famine, or the sting of mortified pride.
+These do much, and have done much in all ages; but the
+foundations of society were never yet shaken as they are at this
+day. It is not that men are ill fed, but that they have no
+pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and
+therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure. It is
+not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, but
+they cannot endure their own; for they feel that the kind of
+labor to which they are condemned is verily a degrading one,
+and makes them less than men. Never had the upper classes
+so much sympathy with the lower, or charity for them, as they
+have at this day, and yet never were they so much hated by
+them: for, of old, the separation between the noble and the
+poor was merely a wall built by law; now it is a veritable
+difference in level of standing, a precipice between upper and
+lower grounds in the field of humanity and there is pestilential
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164"></a>164</span>
+air at the bottom of it. I know not if a day is ever to come
+when the nature of right freedom will be understood, and
+when men will see that to obey another man, to labor for him,
+yield reverence to him or to his place, is not slavery. It is
+often the best kind of liberty,&mdash;liberty from care. The man
+who says to one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and
+he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and
+difficulty than the man who obeys him. The movements of
+the one are hindered by the burden on his shoulder; of the
+other, by the bridle on his lips: there is no way by which the
+burden may be lightened; but we need not suffer from the
+bridle if we do not champ at it. To yield reverence to another,
+to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal, is not slavery;
+often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live in this
+world. There is, indeed, a reverence which is servile, that is
+to say, irrational or selfish: but there is also noble reverence, that
+is to say, reasonable and loving; and a man is never so noble as
+when he is reverent in this kind; nay, even if the feeling pass
+the bounds of mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised
+by it. Which had, in reality, most of the serf nature in him,&mdash;the
+Irish peasant who was lying in wait yesterday for his
+landlord, with his musket muzzle thrust through the ragged
+hedge; or that old mountain servant, who, 200 years ago, at
+Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and the lives of his seven
+sons for his chief?<a name="FnAnchor_57" href="#Footnote_57"><span class="sp">57</span></a>&mdash;and as each fell, calling forth his brother
+to the death, &ldquo;Another for Hector!&rdquo; And therefore, in all
+ages and all countries, reverence has been paid and sacrifice
+made by men to each other, not only without complaint, but
+rejoicingly; and famine, and peril, and sword, and all evil, and
+all shame, have been borne willingly in the causes of masters
+and kings; for all these gifts of the heart ennobled the men
+who gave, not less than the men who received them, and nature
+prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel
+their souls withering within them, unthanked, to find their
+whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165"></a>165</span>
+into a heap of mechanism, numbered with its wheels, and
+weighed with its hammer strokes;&mdash;this nature bade not,&mdash;this
+God blesses not,&mdash;this humanity for no long time is able to
+endure.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVI.</span> We have much studied and much perfected, of late,
+the great civilized invention of the division of labor; only we
+give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labor that
+is divided; but the men:&mdash;Divided into mere segments of men&mdash;broken
+into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all
+the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough
+to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point
+of a pin, or the head of a nail. Now it is a good and desirable
+thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could
+only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,&mdash;sand
+of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be
+discerned for what it is,&mdash;we should think there might be
+some loss in it also. And the great cry that rises from all our
+manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in
+very deed for this,&mdash;that we manufacture everything there
+except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine
+sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to
+refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our
+estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is
+urging our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching
+nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them their
+misery, and to preach to them, if we do nothing more than
+preach, is to mock at it. It can be met only by a right understanding,
+on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labor are
+good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a determined
+sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness
+as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and
+by equally determined demand for the products and results of
+healthy and ennobling labor.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVII.</span> And how, it will be asked, are these products to be
+recognized, and this demand to be regulated? Easily: by the
+observance of three broad and simple rules:</p>
+
+<p>1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166"></a>166</span>
+absolutely necessary, in the production of which <i>Invention</i> has
+no share.</p>
+
+<p>2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only
+for some practical or noble end.</p>
+
+<p>3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except
+for the sake of preserving record of great works.</p>
+
+<p>The second of these principles is the only one which directly
+rises out of the consideration of our immediate subject; but I
+shall briefly explain the meaning and extent of the first also,
+reserving the enforcement of the third for another place.</p>
+
+<p>1. Never encourage the manufacture of anything not necessary,
+in the production of which invention has no share.</p>
+
+<p>For instance. Glass beads are utterly unnecessary, and
+there is no design or thought employed in their manufacture.
+They are formed by first drawing out the glass into rods;
+these rods are chopped up into fragments of the size of beads
+by the human hand, and the fragments are then rounded in
+the furnace. The men who chop up the rods sit at their work
+all day, their hands vibrating with a perpetual and exquisitely
+timed palsy, and the beads dropping beneath their vibration
+like hail. Neither they, nor the men who draw out the rods,
+or fuse the fragments, have the smallest occasion for the use of
+any single human faculty; and every young lady, therefore,
+who buys glass beads is engaged in the slave-trade, and in a
+much more cruel one than that which we have so long been
+endeavoring to put down.</p>
+
+<p>But glass cups and vessels may become the subjects of
+exquisite invention; and if in buying these we pay for the invention,
+that is to say for the beautiful form, or color, or
+engraving, and not for mere finish of execution, we are doing
+good to humanity.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVIII.</span> So, again, the cutting of precious stones, in all ordinary
+cases, requires little exertion of any mental faculty; some
+tact and judgment in avoiding flaws, and so on, but nothing to
+bring out the whole mind. Every person who wears cut jewels
+merely for the sake of their value is, therefore, a slave-driver.</p>
+
+<p>But the working of the goldsmith, and the various designing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167"></a>167</span>
+of grouped jewellery and enamel-work, may become the
+subject of the most noble human intelligence. Therefore,
+money spent in the purchase of well-designed plate, of precious
+engraved vases, cameos, or enamels, does good to humanity;
+and, in work of this kind, jewels may be employed to heighten
+its splendor; and their cutting is then a price paid for the
+attainment of a noble end, and thus perfectly allowable.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIX.</span> I shall perhaps press this law farther elsewhere, but
+our immediate concern is chiefly with the second, namely, never
+to demand an exact finish, when it does not lead to a noble
+end. For observe, I have only dwelt upon the rudeness of
+Gothic, or any other kind of imperfectness, as admirable, where
+it was impossible to get design or thought without it. If you
+are to have the thought of a rough and untaught man, you
+must have it in a rough and untaught way; but from an educated
+man, who can without effort express his thoughts in an
+educated way, take the graceful expression, and be thankful.
+Only <i>get</i> the thought, and do not silence the peasant because
+he cannot speak good grammar, or until you have taught him
+his grammar. Grammar and refinement are good things, both,
+only be sure of the better thing first. And thus in art, delicate
+finish is desirable from the greatest masters, and is always
+given by them. In some places Michael Angelo, Leonardo,
+Phidias, Perugino, Turner, all finished with the most exquisite
+care; and the finish they give always leads to the fuller accomplishment
+of their noble purposes. But lower men than these
+cannot finish, for it requires consummate knowledge to finish
+consummately, and then we must take their thoughts as they
+are able to give them. So the rule is simple: Always look for
+invention first, and after that, for such execution as will help
+the invention, and as the inventor is capable of without painful
+effort, and <i>no more</i>. Above all, demand no refinement of
+execution where there is no thought, for that is slaves&rsquo; work,
+unredeemed. Rather choose rough work than smooth work, so
+only that the practical purpose be answered, and never imagine
+there is reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished
+by patience and sandpaper.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page168"></a>168</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XX.</span> I shall only give one example, which however will
+show the reader what I mean, from the manufacture already
+alluded to, that of glass. Our modern glass is exquisitely clear
+in its substance, true in its form, accurate in its cutting. We
+are proud of this. We ought to be ashamed of it. The old
+Venice glass was muddy, inaccurate in all its forms, and
+clumsily cut, if at all. And the old Venetian was justly proud
+of it. For there is this difference between the English and
+Venetian workman, that the former thinks only of accurately
+matching his patterns, and getting his curves perfectly true
+and his edges perfectly sharp, and becomes a mere machine
+for rounding curves and sharpening edges, while the old Venetian
+cared not a whit whether his edges were sharp or not, but
+he invented a new design for every glass that he made, and
+never moulded a handle or a lip without a new fancy in it.
+And therefore, though some Venetian glass is ugly and clumsy
+enough, when made by clumsy and uninventive workmen,
+other Venetian glass is so lovely in its forms that no price is
+too great for it; and we never see the same form in it twice.
+Now you cannot have the finish and the varied form too. If
+the workman is thinking about his edges, he cannot be thinking
+of his design; if of his design, he cannot think of his
+edges. Choose whether you will pay for the lovely form or
+the perfect finish, and choose at the same moment whether
+you will make the worker a man or a grindstone.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXI.</span> Nay, but the reader interrupts me,&mdash;&ldquo;If the workman
+can design beautifully, I would not have him kept at the
+furnace. Let him be taken away and made a gentleman, and
+have a studio, and design his glass there, and I will have it
+blown and cut for him by common workmen, and so I will
+have my design and my finish too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>All ideas of this kind are founded upon two mistaken suppositions:
+the first, that one man&rsquo;s thoughts can be, or ought to
+be, executed by another man&rsquo;s hands; the second, that manual
+labor is a degradation, when it is governed by intellect.</p>
+
+<p>On a large scale, and in work determinable by line and
+rule, it is indeed both possible and necessary that the thoughts
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169"></a>169</span>
+of one man should be carried out by the labor of others; in
+this sense I have already defined the best architecture to be
+the expression of the mind of manhood by the hands of childhood.
+But on a smaller scale, and in a design which cannot
+be mathematically defined, one man&rsquo;s thoughts can never be
+expressed by another: and the difference between the spirit of
+touch of the man who is inventing, and of the man who is
+obeying directions, is often all the difference between a great
+and a common work of art. How wide the separation is
+between original and second-hand execution, I shall endeavor
+to show elsewhere; it is not so much to our purpose here as
+to mark the other and more fatal error of despising manual
+labor when governed by intellect; for it is no less fatal an
+error to despise it when thus regulated by intellect, than to
+value it for its own sake. We are always in these days
+endeavoring to separate the two; we want one man to be
+always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call
+one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the
+workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to
+be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense.
+As it is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other
+despising, his brother; and the mass of society is made up of
+morbid thinkers, and miserable workers. Now it is only by
+labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought
+that labor can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated
+with impunity. It would be well if all of us were good handicraftsmen
+in some kind, and the dishonor of manual labor
+done away with altogether; so that though there should still
+be a trenchant distinction of race between nobles and commoners,
+there should not, among the latter, be a trenchant distinction
+of employment, as between idle and working men, or
+between men of liberal and illiberal professions. All professions
+should be liberal, and there should be less pride felt in
+peculiarity of employment, and more in excellence of achievement.
+And yet more, in each several profession, no master
+should be too proud to do its hardest work. The painter
+should grind his own colors; the architect work in the mason&rsquo;s
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170"></a>170</span>
+yard with his men; the master-manufacturer be himself a
+more skilful operative than any man in his mills; and the distinction
+between one man and another be only in experience
+and skill, and the authority and wealth which these must
+naturally and justly obtain.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXII.</span> I should be led far from the matter in hand, if I
+were to pursue this interesting subject. Enough, I trust, has
+been said to show the reader that the rudeness or imperfection
+which at first rendered the term &ldquo;Gothic&rdquo; one of reproach is
+indeed, when rightly understood, one of the most noble characters
+of Christian architecture, and not only a noble but an
+<i>essential</i> one. It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless
+a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly
+noble which is <i>not</i> imperfect. And this is easily demonstrable.
+For since the architect, whom we will suppose capable of
+doing all in perfection, cannot execute the whole with his own
+hands, he must either make slaves of his workmen in the old
+Greek, and present English fashion, and level his work to a
+slave&rsquo;s capacities, which is to degrade it; or else he must take
+his workmen as he finds them, and let them show their weaknesses
+together with their strength, which will involve the
+Gothic imperfection, but render the whole work as noble as
+the intellect of the age can make it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIII.</span> But the principle may be stated more broadly still.
+I have confined the illustration of it to architecture, but I must
+not leave it as if true of architecture only. Hitherto I have
+used the words imperfect and perfect merely to distinguish between
+work grossly unskilful, and work executed with average
+precision and science; and I have been pleading that any
+degree of unskilfulness should be admitted, so only that the
+laborer&rsquo;s mind had room for expression. But, accurately speaking,
+no good work whatever can be perfect, and <i>the demand
+for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the
+ends of art</i>.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIV.</span> This for two reasons, both based on everlasting
+laws. The first, that no great man ever stops working till he
+has reached his point of failure; that is to say, his mind is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171"></a>171</span>
+always far in advance of his powers of execution, and the
+latter will now and then give way in trying to follow it;
+besides that he will always give to the inferior portions of his
+work only such inferior attention as they require; and according
+to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feeling of
+dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of
+lassitude or anger with himself he will not care though the
+beholder be dissatisfied also. I believe there has only been one
+man who would not acknowledge this necessity, and strove
+always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end of his vain
+effort being merely that he would take ten years to a picture,
+and leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have
+great men working at all, or less men doing their best, the
+work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work
+none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way.<a name="FnAnchor_58" href="#Footnote_58"><span class="sp">58</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXV.</span> The second reason is, that imperfection is in some
+sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life
+in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and
+change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part
+of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom,&mdash;a
+third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom,&mdash;is
+a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live
+there are certain, irregularities and deficiencies which are not
+only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is
+exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its
+lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as
+they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy
+expression, to check exertion, to paralyse vitality. All things
+are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections
+which have been divinely appointed, that the law of
+human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment,
+Mercy.</p>
+
+<p>Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172"></a>172</span>
+nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it
+be imperfect; and let us be prepared for the otherwise strange
+fact, which we shall discern clearly as we approach the period
+of the Renaissance, that the first cause of the fall of the arts
+of Europe was a relentless requirement of perfection, incapable
+alike either of being silenced by veneration for greatness, or
+softened into forgiveness of simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far then of the Rudeness or Savageness, which is the
+first mental element of Gothic architecture. It is an element
+in many other healthy architectures also, as in Byzantine and
+Romanesque; but true Gothic cannot exist without it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVI.</span> The second mental element above named was
+<span class="sc">Changefulness</span>, or Variety.</p>
+
+<p>I have already enforced the allowing independent operation
+to the inferior workman, simply as a duty <i>to him</i>, and as ennobling
+the architecture by rendering it more Christian. We
+have now to consider what reward we obtain for the performance
+of this duty, namely, the perpetual variety of every
+feature of the building.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever the workman is utterly enslaved, the parts of the
+building must of course be absolutely like each other; for the
+perfection of his execution can only be reached by exercising
+him in doing one thing, and giving him nothing else to do.
+The degree in which the workman is degraded may be thus
+known at a glance, by observing whether the several parts of
+the building are similar or not; and if, as in Greek work, all
+the capitals are alike, and all the mouldings unvaried, then the
+degradation is complete; if, as in Egyptian or Ninevite work,
+though the manner of executing certain figures is always the
+same, the order of design is perpetually varied, the degradation
+is less total; if, as in Gothic work, there is perpetual change
+both in design and execution, the workman must have been
+altogether set free.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVII.</span> How much the beholder gains from the liberty of
+the laborer may perhaps be questioned in England, where one
+of the strongest instincts in nearly every mind is that Love of
+Order which makes us desire that our house windows should
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173"></a>173</span>
+pair like our carriage horses, and allows us to yield our faith
+unhesitatingly to architectural theories which fix a form for
+everything and forbid variation from it. I would not impeach
+love of order: it is one of the most useful elements of the
+English mind; it helps us in our commerce and in all purely
+practical matters; and it is in many cases one of the foundation
+stones of morality. Only do not let us suppose that love
+of order is love of art. It is true that order, in its highest
+sense, is one of the necessities of art, just as time is a necessity
+of music; but love of order has no more to do with our right
+enjoyment of architecture or painting, than love of punctuality
+with the appreciation of an opera. Experience, I fear, teaches
+us that accurate and methodical habits in daily life are seldom
+characteristic of those who either quickly perceive, or richly
+possess, the creative powers of art; there is, however, nothing
+inconsistent between the two instincts, and nothing to hinder
+us from retaining our business habits, and yet fully allowing
+and enjoying the noblest gifts of Invention. We already do
+so, in every other branch of art except architecture, and we
+only do <i>not</i> so there because we have been taught that it would
+be wrong. Our architects gravely inform us that, as there are
+four rules of arithmetic, there are five orders of architecture;
+we, in our simplicity, think that this sounds consistent, and
+believe them. They inform us also that there is one proper
+form for Corinthian capitals, another for Doric, and another for
+Ionic. We, considering that there is also a proper form for the
+letters A, B, and C, think that this also sounds consistent, and
+accept the proposition. Understanding, therefore, that one
+form of the said capitals is proper, and no other, and having a
+conscientious horror of all impropriety, we allow the architect
+to provide us with the said capitals, of the proper form, in such
+and such a quantity, and in all other points to take care that
+the legal forms are observed; which having done, we rest in
+forced confidence that we are well housed.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVIII.</span> But our higher instincts are not deceived. We
+take no pleasure in the building provided for us, resembling
+that which we take in a new book or a new picture. We may
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174"></a>174</span>
+be proud of its size, complacent in its correctness, and happy
+in its convenience. We may take the same pleasure in its
+symmetry and workmanship as in a well-ordered room, or a
+skilful piece of manufacture. And this we suppose to be all
+the pleasure that architecture was ever intended to give us.
+The idea of reading a building as we would read Milton or
+Dante, and getting the same kind of delight out of the stones
+as out of the stanzas, never enters our minds for a moment.
+And for good reason:&mdash;There is indeed rhythm in the verses,
+quite as strict as the symmetries or rhythm of the architecture,
+and a thousand times more beautiful, but there is something
+else than rhythm. The verses were neither made to order, nor
+to match, as the capitals were; and we have therefore a kind
+of pleasure in them other than a sense of propriety. But it
+requires a strong effort of common sense to shake ourselves
+quit of all that we have been taught for the last two centuries,
+and wake to the perception of a truth just as simple and certain
+as it is new: that great art, whether expressing itself in
+words, colors, or stones, does <i>not</i> say the same thing over and
+over again; that the merit of architectural, as of every other
+art, consists in its saying new and different things; that to
+repeat itself is no more a characteristic of genius in marble
+than it is of genius in print; and that we may, without offending
+any laws of good taste, require of an architect, as we do of
+a novelist, that he should be not only correct, but entertaining.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all this is true, and self-evident; only hidden from us,
+as many other self-evident things are, by false teaching. Nothing
+is a great work of art, for the production of which either
+rules or models can be given. Exactly so far as architecture
+works on known rules, and from given models, it is not an art,
+but a manufacture; and it is, of the two procedures, rather
+less rational (because more easy) to copy capitals or mouldings
+from Phidias, and call ourselves architects, than to copy heads
+and hands from Titian, and call ourselves painters.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIX.</span> Let us then understand at once, that change or
+variety is as much a necessity to the human heart and brain
+in buildings as in books; that there is no merit, though there
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175"></a>175</span>
+is some occasional use, in monotony; and that we must no
+more expect to derive either pleasure or profit from an architecture
+whose ornaments are of one pattern, and whose pillars
+are of one proportion, than we should out of a universe in
+which the clouds were all of one shape, and the trees all of
+one size.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXX.</span> And this we confess in deeds, though not in words.
+All the pleasure which the people of the nineteenth century
+take in art, is in pictures, sculpture, minor objects of virtů, or
+medićval architecture, which we enjoy under the term picturesque:
+no pleasure is taken anywhere in modern buildings,
+and we find all men of true feeling delighting to escape out of
+modern cities into natural scenery: hence, as I shall hereafter
+show, that peculiar love of landscape which is characteristic of
+the age. It would be well, if, in all other matters, we were as
+ready to put up with what we dislike, for the sake of compliance
+with established law, as we are in architecture.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXI.</span> How so debased a law ever came to be established,
+we shall see when we come to describe the Renaissance
+schools: here we have only to note, as the second most essential
+element of the Gothic spirit, that it broke through that
+law wherever it found it in existence; it not only dared, but
+delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle; and
+invented a series of forms of which the merit was, not merely
+that they were new, but that they were <i>capable of perpetual
+novelty</i>. The pointed arch was not merely a bold variation
+from the round, but it admitted of millions of variations in
+itself; for the proportions of a pointed arch are changeable to
+infinity, while a circular arch is always the same. The grouped
+shaft was not merely a bold variation from the single one, but
+it admitted of millions of variations in its grouping, and in the
+proportions resultant from its grouping. The introduction of
+tracery was not only a startling change in the treatment of
+window lights, but admitted endless changes in the interlacement
+of the tracery bars themselves. So that, while in all
+living Christian architecture the love of variety exists, the
+Gothic schools exhibited that love in culminating energy; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176"></a>176</span>
+their influence, wherever it extended itself, may be sooner and
+farther traced by this character than by any other; the tendency
+to the adoption of Gothic types being always first shown
+by greater irregularity and richer variation in the forms of the
+architecture it is about to supersede, long before the appearance
+of the pointed arch or of any other recognizable <i>outward</i>
+sign of the Gothic mind.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXII.</span> We must, however, herein note carefully what
+distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of
+change; for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic
+architecture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love
+of change that it was destroyed. In order to understand this
+clearly, it will be necessary to consider the different ways in
+which change and monotony are presented to us in nature;
+both having their use, like darkness and light, and the one incapable
+of being enjoyed without the other: change being
+most delightful after some prolongation of monotony, as light
+appears most brilliant after the eyes have been for some time
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIII.</span> I believe that the true relations of monotony and
+change may be most simply understood by observing them in
+music. We may therein notice, first, that there is a sublimity
+and majesty in monotony which there is not in rapid or frequent
+variation. This is true throughout all nature. The
+greater part of the sublimity of the sea depends on its monotony;
+so also that of desolate moor and mountain scenery; and
+especially the sublimity of motion, as in the quiet, unchanged
+fall and rise of an engine beam. So also there is sublimity in
+darkness which there is not in light.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIV.</span> Again, monotony after a certain time, or beyond
+a certain degree, becomes either uninteresting or intolerable,
+and the musician is obliged to break it in one or two ways:
+either while the air or passage is perpetually repeated, its
+notes are variously enriched and harmonized; or else, after a
+certain number of repeated passages, an entirely new passage
+is introduced, which is more or less delightful according to
+the length of the previous monotony. Nature, of course, uses
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177"></a>177</span>
+both these kinds of variation perpetually. The sea-waves,
+resembling each other in general mass, but none like its
+brother in minor divisions and curves, are a monotony of the
+first kind; the great plain, broken by an emergent rock or
+clump of trees, is a monotony of the second.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXV.</span> Farther: in order to the enjoyment of the change
+in either case, a certain degree of patience is required from
+the hearer or observer. In the first case, he must be satisfied
+to endure with patience the recurrence of the great masses of
+sound or form, and to seek for entertainment in a careful
+watchfulness of the minor details. In the second case, he must
+bear patiently the infliction of the monotony for some moments,
+in order to feel the full refreshment of the change. This is
+true even of the shortest musical passage in which the element
+of monotony is employed. In cases of more majestic monotony,
+the patience required is so considerable that it becomes a
+kind of pain,&mdash;a price paid for the future pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVI.</span> Again: the talent of the composer is not in the
+monotony, but in the changes: he may show feeling and taste
+by his use of monotony in certain places or degrees; that is to
+say, by his <i>various</i> employment of it; but it is always in the
+new arrangement or invention that his intellect is shown, and
+not in the monotony which relieves it.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly: if the pleasure of change be too often repeated, it
+ceases to be delightful, for then change itself becomes monotonous,
+and we are driven to seek delight in extreme and fantastic
+degrees of it. This is the diseased love of change of
+which we have above spoken.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVII.</span> From these facts we may gather generally that
+monotony is, and ought to be, in itself painful to us, just as
+darkness is; that an architecture which is altogether monotonous
+is a dark or dead architecture; and, of those who love it,
+it may be truly said, &ldquo;they love darkness rather than light.&rdquo;
+But monotony in certain measure, used in order to give value
+to change, and, above all, that <i>transparent</i> monotony which,
+like the shadows of a great painter, suffers all manner of dimly
+suggested form to be seen through the body of it, is an essential
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178"></a>178</span>
+in architectural as in all other composition; and the endurance
+of monotony has about the same place in a healthy mind
+that the endurance of darkness has: that is to say, as a strong
+intellect will have pleasure in the solemnities of storm and
+twilight, and in the broken and mysterious lights that gleam
+among them, rather than in mere brilliancy and glare, while a
+frivolous mind will dread the shadow and the storm; and as
+a great man will be ready to endure much darkness of fortune
+in order to reach greater eminence of power or felicity, while
+an inferior man will not pay the price; exactly in like manner a
+great mind will accept, or even delight in, monotony which
+would be wearisome to an inferior intellect, because it has
+more patience and power of expectation, and is ready to pay
+the full price for the great future pleasure of change. But in
+all cases it is not that the noble nature loves monotony, any
+more than it loves darkness or pain. But it can bear with it,
+and receives a high pleasure in the endurance or patience, a
+pleasure necessary to the well-being of this world; while those
+who will not submit to the temporary sameness, but rush from
+one change to another, gradually dull the edge of change itself,
+and bring a shadow and weariness over the whole world
+from which there is no more escape.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVIII.</span> From these general uses of variety in the economy
+of the world, we may at once understand its use and
+abuse in architecture. The variety of the Gothic schools is
+the more healthy and beautiful, because in many cases it is
+entirely unstudied, and results, not from the mere love of
+change, but from practical necessities. For in one point of
+view Gothic is not only the best, but the <i>only rational</i> architecture,
+as being that which can fit itself most easily to all services,
+vulgar or noble. Undefined in its slope of roof, height
+of shaft, breadth of arch, or disposition of ground plan, it can
+shrink into a turret, expand into a hall, coil into a staircase, or
+spring into a spire, with undegraded grace and unexhausted
+energy; and whenever it finds occasion for change in its form
+or purpose, it submits to it without the slightest sense of loss
+either to its unity or majesty,&mdash;subtle and flexible like a fiery
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179"></a>179</span>
+serpent, but ever attentive to the voice of the charmer. And
+it is one of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they
+never suffered ideas of outside symmetries and consistencies to
+interfere with the real use and value of what they did. If
+they wanted a window, they opened one; a room, they added
+one; a buttress, they built one; utterly regardless of any established
+conventionalities of external appearance, knowing (as
+indeed it always happened) that such daring interruptions of
+the formal plan would rather give additional interest to its
+symmetry than injure it. So that, in the best times of Gothic,
+a useless window would rather have been opened in an unexpected
+place for the sake of the surprise, than a useful one forbidden
+for the sake of symmetry. Every successive architect,
+employed upon a great work, built the pieces he added in his
+own way, utterly regardless of the style adopted by his predecessors;
+and if two towers were raised in nominal correspondence
+at the sides of a cathedral front, one was nearly sure to
+be different from the other, and in each the style at the top to
+be different from the style at the bottom.<a name="FnAnchor_59" href="#Footnote_59"><span class="sp">59</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIX.</span> These marked variations were, however, only permitted
+as part of the great system of perpetual change which
+ran through every member of Gothic design, and rendered it
+as endless a field for the beholder&rsquo;s inquiry, as for the builder&rsquo;s
+imagination: change, which in the best schools is subtle and
+delicate, and rendered more delightful by intermingling of a
+noble monotony; in the more barbaric schools is somewhat
+fantastic and redundant; but, in all, a necessary and constant
+condition of the life of the school. Sometimes the variety is
+in one feature, sometimes in another; it may be in the capitals
+or crockets, in the niches or the traceries, or in all together,
+but in some one or other of the features it will be found
+always. If the mouldings are constant, the surface sculpture
+<span class="correction" title="wiil in the original">will</span> change; if the capitals are of a fixed design, the traceries
+will change; if the traceries are monotonous, the capitals will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180"></a>180</span>
+change; and if even, as in some fine schools, the early English
+for example, there is the slightest approximation to an unvarying
+type of mouldings, capitals, and floral decoration, the
+variety is found in the disposition of the masses, and in the
+figure sculpture.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XL.</span> I must now refer for a moment, before we quit the
+consideration of this, the second mental element of Gothic, to
+the opening of the third chapter of the &ldquo;Seven Lamps of Architecture,&rdquo;
+in which the distinction was drawn (§ 2) between
+man gathering and man governing; between his acceptance
+of the sources of delight from nature, and his developement of
+authoritative or imaginative power in their arrangement: for
+the two mental elements, not only of Gothic, but of all good
+architecture, which we have just been examining, belong to it,
+and are admirable in it, chiefly as it is, more than any other
+subject of art, the work of man, and the expression of the
+average power of man. A picture or poem is often little more
+than a feeble utterance of man&rsquo;s admiration of something out
+of himself; but architecture approaches more to a creation of
+his own, born of his necessities, and expressive of his nature.
+It is also, in some sort, the work of the whole race, while the
+picture or statue are the work of one only, in most cases more
+highly gifted than his fellows. And therefore we may expect
+that the first two elements of good architecture should be expressive
+of some great truths commonly belonging to the whole
+race, and necessary to be understood or felt by them in all
+their work that they do under the sun. And observe what
+they are: the confession of Imperfection and the confession of
+Desire of Change. The building of the bird and the bee needs
+not express anything like this. It is perfect and unchanging.
+But just because we are something better than birds or bees,
+our building must confess that we have not reached the perfection
+we can imagine, and cannot rest in the condition we have
+attained. If we pretend to have reached either perfection or
+satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God&rsquo;s
+work only may express that; but ours may never have that
+sentence written upon it,&mdash;&ldquo;And behold, it was very good.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181"></a>181</span>
+And, observe again, it is not merely as it renders the edifice a
+book of various knowledge, or a mine of precious thought, that
+variety is essential to its nobleness. The vital principle is not
+the love of <i>Knowledge</i>, but the love of <i>Change</i>. It is that
+strange <i>disquietude</i> of the Gothic spirit that is its greatness;
+that restlessness of the dreaming mind, that wanders hither
+and thither among the niches, and flickers feverishly around
+the pinnacles, and frets and fades in labyrinthine knots and
+shadows along wall and roof, and yet is not satisfied, nor shall
+be satisfied. The Greek could stay in his triglyph furrow, and
+be at peace; but the work of the Gothic heart is fretwork still,
+and it can neither rest in, nor from, its labor, but must pass on,
+sleeplessly, until its love of change shall be pacified for ever in
+the change that must come alike on them that wake and them
+that sleep.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLI.</span> The third constituent element of the Gothic mind
+was stated to be <span class="sc">Naturalism</span>; that is to say, the love of natural
+objects for their own sake, and the effort to represent them
+frankly, unconstrained by artistical laws.</p>
+
+<p>This characteristic of the style partly follows in necessary
+connexion with those named above. For, so soon as the workman
+is left free to represent what subjects he chooses, he must
+look to the nature that is round him for material, and will endeavor
+to represent it as he sees it, with more or less accuracy
+according to the skill he possesses, and with much play of
+fancy, but with small respect for law. There is, however, a
+marked distinction between the imaginations of the Western
+and Eastern races, even when both are left free; the Western,
+or Gothic, delighting most in the representation of facts, and
+the Eastern (Arabian, Persian, and Chinese) in the harmony of
+colors and forms. Each of these intellectual dispositions has
+its particular forms of error and abuse, which, though I have
+often before stated, I must here again briefly explain; and
+this the rather, because the word Naturalism is, in one of its
+senses, justly used as a term of reproach, and the questions respecting
+the real relations of art and nature are so many and
+so confused throughout all the schools of Europe at this day,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182"></a>182</span>
+that I cannot clearly enunciate any single truth without appearing
+to admit, in fellowship with it, some kind of error,
+unless the reader will bear with me in entering into such an
+analysis of the subject as will serve us for general guidance.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLII.</span> We are to remember, in the first place, that the arrangement
+of colors and lines is an art analogous to the composition<a name="FnAnchor_60" href="#Footnote_60"><span class="sp">60</span></a>
+of music, and entirely independent of the representation
+of facts. Good coloring does not necessarily convey the
+image of anything but itself. It consists in certain proportions
+and arrangements of rays of light, but not in likenesses
+to anything. A few touches of certain greys and purples laid
+by a master&rsquo;s hand on white paper, will be good coloring; as
+more touches are added beside them, we may find out that
+they were intended to represent a dove&rsquo;s neck, and we may
+praise, as the drawing advances, the perfect imitation of the
+dove&rsquo;s neck. But the good coloring does not consist in that
+imitation, but in the abstract qualities and relations of the grey
+and purple.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, as soon as a great sculptor begins to shape
+his work out of the block, we shall see that its lines are nobly
+arranged, and of noble character. We may not have the
+slightest idea for what the forms are intended, whether they
+are of man or beast, of vegetation or drapery. Their likeness
+to anything does not affect their nobleness. They are
+magnificent forms, and that is all we need care to know of
+them, in order to say whether the workman is a good or bad
+sculptor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page183"></a>183</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIII.</span> Now the noblest art is an exact unison of the abstract
+value, with the imitative power, of forms and colors.
+It is the noblest composition, used to express the noblest
+facts. But the human mind cannot in general unite the two
+perfections: it either pursues the fact to the neglect of the
+composition, or pursues the composition to the neglect of the
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIV.</span> And it is intended by the Deity that it <i>should</i> do
+this; the best art is not always wanted. Facts are often wanted
+without art, as in a geological diagram; and art often without
+facts, as in a Turkey carpet. And most men have been
+made capable of giving either one or the other, but not both;
+only one or two, the very highest, can give both.</p>
+
+<p>Observe then. Men are universally divided, as respects
+their artistical qualifications, into three great classes; a right,
+a left, and a centre. On the right side are the men of facts,
+on the left the men of design,<a name="FnAnchor_61" href="#Footnote_61"><span class="sp">61</span></a> in the centre the men of
+both.</p>
+
+<p>The three classes of course pass into each other by imperceptible
+gradations. The men of facts are hardly ever altogether
+without powers of design; the men of design are always
+in some measure cognizant of facts; and as each class
+possesses more or less of the powers of the opposite one, it
+approaches to the character of the central class. Few men,
+even in that central rank, are so exactly throned on the summit
+of the crest that they cannot be perceived to incline in the
+least one way or the other, embracing both horizons with their
+glance. Now each of these classes has, as I above said, a
+healthy function in the world, and correlative diseases or unhealthy
+functions; and, when the work of either of them is
+seen in its morbid condition, we are apt to find fault with the
+class of workmen, instead of finding fault only with the particular
+abuse which has perverted their action.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page184"></a>184</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLV.</span> Let us first take an instance of the healthy action
+of the three classes on a simple subject, so as fully to understand
+the distinction between them, and then we shall more
+easily examine the corruptions to which they are liable. Fig.
+1 in <a href="#plate_6">Plate VI.</a> is a spray of vine with a bough of cherry-tree,
+which I have outlined from nature as accurately as I could,
+without in the least endeavoring to compose or arrange the
+form. It is a simple piece of fact-work, healthy and good as
+such, and useful to any one who wanted to know plain truths
+about tendrils of vines, but there is no attempt at design in it.
+<a href="#plate_19">Plate XIX.</a>, below, represents a branch of vine used to decorate
+the angle of the Ducal Palace. It is faithful as a representation
+of vine, and yet so designed that every leaf serves
+an architectural purpose, and could not be spared from its
+place without harm. This is central work; fact and design
+together. Fig. 2 in <a href="#plate_6">Plate VI.</a> is a spandril from St. Mark&rsquo;s,
+in which the forms of the vine are dimly suggested, the object
+of the design being merely to obtain graceful lines and
+well proportioned masses upon the gold ground. There is
+not the least attempt to inform the spectator of any facts
+about the growth of the vine; there are no stalks or tendrils,&mdash;merely
+running bands with leaves emergent from
+them, of which nothing but the outline is taken from the
+vine, and even that imperfectly. This is design, unregardful
+of facts.</p>
+
+<p>Now the work is, in all these three cases, perfectly healthy.
+Fig. 1 is not bad work because it has not design, nor Fig. 2
+bad work because it has not facts. The object of the one is to
+give pleasure through truth, and of the other to give pleasure
+through composition. And both are right.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, are the diseased operations to which the three
+classes of workmen are liable?</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVI.</span> Primarily, two; affecting the two inferior classes:</p>
+
+<p>1st, When either of those two classes Despises the other:</p>
+
+<p>2nd, When either of the two classes Envies the other; producing,
+therefore, four forms of dangerous error.</p>
+
+<p>First, when the men of facts despise design. This is the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185"></a>185</span>
+error of the common Dutch painters, of merely imitative
+painters of still life, flowers, &amp;c., and other men who, having
+either the gift of accurate imitation or strong sympathies with
+nature, suppose that all is done when the imitation is perfected
+or sympathy expressed. A large body of English landscapists
+come into this class, including most clever sketchers from nature,
+who fancy that to get a sky of true tone, and a gleam of
+sunshine or sweep of shower faithfully expressed, is all that
+can be required of art. These men are generally themselves
+answerable for much of their deadness of feeling to the higher
+qualities of composition. They probably have not originally
+the high gifts of design, but they lose such powers as they
+originally possessed by despising, and refusing to study, the
+results of great power of design in others. Their knowledge,
+as far as it goes, being accurate, they are usually presumptuous
+and self-conceited, and gradually become incapable of admiring
+anything but what is like their own works. They see
+nothing in the works of great designers but the faults, and do
+harm almost incalculable in the European society of the present
+day by sneering at the compositions of the greatest men of
+the earlier ages,<a name="FnAnchor_62" href="#Footnote_62"><span class="sp">62</span></a> because they do not absolutely tally with
+their own ideas of &ldquo;Nature.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVII.</span> The second form of error is when the men of
+design despise facts. All noble design must deal with facts to
+a certain extent, for there is no food for it but in nature. The
+best colorist invents best by taking hints from natural colors;
+from birds, skies, or groups of figures. And if, in the delight
+of inventing fantastic color and form the truths of nature are
+wilfully neglected, the intellect becomes comparatively decrepit,
+and that state of art results which we find among the
+Chinese. The Greek designers delighted in the facts of the
+human form, and became great in consequence; but the facts
+of lower nature were disregarded by them, and their inferior
+ornament became, therefore, dead and valueless.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page186"></a>186</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVIII.</span> The third form of error is when the men of facts
+envy design: that is to say, when, having only imitative
+powers, they refuse to employ those powers upon the visible
+world around them; but, having been taught that composition
+is the end of art, strive to obtain the inventive powers which
+nature has denied them, study nothing but the works of reputed
+designers, and perish in a fungous growth of plagiarism
+and laws of art.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the great error of the beginning of this century;
+it is the error of the meanest kind of men that employ themselves
+in painting, and it is the most fatal of all, rendering
+those who fall into it utterly useless, incapable of helping the
+world with either truth or fancy, while, in all probability, they
+deceive it by base resemblances of both, until it hardly recognizes
+truth or fancy when they really exist.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIX.</span> The fourth form of error is when the men of design
+envy facts; that is to say, when the temptation of closely
+imitating nature leads them to forget their own proper ornamental
+function, and when they lose the power of the composition
+for the sake of graphic truth; as, for instance, in the
+hawthorn moulding so often spoken of round the porch of
+Bourges Cathedral, which, though very lovely, might perhaps,
+as we saw above, have been better, if the old builder, in his
+excessive desire to make it look like hawthorn, had not painted
+it green.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">L.</span> It is, however, carefully to be noted, that the two
+morbid conditions to which the men of facts are liable are
+much more dangerous and harmful than those to which the
+men of design are liable. The morbid state of men of design
+injures themselves only; that of the men of facts injures the
+whole world. The Chinese porcelain-painter is, indeed, not
+so great a man as he might be, but he does not want to break
+everything that is not porcelain; but the modern English fact-hunter,
+despising design, wants to destroy everything that does
+not agree with his own notions of truth, and becomes the most
+dangerous and despicable of iconoclasts, excited by egotism instead
+of religion. Again: the Bourges sculptor, painting his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187"></a>187</span>
+hawthorns green, did indeed somewhat hurt the effect of his
+own beautiful design, but did not prevent any one from loving
+hawthorn: but Sir George Beaumont, trying to make Constable
+paint grass brown <i>instead</i> of green, was setting himself
+between Constable and nature, blinding the painter, and blaspheming
+the work of God.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LI.</span> So much, then, of the diseases of the inferior classes,
+caused by their envying or despising each other. It is evident
+that the men of the central class cannot be liable to any morbid
+operation of this kind, they possessing the powers of both.</p>
+
+<p>But there is another order of diseases which affect all the
+three classes, considered with respect to their pursuit of facts.
+For observe, all the three classes are in some degree pursuers
+of facts; even the men of design not being in any case altogether
+independent of external truth. Now, considering them
+<i>all</i> as more or less searchers after truth, there is another triple
+division to be made of them. Everything presented to them
+in nature has good and evil mingled in it: and artists, considered
+as searchers after truth, are again to be divided into
+three great classes, a right, a left, and a centre. Those on the
+right perceive, and pursue, the good, and leave the evil: those
+in the centre, the greatest, perceive and pursue the good and
+evil together, the whole thing as it verily is: those on the left
+perceive and pursue the evil, and leave the good.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LII.</span> The first class, I say, take the good and leave the
+evil. Out of whatever is presented to them, they gather what
+it has of grace, and life, and light, and holiness, and leave all,
+or at least as much as possible, of the rest undrawn. The
+faces of their figures express no evil passions; the skies of
+their landscapes are without storm; the prevalent character
+of their color is brightness, and of their chiaroscuro fulness of
+light. The early Italian and Flemish painters, Angelico and
+Hemling, Perugino, Francia, Raffaelle in his best time, John
+Bellini, and our own Stothard, belong eminently to this class.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIII.</span> The second, or greatest class, render all that they see
+in nature unhesitatingly, with a kind of divine grasp and
+government of the whole, sympathizing with all the good, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188"></a>188</span>
+yet confessing, permitting, and bringing good out of the evil
+also. Their subject is infinite as nature, their color equally
+balanced between splendor and sadness, reaching occasionally
+the highest degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro equally
+balanced between light and shade.</p>
+
+<p>The principal men of this class are Michael Angelo, Leonardo,
+Giotto, Tintoret, and Turner. Raffaelle in his second
+time, Titian, and Rubens are transitional; the first inclining to
+the eclectic, and the last two to the impure class, Raffaelle
+rarely giving all the evil, Titian and Rubens rarely all the
+good.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIV.</span> The last class perceive and imitate evil only. They
+cannot draw the trunk of a tree without blasting and shattering
+it, nor a sky except covered with stormy clouds: they delight
+in the beggary and brutality of the human race; their
+color is for the most part subdued or lurid, and the greatest
+spaces of their pictures are occupied by darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Happily the examples of this class are seldom seen in perfection.
+Salvator Rosa and Caravaggio are the most characteristic:
+the other men belonging to it approach towards the
+central rank by imperceptible gradations, as they perceive and
+represent more and more of good. But Murillo, Zurbaran,
+Camillo Procaccini, Rembrandt, and Teniers, all belong
+naturally to this lower class.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LV.</span> Now, observe: the three classes into which artists
+were previously divided, of men of fact, men of design, and
+men of both, are all of Divine institution; but of these latter
+three, the last is in no wise of Divine institution. It is entirely
+human, and the men who belong to it have sunk into it by
+their own faults. They are, so far forth, either useless or
+harmful men. It is indeed good that evil should be occasionally
+represented, even in its worst forms, but never that it
+should be taken delight in: and the mighty men of the central
+class will <span class="correction" title="aways in the original">always</span> give us all that is needful of it; sometimes, as
+Hogarth did, dwelling upon it bitterly as satirists,&mdash;but this
+with the more effect, because they will neither exaggerate it, nor
+represent it mercilessly, and without the atoning points that all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189"></a>189</span>
+evil shows to a Divinely guided glance, even at its deepest.
+So then, though the third class will always, I fear, in some
+measure exist, the two necessary classes are only the first two;
+and this is so far acknowledged by the general sense of men,
+that the basest class has been confounded with the second; and
+painters have been divided commonly only into two ranks, now
+known, I believe, throughout Europe by the names which they
+first received in Italy, &ldquo;Puristi and Naturalisti.&rdquo; Since, however,
+in the existing state of things, the degraded or evil-loving
+class, though less defined than that of the Puristi, is
+just as vast as it is indistinct, this division has done infinite
+dishonor to the great faithful painters of nature: and it has
+long been one of the objects I have had most at heart to
+show that, in reality, the Purists, in their sanctity, are less
+separated from these natural painters than the Sensualists in
+their foulness; and that the difference, though less discernible,
+is in reality greater, between the man who pursues evil for
+its own sake, and him who bears with it for the sake of truth,
+than between this latter and the man who will not endure it
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVI.</span> Let us, then, endeavor briefly to mark the real relations
+of these three vast ranks of men, whom I shall call, for
+convenience in speaking of them, Purists, Naturalists, and
+Sensualists; not that these terms express their real characters,
+but I know no word, and cannot coin a convenient one, which
+would accurately express the opposite of Purist; and I keep
+the terms Purist and Naturalist in order to comply, as far as
+possible, with the established usage of language on the Continent.
+Now, observe: in saying that nearly everything presented
+to us in nature has mingling in it of good and evil, I do
+not mean that nature is conceivably improvable, or that anything
+that God has made could be called evil, if we could see
+far enough into its uses, but that, with respect to immediate
+effects or appearances, it may be so, just as the hard rind or
+bitter kernel of a fruit may be an evil to the eater, though in
+the one is the protection of the fruit, and in the other its continuance.
+The Purist, therefore, does not mend nature, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190"></a>190</span>
+receives from nature and from God that which is good for him;
+while the Sensualist fills himself &ldquo;with the husks that the
+swine did eat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The three classes may, therefore, be likened to men reaping
+wheat, of which the Purists take the fine flour, and the Sensualists
+the chaff and straw, but the Naturalists take all home,
+and make their cake of the one, and their couch of the other.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVII.</span> For instance. We know more certainly every day
+that whatever appears to us harmful in the universe has some
+beneficent or necessary operation; that the storm which destroys
+a harvest brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet unsown,
+and that the volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand
+from destruction. But the evil is not for the time less fearful,
+because we have learned it to be necessary; and we easily
+understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which
+would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and
+create in its imagination a world of which the peace should be
+unbroken, in which the sky should not darken nor the sea
+rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom
+wither. That man is greater, however, who contemplates
+with an equal mind the alternations of terror and of beauty;
+who, not rejoicing less beneath the sunny sky, can bear also to
+watch the bars of twilight narrowing on the horizon; and, not
+less sensible to the blessing of the peace of nature, can rejoice
+in the magnificence of the ordinances by which that peace is
+protected and secured. But separated from both by an immeasurable
+distance would be the man who delighted in convulsion
+and disease for their own sake; who found his daily
+food in the disorder of nature mingled with the suffering of
+humanity; and watched joyfully at the right hand of the
+Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as well as to accuse,
+while the corners of the House of feasting were struck by the
+wind from the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVIII.</span> And far more is this true, when the subject of contemplation
+is humanity itself. The passions of mankind are
+partly protective, partly beneficent, like the chaff and grain of
+the corn; but none without their use, none without nobleness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191"></a>191</span>
+when seen in balanced unity with the rest of the <span class="correction" title="spirt in the original">spirit</span> which
+they are charged to defend. The passions of which the end is
+the continuance of the race; the indignation which is to arm
+it against injustice, or strengthen it to resist wanton injury;
+and the fear<a name="FnAnchor_63" href="#Footnote_63"><span class="sp">63</span></a> which lies at the root of prudence, reverence,
+and awe, are all honorable and beautiful, so long as man is regarded
+in his relations to the existing world. The religious
+Purist, striving to conceive him withdrawn from those relations,
+effaces from the countenance the traces of all transitory
+passion, illumines it with holy hope and love, and seals it with
+the serenity of heavenly peace; he conceals the forms of the
+body by the deep-folded garment, or else represents them
+under severely chastened types, and would rather paint them
+emaciated by the fast, or pale from the torture, than strengthened
+by exertion, or flushed by emotion. But the great Naturalist
+takes the human being in its wholeness, in its mortal as
+well as its spiritual strength. Capable of sounding and sympathizing
+with the whole range of its passions, he brings one
+majestic harmony out of them all; he represents it fearlessly
+in all its acts and thoughts, in its haste, its anger, its sensuality,
+and its pride, as well as in its fortitude or faith, but makes it
+noble in them all; he casts aside the veil from the body,
+and beholds the mysteries of its form like an angel looking
+down on an inferior creature: there is nothing which he is reluctant
+to behold, nothing that he is ashamed to confess; with
+all that lives, triumphing, falling, or suffering, he claims kindred,
+either in majesty or in mercy, yet standing, in a sort, afar
+off, unmoved even in the deepness of his sympathy; for the
+spirit within him is too thoughtful to be grieved, too brave to
+be appalled, and too pure to be polluted.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIX.</span> How far beneath these two ranks of men shall we
+place, in the scale of being, those whose pleasure is only in sin
+or in suffering; who habitually contemplate humanity in poverty
+or decrepitude, fury or sensuality; whose works are either
+temptations to its weakness, or triumphs over its ruin, and recognize
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192"></a>192</span>
+no other subjects for thought or admiration than the
+subtlety of the robber, the rage of the soldier, or the joy of the
+Sybarite. It seems strange, when thus definitely stated, that
+such a school should exist. Yet consider a little what gaps
+and blanks would disfigure our gallery and chamber walls, in
+places that we have long approached with reverence, if every
+picture, every statue, were removed from them, of which the
+subject was either the vice or the misery of mankind, portrayed
+without any moral purpose: consider the innumerable groups
+having reference merely to various forms of passion, low or
+high; drunken revels and brawls among peasants, gambling
+or fighting scenes among soldiers, amours and intrigues among
+every class, brutal battle pieces, banditti subjects, gluts of torture
+and death in famine, wreck, or slaughter, for the sake
+merely of the excitement,&mdash;that quickening and suppling of
+the dull spirit that cannot be gained for it but by bathing it in
+blood, afterward to wither back into stained and stiffened
+apathy; and then that whole vast false heaven of sensual passion,
+full of nymphs, satyrs, graces, goddesses, and I know not
+what, from its high seventh circle in Correggio&rsquo;s Antiope,
+down to the Grecized ballet-dancers and smirking Cupids of
+the Parisian upholsterer. Sweep away all this, remorselessly,
+and see how much art we should have left.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LX.</span> And yet these are only the grossest manifestations of
+the tendency of the school. There are subtler, yet not less
+certain, signs of it in the works of men who stand high in the
+world&rsquo;s list of sacred painters. I doubt not that the reader was
+surprised when I named Murillo among the men of this third
+rank. Yet, go into the Dulwich Gallery, and meditate for a
+little over that much celebrated picture of the two beggar boys,
+one eating lying on the ground, the other standing beside him.
+We have among our own painters one who cannot indeed be
+set beside Murillo as a painter of Madonnas, for he is a pure
+Naturalist, and, never having seen a Madonna, does not paint
+any; but who, as a painter of beggar or peasant boys, may be
+set beside Murillo, or any one else,&mdash;W. Hunt. He loves peasant
+boys, because he finds them more roughly and picturesquely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193"></a>193</span>
+dressed, and more healthily colored, than others. And he
+paints all that he sees in them fearlessly; all the health and
+humor, and freshness, and vitality, together with such awkwardness
+and stupidity, and what else of negative or positive
+harm there may be in the creature; but yet so that on the
+whole we love it, and find it perhaps even beautiful, or if not,
+at least we see that there is capability of good in it, rather than
+of evil; and all is lighted up by a sunshine and sweet color
+that makes the smock-frock as precious as cloth of gold. But
+look at those two ragged and vicious vagrants that Murillo has
+gathered out of the street. You smile at first, because they
+are eating so naturally, and their roguery is so complete. But
+is there anything else than roguery there, or was it well for
+the painter to give his time to the painting of those repulsive
+and wicked children? Do you feel moved with any charity
+towards children as you look at them? Are we the least more
+likely to take any interest in ragged schools, or to help the next
+pauper child that comes in our way, because the painter has
+shown us a cunning beggar feeding greedily? Mark the choice
+of the act. He might have shown hunger in other ways, and
+given interest to even this act of eating, by making the face
+wasted, or the eye wistful. But he did not care to do this.
+He delighted merely in the disgusting manner of eating, the
+food filling the cheek; the boy is not hungry, else he would
+not turn round to talk and grin as he eats.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXI.</span> But observe another point in the lower figure. It
+lies so that the sole of the foot is turned towards the spectator;
+not because it would have lain less easily in another attitude,
+but that the painter may draw, and exhibit, the grey dust engrained
+in the foot. Do not call this the painting of nature:
+it is mere delight in foulness. The lesson, if there be any, in
+the picture, is not one whit the stronger. We all know that a
+beggar&rsquo;s bare foot cannot be clean; there is no need to thrust
+its degradation into the light, as if no human imagination were
+vigorous enough for its conception.</p>
+
+<p>§ LXII. The position of the Sensualists, in treatment of landscape,
+is less distinctly marked than in that of the figure: because
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194"></a>194</span>
+even the wildest passions of nature are noble: but the
+inclination is manifested by carelessness in marking generic
+form in trees and flowers: by their preferring confused and
+irregular arrangements of foliage or foreground to symmetrical
+and simple grouping; by their general choice of such picturesqueness
+as results from decay, disorder, and disease, rather
+than of that which is consistent with the perfection of the
+things in which it is found; and by their imperfect rendering
+of the elements of strength and beauty in all things. I propose
+to work out this subject fully in the last volume of &ldquo;Modern
+Painters;&rdquo; but I trust that enough has been here said to
+enable the reader to understand the relations of the three great
+classes of artists, and therefore also the kinds of morbid condition
+into which the two higher (for the last has no other
+than a morbid condition) are liable to fall. For, since the
+function of the Naturalists is to represent, as far as may be,
+the whole of nature, and the Purists to represent what is absolutely
+good for some special purpose or time, it is evident that
+both are liable to error from shortness of sight, and the last
+also from weakness of judgment. I say, in the first place, both
+may err from shortness of sight, from not seeing all that there
+is in nature; seeing only the outsides of things, or those points of
+them which bear least on the matter in hand. For instance, a
+modern continental Naturalist sees the anatomy of a limb thoroughly,
+but does not see its color against the sky, which latter
+fact is to a painter far the more important of the two. And
+because it is always easier to see the surface than the depth of
+things, the full sight of them requiring the highest powers of
+penetration, sympathy, and imagination, the world is full of
+vulgar Naturalists: not Sensualists, observe, not men who delight
+in evil; but men who never see the deepest good, and
+who bring discredit on all painting of Nature by the little that
+they discover in her. And the Purist, besides being liable to
+this same shortsightedness, is liable also to fatal errors of judgment;
+for he may think that good which is not so, and that
+the highest good which is the least. And thus the world is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195"></a>195</span>
+full of vulgar Purists,<a name="FnAnchor_64" href="#Footnote_64"><span class="sp">64</span></a> who bring discredit on all selection by
+the silliness of their choice; and this the more, because the
+very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative of some slight
+degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or narrowness of
+understanding of the ends of things: the greatest men being,
+in all times of art, Naturalists, without any exception; and the
+greatest Purists being those who approach nearest to the Naturalists,
+as Benozzo Gozzoli and Perugino. Hence there is a
+tendency in the Naturalists to despise the Purists, and in the
+Purists to be offended with the Naturalists (not understanding
+them, and confounding them with the Sensualists); and this is
+grievously harmful to both.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIII.</span> Of the various forms of resultant mischief it is not
+here the place to speak: the reader may already be somewhat
+wearied with a statement which has led us apparently so far
+from our immediate subject. But the digression was necessary,
+in order that I might clearly define the sense in which I
+use the word Naturalism when I state it to be the third most
+essential characteristic of Gothic architecture. I mean that the
+Gothic builders belong to the central or greatest rank in <i>both</i>
+the classifications of artists which we have just made; that,
+considering all artists as either men of design, men of facts, or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196"></a>196</span>
+men of both, the Gothic builders were men of both; and that
+again, considering all artists as either Purists, Naturalists, or
+Sensualists, the Gothic builders were Naturalists.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIV.</span> I say first, that the Gothic builders were of that
+central class which unites fact with design; but that the part
+of the work which was more especially their own was the truthfulness.
+Their power of artistical invention or arrangement was
+not greater than that of Romanesque and Byzantine workmen:
+by those workmen they were taught the principles, and from
+them received their models, of design; but to the ornamental
+feeling and rich fancy of the Byzantine the Gothic builder
+added a love of <i>fact</i> which is never found in the South. Both
+Greek and Roman used conventional foliage in their ornament,
+passing into something that was not foliage at all, knotting
+itself into strange cup-like buds or clusters, and growing out of
+lifeless rods instead of stems; the Gothic sculptor received
+these types, at first, as things that ought to be, just as we have
+a second time received them; but he could not rest in them.
+He saw there was no veracity in them, no knowledge, no
+vitality. Do what he would, he could not help liking the true
+leaves better; and cautiously, a little at a time, he put more of
+nature into his work, until at last it was all true, retaining,
+nevertheless, every valuable character of the original well-disciplined
+and designed arrangement.<a name="FnAnchor_65" href="#Footnote_65"><span class="sp">65</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXV.</span> Nor is it only in external and visible subject that
+the Gothic workman wrought for truth: he is as firm in his
+rendering of imaginative as of actual truth; that is to say,
+when an idea would have been by a Roman, or Byzantine,
+symbolically represented, the Gothic mind realizes it to the
+utmost. For instance, the purgatorial fire is represented in
+the mosaic of Torcello (Romanesque) as a red stream, longitudinally
+striped like a riband, descending out of the throne of
+Christ, and gradually extending itself to envelope the wicked.
+When we are once informed what this means, it is enough for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197"></a>197</span>
+its purpose; but the Gothic inventor does not leave the sign
+in need of interpretation. He makes the fire as like real fire
+as he can; and in the porch of St. Maclou at Rouen the sculptured
+flames burst out of the Hades gate, and flicker up, in
+writhing tongues of stone, through the interstices of the niches,
+as if the church itself were on fire. This is an extreme instance,
+but it is all the more illustrative of the entire difference
+in temper and thought between the two schools of art, and of
+the intense love of veracity which influenced the Gothic design.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVI.</span> I do not say that this love of veracity is always
+healthy in its operation. I have above noticed the errors into
+which it falls from despising design; and there is another kind
+of error noticeable in the instance just given, in which the love
+of truth is too hasty, and seizes on a surface truth instead of
+an inner one. For in representing the Hades fire, it is not the
+mere <i>form</i> of the flame which needs most to be told, but its
+unquenchableness, its Divine ordainment and limitation, and
+its inner fierceness, not physical and material, but in being the
+expression of the wrath of God. And these things are not to
+be told by imitating the fire that flashes out of a bundle of
+sticks. If we think over his symbol a little, we shall perhaps
+find that the Romanesque builder told more truth in that likeness
+of a blood-red stream, flowing between definite shores and
+out of God&rsquo;s throne, and expanding, as if fed by a perpetual
+current, into the lake wherein the wicked are cast, than the
+Gothic builder in those torch-flickerings about his niches. But
+this is not to our immediate purpose; I am not at present to
+insist upon the faults into which the love of truth was led in
+the later Gothic times, but on the feeling itself, as a glorious
+and peculiar characteristic of the Northern builders. For, observe,
+it is not, even in the above instance, love of truth, but
+want of thought, which <i>causes</i> the fault. The love of truth,
+as such, is good, but when it is misdirected by thoughtlessness
+or over-excited by vanity, and either seizes on facts of small
+value, or gathers them chiefly that it may boast of its grasp
+and apprehension, its work may well become dull or offensive.
+Yet let us not, therefore, blame the inherent love of facts, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198"></a>198</span>
+the incautiousness of their selection, and impertinence of their
+statement.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVII.</span> I said, in the second place, that Gothic work, when
+referred to the arrangement of all art, as purist, naturalist, or
+sensualist, was naturalist. This character follows necessarily
+on its extreme love of truth, prevailing over the sense of beauty,
+and causing it to take delight in portraiture of every kind, and
+to express the various characters of the human countenance
+and form, as it did the varieties of leaves and the ruggedness
+of branches. And this tendency is both increased and ennobled
+by the same Christian humility which we saw expressed
+in the first character of Gothic work, its rudeness. For as that
+resulted from a humility which confessed the imperfection of
+the <i>workman</i>, so this naturalist portraiture is rendered more
+faithful by the humility which confesses the imperfection of
+the <i>subject</i>. The Greek sculptor could neither bear to confess
+his own feebleness, nor to tell the faults of the forms that he
+portrayed. But the Christian workman, believing that all is
+finally to work together for good, freely confesses both, and
+neither seeks to disguise his own roughness of work, nor his
+subject&rsquo;s roughness of make. Yet this frankness being joined,
+for the most part, with depth of religious feeling in other directions,
+and especially with charity, there is sometimes a tendency
+to Purism in the best Gothic sculpture; so that it frequently
+reaches great dignity of form and tenderness of expression,
+yet never so as to lose the veracity of portraiture,
+wherever portraiture is possible: not exalting its kings into
+demi-gods, nor its saints into archangels, but giving what kingliness
+and sanctity was in them, to the full, mixed with due
+record of their faults; and this in the most part with a great
+indifference like that of Scripture history, which sets down,
+with unmoved and unexcusing resoluteness, the virtues and
+errors of all men of whom it speaks, often leaving the reader
+to form his own estimate of them, without an indication of the
+judgment of the historian. And this veracity is carried out by
+the Gothic sculptors in the minuteness and generality, as well
+as the equity, of their delineation: for they do not limit their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199"></a>199</span>
+art to the portraiture of saints and kings, but introduce the
+most familiar scenes and most simple subjects; filling up the
+backgrounds of Scripture histories with vivid and curious representations
+of the commonest incidents of daily life, and availing
+themselves of every occasion in which, either as a symbol,
+or an explanation of a scene or time, the things familiar to the
+eye of the workman could be introduced and made of account.
+Hence Gothic sculpture and painting are not only full of valuable
+portraiture of the greatest men, but copious records of all
+the domestic customs and inferior arts of the ages in which it
+flourished.<a name="FnAnchor_66" href="#Footnote_66"><span class="sp">66</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVIII.</span> There is, however, one direction in which the
+Naturalism of the Gothic workmen is peculiarly manifested;
+and this direction is even more characteristic of the school than
+the Naturalism itself; I mean their peculiar fondness for the
+forms of Vegetation. In rendering the various circumstances
+of daily life, Egyptian and Ninevite sculpture is as frank and
+as diffuse as the Gothic. From the highest pomps of state or
+triumphs of battle, to the most trivial domestic arts and amusements,
+all is taken advantage of to fill the field of granite with
+the perpetual interest of a crowded drama; and the early Lombardic
+and Romanesque sculpture is equally copious in its description
+of the familiar circumstances of war and the chase.
+But in all the scenes portrayed by the workmen of these nations,
+vegetation occurs only as an explanatory accessory; the
+reed is introduced to mark the course of the river, or the tree
+to mark the covert of the wild beast, or the ambush of the
+enemy, but there is no especial interest in the forms of the
+vegetation strong enough to induce them to make it a subject
+of separate and accurate study. Again, among the nations
+who followed the arts of design exclusively, the forms of foliage
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200"></a>200</span>
+introduced were meagre and general, and their real intricacy
+and life were neither admired nor expressed. But to the
+Gothic workman the living foliage became a subject of intense
+affection, and he struggled to render all its characters with as
+much accuracy as was compatible with the laws of his design
+and the nature of his material, not unfrequently tempted in his
+enthusiasm to transgress the one and disguise the other.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIX.</span> There is a peculiar significancy in this, indicative
+both of higher civilization and gentler temperament, than had
+before been manifested in architecture. Rudeness, and the
+love of change, which we have insisted upon as the first elements
+of Gothic, are also elements common to all healthy
+schools. But here is a softer element mingled with them,
+peculiar to the Gothic itself. The rudeness or ignorance which
+would have been painfully exposed in the treatment of the
+human form, are still not so great as to prevent the successful
+rendering of the wayside herbage; and the love of change,
+which becomes morbid and feverish in following the haste of
+the hunter, and the rage of the combatant, is at once soothed
+and satisfied as it watches the wandering of the tendril, and
+the budding of the flower. Nor is this all: the new direction
+of mental interest marks an infinite change in the means and
+the habits of life. The nations whose chief support was in the
+chase, whose chief interest was in the battle, whose chief pleasure
+was in the banquet, would take small care respecting the
+shapes of leaves and flowers; and notice little in the forms of
+the forest trees which sheltered them, except the signs indicative
+of the wood which would make the toughest lance, the
+closest roof, or the clearest fire. The affectionate observation
+of the grace and outward character of vegetation is the sure
+sign of a more tranquil and gentle existence, sustained by the
+gifts, and gladdened by the splendor, of the earth. In that
+careful distinction of species, and richness of delicate and undisturbed
+organization, which characterize the Gothic design,
+there is the history of rural and thoughtful life, influenced by
+habitual tenderness, and devoted to subtle inquiry; and every
+discriminating and delicate touch of the chisel, as it rounds the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page201"></a>201</span>
+petal or guides the branch, is a prophecy of the developement
+of the entire body of the natural sciences, beginning with that
+of medicine, of the recovery of literature, and the establishment
+of the most necessary principles of domestic wisdom and
+national peace.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXX.</span> I have before alluded to the strange and vain supposition,
+that the original conception of Gothic architecture
+had been derived from vegetation,&mdash;from the symmetry of
+avenues, and the interlacing of branches. It is a supposition
+which never could have existed for a moment in the mind of
+any person acquainted with early Gothic; but, however idle
+as a theory, it is most valuable as a testimony to the character
+of the perfected style. It is precisely because the reverse of
+this theory is the fact, because the Gothic did not arise out of,
+but develope itself into, a resemblance to vegetation, that this
+resemblance is so instructive as an indication of the temper of
+the builders. It was no chance suggestion of the form of an
+arch from the bending of a bough, but a gradual and continual
+discovery of a beauty in natural forms which could be more
+and more perfectly transferred into those of stone, that influenced
+at once the heart of the people, and the form of the
+edifice. The Gothic architecture arose in massy and mountainous
+strength, axe-hewn, and iron-bound, block heaved upon
+block by the monk&rsquo;s enthusiasm and the soldier&rsquo;s force; and
+cramped and stanchioned into such weight of grisly wall, as
+might bury the anchoret in darkness, and beat back the utmost
+storm of battle, suffering but by the same narrow crosslet the
+passing of the sunbeam, or of the arrow. Gradually, as that
+monkish enthusiasm became more thoughtful, and as the sound
+of war became more and more intermittent beyond the gates
+of the convent or the keep, the stony pillar grew slender and
+the vaulted roof grew light, till they had wreathed themselves
+into the semblance of the summer woods at their fairest, and
+of the dead field-flowers, long trodden down in blood, sweet
+monumental statues were set to bloom for ever, beneath the
+porch of the temple, or the canopy of the tomb.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXI.</span> Nor is it only as a sign of greater gentleness or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202"></a>202</span>
+refinement of mind, but as a proof of the best possible direction
+of this refinement, that the tendency of the Gothic to the
+expression of vegetative life is to be admired. That sentence
+of Genesis, &ldquo;I have given thee every green herb for meat,&rdquo;
+like all the rest of the book, has a profound symbolical as well
+as a literal meaning. It is not merely the nourishment of the
+body, but the food of the soul, that is intended. The green
+herb is, of all nature, that which is most essential to the healthy
+spiritual life of man. Most of us do not need fine scenery;
+the precipice and the mountain peak are not intended to be
+seen by all men,&mdash;perhaps their power is greatest over those
+who are unaccustomed to them. But trees, and fields, and
+flowers were made for all, and are necessary for all. God has
+connected the labor which is essential to the bodily sustenance,
+with the pleasures which are healthiest for the heart; and
+while He made the ground stubborn, He made its herbage
+fragrant, and its blossoms fair. The proudest architecture
+that man can build has no higher honor than to bear the image
+and recall the memory of that grass of the field which is, at
+once, the type and the support of his existence; the goodly
+building is then most glorious when it is sculptured into the
+likeness of the leaves of Paradise; and the great Gothic spirit,
+as we showed it to be noble in its disquietude, is also noble in its
+hold of nature; it is, indeed, like the dove of Noah, in that she
+found no rest upon the face of the waters,&mdash;but like her in this
+also, &ldquo;<span class="sc">Lo, in her mouth was an olive branch, plucked off.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXII.</span> The fourth essential element of the Gothic mind
+was above stated to be the sense of the <span class="sc">Grotesque</span>; but I shall
+defer the endeavor to define this most curious and subtle character
+until we have occasion to examine one of the divisions
+of the Renaissance schools, which was morbidly influenced by
+it (Vol. III. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#chap_3">Chap. III.</a>). It is the less necessary to insist upon
+it here, because every reader familiar with Gothic architecture
+must understand what I mean, and will, I believe, have no
+hesitation in admitting that the tendency to delight in fantastic
+and ludicrous, as well as in sublime, images, is a universal
+instinct of the Gothic imagination.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page203"></a>203</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXIII.</span> The fifth element above named was <span class="sc">Rigidity</span>;
+and this character I must endeavor carefully to define, for
+neither the word I have used, nor any other that I can think
+of, will express it accurately. For I mean, not merely stable,
+but <i>active</i> rigidity; the peculiar energy which gives tension to
+movement, and stiffness to resistance, which makes the fiercest
+lightning forked rather than curved, and the stoutest oak-branch
+angular rather than bending, and is as much seen in
+the quivering of the lance as in the glittering of the icicle.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXIV.</span> I have before had occasion (Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_13">Chap. XIII.</a>
+§ <span class="scs">VII.</span>) to note some manifestations of this energy or fixedness;
+but it must be still more attentively considered here, as it
+shows itself throughout the whole structure and decoration of
+Gothic work. Egyptian and Greek buildings stand, for the
+most part, by their own weight and mass, one stone passively
+incumbent on another: but in the Gothic vaults and traceries
+there is a stiffness analogous to that of the bones of a limb, or
+fibres of a tree; an elastic tension and communication of force
+from part to part, and also a studious expression of this throughout
+every visible line of the building. And, in like manner,
+the Greek and Egyptian ornament is either mere surface
+engraving, as if the face of the wall had been stamped with a
+seal, or its lines are flowing, lithe, and luxuriant; in either case,
+there is no expression of energy in framework of the ornament
+itself. But the Gothic ornament stands out in prickly independence,
+and frosty fortitude, jutting into crockets, and freezing
+into pinnacles; here starting up into a monster, there germinating
+into a blossom; anon knitting itself into a branch,
+alternately thorny, bossy, and bristly, or writhed into every
+form of nervous entanglement; but, even when most graceful,
+never for an instant languid, always quickset; erring, if at all,
+ever on the side of brusquerie.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXV.</span> The feelings or habits in the workman which give
+rise to this character in the work, are more complicated and
+various than those indicated by any other sculptural expression
+hitherto named. There is, first, the habit of hard and rapid
+working; the industry of the tribes of the North, quickened
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204"></a>204</span>
+by the coldness of the climate, and giving an expression of
+sharp energy to all they do (as above noted, Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_13">Chap.
+XIII.</a> § <span class="scs">VII</span>.), as opposed to the languor of the Southern tribes,
+however much of fire there may be in the heart of that <span class="correction" title="langour in the original">languor</span>,
+for lava itself may flow languidly. There is also the habit of
+finding enjoyment in the signs of cold, which is never found,
+I believe, in the inhabitants of countries south of the Alps.
+Cold is to them an unredeemed evil, to be suffered, and forgotten
+as soon as may be; but the long winter of the North
+forces the Goth (I mean the Englishman, Frenchman, Dane,
+or German), if he would lead a happy life at all, to find sources
+of happiness in foul weather as well as fair, and to rejoice in
+the leafless as well as in the shady forest. And this we do
+with all our hearts; finding perhaps nearly as much contentment
+by the Christmas fire as in the summer sunshine, and
+gaining health and strength on the ice-fields of winter, as well
+as among the meadows of spring. So that there is nothing
+adverse or painful to our feelings in the cramped and stiffened
+structure of vegetation checked by cold; and instead of seeking,
+like the Southern sculptor, to express only the softness of
+leafage nourished in all tenderness, and tempted into all luxuriance
+by warm winds and glowing rays, we find pleasure in
+dwelling upon the crabbed, perverse, and morose animation of
+plants that have known little kindness from earth or heaven,
+but, season after season, have had their best efforts palsied by
+frost, their brightest buds buried under snow, and their goodliest
+limbs lopped by tempest.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXVI.</span> There are many subtle sympathies and affections
+which join to confirm the Gothic mind in this peculiar choice
+of subject; and when we add to the influence of these, the
+necessities consequent upon the employment of a rougher
+material, compelling the workman to seek for vigor of effect,
+rather than refinement of texture or accuracy of form, we
+have direct and manifest causes for much of the difference
+between the northern and southern cast of conception: but
+there are indirect causes holding a far more important place
+in the Gothic heart, though less immediate in their influence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205"></a>205</span>
+on design. Strength of will, independence of character, resoluteness
+of purpose, impatience of undue control, and that
+general tendency to set the individual reason against authority,
+and the individual deed against destiny, which, in the Northern
+tribes, has opposed itself throughout all ages to the languid
+submission, in the Southern, of thought to tradition, and purpose
+to fatality, are all more or less traceable in the rigid
+lines, vigorous and various masses, and daringly projecting and
+independent structure of the Northern Gothic ornament:
+while the opposite feelings are in like manner legible in the
+graceful and softly guided waves and wreathed bands, in which
+Southern decoration is constantly disposed; in its tendency to
+lose its independence, and fuse itself into the surface of the
+masses upon which it is traced; and in the expression seen so
+often, in the arrangement of those masses themselves, of an
+abandonment of their strength to an inevitable necessity, or a
+listless repose.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXVII.</span> There is virtue in the measure, and error in the
+excess, of both these characters of mind, and in both of the
+styles which they have created; the best architecture, and the
+best temper, are those which unite them both; and this fifth
+impulse of the Gothic heart is therefore that which needs most
+caution in its indulgence. It is more definitely Gothic than
+any other, but the best Gothic building is not that which is
+<i>most</i> Gothic: it can hardly be too frank in its confession of
+rudeness, hardly too rich in its changefulness, hardly too faithful
+in its naturalism; but it may go too far in its rigidity, and,
+like the great Puritan spirit in its extreme, lose itself either
+in frivolity of division, or perversity of purpose.<a name="FnAnchor_67" href="#Footnote_67"><span class="sp">67</span></a> It actually
+did so in its later times; but it is gladdening to remember
+that in its utmost nobleness, the very temper which has been
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206"></a>206</span>
+thought most adverse to it, the Protestant spirit of self-dependence
+and inquiry, was expressed in its every line. Faith
+and aspiration there were, in every Christian ecclesiastical
+building, from the first century to the fifteenth; but the moral
+habits to which England in this age owes the kind of greatness
+that she has,&mdash;the habits of philosophical investigation, of accurate
+thought, of domestic seclusion and independence, of
+stern self-reliance, and sincere upright searching into religious
+truth,&mdash;were only traceable in the features which were the
+distinctive creation of the Gothic schools, in the veined foliage,
+and thorny fretwork, and shadowy niche, and buttressed pier,
+and fearless height of subtle pinnacle and crested tower, sent
+like an &ldquo;unperplexed question up to Heaven.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_68" href="#Footnote_68"><span class="sp">68</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXVIII.</span> Last, because the least essential, of the constituent
+elements of this noble school, was placed that of <span class="sc">Redundance</span>,&mdash;the
+uncalculating bestowal of the wealth of its labor.
+There is, indeed, much Gothic, and that of the best period, in
+which this element is hardly traceable, and which depends for
+its effect almost exclusively on loveliness of simple design and
+grace of uninvolved proportion: still, in the most characteristic
+buildings, a certain portion of their effect depends upon
+accumulation of ornament; and many of those which have
+most influence on the minds of men, have attained it by means
+of this attribute alone. And although, by careful study of the
+school, it is possible to arrive at a condition of taste which
+shall be better contented by a few perfect lines than by a
+whole façade covered with fretwork, the building which only
+satisfies such a taste is not to be considered the best. For the
+very first requirement of Gothic architecture being, as we saw
+above, that it shall both admit the aid, and appeal to the admiration,
+of the rudest as well as the most refined minds, the
+richness of the work is, paradoxical as the statement may appear,
+a part of its humility. No architecture is so haughty as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207"></a>207</span>
+that which is simple; which refuses to address the eye, except
+in a few clear and forceful lines; which implies, in offering so
+little to our regards, that all it has offered is perfect; and disdains,
+either by the complexity or the attractiveness of its features,
+to embarrass our investigation, or betray us into delight.
+That humility, which is the very life of the Gothic school, is
+shown not only in the imperfection, but in the accumulation,
+of ornament. The inferior rank of the workman is often
+shown as much in the richness, as the roughness, of his work;
+and if the co-operation of every hand, and the sympathy of
+every heart, are to be received, we must be content to allow
+the redundance which disguises the failure of the feeble, and
+wins the regard of the inattentive. There are, however, far
+nobler interests mingling, in the Gothic heart, with the rude
+love of decorative accumulation: a magnificent enthusiasm,
+which feels as if it never could do enough to reach the fulness
+of its ideal; an unselfishness of sacrifice, which would rather
+cast fruitless labor before the altar than stand idle in the
+market; and, finally, a profound sympathy with the fulness
+and wealth of the material universe, rising out of that Naturalism
+whose operation we have already endeavored to define.
+The sculptor who sought for his models among the forest
+leaves, could not but quickly and deeply feel that complexity
+need not involve the loss of grace, nor richness that of repose;
+and every hour which he spent in the study of the minute and
+various work of Nature, made him feel more forcibly the barrenness
+of what was best in that of man: nor is it to be wondered
+at, that, seeing her perfect and exquisite creations poured
+forth in a profusion which conception could not grasp nor calculation
+sum, he should think that it ill became him to be
+niggardly of his own rude craftsmanship; and where he saw
+throughout the universe a faultless beauty lavished on measureless
+spaces of broidered field and blooming mountain, to
+grudge his poor and imperfect labor to the few stones that he
+had raised one upon another, for habitation or memorial. The
+years of his life passed away before his task was accomplished;
+but generation succeeded generation with unwearied enthusiasm,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208"></a>208</span>
+and the cathedral front was at last lost in the tapestry of
+its traceries, like a rock among the thickets and herbage of
+spring.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXIX.</span> We have now, I believe, obtained a view approaching
+to completeness of the various moral or imaginative
+elements which composed the inner spirit of Gothic architecture.
+We have, in the second place, to define its outward
+form.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as the Gothic spirit is made up of several elements,
+some of which may, in particular examples, be wanting, so
+the Gothic form is made up of minor conditions of form,
+some of which may, in particular examples, be imperfectly
+developed.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot say, therefore, that a building is either Gothic
+or not Gothic in form, any more than we can in spirit. We
+can only say that it is more or less Gothic, in proportion to
+the number of Gothic forms which it unites.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXX.</span> There have been made lately many subtle and
+ingenious endeavors to base the definition of Gothic form
+entirely upon the roof-vaulting; endeavors which are both
+forced and futile: for many of the best Gothic buildings in
+the world have roofs of timber, which have no more connexion
+with the main structure of the walls of the edifice than a hat
+has with that of the head it protects; and other Gothic buildings
+are merely enclosures of spaces, as ramparts and walls,
+or enclosures of gardens or cloisters, and have no roofs at all,
+in the sense in which the word &ldquo;roof&rdquo; is commonly accepted.
+But every reader who has ever taken the slightest interest in
+architecture must know that there is a great popular impression
+on this matter, which maintains itself stiffly in its old
+form, in spite of all ratiocination and definition; namely, that
+a flat lintel from pillar to pillar is Grecian, a round arch Norman
+or Romanesque, and a pointed arch Gothic.</p>
+
+<p>And the old popular notion, as far as it goes, is perfectly
+right, and can never be bettered. The most striking outward
+feature in all Gothic architecture is, that it is composed of
+pointed arches, as in Romanesque that it is in like manner
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209"></a>209</span>
+composed of round; and this distinction would be quite as
+clear, though the roofs were taken off every cathedral in
+Europe. And yet, if we examine carefully into the real force
+and meaning of the term &ldquo;roof&rdquo; we shall perhaps be able to
+retain the old popular idea in a definition of Gothic architecture
+which shall also express whatever dependence that architecture
+has upon true forms of roofing.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXI.</span> In <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_13">Chap. XIII.</a> of the first volume, the reader
+will remember that roofs were considered as generally divided
+into two parts; the roof proper, that is to say, the shell, vault,
+or ceiling, internally visible; and the roof-mask, which protects
+this lower roof from the weather. In some buildings
+these parts are united in one framework; but, in most, they
+are more or less independent of each other, and in nearly
+all Gothic buildings there is considerable interval between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Now it will often happen, as above noticed, that owing to
+the nature of the apartments required, or the materials at
+hand, the roof proper may be flat, coved, or domed, in buildings
+which in their walls employ pointed arches, and are, in
+the straitest sense of the word, Gothic in all other respects.
+Yet so far forth as the roofing alone is concerned, they are
+not Gothic unless the pointed arch be the principal form
+adopted either in the stone vaulting or the timbers of the roof
+proper.</p>
+
+<p>I shall say then, in the first place, that &ldquo;Gothic architecture
+is that which uses, if possible, the pointed arch in the roof
+proper.&rdquo; This is the first step in our definition.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXII.</span> Secondly. Although there may be many advisable
+or necessary forms for the lower roof or ceiling, there is,
+in cold countries exposed to rain and snow, only one advisable
+form for the roof-mask, and that is the gable, for this alone
+will throw off both rain and snow from all parts of its surface
+as speedily as possible. Snow can lodge on the top of a dome,
+not on the ridge of a gable. And thus, as far as roofing is
+concerned, the gable is a far more essential feature of Northern
+architecture than the pointed vault, for the one is a thorough
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210"></a>210</span>
+necessity, the other often a graceful conventionality: the gable
+occurs in the timber roof of every dwelling-house and every
+cottage, but not the vault; and the gable built on a polygonal
+or circular plan, is the origin of the turret and spire;<a name="FnAnchor_69" href="#Footnote_69"><span class="sp">69</span></a> and all
+the so-called aspiration of Gothic architecture is, as above
+noticed (Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_12">Chap. XII.</a> § <span class="scs">VI.</span>), nothing more than its developement.
+So that we must add to our definition another
+clause, which will be, at present, by far the most important,
+and it will stand thus: &ldquo;Gothic architecture is that which uses
+the pointed arch for the roof proper, and the gable for the
+roof-mask.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXIII.</span> And here, in passing, let us notice a principle as
+true in architecture as in morals. It is not the <i>compelled</i>, but
+the <i>wilful</i>, transgression of law which corrupts the character.
+Sin is not in the act, but in the choice. It is a law for Gothic
+architecture, that it shall use the pointed arch for its roof
+proper; but because, in many cases of domestic building, this
+becomes impossible for want of room (the whole height of the
+apartment being required everywhere), or in various other
+ways inconvenient, flat ceilings may be used, and yet the
+Gothic shall not lose its purity. But in the roof-mask, there
+can be no necessity nor reason for a change of form: the gable
+is the best; and if any other&mdash;dome, or bulging crown, or
+whatsoever else&mdash;be employed at all, it must be in pure
+caprice, and wilful transgression of law. And wherever,
+therefore, this is done, the Gothic has lost its character; it is
+pure Gothic no more.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. VIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_8"><img src="images/img211.jpg" width="300" height="139" alt="Fig. VIII." title="Fig. VIII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXIV.</span> And this last clause of the definition is to be
+more strongly insisted upon, because it includes multitudes of
+buildings, especially domestic, which are Gothic in spirit, but
+which we are not in the habit of embracing in our general conception
+of Gothic architecture; multitudes of street dwelling-houses
+and straggling country farm-houses, built with little
+care for beauty, or observance of Gothic laws in vaults or
+windows, and yet maintaining their character by the sharp
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211"></a>211</span>
+and quaint gables of the roofs. And, for the reason just
+given, a house is far more Gothic which has square windows,
+and a boldly gabled roof, than the one which has pointed
+arches for the windows, and a domed or flat roof. For it
+often happened in the best Gothic times, as it must in all
+times, that it was more easy and convenient to make a window
+square than pointed; not but that, as above emphatically
+stated, the richness of church architecture was also found in
+domestic; and systematically &ldquo;when the pointed arch was
+used in the church it was used in the street,&rdquo; only in all times
+there were cases in which men
+could not build as they would, and
+were obliged to construct their
+doors or windows in the readiest
+way; and this readiest way was
+then, in small work, as it will be
+to the end of time, to put a flat stone for a lintel and build the
+windows as in <a href="#fig_8">Fig. VIII.</a>; and the occurrence of such windows
+in a building or a street will not un-Gothicize them, so
+long as the bold gable roof be retained, and the spirit of the
+work be visibly Gothic in other respects. But if the roof be
+wilfully and conspicuously of any other form than the gable,&mdash;if
+it be domed, or Turkish, or Chinese,&mdash;the building has
+positive corruption mingled with its Gothic elements, in proportion
+to the conspicuousness of the roof; and, if not absolutely
+un-Gothicized, can maintain its character only by such
+vigor of vital Gothic energy in other parts as shall cause the
+roof to be forgotten, thrown off like an eschar from the living
+frame. Nevertheless, we must always admit that it <i>may</i> be
+forgotten, and that if the Gothic seal be indeed set firmly on the
+walls, we are not to cavil at the forms reserved for the tiles
+and leads. For, observe, as our definition at present stands,
+being understood of large roofs only, it will allow a conical
+glass-furnace to be a Gothic building, but will <i>not</i> allow so
+much, either of the Duomo of Florence, or the Baptistery of
+Pisa. We must either mend it, therefore, or understand it in
+some broader sense.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page212"></a>212</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXV.</span> And now, if the reader will look back to the fifth
+paragraph of <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_3">Chap. III.</a> Vol. I., he will find that I carefully
+extended my definition of a roof so as to include more than is
+usually understood by the term. It was there said to be the
+covering of a space, <i>narrow or wide</i>. It does not in the least
+signify, with respect to the real nature of the covering, whether
+the space protected be two feet wide, or ten; though in the
+one case we call the protection an arch, in the other a vault
+or roof. But the real point to be considered is, the manner in
+which this protection stands, and not whether it is narrow or
+broad. We call the vaulting of a bridge "an arch,&rdquo; because it
+is narrow with respect to the river it crosses; but if it were
+built above us on the ground, we should call it a waggon vault,
+because then we should feel the breadth of it. The real question
+is the nature of the curve, not the extent of space over
+which it is carried: and this is more the case with respect to
+Gothic than to any other architecture; for, in the greater
+number of instances, the form of the roof is entirely dependent
+on the ribs; the domical shells being constructed in all kinds
+of inclinations, quite undeterminable by the eye, and all that
+is definite in their character being fixed by the curves of the
+ribs.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. IX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_9"><img src="images/img212.jpg" width="80" height="97" alt="Fig. IX." title="Fig. IX." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. X.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_10"><img src="images/img213.jpg" width="197" height="800" alt="Fig. X." title="Fig. X." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXVI.</span> Let us then consider our definition as including
+the narrowest arch, or tracery bar, as well as the broadest roof,
+and it will be nearly a perfect one. For the fact is, that all
+good Gothic is nothing more than the developement, in various
+ways, and on every conceivable scale, of the group formed by
+the <i>pointed arch for the bearing line</i> below, and <i>the gable for
+the protecting line</i> above; and from the huge, gray,
+shaly slope of the cathedral roof, with its elastic
+pointed vaults beneath, to the slight crown-like
+points that enrich the smallest niche of its doorway,
+one law and one expression will be found in all.
+The modes of support and of decoration are infinitely
+various, but the real character of the building,
+in all good Gothic, depends upon the single lines of the
+gable over the pointed arch, <a href="#fig_9">Fig. IX.</a>, endlessly rearranged or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213"></a>213</span>
+repeated. The larger woodcut,
+<a href="#fig_10">Fig. X.</a>, represents three characteristic
+conditions of the treatment of
+the group: <i>a</i>, from a tomb at Verona
+(1328); <i>b</i>, one of the lateral
+porches at Abbeville; <i>c</i>, one of
+the uppermost points of the great
+western façade of Rouen Cathedral;
+both these last being, I believe,
+early work of the fifteenth
+century. The forms of the pure
+early English and French Gothic
+are too well known to need any
+notice; my reason will appear
+presently for choosing, by way of
+example, these somewhat rare conditions.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXVII.</span> But, first, let us try
+whether we cannot get the forms
+of the other great architectures of
+the world broadly expressed by relations
+of the same lines into which
+we have compressed the Gothic.
+We may easily do this if the reader
+will first allow me to remind him
+of the true nature of the pointed
+arch, as it was expressed in § <span class="scs">X.</span>
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_10">Chap. X.</a> of the first volume. It
+was said there, that it ought to be
+called a &ldquo;curved gable,&rdquo; for, strictly
+speaking, an &ldquo;arch&rdquo; cannot be
+&ldquo;pointed.&rdquo; The so-called pointed
+arch ought always to be considered
+as a gable, with its sides curved in
+order to enable them to bear pressure
+from without. Thus considering
+it, there are but three ways
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214"></a>214</span>
+in which an interval between piers can be bridged,&mdash;the three
+ways represented by <span class="scs">A</span>, <span class="scs">B</span>, and <span class="scs">C</span>, <a href="#fig_11">Fig. XI.</a>,<a name="FnAnchor_70" href="#Footnote_70"><span class="sp">70</span></a> on <a href="#page213">page 213</a>,&mdash;<span class="scs">A</span>, the
+lintel; <span class="scs">B</span>, the round arch; <span class="scs">C</span>, the gable. All the architects in
+the world will never discover any other ways of bridging a
+space than these three; they may vary the curve of the arch,
+or curve the sides of the gable, or break them; but in doing
+this they are merely modifying or subdividing, not adding to
+the generic forms.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXVIII.</span> Now there are three good architectures in the
+world, and there never can be more, correspondent to each of
+these three simple ways of covering in a space, which is the
+original function of all architectures. And those three architectures
+are <i>pure</i> exactly in proportion to the simplicity and
+directness with which they express the condition of roofing on
+which they are founded. They have many interesting varieties,
+according to their scale, manner of decoration, and character of
+the nations by whom they are practised, but all their varieties
+are finally referable to the three great heads:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">A</span>, Greek: Architecture of the Lintel.</p>
+<p><span class="scs">B</span>, Romanesque: Architecture of the Round Arch.</p>
+<p><span class="scs">C</span>, Gothic: Architecture of the Gable.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_11"><img src="images/img214.jpg" width="400" height="135" alt="Fig. XI." title="Fig. XI." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The three names, Greek, Romanesque, and Gothic, are
+indeed inaccurate when used in this vast sense, because they
+imply national limitations; but the three architectures may
+nevertheless not unfitly receive their names from those nations
+by whom they were carried to the highest perfections. We
+may thus briefly state their existing varieties.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXIX.</span> <span class="scs">A. GREEK:</span> Lintel Architecture. The worst of
+the three; and, considered with reference to stone construction,
+always in some measure barbarous. Its simplest type is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215"></a>215</span>
+Stonehenge; its most refined, the Parthenon; its noblest, the
+Temple of Karnak.</p>
+
+<p>In the hands of the Egyptian, it is sublime; in those of the
+Greek, pure; in those of the Roman, rich; and in those of the
+Renaissance builder, effeminate.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">B. Romanesque:</span> Round-arch Architecture. Never thoroughly
+developed until Christian times. It falls into two
+great branches, Eastern and Western, or Byzantine and Lombardic;
+changing respectively in process of time, with certain
+helps from each other, into Arabian Gothic and Teutonic
+Gothic. Its most perfect Lombardic type is the Duomo of
+Pisa; its most perfect Byzantine type (I believe), St. Mark&rsquo;s at
+Venice. Its highest glory is, that it has no corruption. It perishes
+in giving birth to another architecture as noble as itself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">C. Gothic:</span> Architecture of the Gable. The daughter of
+the Romanesque; and, like the Romanesque, divided into two
+great branches, Western and Eastern, or pure Gothic and
+Arabian Gothic; of which the latter is called Gothic, only
+because it has many Gothic forms, pointed arches, vaults, &amp;c.,
+but its spirit remains Byzantine, more especially in the form
+of the roof-mask, of which, with respect to these three great
+families, we have next to determine the typical form.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XC.</span> For, observe, the distinctions we have hitherto been
+stating, depend on the form of the stones first laid from pier
+to pier; that is to say, of the simplest condition of roofs
+proper. Adding the relations of the roof-mask to these lines,
+we shall have the perfect type of form for each school.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_12"><img src="images/img215.jpg" width="300" height="156" alt="Fig. XII." title="Fig. XII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In the Greek, the Western Romanesque, and Western
+Gothic, the roof-mask is the
+gable: in the Eastern Romanesque,
+and Eastern Gothic, it
+is the dome: but I have not
+studied the roofing of either
+of these last two groups, and
+shall not venture to generalize
+them in a diagram. But the three groups, in the hands of
+the Western builders, may be thus simply represented: <i>a</i>, <a href="#fig_12">Fig. XII.</a>,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216"></a>216</span>
+Greek;<a name="FnAnchor_71" href="#Footnote_71"><span class="sp">71</span></a> <i>b</i>, Western Romanesque; <i>c</i>, Western, or true,
+Gothic.</p>
+
+<p>Now, observe, first, that the relation of the roof-mask to the
+roof proper, in the Greek type, forms that pediment which
+gives its most striking character to the temple, and is the
+principal recipient of its sculptural decoration. The relation
+of these lines, therefore, is just as important in the Greek as in
+the Gothic schools.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_13"><img src="images/img216.jpg" width="300" height="283" alt="Fig. XIII." title="Fig. XIII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCI.</span> Secondly, the reader must observe the difference of
+steepness in the Romanesque and Gothic gables. This is not
+an unimportant distinction, nor an undecided one.  The
+Romanesque gable does not pass gradually into the more elevated
+form; there is a great gulf
+between the two; the whole effect
+of all Southern architecture
+being dependent upon the use
+of the flat gable, and of all
+Northern upon that of the
+acute. I need not here dwell
+upon the difference between the
+lines of an Italian village, or the
+flat tops of most Italian towers,
+and the peaked gables and
+spires of the North, attaining
+their most fantastic developement, I believe, in Belgium:
+but it may be well to state the law of separation, namely, that
+a Gothic gable <i>must</i> have all its angles acute, and a Romanesque
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217"></a>217</span>
+one <i>must</i> have the upper one obtuse: or, to give the reader
+a simple practical rule, take any gable, <i>a</i> or <i>b</i>, <a href="#fig_13">Fig. XIII.</a>, and
+strike a semicircle on its base; if its top rises above the semicircle,
+as at <i>b</i>, it is a Gothic gable; if it falls beneath it, a
+Romanesque one; but the best forms in each group are those
+which are distinctly steep, or distinctly low. In the figure <i>f</i>
+is, perhaps, the average of Romanesque slope, and <i>g</i> of Gothic.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XIV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_14"><img src="images/img217.jpg" width="650" height="250" alt="Fig. XIV." title="Fig. XIV." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCII</span>. But although we do not find a transition from one
+school into the other in the slope of the gables, there is often a
+confusion between the two schools in the association of the
+gable with the arch below it. It has just been stated that the
+pure Romanesque condition is the round arch under the low
+gable, <i>a</i>, <a href="#fig_14">Fig. XIV.</a>, and the pure Gothic condition is the pointed
+arch under the high gable, <i>b</i>. But in the passage from one
+style to the other, we sometimes find the two conditions reversed;
+the pointed arch under a low gable, as <i>d</i>, or the round
+arch under a high gable, as <i>c</i>. The form <i>d</i> occurs in the tombs
+of Verona, and <i>c</i> in the doors of Venice.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCIII</span>. We have thus determined the relation of Gothic to
+the other architectures of the world, as far as regards the main
+lines of its construction; but there is still one word which
+needs to be added to our definition of its form, with respect to
+a part of its decoration, which rises out of that construction.
+We have seen that the first condition of its form is, that it
+shall have pointed arches. When Gothic is perfect, therefore,
+it will follow that the pointed arches must be built in the
+strongest possible manner.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page218"></a>218</span></p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_15"><img src="images/img218.jpg" width="300" height="480" alt="Fig. XV." title="Fig. XV." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Now, if the reader will look back to <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_11">Chapter XI.</a> of Vol.
+I., he will find the subject of the masonry of the pointed
+arch discussed at length, and
+the conclusion deduced, that
+of all possible forms of the
+pointed arch (a certain weight
+of material being given), that
+generically represented at <i>e</i>,
+<a href="#fig_15">Fig. XV.</a>, is the strongest.
+In fact, the reader can see in
+a moment that the weakness
+of the pointed arch is in its
+flanks, and that by merely
+thickening them gradually at
+this point all chance of fracture
+is removed. Or, perhaps,
+more simply still:&mdash;Suppose
+a gable built of stone, as
+at <i>a</i>, and pressed upon from
+without by a weight in the direction
+of the arrow, clearly it
+would be liable to fall in, as at
+<i>b</i>. To prevent this, we make a pointed arch of it, as at <i>c</i>; and
+now it cannot fall inwards, but if pressed upon from above
+may give way outwards, as at <i>d</i>. But at last we build as at <i>e</i>,
+and now it can neither fall out nor in.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCIV</span>. The forms of arch thus obtained, with a pointed
+projection called a cusp on each side, must for ever be delightful
+to the human mind, as being expressive of the utmost
+strength and permanency obtainable with a given mass of
+material. But it was not by any such process of reasoning,
+nor with any reference to laws of construction, that the cusp
+was originally invented. It is merely the special application
+to the arch of the great ornamental system of <span class="sc">Foliation</span>; or
+the adaptation of the forms of leafage which has been above
+insisted upon as the principal characteristic of Gothic Naturalism.
+This love of foliage was exactly proportioned, in its
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219"></a>219</span>
+intensity, to the increase of strength in the Gothic spirit: in
+the Southern Gothic it is <i>soft</i> leafage that is most loved; in the
+Northern <i>thorny</i> leafage. And if we
+take up any Northern illuminated manuscript
+of the great Gothic time, we
+shall find every one of its leaf ornaments
+surrounded by a thorny structure
+laid round it in gold or in color; sometimes
+apparently copied faithfully from
+the prickly developement of the root of
+the leaf in the thistle, running along
+the stems and branches exactly as the
+thistle leaf does along its own stem,
+and with sharp spines proceeding from
+the points, as in <a href="#fig_16">Fig. XVI.</a> At other
+times, and for the most part in work in the thirteenth century,
+the golden ground takes the form of pure and severe cusps,
+sometimes enclosing the leaves, sometimes filling up the forks
+of the branches (as in the example fig. 1, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#plate_1">Plate I.</a> Vol. III.),
+passing imperceptibly from the distinctly vegetable condition
+(in which it is just as certainly
+representative of the thorn,
+as other parts of the design are of
+the bud, leaf, and fruit) into the
+crests on the necks, or the membranous
+sails of the wings, of serpents,
+dragons, and other grotesques,
+as in <a href="#fig_17">Fig. XVII.</a>, and into
+rich and vague fantasies of curvature;
+among which, however, the
+pure cusped system of the pointed
+arch is continually discernible, not
+accidentally, but designedly indicated, and connecting itself
+with the literally architectural portions of the design.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XVI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_16"><img src="images/img219a.jpg" width="200" height="286" alt="Fig. XVI." title="Fig. XVI." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XVII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_17"><img src="images/img219b.jpg" width="250" height="240" alt="Fig. XVII." title="Fig. XVII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCV</span>. The system, then, of what is called Foliation, whether
+simple, as in the cusped arch, or complicated, as in tracery,
+rose out of this love of leafage; not that the form of the arch
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220"></a>220</span>
+is intended to <i>imitate</i> a leaf, but <i>to be invested with the same
+characters of beauty which the designer had discovered in the
+leaf</i>. Observe, there is a wide difference between these two
+intentions. The idea that large Gothic structure, in arches
+and roofs, was intended to imitate vegetation is, as above
+noticed, untenable for an instant in the front of facts. But
+the Gothic builder perceived that, in the leaves which he
+copied for his minor decorations, there was a peculiar beauty,
+arising from certain characters of curvature in outline, and
+certain methods of subdivision and of radiation in structure.
+On a small scale, in his sculptures and his missal-painting, he
+copied the leaf or thorn itself; on a large scale he adopted
+from it its abstract sources of beauty, and gave the same kinds
+of curvatures and the same species of subdivision to the outline
+of his arches, so far as was consistent with their strength,
+never, in any single instance, suggesting the resemblance to
+leafage by <i>irregularity</i> of outline, but keeping the structure
+perfectly simple, and, as we have seen, so consistent with the
+best principles of masonry, that in the finest Gothic designs of
+arches, which are always <i>single</i> cusped (the cinquefoiled arch
+being licentious, though in early work often very lovely), it is
+literally impossible, without consulting the context of the
+building, to say whether the cusps have been added for the
+sake of beauty or of strength; nor, though in medićval architecture
+they were, I believe, assuredly first employed in mere
+love of their picturesque form, am I absolutely certain that
+their earliest invention was not a structural effort. For the
+earliest cusps with which I am acquainted are those used in
+the vaults of the great galleries of the Serapeum, discovered
+in 1850 by M. Maniette at Memphis, and described by Colonel
+Hamilton in a paper read in February last before the Royal
+Society of Literature.<a name="FnAnchor_72" href="#Footnote_72"><span class="sp">72</span></a> The roofs of its galleries were admirably
+shown in Colonel Hamilton&rsquo;s drawings made to scale
+upon the spot, and their profile is a cusped round arch, perfectly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221"></a>221</span>
+pure and simple; but whether thrown into this form for
+the sake of strength or of grace, I am unable to say.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCVI</span>. It is evident, however, that the structural advantage
+of the cusp is available only in the case of arches on a comparatively
+small scale. If the arch becomes very large, the
+projections under the flanks must become too ponderous to be
+secure; the suspended weight of stone would be liable to break
+off, and such arches are therefore never constructed with heavy
+cusps, but rendered secure by general mass of masonry; and
+what additional <i>appearance</i> of support may be thought necessary
+(sometimes a considerable degree of <i>actual</i> support) is
+given by means of tracery.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XVIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_18"><img src="images/img221.jpg" width="350" height="546" alt="Fig. XVIII." title="Fig. XVIII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCVII</span>. Of what I stated in the second chapter of the
+&ldquo;Seven Lamps&rdquo; respecting the nature of tracery, I need repeat
+here only this much, that it began in the use of penetrations
+through the stone-work
+of windows or walls, cut into
+forms which looked like stars
+when seen from within, and
+like leaves when seen from
+without: the name foil or
+feuille being universally applied
+to the separate lobes of
+their extremities, and the
+pleasure received from them
+being the same as that which
+we feel in the triple, quadruple,
+or other radiated leaves
+of vegetation, joined with the
+perception of a severely geometrical
+order and symmetry.
+A few of the most common
+forms are represented, unconfused
+by exterior mouldings,
+in <a href="#fig_18">Fig. XVIII.</a>, and the best
+traceries are nothing more than close clusters of such forms,
+with mouldings following their outlines.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page222"></a>222</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCVIII</span>. The term &ldquo;foliated,&rdquo; therefore, is equally descriptive
+of the most perfect conditions both of the simple arch and
+of the traceries by which, in later Gothic, it is filled; and this
+foliation is an essential character of the style. No Gothic is
+either good or characteristic which is not foliated either in its
+arches or apertures. Sometimes the bearing arches are foliated,
+and the ornamentation above composed of figure sculpture;
+sometimes the bearing arches are plain, and the ornamentation
+above them is composed of foliated apertures. But the element
+of foliation <i>must</i> enter somewhere, or the style is imperfect.
+And our final definition of Gothic will, therefore, stand
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Foliated</i> Architecture, which uses the pointed arch for
+the roof proper, and the gable for the roof-mask.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCIX</span>. And now there is but one point more to be examined,
+and we have done.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XIX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_19"><img src="images/img222.jpg" width="350" height="367" alt="Fig. XIX." title="Fig. XIX." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Foliation, while it is the most distinctive and peculiar, is
+also the easiest method of decoration which Gothic architecture
+possesses; and, although in
+the disposition of the proportions
+and forms of foils,
+the most noble imagination
+may be shown, yet a builder
+without imagination at
+all, or any other faculty of
+design, can produce some
+effect upon the mass of his
+work by merely covering
+it with foolish foliation.
+Throw any number of
+crossing lines together at
+random, as in <a href="#fig_19">Fig. XIX.</a>,
+and fill their squares and
+oblong openings with quatrefoils and cinquefoils, and you will
+immediately have what will stand, with most people, for very
+satisfactory Gothic. The slightest possible acquaintance with
+existing forms will enable any architect to vary his patterns of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223"></a>223</span>
+foliation with as much ease as he would those of a kaleidoscope,
+and to produce a building which the present European public
+will think magnificent, though there may not be, from foundation
+to coping, one ray of invention, or any other intellectual
+merit, in the whole mass of it. But floral decoration, and the
+disposition of mouldings, require some skill and thought; and,
+if they are to be agreeable at all, must be verily invented, or
+accurately copied. They cannot be drawn altogether at random,
+without becoming so commonplace as to involve detection:
+and although, as I have just said, the noblest imagination
+may be shown in the dispositions of traceries, there is far
+more room for its play and power when those traceries are
+associated with floral or animal ornament; and it is probable,
+<i>ŕ priori</i>, that, wherever true invention exists, such ornament
+will be employed in profusion.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">C.</span> Now, all Gothic may be divided into two vast schools,
+one early, the other late;<a name="FnAnchor_73" href="#Footnote_73"><span class="sp">73</span></a> of which the former, noble, inventive,
+and progressive, uses the element of foliation moderately,
+that of floral and figure sculpture decoration profusely; the
+latter, ignoble, uninventive, and declining, uses foliation immoderately,
+floral and figure sculpture subordinately. The
+two schools touch each other at that instant of momentous
+change, dwelt upon in the &ldquo;Seven Lamps,&rdquo; chap, ii., a period
+later or earlier in different districts, but which may be broadly
+stated as the middle of the fourteenth century; both styles
+being, of course, in their highest excellence at the moment
+when they meet, the one ascending to the point of junction,
+the one declining from it, but, at first, not in any marked
+degree, and only showing the characters which justify its being
+above called, generically, ignoble, as its declension reaches
+steeper slope.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CI.</span> Of these two great schools, the first uses foliation
+only in large and simple masses, and covers the minor members,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224"></a>224</span>
+cusps, &amp;c., of that foliation, with various sculpture. The
+latter decorates foliation itself with minor foliation, and breaks
+its traceries into endless and lace-like subdivision of tracery.</p>
+
+<p>A few instances will explain the difference clearly. Fig.
+2, <a href="#plate_12">Plate XII.</a>, represents half of an eight-foiled aperture from
+Salisbury; where the element of foliation is employed in the
+larger disposition of the starry form; but in the decoration
+of the cusp it has entirely disappeared, and the ornament is
+floral.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_12"><img src="images/img224.jpg" width="410" height="650" alt="LINEAR AND SURFACE GOTHIC." title="LINEAR AND SURFACE GOTHIC." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">LINEAR AND SURFACE GOTHIC.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But in fig. 1, which is part of a fringe round one of the
+later windows in Rouen Cathedral, the foliation is first carried
+boldly round the arch, and then each cusp of it divided into
+other forms of foliation. The two larger canopies of niches
+below, figs. 5 and 6, are respectively those seen at the flanks
+of the two uppermost examples of gabled Gothic in <a href="#fig_10">Fig. X.</a>,
+p. 213. Those examples were there chosen in order also to
+illustrate the distinction in the character of ornamentation
+which we are at present examining; and if the reader will
+look back to them, and compare their methods of treatment,
+he will at once be enabled to fix that distinction clearly in his
+mind. He will observe that in the uppermost the element
+of foliation is scrupulously confined to the bearing arches of
+the gable, and of the lateral niches, so that, on any given side
+of the monument, only three foliated arches are discernible.
+All the rest of the ornamentation is &ldquo;bossy sculpture,&rdquo; set on
+the broad marble surface. On the point of the gable are set
+the shield and dog-crest of the Scalas, with its bronze wings,
+as of a dragon, thrown out from it on either side; below, an
+admirably sculptured oak-tree fills the centre of the field;
+beneath it is the death of Abel, Abel lying dead upon his face
+on one side, Cain opposite, looking up to heaven in terror: the
+border of the arch is formed of various leafage, alternating
+with the scala shield; and the cusps are each filled by one
+flower, and two broad flowing leaves. The whole is exquisitely
+relieved by color; the ground being of pale red Verona
+marble, and the statues and foliage of white Carrara marble,
+inlaid.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page225"></a>225</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CII.</span> The figure below it, <i>b</i>, represents the southern lateral
+door of the principal church in Abbeville: the smallness of
+the scale compelled me to make it somewhat heavier in the
+lines of its traceries than it is in reality, but the door itself is
+one of the most exquisite pieces of flamboyant Gothic in the
+world; and it is interesting to see the shield introduced here,
+at the point of the gable, in exactly the same manner as in the
+upper example, and with precisely the same purpose,&mdash;to stay
+the eye in its ascent, and to keep it from being offended by
+the sharp point of the gable, the reversed angle of the shield
+being so energetic as completely to balance the upward tendency
+of the great convergent lines. It will be seen, however,
+as this example is studied, that its other decorations are altogether
+different from those of the Veronese tomb; that, here,
+the whole effect is dependent on mere multiplications of similar
+lines of tracery, sculpture being hardly introduced except in
+the seated statue under the central niche, and, formerly, in
+groups filling the shadowy hollows under the small niches in
+the archivolt, but broken away in the Revolution. And if
+now we turn to <a href="#plate_12">Plate XII.</a>, just passed, and examine the heads
+of the two lateral niches there given from each of these monuments
+on a larger scale, the contrast will be yet more apparent.
+The one from Abbeville (fig. 5), though it contains much
+floral work of the crisp Northern kind in its finial and crockets,
+yet depends for all its effect on the various patterns of
+foliation with which its spaces are filled; and it is so cut
+through and through that it is hardly stronger than a piece
+of lace: whereas the pinnacle from Verona depends for its
+effect on one broad mass of shadow, boldly shaped into the
+trefoil in its bearing arch; and there is no other trefoil on that
+side of the niche. All the rest of its decoration is floral, or
+by almonds and bosses; and its surface of stone is unpierced,
+and kept in broad light, and the mass of it thick and strong
+enough to stand for as many more centuries as it has already
+stood, scatheless, in the open street of Verona. The figures 3
+and 4, above each niche, show how the same principles are
+carried out into the smallest details of the two edifices, 3 being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226"></a>226</span>
+the moulding which borders the gable at Abbeville, and 4,
+that in the same position at Verona; and as thus in all cases
+the distinction in their treatment remains the same, the one
+attracting the eye to broad sculptured <i>surfaces</i>, the other to
+involutions of intricate <i>lines</i>, I shall hereafter characterize the
+two schools, whenever I have occasion to refer to them, the
+one as Surface-Gothic, the other as Linear-Gothic.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CIII.</span> Now observe: it is not, at present, the question,
+whether the form of the Veronese niche, and the design of its
+flower-work, be as good as they might have been; but simply,
+which of the two architectural principles is the greater and
+better. And this we cannot hesitate for an instant in deciding.
+The Veronese Gothic is strong in its masonry, simple
+in its masses, but perpetual in its variety. The late French
+Gothic is weak in masonry, broken in mass, and repeats the
+same idea continually. It is very beautiful, but the Italian
+Gothic is the nobler style.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CIV.</span> Yet, in saying that the French Gothic repeats one
+idea, I mean merely that it depends too much upon the foliation
+of its traceries. The disposition of the traceries themselves
+is endlessly varied and inventive; and indeed, the mind
+of the French workman was, perhaps, even richer in fancy
+than that of the Italian, only he had been taught a less noble
+style. This is especially to be remembered with respect to the
+subordination of figure sculpture above noticed as characteristic
+of the later Gothic.</p>
+
+<p>It is not that such sculpture is wanting; on the contrary,
+it is often worked into richer groups, and carried out with a
+perfection of execution, far greater than those which adorn
+the earlier buildings: but, in the early work, it is vigorous,
+prominent, and essential to the beauty of the whole; in the
+late work it is enfeebled, and shrouded in the veil of tracery,
+from which it may often be removed with little harm to the
+general effect.<a name="FnAnchor_74" href="#Footnote_74"><span class="sp">74</span></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page227"></a>227</span></p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_20"><img src="images/img227.jpg" width="150" height="534" alt="Fig. XX." title="Fig. XX." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CV.</span> Now the reader may rest assured that no principle of
+art is more absolute than this,&mdash;that a composition from which
+anything can be removed without doing mischief is always so
+far forth inferior. On this ground, therefore, if on no other,
+there can be no question, for a moment, which of the two
+schools is the greater; although there are many most noble
+works in the French traceried Gothic, having a sublimity of
+their own dependent on their extreme richness and grace of
+line, and for which we may be most grateful to their builders.
+And, indeed, the superiority of the Surface-Gothic
+cannot be completely felt, until we
+compare it with the more degraded Linear
+schools, as, for instance, with our own English
+Perpendicular. The ornaments of the
+Veronese niche, which we have used for our
+example, are by no means among the best of
+their school, yet they will serve our purpose
+for such a comparison. That of its pinnacle
+is composed of a single upright flowering
+plant, of which the stem shoots up through the
+centres of the leaves, and bears a pendent blossom,
+somewhat like that of the imperial lily.
+The leaves are thrown back from the stem with
+singular grace and freedom, and foreshortened,
+as if by a skilful painter, in the shallow marble
+relief. Their arrangement is roughly shown
+in the little woodcut at the side (<a href="#fig_20">Fig. XX.</a>);
+and if the reader will simply try the experiment
+for himself,&mdash;first, of covering a piece
+of paper with crossed lines, as if for accounts,
+and filling all the interstices with any foliation
+that comes into his head, as in Figure XIX. above; and
+then, of trying to fill the point of a gable with a piece of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228"></a>228</span>
+leafage like that in Figure XX. above, putting the figure itself
+aside,&mdash;he will presently find that more thought and invention
+are required to design this single minute pinnacle, than to cover
+acres of ground with English perpendicular.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CVI.</span> We have now, I believe, obtained a sufficiently accurate
+knowledge both of the spirit and form of Gothic architecture;
+but it may, perhaps, be useful to the general reader,
+if, in conclusion, I set down a few plain and practical rules
+for determining, in every instance, whether a given building
+be good Gothic or not, and, if not Gothic, whether its architecture
+is of a kind which will probably reward the pains of
+careful examination.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CVII.</span> First. Look if the roof rises in a steep gable, high
+above the walls. If it does not do this, there is something wrong;
+the building is not quite pure Gothic, or has been altered.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CVIII.</span> Secondly. Look if the principal windows and doors
+have pointed arches with gables over them. If not pointed
+arches, the building is not Gothic; if they have not any gables
+over them, it is either not pure, or not first-rate.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, it has the steep roof, the pointed arch, and
+gable all united, it is nearly certain to be a Gothic building of
+a very fine time.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CIX.</span> Thirdly. Look if the arches are cusped, or apertures
+foliated. If the building has met the first two conditions,
+it is sure to be foliated somewhere; but, if not everywhere,
+the parts which are unfoliated are imperfect, unless they are
+large bearing arches, or small and sharp arches in groups, forming
+a kind of foliation by their own multiplicity, and relieved
+by sculpture and rich mouldings. The upper windows, for instance,
+in the east end of Westminster Abbey are imperfect for
+want of foliation. If there be no foliation anywhere, the
+building is assuredly imperfect Gothic.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CX.</span> Fourthly. If the building meets all the first three
+conditions, look if its arches in general, whether of windows
+and doors, or of minor ornamentation, are carried on <i>true
+shafts with bases and capitals</i>. If they are, then the building
+is assuredly of the finest Gothic style. It may still, perhaps,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229"></a>229</span>
+be an imitation, a feeble copy, or a bad example of a noble
+style; but the manner of it, having met all these four conditions,
+is assuredly first-rate.</p>
+
+<p>If its apertures have not shafts and capitals, look if they
+are plain openings in the walls, studiously simple, and unmoulded
+at the sides; as, for instance, the arch in <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#plate_19">Plate XIX.</a>
+Vol. I. If so, the building may still be of the finest Gothic,
+adapted to some domestic or military service. But if the sides
+of the window be moulded, and yet there are no capitals at the
+spring of the arch, it is assuredly of an inferior school.</p>
+
+<p>This is all that is necessary to determine whether the building
+be of a fine Gothic style. The next tests to be applied are
+in order to discover whether it be good architecture or not:
+for it may be very impure Gothic, and yet very noble architecture;
+or it may be very pure Gothic, and yet, if a copy, or
+originally raised by an ungifted builder, very bad architecture.</p>
+
+<p>If it belong to any of the great schools of color, its criticism
+becomes as complicated, and needs as much care, as that of a piece
+of music, and no general rules for it can be given; but if not&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXI.</span> First. See if it looks as if it had been built by
+strong men; if it has the sort of roughness, and largeness, and
+nonchalance, mixed in places with the exquisite tenderness
+which seems always to be the sign-manual of the broad vision,
+and massy power of men who can see <i>past</i> the work they are
+doing, and betray here and there something like disdain for it.
+If the building has this character, it is much already in its
+favor; it will go hard but it proves a noble one. If it has not
+this, but is altogether accurate, minute, and scrupulous in its
+workmanship, it must belong to either the very best or the very
+worst of schools: the very best, in which exquisite design is
+wrought out with untiring and conscientious care, as in the
+Giottesque Gothic; or the very worst, in which mechanism
+has taken the place of design. It is more likely, in general,
+that it should belong to the worst than the best: so that, on
+the whole, very accurate workmanship is to be esteemed a bad
+sign; and if there is nothing remarkable about the building but
+its precision, it may be passed at once with contempt.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page230"></a>230</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXII.</span> Secondly. Observe if it be irregular, its different
+parts fitting themselves to different purposes, no one caring
+what becomes of them, so that they do their work. If one
+part always answers accurately to another part, it is sure to
+be a bad building; and the greater and more conspicuous the
+irregularities, the greater the chances are that it is a good one.
+For instance, in the Ducal Palace, of which a rough woodcut
+is given in <a href="#chap_8">Chap. VIII.</a>, the general idea is sternly symmetrical;
+but two windows are lower than the rest of the six; and
+if the reader will count the arches of the small arcade as far as
+to the great balcony, he will find it is not in the centre, but set
+to the right-hand side by the whole width of one of those arches.
+We may be pretty sure that the building is a good one; none
+but a master of his craft would have ventured to do this.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXIII.</span> Thirdly. Observe if all the traceries, capitals, and
+other ornaments are of perpetually varied design. If not, the
+work is assuredly bad.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXIV.</span> Lastly. <i>Read</i> the sculpture. Preparatory to reading
+it, you will have to discover whether it is legible (and, if
+legible, it is nearly certain to be worth reading). On a good
+building, the sculpture is <i>always</i> so set, and on such a scale,
+that at the ordinary distance from which the edifice is seen,
+the sculpture shall be thoroughly intelligible and interesting.
+In order to accomplish this, the uppermost statues will be ten
+or twelve feet high, and the upper ornamentation will be colossal,
+increasing in fineness as it descends, till on the foundation
+it will often be wrought as if for a precious cabinet in a
+king&rsquo;s chamber; but the spectator will not notice that the
+upper sculptures are colossal. He will merely feel that he can
+see them plainly, and make them all out at his ease.</p>
+
+<p>And, having ascertained this, let him set himself to read
+them. Thenceforward the criticism of the building is to be
+conducted precisely on the same principles as that of a book;
+and it must depend on the knowledge, feeling, and not a little
+on the industry and perseverance of the reader, whether, even
+in the case of the best works, he either perceive them to be
+great, or feel them to be entertaining.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_56" href="#FnAnchor_56"><span class="fn">56</span></a>  The third kind of ornament, the Renaissance, is that in which the inferior
+detail becomes principal, the executor of every minor portion being
+required to exhibit skill and possess knowledge as great as that which is
+possessed by the master of the design; and in the endeavor to endow him
+with this skill and knowledge, his own original power is overwhelmed, and
+the whole building becomes a wearisome exhibition of well-educated imbecility.
+We must fully inquire into the nature of this form of error, when
+we arrive at the examination of the Renaissance schools.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_57" href="#FnAnchor_57"><span class="fn">57</span></a> Vide Preface to &ldquo;Fair Maid of Perth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_58" href="#FnAnchor_58"><span class="fn">58</span></a> The Elgin marbles are supposed by many persons to be &ldquo;perfect.&rdquo; In
+the most important portions they indeed approach perfection, but only
+there. The draperies are unfinished, the hair and wool of the animals are
+unfinished, and the entire bas-reliefs of the frieze are roughly cut.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_59" href="#FnAnchor_59"><span class="fn">59</span></a> In the eighth chapter we shall see a remarkable instance of this sacrifice
+of symmetry to convenience in the arrangement of the windows of the
+Ducal Palace.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_60" href="#FnAnchor_60"><span class="fn">60</span></a> I am always afraid to use this word &ldquo;Composition;&rdquo; it is so utterly
+misused in the general parlance respecting art. Nothing is more common
+than to hear divisions of art into &ldquo;form, composition, and color,&rdquo; or &ldquo;light
+and shade and composition,&rdquo; or &ldquo;sentiment and composition,&rdquo; or it matters
+not what else and composition; the speakers in each case attaching a
+perfectly different meaning to the word, generally an indistinct one, and
+always a wrong one. Composition is, in plain English, &ldquo;putting together,&rdquo;
+and it means the putting together of lines, of forms, of colors, of shades,
+or of ideas. Painters compose in color, compose in thought, compose in
+form, and compose in effect: the word being of use merely in order to
+express a scientific, disciplined, and inventive arrangement of any of these,
+instead of a merely natural or accidental one.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_61" href="#FnAnchor_61"><span class="fn">61</span></a> Design is used in this place as expressive of the power to arrange
+lines and colors nobly. By facts, I mean facts perceived by the eye and
+mind, not facts accumulated by knowledge. See the chapter on Roman
+Renaissance (Vol. III. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#chap_2">Chap. II.</a>) for this distinction.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_62" href="#FnAnchor_62"><span class="fn">62</span></a> &ldquo;Earlier,&rdquo; that is to say, pre-Raphaelite ages. Men of this stamp will
+praise Claude, and such other comparatively debased artists; but they cannot
+taste the work of the thirteenth century.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_63" href="#FnAnchor_63"><span class="fn">63</span></a> Not selfish fear, caused by want of trust in God, or of resolution in the
+soul.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_64" href="#FnAnchor_64"><span class="fn">64</span></a> I reserve for another place the full discussion of this interesting subject,
+which here would have led me too far; but it must be noted, in passing,
+that this vulgar Purism, which rejects truth, not because it is vicious,
+but because it is humble, and consists not in choosing what is good, but in
+disguising what is rough, extends itself into every species of art. The most
+definite instance of it is the dressing of characters of peasantry in an opera
+or ballet scene; and the walls of our exhibitions are full of works of art
+which &ldquo;exalt nature&rdquo; in the same way, not by revealing what is great in
+the heart, but by smoothing what is coarse in the complexion. There is
+nothing, I believe, so vulgar, so hopeless, so indicative of an irretrievably
+base mind, as this species of Purism. Of healthy Purism carried to the utmost
+endurable length in this direction, exalting the heart first, and the
+features with it, perhaps the most characteristic instance I can give is Stothard&rsquo;s
+vignette to &ldquo;Jorasse,&rdquo; in Rogers&rsquo;s Italy; at least it would be so if it
+could be seen beside a real group of Swiss girls. The poems of Rogers,
+compared with those of Crabbe, are admirable instances of the healthiest
+Purism and healthiest Naturalism in poetry. The first great Naturalists of
+Christian art were Orcagna and Giotto.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_65" href="#FnAnchor_65"><span class="fn">65</span></a> The reader will understand this in a moment by glancing at <a href="#plate_20">Plate XX.</a>,
+the last in this volume, where the series 1 to 12 represents the change in
+one kind of leaf, from the Byzantine to the perfect Gothic.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_66" href="#FnAnchor_66"><span class="fn">66</span></a> The best art either represents the facts of its own day, or, if facts of
+the past, expresses them with accessories of the time in which the work was
+done. All good art, representing past events, is therefore full of the most
+frank anachronism, and always <i>ought</i> to be. No painter has any business to
+be an antiquarian. We do not want his impressions or suppositions respecting
+things that are past. We want his clear assertions respecting
+things present.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_67" href="#FnAnchor_67"><span class="fn">67</span></a> See the account of the meeting at Talla Linns, in 1682, given in the
+fourth chapter of the &ldquo;Heart of Midlothian.&rdquo; At length they arrived at
+the conclusion that &ldquo;they who owned (or allowed) such names as Monday,
+Tuesday, January, February, and so forth, served themselves heirs to the
+same if not greater punishment than had been denounced against the idolaters
+of old.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_68" href="#FnAnchor_68"><span class="fn">68</span></a> See the beautiful description of Florence in Elizabeth Browning&rsquo;s &ldquo;Casa
+Guidi Windows,&rdquo; which is not only a noble poem, but the only book I have
+seen which, favoring the Liberal cause in Italy, gives a just account of the
+incapacities of the modern Italian.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_69" href="#FnAnchor_69"><span class="fn">69</span></a> Salisbury spire is only a tower with a polygonal gabled roof of stone,
+and so also the celebrated spires of Caen and Coutances.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_70" href="#FnAnchor_70"><span class="fn">70</span></a> Or by the shaded portions of <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#fig_29">Fig. XXIX.</a> Vol. I.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_71" href="#FnAnchor_71"><span class="fn">71</span></a> The reader is not to suppose that Greek architecture had always, or
+often, flat ceilings, because I call its lintel the roof proper. He must remember
+I always use these terms of the first simple arrangements of materials
+that bridge a space; bringing in the real roof afterwards, if I can. In
+the case of Greek temples it would be vain to refer their structure to the
+real roof, for many were hypćthral, and without a roof at all. I am unfortunately
+more ignorant of Egyptian roofing than even of Arabian, so
+that I cannot bring this school into the diagram; but the gable appears to
+have been magnificently used for a bearing roof. Vide Mr. Fergusson&rsquo;s
+section of the Pyramid of Geezeh, &ldquo;Principles of Beauty in Art,&rdquo; Plate I.,
+and his expressions of admiration of Egyptian roof masonry, page 201.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_72" href="#FnAnchor_72"><span class="fn">72</span></a> See &lsquo;Athenćum,&rsquo; March 5th, 1853.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_73" href="#FnAnchor_73"><span class="fn">73</span></a> Late, and chiefly confined to Northern countries, so that the two
+schools may be opposed either as Early and Late Gothic, or (in the fourteenth
+century) as Southern and Northern Gothic.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_74" href="#FnAnchor_74"><span class="fn">74</span></a> In many of the best French Gothic churches, the groups of figures
+have been all broken away at the Revolution, without much harm to the
+picturesqueness, though with grievous loss to the historical value of the
+architecture: whereas, if from the niche at Verona we were to remove its
+floral ornaments, and the statue beneath it, nothing would remain but a
+rude square trefoiled shell, utterly valueless, or even ugly.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page231"></a>231</span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="chap_7"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<h5>GOTHIC PALACES.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I.</span> The buildings out of the remnants of which we have
+endeavored to recover some conception of the appearance of
+Venice during the Byzantine period, contribute hardly anything
+at this day to the effect of the streets of the city. They
+are too few and too much defaced to attract the eye or influence
+the feelings. The charm which Venice still possesses,
+and which for the last fifty years has rendered it the favorite
+haunt of all the painters of picturesque subject, is owing to
+the effect of the palaces belonging to the period we have now
+to examine, mingled with those of the Renaissance.</p>
+
+<p>This effect is produced in two different ways. The Renaissance
+palaces are not more picturesque in themselves than the
+club-houses of Pall Mall; but they become delightful by the
+contrast of their severity and refinement with the rich and
+rude confusion of the sea life beneath them, and of their
+white and solid masonry with the green waves. Remove
+from beneath them the orange sails of the fishing boats, the
+black gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough
+crews of the barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green
+water along their foundations, and the Renaissance palaces
+possess no more interest than those of London or Paris. But
+the Gothic palaces are picturesque in themselves, and wield
+over us an independent power. Sea and sky, and every other
+accessory might be taken away from them, and still they
+would be beautiful and strange. They are not less striking in
+the loneliest streets of Padua and Vicenza (where many were
+built during the period of the Venetian authority in those
+cities) than in the most crowded thoroughfares of Venice
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232"></a>232</span>
+itself; and if they could be transported into the midst of
+London, they would still not altogether lose their power over
+the feelings.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II.</span> The best proof of this is in the perpetual attractiveness
+of all pictures, however poor in skill, which have taken
+for their subject the principal of these Gothic buildings, the
+Ducal Palace. In spite of all architectural theories and teachings,
+the paintings of this building are always felt to be delightful;
+we cannot be wearied by them, though often sorely
+tried; but we are not put to the same trial in the case of the
+palaces of the Renaissance. They are never drawn singly, or
+as the principal subject, nor can they be. The building which
+faces the Ducal Palace on the opposite side of the Piazzetta is
+celebrated among architects, but it is not familiar to our eyes;
+it is painted only incidentally, for the completion, not the subject,
+of a Venetian scene; and even the Renaissance arcades
+of St. Mark&rsquo;s Place, though frequently painted, are always
+treated as a mere avenue to its Byzantine church and colossal
+tower. And the Ducal Palace itself owes the peculiar charm
+which we have hitherto felt, not so much to its greater size as
+compared with other Gothic buildings, or nobler design (for
+it never yet has been rightly drawn), as to its comparative isolation.
+The other Gothic structures are as much injured by
+the continual juxtaposition of the Renaissance palaces, as the
+latter are aided by it; they exhaust their own life by breathing
+it into the Renaissance coldness: but the Ducal Palace
+stands comparatively alone, and fully expresses the Gothic
+power.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_21"><img src="images/img233.jpg" width="350" height="219" alt="Fig. XXI." title="Fig. XXI." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III.</span> And it is just that it should be so seen, for it is the
+original of nearly all the rest. It is not the elaborate and more
+studied developement of a national style, but the great and
+sudden invention of one man, instantly forming a national
+style, and becoming the model for the imitation of every architect
+in Venice for upwards of a century. It was the determination
+of this one fact which occupied me the greater part of the
+time I spent in Venice. It had always appeared to me most
+strange that there should be in no part of the city any incipient
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233"></a>233</span>
+or imperfect types of the form of the Ducal Palace; it was
+difficult to believe that so mighty a building had been the conception
+of one man, not only in disposition and detail, but in
+style; and yet impossible, had it been otherwise, but that some
+early examples of approximate Gothic form must exist. There
+is not one. The palaces built between the final cessation of
+the Byzantine style, about 1300, and the date of the Ducal
+Palace (1320-1350), are all completely distinct in character, so
+distinct that I at first intended the account of them to form a
+separate section of this volume; and there is literally <i>no</i> transitional
+form between them and the perfection of the Ducal
+Palace. Every Gothic building in Venice which resembles the
+latter is a copy of it. I do not mean that there was no Gothic
+in Venice before the Ducal Palace, but that the mode of
+its application to domestic architecture had not been determined.
+The real root of the Ducal Palace is the apse of the
+church of the Frari. The traceries of that apse, though earlier
+and ruder in workmanship, are nearly the same in mouldings,
+and precisely the same in treatment (especially in the placing
+of the lions&rsquo; heads), as those of the great Ducal Arcade; and
+the originality of thought in the architect of the Ducal Palace
+consists in his having adapted those traceries, in a more highly
+developed and finished form, to civil uses. In the apse of the
+church they form narrow and tall window lights, somewhat
+more massive than those of Northern Gothic, but similar in
+application: the thing to be done was to adapt these traceries
+to the forms of domestic
+building necessitated by national
+usage. The early palaces
+consisted, as we have
+seen, of arcades sustaining
+walls faced with marble, rather
+broad and long than elevated.
+This form was kept
+for the Ducal Palace; but instead
+of round arches from shaft to shaft, the Frari traceries
+were substituted, with two essential modifications. Besides
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234"></a>234</span>
+being enormously increased in scale and thickness, that they
+might better bear the superincumbent weight, the quatrefoil,
+which in the Frari windows is above the arch, as at <i>a</i>, <a href="#fig_21">Fig.
+XXI.</a>, on previous page, was, in the Ducal Palace, put between
+the arches, as at <i>b</i>; the main reason for this alteration being
+that the bearing power of the arches, which was now to be
+trusted with the weight of a wall forty feet high,<a name="FnAnchor_75" href="#Footnote_75"><span class="sp">75</span></a> was thus
+thrown <i>between</i> the quatrefoils, instead of
+under them, and thereby applied at far better
+advantage. And, in the second place, the
+joints of the masonry were changed. In the
+Frari (as often also in St. John and St. Paul&rsquo;s)
+the tracery is formed of two simple cross bars
+or slabs of stone, pierced into the requisite
+forms, and separated by a horizontal joint,
+just on a level with the lowest cusp of the
+quatrefoils, as seen in <a href="#fig_21">Fig. XXI.</a>, <i>a</i>. But at
+the Ducal Palace the horizontal joint is in the centre of the
+quatrefoils, and two others are introduced beneath it at right
+angles to the run of the mouldings, as seen in <a href="#fig_21">Fig. XXI.</a>, <i>b</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_76" href="#Footnote_76"><span class="sp">76</span></a>
+The Ducal Palace builder was sternly resolute in carrying out
+this rule of masonry. In the traceries of the large upper windows,
+where the cusps are cut through as in the quatrefoil <a href="#fig_22">Fig.
+XXII.</a>, the lower cusp is left partly solid, as at <i>a</i>, merely that
+the joint <i>a b</i> may have its right place and direction.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_22"><img src="images/img234.jpg" width="150" height="212" alt="Fig. XXII." title="Fig. XXII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV.</span> The ascertaining the formation of the Ducal Palace
+traceries from those of the Frari, and its priority to all other
+buildings which resemble it in Venice, rewarded me for a
+great deal of uninteresting labor in the examination of mouldings
+and other minor features of the Gothic palaces, in which
+alone the internal evidence of their date was to be discovered,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235"></a>235</span>
+there being no historical records whatever respecting them.
+But the accumulation of details on which the complete proof
+of the fact depends, could not either be brought within the
+compass of this volume, or be made in anywise interesting to
+the general reader. I shall therefore, without involving myself
+in any discussion, give a brief account of the developement
+of Gothic design in Venice, as I believe it to have taken
+place. I shall possibly be able at some future period so to
+compress the evidence on which my conviction rests, as to
+render it intelligible to the public, while, in the meantime,
+some of the more essential points of it are thrown together in
+the Appendix, and in the history of the Ducal Palace given
+in the next chapter.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V.</span> According, then, to the statement just made, the
+Gothic architecture of Venice is divided into two great periods:
+one, in which, while various irregular Gothic tendencies are
+exhibited, no consistent type of domestic building was developed;
+the other, in which a formed and consistent school of
+domestic architecture resulted from the direct imitation of the
+great design of the Ducal Palace. We must deal with these
+two periods separately; the first of them being that which has
+been often above alluded to, under the name of the transitional
+period.</p>
+
+<p>We shall consider in succession the general form, the windows,
+doors, balconies, and parapets, of the Gothic palaces belonging
+to each of these periods.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI.</span> First. General Form.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that the wrecks of the Byzantine palaces
+consisted merely of upper and lower arcades surrounding cortiles;
+the disposition of the interiors being now entirely
+changed, and their original condition untraceable. The
+entrances to these early buildings are, for the most part, merely
+large circular arches, the central features of their continuous
+arcades: they do not present us with definitely separated windows
+and doors.</p>
+
+<p>But a great change takes place in the Gothic period.
+These long arcades break, as it were, into pieces, and coagulate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236"></a>236</span>
+into central and lateral windows, and small arched doors,
+pierced in great surfaces of brick wall. The sea story of a
+Byzantine palace consists of seven, nine, or more arches in a
+continuous line; but the sea story of a Gothic palace consists
+of a door and one or two windows on each side, as in a modern
+house. The first story of a Byzantine palace consists of, perhaps,
+eighteen or twenty arches, reaching from one side of the
+house to the other; the first story of a Gothic palace consists
+of a window of four or five lights in the centre, and one or
+two single windows on each side. The germ, however, of the
+Gothic arrangement is already found in the Byzantine, where,
+as we have seen, the arcades, though continuous, are always
+composed of a central mass and two wings of smaller arches.
+The central group becomes the door or the middle light of the
+Gothic palace, and the wings break into its lateral windows.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII.</span> But the most essential difference in the entire arrangement,
+is the loss of the unity of conception which, regulated
+Byzantine composition. How subtle the sense of gradation
+which disposed the magnitudes of the early palaces we
+have seen already, but I have not hitherto noticed that the
+Byzantine work was centralized in its ornamentation as much
+as in its proportions. Not only were the lateral capitals and
+archivolts kept comparatively plain, while the central ones
+were sculptured, but the midmost piece of sculpture, whatever
+it might be,&mdash;capital, inlaid circle, or architrave,&mdash;was always
+made superior to the rest. In the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, for
+instance, the midmost capital of the upper arcade is the key
+to the whole group, larger and more studied than all the rest;
+and the lateral ones are so disposed as to answer each other
+on the opposite sides, thus, <span class="scs">A</span> being put for the central one,</p>
+
+<p class="center scs" style="letter-spacing: 0.5em; ">F E B C <b>A</b> C B E F,</p>
+
+<p>a sudden break of the system being admitted in one unique
+capital at the extremity of the series.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VIII.</span> Now, long after the Byzantine arcades had been contracted
+into windows, this system of centralization was more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237"></a>237</span>
+or less maintained; and in all the early groups of windows of
+five lights the midmost capital is different from the two on
+each side of it, which always correspond. So strictly is this
+the case, that whenever the capitals of any group of windows
+are not centralized in this manner, but are either entirely like
+each other, or all different, so as to show no correspondence,
+it is a certain proof, even if no other should exist, of the comparative
+lateness of the building.</p>
+
+<p>In every group of windows in Venice which I was able to
+examine, and which were centralized in this manner, I found
+evidence in their mouldings of their being <i>anterior</i> to the
+Ducal Palace. That palace did away with the subtle proportion
+and centralization of the Byzantine. Its arches are of
+equal width, and its capitals are all different and ungrouped;
+some, indeed, are larger than the rest, but this is not for the
+sake of proportion, only for particular service when more
+weight is to be borne. But, among other evidences of the
+early date of the sea façade of that building, is one subtle and
+delicate concession to the system of centralization which is
+finally closed. The capitals of the upper arcade are, as I said,
+all different, and show no arranged correspondence with each
+other; but <i>the central one is of pure Parian marble</i>, while
+all the others are of Istrian stone.</p>
+
+<p>The bold decoration of the central window and balcony
+above, in the Ducal Palace, is only a peculiar expression of the
+principality of the central window, which was characteristic of
+the Gothic period not less than of the Byzantine. In the
+private palaces the central windows become of importance by
+their number of lights; in the Ducal Palace such an arrangement
+was, for various reasons, inconvenient, and the central
+window, which, so far from being more important than the
+others, is every way inferior in design to the two at the eastern
+extremity of the façade, was nevertheless made the leading
+feature by its noble canopy and balcony.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IX.</span> Such being the principal differences in the general
+conception of the Byzantine and Gothic palaces, the particulars
+in the treatment of the latter are easily stated. The marble
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238"></a>238</span>
+facings are gradually removed from the walls; and the
+bare brick either stands forth confessed boldly, contrasted with
+the marble shafts and archivolts of the windows, or it is covered
+with stucco painted in fresco, of which more hereafter.
+The Ducal Palace, as in all other respects, is an exact expression
+of the middle point in the change. It still retains marble
+facing; but instead of being disposed in slabs as in the Byzantine
+times, it is applied in solid bricks or blocks of marble, 11&frac12;
+inches long, by 6 inches high.</p>
+
+<p>The stories of the Gothic palaces are divided by string
+courses, considerably bolder in projection than those of the
+Byzantines, and more highly decorated; and while the angles
+of the Byzantine palaces are quite sharp and pure, those of
+the Gothic palaces are wrought into a chamfer, filled by small
+twisted shafts which have capitals under the cornice of each
+story.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">X.</span> These capitals are little observed in the general effect,
+but the shafts are of essential importance in giving an aspect
+of firmness to the angle; a point of peculiar necessity in Venice,
+where, owning to the various convolutions of the canals, the
+angles of the palaces are not only frequent, but often necessarily
+<i>acute</i>, every inch of ground being valuable. In other
+cities, the appearance as well as the assurance of stability can
+always be secured by the use of massy stones, as in the fortress
+palaces of Florence; but it must have been always desirable at
+Venice to build as lightly as possible, in consequence of the
+comparative insecurity of the foundations. The early palaces
+were, as we have seen, perfect models of grace and lightness,
+and the Gothic, which followed, though much more massive
+in the style of its details, never admitted more weight into
+its structure than was absolutely necessary for its strength,
+Hence, every Gothic palace has the appearance of enclosing
+as many rooms, and attaining as much strength, as is possible,
+with a minimum quantity of brick and stone. The traceries
+of the windows, which in Northern Gothic only support the
+<i>glass</i>, at Venice support the <i>building</i>; and thus the greater
+ponderousness of the <i>traceries</i> is only an indication of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239"></a>239</span>
+greater lightness of the <i>structure</i>. Hence, when the Renaissance
+architects give their opinions as to the stability of the
+Ducal Palace when injured by fire, one of them, Christofore
+Sorte, says, that he thinks it by no means laudable that the
+&ldquo;Serenissimo Dominio&rdquo; of the Venetian senate &ldquo;should live
+in a palace built in the air.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_77" href="#Footnote_77"><span class="sp">77</span></a> And again, Andrea della Valle
+says, that<a name="FnAnchor_78" href="#Footnote_78"><span class="sp">78</span></a> &ldquo;the wall of the saloon is thicker by fifteen inches
+than the shafts below it, projecting nine inches within, and six
+without, <i>standing as if in the air</i>, above the piazza;&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_79" href="#Footnote_79"><span class="sp">79</span></a> and yet
+this wall is so nobly and strongly knit together, that Rusconi,
+though himself altogether devoted to the Renaissance school,
+declares that the fire which had destroyed the whole interior
+of the palace had done this wall no more harm than the bite of
+a fly to an elephant. &ldquo;Troveremo che el danno che ha patito
+queste muraglie sarŕ conforme alla beccatura d&rsquo; una mosca fatta
+ad un elefante.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_80" href="#Footnote_80"><span class="sp">80</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XI</span>. And so in all the other palaces built at the time, consummate
+strength was joined with a lightness of form and
+sparingness of material which rendered it eminently desirable
+that the eye should be convinced, by every possible expedient,
+of the stability of the building; and these twisted pillars at
+the angles are not among the least important means adopted
+for this purpose, for they seem to bind the walls together as a
+cable binds a chest. In the Ducal Palace, where they are
+carried up the angle of an unbroken wall forty feet high, they
+are divided into portions, gradually diminishing in length
+towards the top, by circular bands or rings, set with the nail-head
+or dog-tooth ornament, vigorously projecting, and giving
+the column nearly the aspect of the stalk of a reed; its diminishing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240"></a>240</span>
+proportions being exactly arranged as they are by
+Nature in all jointed plants. At the top of the palace, like
+the wheat-stalk branching into the ear of corn, it expands
+into a small niche with a pointed canopy, which joins with the
+fantastic parapet in at once relieving, and yet making more
+notable by its contrast, the weight of massy wall below. The
+arrangement is seen in the woodcut, <a href="#chap_8">Chap. VIII.</a>; the angle
+shafts being slightly exaggerated in thickness, together with
+their joints, as otherwise they would hardly have been intelligible
+on so small a scale.</p>
+
+<p>The Ducal Palace is peculiar in these niches at the angles,
+which throughout the rest of the city appear on churches
+only; but some may perhaps have been removed by restorations,
+together with the parapets with which they were associated.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_23"><img src="images/img240.jpg" width="500" height="296" alt="Fig. XXIII." title="Fig. XXIII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XII</span>. Of these roof parapets of Venice, it has been already
+noticed that the examples which remain differ from those of
+all other cities of Italy in their purely ornamental character.
+(<a href="#chap_1">Chap. I.</a> § <span class="scs">XII</span>.) They are not battlements, properly so-called;
+still less machicolated cornices, such as crown the fortress
+palaces of the great mainland nobles; but merely adaptations
+of the light and crown-like ornaments which crest the walls of
+the Arabian mosque. Nor are even these generally used on
+the main walls of the palaces themselves. They occur on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241"></a>241</span>
+Ducal Palace, on the Casa d&rsquo; Oro, and, some years back, were
+still standing on the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi; but the majority of
+the Gothic Palaces have the plain dog-tooth cornice under the
+tiled projecting roof (Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_14">Chap. XIV.</a> § <span class="scs">IV</span>.); and the
+highly decorated parapet is employed only on the tops of walls
+which surround courts or gardens, and which, without such
+decoration, would have been utterly devoid of interest. <a href="#fig_23">Fig.
+XXIII.</a> represents, at <i>b</i>, part of a parapet of this kind which
+surrounds the courtyard of a palace in the Calle del Bagatin,
+between San G. Grisostomo, and San Canzian: the whole is
+of brick, and the mouldings peculiarly sharp and varied; the
+height of each separate pinnacle being about four feet, crowning
+a wall twelve or fifteen feet high: a piece of the moulding
+which surrounds the quatrefoil is given larger in the figure at
+<i>a</i>, together with the top of the small arch below, having the
+common Venetian dentil round it, and a delicate little moulding
+with dog-tooth ornament to carry the flanks of the arch.
+The moulding of the brick is throughout sharp and beautiful
+in the highest degree. One of the most curious points about
+it is the careless way in which the curved outlines of the pinnacles
+are cut into the plain brickwork, with no regard whatever
+to the places of its joints. The weather of course wears
+the bricks at the exposed joints, and jags the outline a little;
+but the work has stood, evidently from the fourteenth century,
+without sustaining much harm.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIII.</span> This parapet may be taken as a general type of the
+<i>wall</i>-parapet of Venice in the Gothic period; some being much
+less decorated, and others much more richly: the most beautiful
+in Venice is in the little Calle, opening on the Campo and
+Traghetto San Samuele; it has delicately carved devices in
+stone let into each pinnacle.</p>
+
+<p>The parapets of the palaces themselves were lighter and
+more fantastic, consisting of narrow lance-like spires of marble,
+set between the broader pinnacles, which were in such cases generally
+carved into the form of a fleur-de-lis: the French word
+gives the reader the best idea of the form, though he must
+remember that this use of the lily for the parapets has nothing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242"></a>242</span>
+to do with France, but is the carrying out of the Byzantine
+system of floral ornamentation, which introduced the outline
+of the lily everywhere; so that I have found it convenient to
+call its most beautiful capitals, the <i>lily</i> capitals of St. Mark&rsquo;s.
+But the occurrence of this flower, more distinctly than usual,
+on the battlements of the Ducal Palace, was the cause of some
+curious political speculation in the year 1511, when a piece of
+one of these battlements was shaken down by the great earthquake
+of that year. Sanuto notes in his diary that &ldquo;the piece
+that fell was just that which bore the lily,&rdquo; and records sundry
+sinister anticipations, founded on this important omen, of impending
+danger to the adverse French power. As there happens,
+in the Ducal Palace, to be a joint in the pinnacles which
+exactly separates the &ldquo;part which bears the lily&rdquo; from that
+which is fastened to the cornice, it is no wonder that the omen
+proved fallacious.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIV.</span> The decorations of the parapet were completed by
+attaching gilded balls of metal to the extremities of the leaves
+of the lilies, and of the intermediate spires, so as literally to
+form for the wall a diadem of silver touched upon the points
+with gold; the image being rendered still more distinct in the
+Casa d&rsquo; Oro, by variation in the height of the pinnacles, the
+highest being in the centre of the front.</p>
+
+<p>Very few of these light roof parapets now remain; they
+are, of course, the part of the building which dilapidation first
+renders it necessary to remove. That of the Ducal Palace,
+however, though often, I doubt not, restored, retains much of
+the ancient form, and is exceedingly beautiful, though it has
+no appearance from below of being intended for protection,
+but serves only, by its extreme lightness, to relieve the eye
+when wearied by the breadth of wall beneath; it is nevertheless
+a most serviceable defence for any person walking along
+the edge of the roof. It has some appearance of insecurity,
+owing to the entire independence of the pieces of stone composing
+it, which, though of course fastened by iron, look as if
+they stood balanced on the cornice like the pillars of Stonehenge;
+but I have never heard of its having been disturbed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243"></a>243</span>
+by anything short of an earthquake; and, as we have seen,
+even the great earthquake of 1511, though it much injured
+the Gorne, or battlements at the Casa d&rsquo; Oro, and threw down
+several statues at St. Mark&rsquo;s,<a name="FnAnchor_81" href="#Footnote_81"><span class="sp">81</span></a> only shook one lily from the
+brow of the Ducal Palace.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXIV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_24"><img src="images/img243.jpg" width="300" height="549" alt="Fig. XXIV." title="Fig. XXIV." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XV.</span> Although, however, these light and fantastic forms
+appear to have been universal in the battlements meant primarily
+for decoration, there was
+another condition of parapet altogether
+constructed for the protection
+of persons walking on the
+roofs or in the galleries of the
+churches, and from these more
+substantial and simple defences,
+the <span class="sc">Balconies</span>, to which the Gothic
+palaces owe half of their picturesque
+effect, were immediately derived;
+the balcony being, in fact,
+nothing more than a portion of
+such roof parapets arranged round
+a projecting window-sill sustained
+on brackets, as in the central example
+of the annexed figure. We
+must, therefore, examine these
+defensive balustrades and the derivative
+balconies consecutively.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page244"></a>244</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVI.</span> Obviously, a parapet with an unbroken edge, upon
+which the arm may rest (a condition above noticed, Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#page157">p.
+157.</a>, as essential to the proper performance of its duty), can be
+constructed only in one of three ways. It must either be (1)
+of solid stone, decorated, if at all, by mere surface sculpture,
+as in the uppermost example in <a href="#fig_24">Fig. XXIV.</a>, above; or (2)
+pierced into some kind of tracery, as in the second; or (3)
+composed of small pillars carrying a level bar of stone, as in
+the third; this last condition being, in a diseased and swollen
+form, familiar to us in the balustrades of our bridges.<a name="FnAnchor_82" href="#Footnote_82"><span class="sp">82</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVII.</span> (1.) Of these three kinds, the first, which is employed
+for the pulpit at Torcello and in the nave of St. Mark&rsquo;s,
+whence the uppermost example is taken, is beautiful when
+sculpture so rich can be employed upon it; but it is liable to
+objection, first, because it is heavy and unlike a parapet when
+seen from below; and, secondly, because it is inconvenient in
+use. The position of leaning over a balcony becomes cramped
+and painful if long continued, unless the foot can be sometimes
+advanced <i>beneath</i> the ledge on which the arm leans, i. e.
+between the balusters or traceries, which of course cannot be
+done in the solid parapet: it is also more agreeable to be able
+to see partially down through the penetrations, than to be
+obliged to lean far over the edge. The solid parapet was
+rarely used in Venice after the earlier ages.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVIII.</span> (2.) The Traceried Parapet is chiefly used in the
+Gothic of the North, from which the above example, in the
+Casa Contarini Fasan, is directly derived. It is, when well
+designed, the richest and most beautiful of all forms, and
+many of the best buildings of France and Germany are dependent
+for half their effect upon it; its only fault being a
+slight tendency to fantasticism. It was never frankly received
+in Venice, where the architects had unfortunately returned to
+the Renaissance forms before the flamboyant parapets were
+fully developed in the North; but, in the early stage of the
+Renaissance, a kind of pierced parapet was employed, founded
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245"></a>245</span>
+on the old Byzantine interwoven traceries; that is to say, the
+slab of stone was pierced here and there with holes, and then
+an interwoven pattern traced on the surface round them. The
+difference in system will be understood in a moment by comparing
+the uppermost example in
+the figure at the side, which is a
+Northern parapet from the Cathedral
+of Abbeville, with the lowest,
+from a secret chamber in the Casa
+Foscari. It will be seen that the
+Venetian one is far more simple
+and severe, yet singularly piquant,
+the black penetrations telling sharply
+on the plain broad surface. Far inferior
+in beauty, it has yet one point
+of superiority to that of Abbeville,
+that it proclaims itself more definitely
+to be stone. The other has
+rather the look of lace.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_25"><img src="images/img245.jpg" width="250" height="369" alt="Fig. XXV." title="Fig. XXV." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The intermediate figure is a panel of the main balcony of
+the Ducal Palace, and is introduced here as being an exactly
+transitional condition between the Northern and Venetian
+types. It was built when the German Gothic workmen were
+exercising considerable influence over those in Venice, and
+there was some chance of the Northern parapet introducing
+itself. It actually did so, as above shown, in the Casa Contarini
+Fasan, but was for the most part stoutly resisted and kept
+at bay by the Byzantine form, the lowest in the last figure,
+until that form itself was displaced by the common, vulgar,
+Renaissance baluster; a grievous loss, for the severe pierced
+type was capable of a variety as endless as the fantasticism of
+our own Anglo-Saxon manuscript ornamentation.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIX.</span> (3.) The Baluster Parapet. Long before the idea of
+tracery had suggested itself to the minds either of Venetian
+or any other architects, it had, of course, been necessary to
+provide protection for galleries, edges of roofs, &amp;c.; and the
+most natural form in which such protection could be obtained
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246"></a>246</span>
+was that of a horizontal bar or hand-rail, sustained upon short
+shafts or balusters, as in <a href="#fig_24">Fig. XXIV.</a> <a href="#page243">p. 243</a>. This form was,
+above all others, likely to be adopted where variations of Greek
+or Roman pillared architecture were universal in the larger
+masses of the building; the parapet became itself a small series
+of columns, with capitals and architraves; and whether the
+cross-bar laid upon them should be simply horizontal, and in
+contact with their capitals, or sustained by mimic arches,
+round or pointed, depended entirely on the system adopted
+in the rest of the work. Where the large arches were round,
+the small balustrade arches would be so likewise; where
+those were pointed, these would become so in sympathy with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XX.</span> Unfortunately, wherever a balcony or parapet is used
+in an inhabited house, it is, of course, the part of the structure
+which first suffers from dilapidation, as well as that of which
+the security is most anxiously cared for. The main pillars of
+a casement may stand for centuries unshaken under the steady
+weight of the superincumbent wall, but the cement and various
+insetting of the balconies are sure to be disturbed by the
+irregular pressures and impulses of the persons leaning on
+them; while, whatever extremity of decay may be allowed in
+other parts of the building, the balcony, as soon as it seems
+dangerous, will assuredly be removed or restored. The reader
+will not, if he considers this, be surprised to hear that, among
+all the remnants of the Venetian domestic architecture of the
+eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, there is not a single
+instance of the original balconies being preserved. The palace
+mentioned below (§ <span class="scs">XXXII.</span>), in the piazza of the Rialto, has,
+indeed, solid slabs of stone between its shafts, but I cannot be
+certain that they are of the same period; if they are, this is
+the only existing example of the form of protection employed
+for casements during this transitional period, and it cannot be
+reasoned from as being the general one.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXI.</span> It is only, therefore, in the churches of Torcello,
+Murano, and St. Mark&rsquo;s, that the ancient forms of gallery
+defence may still be seen. At Murano, between the pillars of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247"></a>247</span>
+the apse, a beautiful balustrade is employed, of which a single
+arch is given in the Plate opposite, fig. 4, with its section,
+fig. 5.; and at St. Mark&rsquo;s, a noble round-arched parapet, with
+small pillars of precisely the same form as those of Murano,
+but shorter, and bound at the angles into groups of four by
+the serpentine knot so often occurring in Lombardic work, runs
+round the whole exterior of the lower story of the church, and
+round great part of its interior galleries, alternating with the
+more fantastic form, fig. 6. In domestic architecture, the
+remains of the original balconies begin to occur first in the
+beginning of the fourteenth century, when the round arch had
+entirely disappeared; and the parapet consists, almost without
+exception, of a series of small trefoiled arches, cut boldly
+through a bar of stone which rests upon the shafts, at first
+very simple, and generally adorned with a cross at the point
+of each arch, as in fig. 7 in the last Plate, which gives the
+angle of such a balcony on a large scale; but soon enriched
+into the beautiful conditions, figs. 2 and 3, and sustained on
+brackets formed of lions&rsquo; heads, as seen in the central example
+of their entire effect, fig. 1.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_13"><img src="images/img247.jpg" width="424" height="650" alt="BALCONIES." title="BALCONIES." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">BALCONIES.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXII.</span> In later periods, the round arches return; then the
+interwoven Byzantine form; and finally, as above noticed, the
+common English or classical balustrade; of which, however,
+exquisite examples, for grace and variety of outline, are found
+designed in the backgrounds of Paul Veronese. I could
+willingly follow out this subject fully, but it is impossible to
+do so without leaving Venice; for the chief city of Italy, as
+far as regards the strict effect of the balcony, is Verona; and
+if we were once to lose ourselves among the sweet shadows
+of its lonely streets, where the falling branches of the flowers
+stream like fountains through the pierced traceries of the marble,
+there is no saying whether we might soon be able to return
+to our immediate work. Yet before leaving the subject
+of the balcony<a name="FnAnchor_83" href="#Footnote_83"><span class="sp">83</span></a> altogether, I must allude, for a moment, to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248"></a>248</span>
+the peculiar treatment of the iron-work out of which it is
+frequently wrought on the mainland of Italy&mdash;never in Venice.
+The iron is always wrought, not cast, beaten first into
+thin leaves, and then cut either into strips or bands, two or
+three inches broad, which are bent into various curves to form
+the sides of the balcony, or else into actual leafage, sweeping
+and free, like the leaves of nature, with which it is richly decorated.
+There is no end to the variety of design, no limit to
+the lightness and flow of the forms, which the workman can
+produce out of iron treated in this manner; and it is very
+nearly as impossible for any metal-work, so handled, to be
+poor, or ignoble in effect, as it is for cast metal-work to be
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIII.</span> We have next to examine those features of the
+Gothic palaces in which the transitions of their architecture
+are most distinctly traceable; namely, the arches of the windows
+and doors.</p>
+
+<p>It has already been repeatedly stated, that the Gothic style
+had formed itself completely on the mainland, while the
+Byzantines still retained their influence at Venice; and that
+the history of early Venetian Gothic is therefore not that of
+a school taking new forms independently of external influence,
+but the history of the struggle of the Byzantine manner with
+a contemporary style quite as perfectly organized as itself, and
+far more energetic. And this struggle is exhibited partly in
+the gradual change of the Byzantine architecture into other
+forms, and partly by isolated examples of genuine Gothic
+taken prisoner, as it were, in the contest; or rather entangled
+among the enemy&rsquo;s forces, and maintaining their ground till
+their friends came up to sustain them. Let us first follow the
+steps of the gradual change, and then give some brief account
+of the various advanced guards and forlorn hopes of the
+Gothic attacking force.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XIV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_14"><img src="images/img248.jpg" width="405" height="650" alt="THE ORDERS OF VENETIAN ARCHES." title="THE ORDERS OF VENETIAN ARCHES." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">THE ORDERS OF VENETIAN ARCHES.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIV.</span> The uppermost shaded series of six forms of windows
+in <a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a>, opposite, represents, at a glance, the modifications
+of this feature in Venetian palaces, from the eleventh
+to the fifteenth century. Fig. 1 is Byzantine, of the eleventh
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249"></a>249</span>
+and twelfth centuries; figs. 2 and 3 transitional, of the thirteenth
+and early fourteenth centuries; figs. 4 and 5 pure
+Gothic, of the thirteenth, fourteenth and early fifteenth; and
+fig. 6. late Gothic, of the fifteenth century, distinguished by
+its added finial. Fig. 4 is the longest-lived of all these forms:
+it occurs first in the thirteenth century; and, sustaining modifications
+only in its mouldings, is found also in the middle of
+the fifteenth.</p>
+
+<p>I shall call these the six orders<a name="FnAnchor_84" href="#Footnote_84"><span class="sp">84</span></a> of Venetian windows, and
+when I speak of a window of the fourth, second, or sixth order,
+the reader will only have to refer to the numerals at the top of
+<a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a></p>
+
+<p>Then the series below shows the principal forms found in
+each period, belonging to each several order; except 1 <i>b</i> to 1 <i>c</i>,
+and the two lower series, numbered 7 to 16, which are types
+of Venetian doors.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXV.</span> We shall now be able, without any difficulty, to
+follow the course of transition, beginning with the first order,
+1 and 1 <i>a</i>, in the second row. The horse-shoe arch, 1 <i>b</i>, is the
+door-head commonly associated with it, and the other three in
+the same row occur in St. Mark&rsquo;s exclusively; 1 <i>c</i> being used
+in the nave, in order to give a greater appearance of lightness
+to its great lateral arcades, which at first the spectator supposes
+to be round-arched, but he is struck by a peculiar grace and
+elasticity in the curves for which he is unable to account, until
+he ascends into the galleries whence the true form of the arch
+is discernible. The other two&mdash;1 <i>d</i>, from the door of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250"></a>250</span>
+southern transept, and 1 <i>c</i>, from that of the treasury,&mdash;sufficiently
+represent a group of fantastic forms derived from the
+Arabs, and of which the exquisite decoration is one of the
+most important features in St. Mark&rsquo;s. Their form is indeed
+permitted merely to obtain more fantasy in the curves of this
+decoration.<a name="FnAnchor_85" href="#Footnote_85"><span class="sp">85</span></a> The reader can see in a moment, that, as pieces
+of masonry, or bearing arches, they are infirm or useless, and
+therefore never could be employed in any building in which
+dignity of structure was the primal object. It is just because
+structure is <i>not</i> the primal object in St. Mark&rsquo;s, because it has
+no severe weights to bear, and much loveliness of marble and
+sculpture to exhibit, that they are therein allowable. They are
+of course, like the rest of the building, built of brick and faced
+with marble, and their inner masonry, which must be very ingenious,
+is therefore not discernible. They have settled a little,
+as might have been expected, and the consequence is, that
+there is in every one of them, except the upright arch of the
+treasury, a small fissure across the marble of the flanks.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXVI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_26"><img src="images/img250.jpg" width="550" height="264" alt="Fig. XXVI." title="Fig. XXVI." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVI.</span> Though, however, the Venetian builders adopted
+these Arabian forms of arch where grace of ornamentation was
+their only purpose, they saw that such arrangements were unfit
+for ordinary work; and there is no instance, I believe, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251"></a>251</span>
+Venice, of their having used any of them for a dwelling-house
+in the truly Byzantine period. But so soon as the Gothic influence
+began to be felt, and the pointed arch forced itself
+upon them, their first concession to its attack was the adoption,
+in preference to the round arch, of the form 3 <i>a</i> (<a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a>,
+above); the point of the Gothic arch forcing itself up, as it
+were, through the top of the semicircle which it was soon to
+supersede.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVII.</span> The woodcut above, <a href="#fig_26">Fig. XXVI.</a>, represents the
+door and two of the lateral windows of a house in the Corte
+del Remer, facing the Grand Canal, in the parish of the Apostoli.
+It is remarkable as having its great entrance on the first
+floor, attained by a bold flight of steps, sustained on pure
+<i>pointed</i> arches wrought in brick. I cannot tell if these arches
+are contemporary with the building, though it must always
+have had an access of the kind. The rest of its aspect is
+Byzantine, except only that the rich sculptures of its archivolt
+show in combats of animals, beneath the soffit, a beginning of
+the Gothic fire and energy. The moulding of its plinth is of
+a Gothic profile,<a name="FnAnchor_86" href="#Footnote_86"><span class="sp">86</span></a> and the windows are pointed, not with a reversed
+curve, but in a pure straight gable, very curiously contrasted
+with the delicate bending of the pieces
+of marble armor cut for the shoulders of each
+arch. There is a two-lighted window, such
+as that seen in the vignette, on each side of
+the door, sustained in the centre by a basket-worked
+Byzantine capital: the mode of
+covering the brick archivolt with marble,
+both in the windows and doorway, is precisely like that of
+the true Byzantine palaces.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXVII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_27"><img src="images/img251.jpg" width="150" height="126" alt="Fig. XXVII." title="Fig. XXVII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVIII.</span> But as, even on a small scale, these arches are
+weak, if executed in brickwork, the appearance of this sharp
+point in the outline was rapidly accompanied by a parallel
+change in the method of building; and instead of constructing
+the arch of brick and coating it with marble, the builders
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252"></a>252</span>
+formed it of three pieces of hewn stone inserted in the wall,
+as in <a href="#fig_27">Fig. XXVII.</a> Not, however, at first in this perfect form.
+The endeavor to reconcile the grace of the reversed arch with
+the strength of the round one, and still to build in brick,
+ended at first in conditions such as that represented at <i>a</i>, <a href="#fig_28">Fig.
+XXVIII.</a>, which is a window in the Calle del Pistor, close to
+the church of the Apostoli, a very interesting and perfect example.
+Here, observe, the poor round arch is still kept to do
+all the hard work, and the fantastic ogee takes its pleasure
+above, in the form of a moulding merely, a chain of bricks
+cast to the required curve. And this condition, translated into
+stone-work, becomes a window of the second order (<i>b</i>5, <a href="#fig_28">Fig.
+XXVIII.</a>, or 2, in <a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a>); a form perfectly strong and
+serviceable, and of immense importance in the transitional
+architecture of Venice.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXVIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_28"><img src="images/img252.jpg" width="500" height="268" alt="Fig. XXVIII." title="Fig. XXVIII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIX.</span> At <i>b</i>, <a href="#fig_28">Fig. XXVIII.</a>, as above, is given one of the
+earliest and simplest occurrences of the second order window
+(in a double group, exactly like the brick transitional form <i>a</i>),
+from a most important fragment of a defaced house in the
+Salizzada San Liň, close to the Merceria. It is associated
+with a fine <i>pointed</i> brick arch, indisputably of contemporary
+work, towards the close of the thirteenth century, and it
+is shown to be later than the previous example, <i>a</i>, by the
+greater developement of its mouldings. The archivolt profile,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253"></a>253</span>
+indeed, is the simpler of the two, not having the sub-arch;
+as in the brick example; but the other mouldings are
+far more developed. <a href="#fig_29">Fig. XXIX.</a> shows at
+1 the arch profiles, at 2 the capital profiles, at
+3 the basic-plinth profiles, of each window, <i>a</i>
+and <i>b</i>.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXIX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_29"><img src="images/img253.jpg" width="150" height="508" alt="Fig. XXIX." title="Fig. XXIX." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXX.</span> But the second order window
+soon attained nobler developement. At once
+simple, graceful, and strong, it was received
+into all the architecture of the period, and
+there is hardly a street in Venice which does
+not exhibit some important remains of palaces
+built with this form of window in many
+stories, and in numerous groups. The most
+extensive and perfect is one upon the Grand
+Canal in the parish of the Apostoli, near the
+Rialto, covered with rich decoration, in the
+Byzantine manner, between the windows of
+its first story; but not completely characteristic
+of the transitional period, because still
+retaining the dentil in the arch mouldings,
+while the transitional houses all have the simple
+roll. Of the fully established type, one
+of the most extensive and perfect examples is in a court in the
+Calle di Rimedio, close to the Ponte dell&rsquo; Angelo, near St.
+Mark&rsquo;s Place. Another looks out upon a small square garden,
+one of the few visible in the centre of Venice, close by the
+Corte Salviati (the latter being known to every cicerone as
+that from which Bianca Capello fled). But, on the whole, the
+most interesting to the traveller is that of which I have given
+a vignette opposite.</p>
+
+<p>But for this range of windows, the little piazza SS. Apostoli
+would be one of the least picturesque in Venice; to those,
+however, who seek it on foot, it becomes geographically interesting
+from the extraordinary involution of the alleys leading
+to it from the Rialto. In Venice, the straight road is usually
+by water, and the long road by land; but the difference of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254"></a>254</span>
+distance appears, in this case, altogether inexplicable. Twenty
+or thirty strokes of the oar will bring a gondola from the foot
+of the Rialto to that of the Ponte SS. Apostoli; but the unwise
+pedestrian, who has not noticed the white clue beneath
+his feet,<a name="FnAnchor_87" href="#Footnote_87"><span class="sp">87</span></a> may think himself fortunate, if, after a quarter of an
+hour&rsquo;s wandering among the houses behind the Fondaco de&rsquo;
+Tedeschi, he finds himself anywhere in the neighborhood of
+the point he seeks. With much patience, however, and modest
+following of the guidance of the marble thread, he will at last
+emerge over a steep bridge into the open space of the Piazza,
+rendered cheerful in autumn by a perpetual market of pomegranates,
+and purple gourds, like enormous black figs; while
+the canal, at its extremity, is half-blocked up by barges laden
+with vast baskets of grapes as black as charcoal, thatched over
+with their own leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back, on the other side of this canal, he will see
+the windows represented in <a href="#plate_15">Plate XV.</a>, which, with the arcade
+of pointed arches beneath them, are the remains of the palace
+once belonging to the unhappy doge, Marino Faliero.</p>
+
+<p>The balcony is, of course, modern, and the series of windows
+has been of greater extent, once terminated by a pilaster
+on the left hand, as well as on the right; but the terminal
+arches have been walled up. What remains, however, is
+enough, with its sculptured birds and dragons, to give the
+reader a very distinct idea of the second order window in its
+perfect form. The details of the capitals, and other minor
+portions, if these interest him, he will find given in the final
+Appendix.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_15"><img src="images/img254.jpg" width="441" height="650" alt="WINDOWS OF THE SECOND ORDER." title="WINDOWS OF THE SECOND ORDER." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">WINDOWS OF THE SECOND ORDER.<br />
+                      <span style="font-size: 75%; ">CASA FALIER.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXI.</span> The advance of the Gothic spirit was, for a few
+years, checked by this compromise between the round and
+pointed arch. The truce, however, was at last broken, in consequence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255"></a>255</span>
+of the discovery that the keystone would do duty quite
+as well in the form <i>b</i> as in the form <i>a</i>, <a href="#fig_30">Fig. XXX.</a>, and the substitution
+of <i>b</i>, at the head of the arch, gives us
+the window of the third order, 3 <i>b</i>, 3 <i>d</i>, and 3
+<i>e</i>, in <a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a> The forms 3 <i>a</i> and 3 <i>c</i> are
+exceptional; the first occurring, as we have
+seen, in the Corte del Remer, and in one
+other palace on the Grand Canal, close to the
+Church of St. Eustachio; the second only, as far as I know, in
+one house on the Canna-Reggio, belonging to the true Gothic
+period. The other three examples, 3 <i>b</i>, 3 <i>d</i>, 3 <i>e</i>, are generally
+characteristic of the third order; and it will be observed that
+they differ not merely in mouldings, but in slope of sides, and
+this latter difference is by far the most material. For in the
+example 3 <i>b</i> there is hardly any true Gothic expression; it is
+still the pure Byzantine arch, with a point thrust up through
+it: but the moment the flanks slope, as in 3 <i>d</i>, the Gothic expression
+is definite, and the entire school of the architecture is
+changed.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_30"><img src="images/img255.jpg" width="150" height="104" alt="Fig. XXX." title="Fig. XXX." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This slope of the flanks occurs, first, in so slight a degree
+as to be hardly perceptible, and gradually increases until, reaching
+the form 3 <i>e</i> at the close of the thirteenth century, the
+window is perfectly prepared for a transition into the fifth
+order.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXII.</span> The most perfect examples of the third order in
+Venice are the windows of the ruined palace of Marco Querini,
+the father-in-law of Bajamonte Tiepolo, in consequence of
+whose conspiracy against the government this palace was
+ordered to be razed in 1310; but it was only partially ruined,
+and was afterwards used as the common shambles. The Venetians
+have now made a poultry market of the lower story (the
+shambles being removed to a suburb), and a prison of the
+upper, though it is one of the most important and interesting
+monuments in the city, and especially valuable as giving us a
+secure date for the central form of these very rare transitional
+windows. For, as it was the palace of the father-in-law of
+Bajamonte, and the latter was old enough to assume the leadership
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256"></a>256</span>
+of a political faction in 1280,<a name="FnAnchor_88" href="#Footnote_88"><span class="sp">88</span></a> the date of the accession to
+the throne of the Doge Pietro Gradenigo, we are secure of
+this palace having been built not later than the middle of the
+thirteenth century. Another example, less refined in workmanship,
+but, if possible, still more interesting, owing to the
+variety of its capitals, remains in the little piazza opening to
+the Rialto, on the St. Mark&rsquo;s side of the Grand Canal. The
+house faces the bridge, and its second story has been built in
+the thirteenth century, above a still earlier Byzantine cornice
+remaining, or perhaps introduced from some other ruined edifice,
+in the walls of the first floor. The windows of the second
+story are of pure third order; four of them are represented
+above, with their flanking pilaster, and capitals varying constantly
+in the form of the flower or leaf introduced between
+their volutes.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXXI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_31"><img src="images/img256.jpg" width="500" height="227" alt="Fig. XXXI." title="Fig. XXXI." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIII.</span> Another most important example exists in the
+lower story of the Casa Sagredo, on the Grand Canal, remarkable
+as having the early upright form (3 <i>b</i>, <a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a>) with
+a somewhat late moulding. Many others occur in the fragmentary
+ruins in the streets: but the two boldest conditions
+which I found in Venice are those of the Chapter-House of
+the Frari, in which the Doge Francesco Dandolo was buried
+circa 1339; and those of the flank of the Ducal Palace itself
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page257"></a>257</span>
+absolutely corresponding with those of the Frari, and therefore
+of inestimable value in determining the date of the palace. Of
+these more hereafter.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XVI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_16"><img src="images/img257.jpg" width="434" height="650" alt="WINDOWS OF THE FOURTH ORDER." title="WINDOWS OF THE FOURTH ORDER." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">WINDOWS OF THE FOURTH ORDER.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXXII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_32"><img src="images/img257a.jpg" width="300" height="274" alt="Fig. XXXII." title="Fig. XXXII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIV.</span> Contemporarily with these windows of the second
+and third orders, those of the fourth (4 <i>a</i> and 4 <i>b</i>, in <a href="#plate_14">Plate
+XIV.</a>) occur, at first in pairs, and with simple mouldings, precisely
+similar to those of the second order, but much more rare,
+as in the example at the side, <a href="#fig_32">Fig.
+XXXII.</a>, from the Salizada San
+Liň; and then, enriching their
+mouldings as shown in the continuous
+series 4 <i>c</i>, 4 <i>d</i>, of <a href="#plate_14">Plate
+XIV.</a>, associate themselves with
+the fifth order windows of the
+perfect Gothic period. There is
+hardly a palace in Venice without
+some example, either early or
+late, of these fourth order windows;
+but the Plate opposite (<a href="#plate_16">XVI.</a>) represents one of their
+purest groups at the close of the thirteenth century, from a
+house on the Grand Canal, nearly opposite the Church of the
+Scalzi. I have drawn it from the side, in order that the great
+depth of the arches may be seen, and the clear detaching of
+the shafts from the sheets of glass behind. The latter, as well
+as the balcony, are comparatively modern; but there is no
+doubt that if glass were used in the old window, it was set behind
+the shafts, at the same depth. The entire modification
+of the interiors of all the Venetian houses by recent work has
+however prevented me from entering into any inquiry as to
+the manner in which the ancient glazing was attached to the
+interiors of the windows.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth order window is found in great richness and
+beauty at Verona, down to the latest Gothic times, as well as
+in the earliest, being then more frequent than any other form.
+It occurs, on a grand scale, in the old palace of the Scaligers,
+and profusely throughout the streets of the city. The series
+4 <i>a</i> to 4 <i>e</i>, <a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a>, shows its most ordinary conditions
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258"></a>258</span>
+and changes of arch-line: 4 <i>a</i> and 4 <i>b</i> are the early Venetian
+forms; 4 <i>c</i>, later, is general at Venice; 4 <i>d</i>, the best and
+most piquant condition, owing to its fantastic and bold projection
+of cusp, is common to Venice and Verona; 4 <i>e</i> is early
+Veronese.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXV.</span> The reader will see at once, in descending to the
+fifth row in <a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a>, representing the windows of the fifth
+order, that they are nothing more than a combination of the
+third and fourth. By this union they become the nearest
+approximation to a perfect Gothic form which occurs characteristically
+at Venice; and we shall therefore pause on the
+threshold of this final change, to glance back upon, and gather
+together, those fragments of purer pointed architecture which
+were above noticed as the forlorn hopes of the Gothic assault.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXXIII.</td>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXXIV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_33"><img src="images/img258a.jpg" width="350" height="213" alt="Fig. XXXIII." title="Fig. XXXIII." /></a></td>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="fig_34"><img src="images/img258b.jpg" width="250" height="384" alt="Fig. XXXIV." title="Fig. XXXIV." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>The little Campiello San Rocco is entered by a sotto-portico
+behind the church of the Frari. Looking back, the upper
+traceries of the magnificent apse are seen towering above the
+irregular roofs and chimneys of the little square; and our lost
+Prout was enabled to bring the whole subject into an exquisitely
+picturesque composition, by the fortunate occurrence
+of four quaint trefoiled windows in one of the houses on the
+right. Those trefoils are among the most ancient efforts of
+Gothic art in Venice. I have given a rude sketch of them in
+<a href="#fig_33">Fig. XXXIII.</a> They are built entirely of brick, except the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259"></a>259</span>
+central shaft and capital, which are of Istrian stone. Their
+structure is the simplest possible; the trefoils being cut out of
+the radiating bricks which form the pointed arch, and the edge
+or upper limit of that pointed arch indicated by a roll moulding
+formed of cast bricks, in length of about a foot, and ground
+at the bottom so as to meet in one, as in <a href="#fig_34">Fig. XXXIV.</a> The
+capital of the shaft is one of the earliest transitional forms;<a name="FnAnchor_89" href="#Footnote_89"><span class="sp">89</span></a>
+and observe the curious following out, even in this minor instance,
+of the great law of centralization above explained with
+respect to the Byzantine palaces. There is a central shaft, a
+pilaster on each side, and then the wall. The pilaster has, by
+way of capital, a square flat brick, projecting a little, and cast,
+at the edge, into the form of the first type of all cornices (<i>a</i>, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#page063">p.
+63</a>, Vol. I.; the reader ought to glance back at this passage, if
+he has forgotten it); and the shafts and pilasters all stand,
+without any added bases, on a projecting plinth of the same
+simple profile. These windows have been much defaced; but
+I have not the least doubt that their plinths are the original
+ones: and the whole group is one of the most valuable in
+Venice, as showing the way in which the humblest houses, in
+the noble times, followed out the system of the larger palaces,
+as far as they could, in their rude materials. It is not often
+that the dwellings of the lower orders are preserved to us from
+the thirteenth century.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XVII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_17"><img src="images/img259.jpg" width="411" height="650" alt="WINDOWS OF THE EARLY GOTHIC PALACES." title="WINDOWS OF THE EARLY GOTHIC PALACES." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">WINDOWS OF THE EARLY GOTHIC PALACES.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVI.</span> In the two upper lines of the opposite Plate
+(<a href="#plate_17">XVII.</a>), I have arranged some of the more delicate and finished
+examples of Gothic work of this period. Of these, fig. 4 is
+taken from the outer arcade of San Fermo of Verona, to show
+the condition of mainland architecture, from which all these
+Venetian types were borrowed. This arch, together with the
+rest of the arcade, is wrought in fine stone, with a band of inlaid
+red brick, the whole chiselled and fitted with exquisite
+precision, all Venetian work being coarse in comparison.
+Throughout the streets of Verona, arches and windows of the
+thirteenth century are of continual occurrence, wrought, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260"></a>260</span>
+this manner, with brick and stone; sometimes the brick alternating
+with the stones of the arch, as in the finished example
+given in <a href="#plate_19">Plate XIX.</a> of the first volume, and there selected in
+preference to other examples of archivolt decoration, because
+furnishing a complete type of the master school from which
+the Venetian Gothic is derived.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVII.</span> The arch from St. Fermo, however, fig. 4, <a href="#plate_17">Plate
+XVII.</a>, corresponds more closely, in its entire simplicity, with
+the little windows from the Campiello San Rocco; and with
+the type 5 set beside it in <a href="#plate_17">Plate XVII.</a>, from a very ancient
+house in the Corte del Forno at Santa Marina (all in brick); while
+the upper examples, 1 and 2, show the use of the flat but highly
+enriched architrave, for the connection of which with Byzantine
+work see the final Appendix, Vol. III., under the head &ldquo;Archivolt.&rdquo;
+These windows (figs. 1 and 2, <a href="#plate_17">Plate XVII.</a>) are from
+a narrow alley in a part of Venice now exclusively inhabited
+by the lower orders, close to the arsenal;<a name="FnAnchor_90" href="#Footnote_90"><span class="sp">90</span></a> they are entirely
+wrought in brick, with exquisite mouldings, not cast, but
+<i>moulded in the clay by the hand</i>, so that there is not one
+piece of the arch like another; the pilasters and shafts being,
+as usual, of stone.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVIII.</span> And here let me pause for a moment, to note
+what one should have thought was well enough known in England,&mdash;yet
+I could not perhaps touch upon anything less considered,&mdash;the
+real use of brick. Our fields of good clay were
+never given us to be made into oblong morsels of one size.
+They were given us that we might play with them, and that
+men who could not handle a chisel, might knead out of them
+some expression of human thought. In the ancient architecture
+of the clay districts of Italy, every possible adaptation of
+the material is found exemplified: from the coarsest and most
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261"></a>261</span>
+brittle kinds, used in the mass of the structure, to bricks for
+arches and plinths, cast in the most perfect curves, and of
+almost every size, strength, and hardness; and moulded bricks,
+wrought into flower-work and tracery as fine as raised patterns
+upon china. And, just as many of the finest works of the
+Italian sculptors were executed in porcelain, many of the best
+thoughts of their architects are expressed in brick, or in the
+softer material of terra cotta; and if this were so in Italy,
+where there is not one city from whose towers we may not
+descry the blue outline of Alp or Apennine, everlasting quarries
+of granite or marble, how much more ought it to be so
+among the fields of England! I believe that the best academy
+for her architects, for some half century to come, would be
+the brick-field; for of this they may rest assured, that till
+they know how to use clay, they will never know how to use
+marble.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIX.</span> And now observe, as we pass from fig. 2 to fig.
+3, and from fig. 5 to fig. 6, in <a href="#plate_17">Plate XVII.</a>, a most interesting
+step of transition. As we saw above, § <span class="scs">XIV.</span>, the round
+arch yielding to the Gothic, by allowing a point to emerge at
+its summit, so here we have the Gothic conceding something
+to the form which had been assumed by the round; and itself
+slightly altering its outline so as to meet the condescension of
+the round arch half way. At page 137 of the first volume, I
+have drawn to scale one of these minute concessions of the
+pointed arch, granted at Verona out of pure courtesy to the
+Venetian forms, by one of the purest Gothic ornaments in the
+world; and the small window here, fig. 6, is a similar example
+at Venice itself, from the Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini,
+where the reversed curve at the head of the pointed arch is
+just perceptible and no more. The other examples, figs. 3 and
+7, the first from a small but very noble house in the Merceria,
+the second from an isolated palace at Murano, show more
+advanced conditions of the reversed curve, which, though still
+employing the broad decorated architrave of the earlier examples,
+are in all other respects prepared for the transition to the
+simple window of the fifth order.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page262"></a>262</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XL.</span> The next example, the uppermost of the three lower
+series in <a href="#plate_17">Plate XVII.</a>, shows this order in its early purity;
+associated with intermediate decorations like those of the
+Byzantines, from a palace once belonging to the Erizzo family,
+near the Arsenal. The ornaments appear to be actually of
+Greek workmanship (except, perhaps, the two birds over the
+central arch, which are bolder, and more free in treatment),
+and built into the Gothic fronts; showing, however, the early
+date of the whole by the manner of their insertion, corresponding
+exactly with that employed in the Byzantine palaces,
+and by the covering of the intermediate spaces with sheets
+of marble, which, however, instead of being laid over the
+entire wall, are now confined to the immediate spaces between
+and above the windows, and are bounded by a dentil
+moulding.</p>
+
+<p>In the example below this the Byzantine ornamentation
+has vanished, and the fifth order window is seen in its generic
+form, as commonly employed throughout the early Gothic
+period. Such arcades are of perpetual occurrence; the one
+in the Plate was taken from a small palace on the Grand
+Canal, nearly opposite the Casa Foscari. One point in it
+deserves especial notice, the increased size of the lateral window
+as compared with the rest: a circumstance which occurs
+in a great number of the groups of windows belonging to this
+period, and for which I have never been able to account.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLI.</span> Both these figures have been most carefully engraved;
+and the uppermost will give the reader a perfectly
+faithful idea of the general effect of the Byzantine sculptures,
+and of the varied alabaster among which they are inlaid, as
+well as of the manner in which these pieces are set together,
+every joint having been drawn on the spot: and the transition
+from the embroidered and silvery richness of this architecture,
+in which the Byzantine ornamentation was associated with the
+Gothic form of arch, to the simplicity of the pure Gothic
+arcade as seen in the lower figure, is one of the most remarkable
+phenomena in the history of Venetian art. If it had
+occurred suddenly, and at an earlier period, it might have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263"></a>263</span>
+been traced partly to the hatred of the Greeks, consequent
+upon the treachery of Manuel Comnenus,<a name="FnAnchor_91" href="#Footnote_91"><span class="sp">91</span></a> and the fatal war
+to which it led; but the change takes place gradually, and not
+till a much later period. I hoped to have been able to make
+some careful inquiries into the habits of domestic life of the
+Venetians before and after the dissolution of their friendly
+relations with Constantinople; but the labor necessary for the
+execution of my more immediate task has entirely prevented
+this: and I must be content to lay the succession of the architectural
+styles plainly before the reader, and leave the collateral
+questions to the investigation of others; merely <span class="correction" title="nothing in the original">noting</span>
+this one assured fact, that <i>the root of all that is greatest in
+Christian art is struck in the thirteenth century</i>; that the
+temper of that century is the life-blood of all manly work
+thenceforward in Europe; and I suppose that one of its peculiar
+characteristics was elsewhere, as assuredly in Florence, a
+singular simplicity in domestic life:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad</p>
+<p>In leathern girdle, and a clasp of bone;</p>
+<p>And, with no artful coloring on her cheeks,</p>
+<p>His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw</p>
+<p>Of Verli and of Vecchio, well content</p>
+<p>With unrobed jerkin, and their good dames handling</p>
+<p>The spindle and the flax<span style="letter-spacing: 2em;" >....</span></p>
+<p>One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it</p>
+<p>With sounds that lulled the parents&rsquo; infancy;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264"></a>264</span></p>
+<p>Another, with her maidens, drawing off</p>
+<p>The tresses from the distaff, lectured them</p>
+<p>Old tales of Troy, and Fesole, and Rome.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_92" href="#Footnote_92"><span class="sp">92</span></a></p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLII.</span> Such, then, is the simple fact at Venice, that from
+the beginning of the thirteenth century there is found a singular
+increase of simplicity in all architectural ornamentation;
+the rich Byzantine capitals giving place to a pure and severe
+type hereafter to be described,<a name="FnAnchor_93" href="#Footnote_93"><span class="sp">93</span></a> and the rich sculptures vanishing
+from the walls, nothing but the marble facing remaining.
+One of the most interesting examples of this transitional state
+is a palace at San Severo, just behind the Casa Zorzi. This
+latter is a Renaissance building, utterly worthless in every
+respect, but known to the Venetian Ciceroni; and by inquiring
+for it, and passing a little beyond it down the Fondamenta
+San Severo, the traveller will see, on the other side of the
+canal, a palace which the Ciceroni never notice, but which is
+unique in Venice for the magnificence of the veined purple
+alabasters with which it has been decorated, and for the manly
+simplicity of the foliage of its capitals. Except in these, it
+has no sculpture whatever, and its effect is dependent entirely
+on color. Disks of green serpentine are inlaid on the field
+of purple alabaster; and the pillars are alternately of red
+marble with white capitals, and of white marble with red
+capitals. Its windows appear of the third order; and the back
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265"></a>265</span>
+of the palace, in a small and most picturesque court, shows a
+group of windows which are, perhaps, the most superb examples
+of that order in Venice. But the windows to the front
+have, I think, been of the fifth order, and their cusps have
+been cut away.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIII.</span> When the Gothic feeling began more decidedly to
+establish itself, it evidently became a question with the Venetian
+builders, how the intervals between the arches, now left
+blank by the abandonment of the Byzantine sculptures, should
+be enriched in accordance with the principles of the new
+school. Two most important examples are left of the experiments
+made at this period: one at the Ponte del Forner, at
+San Cassano, a noble house in which the spandrils of the windows
+are filled by the emblems of the four Evangelists, sculptured
+in deep relief, and touching the edges of the arches with
+their expanded wings; the other now known as the Palazzo
+Cicogna, near the church of San Sebastiano, in the quarter
+called &ldquo;of the Archangel Raphael,&rdquo; in which a large space of
+wall above the windows is occupied by an intricate but rude
+tracery of involved quatrefoils. Of both these palaces I purposed
+to give drawings in my folio work; but I shall probably
+be saved the trouble by the publication of the beautiful calotypes
+lately made at Venice of both; and it is unnecessary to
+represent them here, as they are unique in Venetian architecture,
+with the single exception of an unimportant imitation of
+the first of them in a little by-street close to the Campo Sta.
+Maria Formosa. For the question as to the mode of decorating
+the interval between the arches was suddenly and irrevocably
+determined by the builder of the Ducal Palace, who,
+as we have seen, taking his first idea from the traceries of the
+Frari, and arranging those traceries as best fitted his own purpose,
+designed the great arcade (the lowest of the three in
+<a href="#plate_17">Plate XVII.</a>), which thenceforward became the established
+model for every work of importance in Venice. The palaces
+built on this model, however, most of them not till the beginning
+of the fifteenth century, belong properly to the time of
+the Renaissance; and what little we have to note respecting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266"></a>266</span>
+them may be more clearly stated in connexion with other facts
+characteristic of that period.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIV.</span> As the examples in <a href="#plate_17">Plate XVII.</a> are necessarily
+confined to the upper parts of the windows, I have given in
+the Plate opposite (<a href="#plate_18">XVIII</a><a name="FnAnchor_94" href="#Footnote_94"><span class="sp">94</span></a>) examples of the fifth order
+window, both in its earliest and in its fully developed form,
+completed from base to keystone. The upper example is a
+beautiful group from a small house, never of any size or pretension,
+and now inhabited only by the poor, in the Campiello
+della Strope, close to the Church of San Giacomo de Lorio.
+It is remarkable for its excessive purity of curve, and is of
+very early date, its mouldings being simpler than usual.<a name="FnAnchor_95" href="#Footnote_95"><span class="sp">95</span></a> The
+lower example is from the second story of a palace belonging
+to the Priuli family, near San Lorenzo, and shows one feature
+to which our attention has not hitherto been directed, namely,
+the penetration of the cusp, leaving only a silver thread of
+stone traced on the darkness of the window. I need not say
+that, in this condition, the cusp ceases to have any constructive
+use, and is merely decorative, but often exceedingly beautiful.
+The steps of transition from the early solid cusp to this slender
+thread are noticed in the final Appendix, under the head
+&ldquo;Tracery Bars;&rdquo; the commencement of the change being in
+the thinning of the stone, which is not cut through until it is
+thoroughly emaciated. Generally speaking, the condition in
+which the cusp is found is a useful test of age, when compared
+with other points; the more solid it is, the more ancient: but
+the massive form is often found associated with the perforated,
+as late as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In the
+Ducal Palace, the lower or bearing traceries have the solid
+cusp, and the upper traceries of the windows, which are
+merely decorative., have the perforated cusp, both with exquisite
+effect.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XVIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter2">
+    <a name="plate_18"><img src="images/img266a.jpg" width="290" height="350" alt="WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER." title="WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/img266b.jpg" width="369" height="300" alt="WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER." title="WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER." /></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLV.</span> The smaller balconies between the great shafts in
+the lower example in <a href="#plate_18">Plate XVIII.</a> are original and characteristic:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267"></a>267</span>
+not so the lateral one of the detached window, which
+has been restored; but by imagining it to be like that represented
+in fig. 1, <a href="#plate_13">Plate XIII.</a>, above, which is a perfect window
+of the finest time of the fifth order, the reader will be enabled
+to form a complete idea of the external appearance of the
+principal apartments in the house of a noble of Venice, at the
+beginning of the fourteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVI.</span> Whether noble, or merchant, or, as frequently happened,
+both, every Venetian appears, at this time, to have
+raised his palace or dwelling-house upon one type. Under
+every condition of importance, through every variation of
+size, the forms and mode of decoration of all the features
+were universally alike; not servilely alike, but fraternally;
+not with the sameness of coins cast from one mould, but with
+the likeness of the members of one family. No fragment of
+the period is preserved, in which the windows, be they few
+or many, a group of three or an arcade of thirty, have not
+the noble cusped arch of the fifth order. And they are especially
+to be noted by us at this day, because these refined and
+richly ornamented forms were used in the habitations of a
+nation as laborious, as practical, as brave, and as prudent as
+ourselves; and they were built at a time when that nation
+was struggling with calamities and changes threatening its
+existence almost every hour. And, farther, they are interesting
+because perfectly applicable to modern habitation. The
+refinement of domestic life appears to have been far advanced
+in Venice from her earliest days; and the remains of her
+Gothic palaces are, at this day, the most delightful residences
+in the city, having undergone no change in external form, and
+probably having been rather injured than rendered more convenient
+by the modifications which poverty and Renaissance
+taste, contending with the ravages of time, have introduced
+in the interiors. So that, in Venice, and the cities grouped
+around it, Vicenza, Padua, and Verona, the traveller may ascertain,
+by actual experience, the effect which would be produced
+upon the comfort or luxury of daily life by the revival of the
+Gothic school of architecture. He can still stand upon the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268"></a>268</span>
+marble balcony in the soft summer air, and feel its smooth
+surface warm from the noontide as he leans on it in the twilight;
+he can still see the strong sweep of the unruined
+traceries drawn on the deep serenity of the starry sky, and
+watch the fantastic shadows of the clustered arches shorten
+in the moonlight on the chequered floor; or he may close the
+casements fitted to their unshaken shafts against such wintry
+winds as would have made an English house vibrate to its
+foundation, and, in either case, compare their influence on his
+daily home feeling with that of the square openings in his
+English wall.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVII.</span> And let him be assured, if he find there is more
+to be enjoyed in the Gothic window, there is also more to be
+trusted. It is the best and strongest building, as it is the
+most beautiful. I am not now speaking of the particular
+form of Venetian Gothic, but of the general strength of the
+pointed arch as opposed to that of the level lintel of the
+square window; and I plead for the introduction of the
+Gothic form into our domestic architecture, not merely because
+it is lovely, but because it is the only form of faithful,
+strong, enduring, and honorable building, in such materials as
+come daily to our hands. By increase of scale and cost, it is
+possible to build, in any style, what will last for ages; but only
+in the Gothic is it possible to give security and dignity to
+work wrought with imperfect means and materials. And I
+trust that there will come a time when the English people
+may see the folly of building basely and insecurely. It is
+common with those architects against whose practice my writings
+have hitherto been directed, to call them merely theoretical
+and imaginative. I answer, that there is not a single principle
+asserted either in the &ldquo;Seven Lamps&rdquo; or here, but is of
+the simplest, sternest veracity, and the easiest practicability;
+that buildings, raised as I would have them, would stand unshaken
+for a thousand years; and the buildings raised by the
+architects who oppose them will not stand for one hundred
+and fifty, they sometimes do not stand for an hour. There is
+hardly a week passes without some catastrophe brought about
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269"></a>269</span>
+by the base principles of modern building; some vaultless
+floor that drops the staggering crowd through the jagged rents
+of its rotten timbers; some baseless bridge that is washed
+away by the first wave of a summer flood; some fungous wall
+of nascent rottenness that a thunder-shower soaks down with
+its workmen into a heap of slime and death.<a name="FnAnchor_96" href="#Footnote_96"><span class="sp">96</span></a> These we hear
+of, day by day: yet these indicate but the thousandth part of
+the evil. The portion of the national income sacrificed in
+mere bad building, in the perpetual repairs, and swift condemnation
+and pulling down of ill-built shells of houses,
+passes all calculation. And the weight of the penalty is not
+yet felt; it will tell upon our children some fifty years hence,
+when the cheap work, and contract work, and stucco and
+plaster work, and bad iron work, and all the other expedients
+of modern rivalry, vanity, and dishonesty, begin to show themselves
+for what they are.</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXXV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figright2">
+    <a name="fig_35"><img src="images/img269.jpg" width="150" height="194" alt="Fig. XXXV." title="Fig. XXXV." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVIII.</span> Indeed, dishonesty and false economy will no
+more build safely in Gothic than in any other style: but of
+all forms which we could possibly employ, to be framed hastily
+and out of bad materials, the common square
+window is the worst; and its level head of
+brickwork (<i>a</i>, <a href="#fig_35">Fig. XXXV.</a>) is the weakest
+way of covering a space. Indeed, in the
+hastily heaped shells of modern houses, there
+may be seen often even a worse manner of
+placing the bricks, as at <i>b</i>, supporting them
+by a bit of lath till the mortar dries; but
+even when worked with the utmost care,
+and having every brick tapered into the form of a voussoir
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270"></a>270</span>
+and accurately fitted, I have seen such a window-head give
+way, and a wide fissure torn through all the brickwork above
+it, two years after it was built; while the pointed arch of the
+Veronese Gothic, wrought in brick also, occurs at every corner
+of the streets of the city, untouched since the thirteenth century,
+and without a single flaw.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIX.</span> Neither can the objection, so often raised against
+the pointed arch, that it will not admit the convenient adjustment
+of modern sashes and glass, hold for an instant. There
+is not the smallest necessity, because the arch is pointed, that
+the aperture should be so. The work of the arch is to sustain
+the building above; when this is once done securely, the
+pointed head of it may be filled in any way we choose. In
+the best cathedral doors it is always filled by a shield of solid
+stone; in many early windows of the best Gothic it is filled in
+the same manner, the introduced slab of stone becoming a
+field for rich decoration; and there is not the smallest reason
+why lancet windows, used in bold groups, with each pointed
+arch filled by a sculptured tympanum, should not allow as
+much light to enter, and in as convenient a way, as the most
+luxuriously glazed square windows of our brick houses. Give
+the groups of associated lights bold gabled canopies; charge
+the gables with sculpture and color; and instead of the base
+and almost useless Greek portico, letting the rain and wind
+enter it at will, build the steeply vaulted and completely sheltered
+Gothic porch; and on all these fields for rich decoration
+let the common workman carve what he pleases, to the best
+of his power, and we may have a school of domestic architecture
+in the nineteenth century, which will make our children
+grateful to us, and proud of us, till the thirtieth.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">L.</span> There remains only one important feature to be
+examined, the entrance gate or door. We have already
+observed that the one seems to pass into the other, a sign
+of increased love of privacy rather than of increased humility,
+as the Gothic palaces assume their perfect form. In the Byzantine
+palaces the entrances appear always to have been rather
+great gates than doors, magnificent semicircular arches opening
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271"></a>271</span>
+to the water, and surrounded by rich sculpture in the
+archivolts. One of these entrances is seen in the small woodcut
+above, <a href="#fig_25">Fig. XXV.</a>, and another has been given carefully
+in my folio work: their sculpture is generally of grotesque
+animals scattered among leafage, without any definite meaning;
+but the great outer entrance of St. Mark&rsquo;s, which appears
+to have been completed some time after the rest of the fabric,
+differs from all others in presenting a series of subjects altogether
+Gothic in feeling, selection, and vitality of execution,
+and which show the occult entrance of the Gothic spirit before
+it had yet succeeded in effecting any modification of the Byzantine
+forms. These sculptures represent the months of the
+year employed in the avocations usually attributed to them
+throughout the whole compass of the middle ages, in Northern
+architecture and manuscript calendars, and at last exquisitely
+versified by Spenser. For the sake of the traveller in Venice,
+who should examine this archivolt carefully, I shall enumerate
+these sculptures in their order, noting such parallel representations
+as I remember in other work.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LI.</span> There are four successive archivolts, one within the
+other, forming the great central entrance of St. Mark&rsquo;s. The
+first is a magnificent external arch, formed of obscure figures
+mingled among masses of leafage, as in ordinary Byzantine
+work; within this there is a hemispherical dome, covered with
+modern mosaic; and at the back of this recess the other three
+archivolts follow consecutively, two sculptured, one plain; the
+one with which we are concerned is the outermost.</p>
+
+<p>It is carved both on its front and under-surface or soffit;
+on the front are seventeen female figures bearing scrolls, from
+which the legends are unfortunately effaced. These figures
+were once gilded on a dark blue ground, as may still be seen in
+Gentile Bellini&rsquo;s picture of St. Mark&rsquo;s in the Accademia delle
+Belle Arti. The sculptures of the months are on the under-surface,
+beginning at the bottom on the left hand of the spectator
+as he enters, and following in succession round the
+archivolt; separated, however, into two groups, at its centre,
+by a beautiful figure of the youthful Christ, sitting in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272"></a>272</span>
+midst of a slightly hollowed sphere covered with stars to
+represent the firmament, and with the attendant sun and
+moon, set one on each side to rule over the day and over the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LII.</span> The months are personified as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. <span class="sc">January</span>, <i>Carrying home a noble tree on his shoulders,
+the leafage of which nods forwards, and falls nearly to his
+feet.</i> Superbly cut. This is a rare representation of him.
+More frequently he is represented as the two-headed Janus,
+sitting at a table, drinking at one mouth and eating at the
+other. Sometimes as an old man, warming his feet at a fire,
+and drinking from a bowl; though this type is generally
+reserved for February.  Spenser, however, gives the same
+symbol as that on St. Mark&rsquo;s:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+    <p style="padding-left: 4.5em; ">&ldquo;Numbd with holding all the day</p>
+<p>An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>His sign, Aquarius, is obscurely indicated in the archivolt
+by some wavy lines representing water, unless the figure has
+been broken away.</p>
+
+<p>2. <span class="sc">February.</span> <i>Sitting in a carved chair, warming his bare
+feet at a blazing fire.</i>  Generally, when he is thus represented,
+there is a pot hung over the fire, from the top of the
+chimney. Sometimes he is pruning trees, as in Spenser:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+    <p style="padding-left: 6.5em; ">&ldquo;Yet had he by his side</p>
+<p>His plough and harnesse fit to till the ground,</p>
+<p>And tooles to prune the trees.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Not unfrequently, in the calendars, this month is represented
+by a female figure carrying candles, in honor of the
+Purification of the Virgin.</p>
+
+<p>His sign, Pisces, is prominently carved above him.</p>
+
+<p>3. <span class="sc">March.</span> Here, as almost always in Italy, <i>a warrior</i>: the
+Mars of the Latins being of course, in medićval work, made
+representative of the military power of the place and period;
+and thus, at Venice, having the winged Lion painted upon
+his shield. In Northern work, however, I think March is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"></a>273</span>
+commonly employed in pruning trees; or, at least, he is so
+when that occupation is left free for him by February&rsquo;s being
+engaged with the ceremonies of Candlemas. Sometimes, also,
+he is reaping a low and scattered kind of grain; and by Spenser,
+who exactly marks the junction of medićval and classical feeling,
+his military and agricultural functions are united, while
+also, in the Latin manner, he is made the first of the months.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;First sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent,</p>
+<p>And armed strongly, rode upon a Ram,</p>
+<p>The same which over Hellespontus swam;</p>
+<p>Yet in his hand a spade he also bent,</p>
+<p>And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame,<a name="FnAnchor_97" href="#Footnote_97"><span class="sp">97</span></a></p>
+<p>Which on the earth he strowed as he went.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>His sign, the Ram, is very superbly carved above him in
+the archivolt.</p>
+
+<p>4. <span class="sc">April.</span> Here, <i>carrying a sheep upon his shoulder</i>. A
+rare representation of him. In Northern work he is almost
+universally gathering flowers, or holding them triumphantly
+in each hand. The Spenserian mingling of this medićval
+image with that of his being wet with showers, and wanton
+with love, by turning his zodiacal sign, Taurus, into the bull
+of Europa, is altogether exquisite.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Upon a Bull he rode, the same which led</p>
+<p>Europa floting through the Argolick fluds:</p>
+<p>His horns were gilden all with golden studs,</p>
+<p>And garnished with garlonds goodly dight</p>
+<p>Of all the fairest flowres and freshest buds</p>
+<p>Which th&rsquo; earth brings forth; and <i>wet he seemed in sight</i></p>
+<p><i>With waves, through which he waded for his love&rsquo;s delight</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>5. <span class="sc">May</span> <i>is seated, while two young maidens crown him with
+flowers.</i> A very unusual representation, even in Italy; where,
+as in the North, he is almost always riding out hunting or
+hawking, sometimes playing on a musical instrument. In
+Spenser, this month is personified as &ldquo;the fayrest mayd on
+ground,&rdquo; borne on the shoulders of the Twins.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page274"></a>274</span></p>
+
+<p>In this archivolt there are only two heads to represent the
+zodiacal sign.</p>
+
+<p>The summer and autumnal months are always represented
+in a series of agricultural occupations, which, of course, vary
+with the locality in which they occur; but generally in their
+order only. Thus, if June is mowing, July is reaping; if
+July is mowing, August is reaping; and so on. I shall give
+a parallel view of some of these varieties presently; but, meantime,
+we had better follow the St Mark&rsquo;s series, as it is peculiar
+in some respects.</p>
+
+<p>6. <span class="sc">June.</span> <i>Reaping.</i> The corn and sickle sculptured with
+singular care and precision, in bold relief, and the zodiacal
+sign, the Crab, above, also worked with great spirit. Spenser
+puts plough irons into his hand. Sometimes he is sheep-shearing;
+and, in English and northern French manuscripts,
+carrying a kind of fagot or barrel, of the meaning of which I
+am not certain.</p>
+
+<p>7. <span class="sc">July.</span> <i>Mowing.</i> A very interesting piece of sculpture,
+owing to the care with which the flowers are wrought out
+among the long grass. I do not remember ever finding July
+but either reaping or mowing. Spenser works him hard, and
+puts him to both labors:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Behinde his backe a sithe, and by his side</p>
+<p>Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>8. <span class="sc">August.</span> Peculiarly represented in this archivolt, <i>sitting
+in a chair, with his head upon his hand, as if asleep; the
+Virgin</i> (the zodiacal sign) <i>above him, lifting up her hand</i>.
+This appears to be a peculiarly Italian version of the proper
+employment of August. In Northern countries he is generally
+threshing, or gathering grapes. Spenser merely clothes
+him with gold, and makes him lead forth</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+    <p style="padding-left: 5.5em; ">&ldquo;the righteous Virgin, which of old</p>
+<p>Lived here on earth, and plenty made abound.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>9. <span class="sc">September.</span> <i>Bearing home grapes in a basket.</i> Almost
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275"></a>275</span>
+always sowing, in Northern work. By Spenser, with his
+usual exquisite ingenuity, employed in gathering in the general
+harvest, and <i>portioning it out with the Scales</i>, his zodiacal
+sign.</p>
+
+<p>10. <span class="sc">October.</span> <i>Wearing a conical hat, and digging busily
+with a long spade.</i> In Northern work he is sometimes a vintager,
+sometimes beating the acorns out of an oak to feed swine.
+When September is vintaging, October is generally sowing.
+Spenser employs him in the harvest both of vine and olive.</p>
+
+<p>11. <span class="sc">November.</span> <i>Seems to be catching small birds in a net.</i>
+I do not remember him so employed elsewhere. He is nearly
+always killing pigs; sometimes beating the oak for them; with
+Spenser, fatting them.</p>
+
+<p>12. <span class="sc">December.</span> <i>Killing swine.</i> It is hardly ever that this
+employment is not given to one or other of the terminal months
+of the year. If not so engaged, December is usually putting
+new loaves into the oven; sometimes killing oxen. Spenser
+properly makes him feasting and drinking instead of January.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIII.</span> On the next page I have given a parallel view of the
+employment of the months from some Northern manuscripts,
+in order that they may be more conveniently compared with
+the sculptures of St. Mark&rsquo;s, in their expression of the varieties
+of climate and agricultural system. Observe that the
+letter (f.) in some of the columns, opposite the month of May,
+means that he has a falcon on his fist; being, in those cases,
+represented as riding out, in high exultation, on a caparisoned
+white horse. A series nearly similar to that of St. Mark&rsquo;s
+occurs on the door of the Cathedral of Lucca, and on that of
+the Baptistery of Pisa; in which, however, if I recollect
+rightly, February is fishing, and May has something resembling
+an umbrella in his hand, instead of a hawk. But, in all
+cases, the figures are treated with the peculiar spirit of the
+Gothic sculptors; and this archivolt is the first expression of
+that spirit which is to be found in Venice.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page276"></a>276</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">SECOND PERIOD.</p>
+
+<table class="allb" summary="data">
+<tr> <td class="allb">&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="allb1">St. Mark&rsquo;s.</td>
+     <td class="allb1">MS. French. Late 13th Century.</td>
+     <td class="allb1">MS. French. Late 13th Century.</td>
+     <td class="allb1">MS. French. Late 13th Century.</td>
+     <td class="allb1">MS. French. Early 14th Century.</td>
+     <td class="allb1">MS. English. Early 15th Century.</td>
+     <td class="allb1">MS. Flemish. 15th Century.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">January</td>
+     <td class="allb">Carrying wood.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Janus feasting.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Janus feasting.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Drinking and stirring fire.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Warming feet.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Janus feasting.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Feasting.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">February</td>
+     <td class="allb">Warming feet.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Warming feet.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Warming feet.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Pruning.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Bearing candles.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Warming feet.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Warming hands.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">March</td>
+     <td class="allb">Going to war.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Pruning.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Pruning.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Striking with axe.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Pruning.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Carrying candles.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">April</td>
+     <td class="allb">Carrying sheep.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering flowers.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering flowers.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering flowers.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering flowers.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Pruning.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering flowers.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">May</td>
+     <td class="allb">Crowned with flowers.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Riding (f.).</td>
+     <td class="allb">Riding (f.).</td>
+     <td class="allb">Playing on violin.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Riding (f.).</td>
+     <td class="allb">Riding (f.).</td>
+     <td class="allb">Riding with lady on pillion.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">June</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Mowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Mowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering large red flowers.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Carrying (fagots?)</td>
+     <td class="allb">Carrying fagots.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Sheep-shearing.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">July</td>
+     <td class="allb">Mowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Mowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Mowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Mowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Mowing.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">August</td>
+     <td class="allb">Asleep.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Threshing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering grapes.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Reaping.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">September</td>
+     <td class="allb">Carrying grapes.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Sowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Sowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Drinking wine.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Threshing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Threshing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Sowing.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">October</td>
+     <td class="allb">Digging.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Gathering grapes.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Beating oak.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Sowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Sowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Sowing.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Beating oak.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">November</td>
+     <td class="allb">Catching birds.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Beating oak.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing swine.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing swine.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing swine.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing swine.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Pressing (grapes?)</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="allb sc">December</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing swine.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing swine.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Baking.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing oxen.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Baking.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Baking.</td>
+     <td class="allb">Killing swine.</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page277"></a>277</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIV.</span> In the private palaces, the entrances soon admitted
+some concession to the Gothic form also. They pass through
+nearly the same conditions of change as the windows, with
+these three differences: first, that no arches of the fantastic
+fourth order occur in any doorways; secondly, that the pure
+pointed arch occurs earlier, and much oftener, in doorways
+than in window-heads; lastly, that the entrance itself, if small,
+is nearly always square-headed in the earliest examples, without
+any arch above, but afterwards the arch is thrown across above
+the lintel. The interval between the two, or tympanum, is
+filled with sculpture, or closed by iron bars, with sometimes a
+projecting gable, to form a porch, thrown over the whole, as
+in the perfect example, 7 <i>a</i>, <a href="#plate_14">Plate XIV.</a>, above. The other
+examples in the two lower lines, 6 and 7, of that Plate are
+each characteristic of an enormous number of doors, variously
+decorated, from the thirteenth to the close of the fifteenth
+century. The particulars of their mouldings are given in the
+final Appendix.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LV.</span> It was useless, on the small scale of this Plate, to
+attempt any delineation of the richer sculptures with which
+the arches are filled; so that I have chosen for it the simplest
+examples I could find of the forms to be illustrated: but, in
+all the more important instances, the door-head is charged
+either with delicate ornaments and inlaid patterns in variously
+colored brick, or with sculptures, consisting always of the
+shield or crest of the family, protected by an angel. Of these
+more perfect doorways I have given three examples carefully,
+in my folio work; but I must repeat here one part of the account
+of their subjects given in its text, for the convenience of
+those to whom the larger work may not be accessible.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVI.</span> &ldquo;In the earlier ages, all agree thus far, that the name
+of the family is told, and together with it there is always an
+intimation that they have placed their defence and their
+prosperity in God&rsquo;s hands; frequently accompanied with some
+general expression of benediction to the person passing over
+the threshold. This is the general theory of an old Venetian
+doorway;&mdash;the theory of modern doorways remains to be explained:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278"></a>278</span>
+it may be studied to advantage in our rows of new-built
+houses, or rather of new-built house, changeless for
+miles together, from which, to each inhabitant, we allot his
+proper quantity of windows, and a Doric portico. The Venetian
+carried out his theory very simply. In the centre of the
+archivolt we find almost invariably, in the older work, the
+hand between the sun and moon in the attitude of blessing,
+expressing the general power and presence of God, the source
+of light. On the tympanum is the shield of the family.
+Venetian heraldry requires no beasts for supporters, but usually
+prefers angels, neither the supporters nor crests forming any
+necessary part of Venetian bearings. Sometimes, however,
+human figures, or grotesques, are substituted; but, in that
+case, an angel is almost always introduced above the shield,
+bearing a globe in his left hand, and therefore clearly intended
+for the &lsquo;Angel of the Lord,&rsquo; or, as it is expressed elsewhere,
+the &lsquo;Angel of His Presence.&rsquo; Where elaborate sculpture of
+this kind is inadmissible, the shield is merely represented as
+suspended by a leather thong; and a cross is introduced above
+the archivolt. The Renaissance architects perceived the irrationality
+of all this, cut away both crosses and angels, and
+substituted heads of satyrs, which were the proper presiding
+deities of Venice in the Renaissance periods, and which in our
+own domestic institutions, we have ever since, with much
+piety and sagacity, retained.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVII.</span> The habit of employing some religious symbol, or
+writing some religious legend, over the door of the house,
+does not entirely disappear until far into the period of the
+Renaissance. The words &ldquo;Peace be to this house&rdquo; occur on
+one side of a Veronese gateway, with the appropriate and
+veracious inscription S.P.Q.R., on a Roman standard, on the
+other; and &ldquo;Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the
+Lord,&rdquo; is written on one of the doorways of a building added
+at the flank of the Casa Barbarigo, in the sixteenth or seventeenth
+century. It seems to be only modern Protestantism
+which is entirely ashamed of <i>all</i> symbols and words that
+appear in anywise like a confession of faith.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVIII.</span> This peculiar feeling is well worthy of attentive
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279"></a>279</span>
+analysis. It indeed, in most cases, hardly deserves the name
+of a feeling; for the meaningless doorway is merely an ignorant
+copy of heathen models: but yet, if it were at this
+moment proposed to any of us, by our architects, to remove
+the grinning head of a satyr, or other classical or Palladian
+ornament, from the keystone of the door, and to substitute
+for it a cross, and an inscription testifying our faith, I believe
+that most persons would shrink from the proposal with an
+obscure and yet overwhelming sense that things would be
+sometimes done, and thought, within the house which would
+make the inscription on its gate a base hypocrisy. And if so,
+let us look to it, whether that strong reluctance to utter a
+definite religious profession, which so many of us feel, and
+which, not very carefully examining into its dim nature, we
+conclude to be modesty, or fear of hypocrisy, or other such
+form of amiableness, be not, in very deed, neither less nor
+more than Infidelity; whether Peter&rsquo;s &ldquo;I know not the man&rdquo;
+be not the sum and substance of all these misgivings and hesitations;
+and whether the shamefacedness which we attribute
+to sincerity and reverence, be not such shamefacedness as may
+at last put us among those of whom the Son of Man shall be
+ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIX.</span> Such are the principal circumstances to be noted in
+the external form and details of the Gothic palaces; of their
+interior arrangements there is little left unaltered. The gateways
+which we have been examining almost universally lead,
+in the earlier palaces, into a long interior court, round which
+the mass of the palace is built; and in which its first story is
+reached by a superb external staircase, sustained on four or
+five pointed arches gradually increasing as they ascend, both
+in height and span,&mdash;this change in their size being, so far as
+I remember, peculiar to Venice, and visibly a consequence of
+the habitual admission of arches of different sizes in the Byzantine
+façades. These staircases are protected by exquisitely
+carved parapets, like those of the outer balconies, with lions
+or grotesque heads set on the angles, and with true projecting
+balconies on their landing-places. In the centre of the court
+there is always a marble well; and these wells furnish some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280"></a>280</span>
+of the most superb examples of Venetian sculpture. I am
+aware only of one remaining from the Byzantine period; it is
+octagonal, and treated like the richest of our Norman fonts:
+but the Gothic wells of every date, from the thirteenth century
+downwards, are innumerable, and full of beauty, though
+their form is little varied; they being, in almost every case,
+treated like colossal capitals of pillars, with foliage at the
+angles, and the shield of the family upon their sides.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LX.</span> The interior apartments always consist of one noble
+hall on the first story, often on the second also, extending
+across the entire depth of the house, and lighted in front by
+the principal groups of its windows, while smaller apartments
+open from it on either side. The ceilings, where they remain
+untouched, are of bold horizontal beams, richly carved and
+gilded; but few of these are left from the true Gothic times,
+the Venetian interiors having, in almost every case, been remodelled
+by the Renaissance architects. This change, <i>however,</i>
+for once, we cannot regret, as the walls and ceilings,
+when so altered, were covered with the noblest works of
+Veronese, Titian, and Tintoret; nor the interior walls only,
+but, as before noticed, often the exteriors also. Of the color
+decorations of the Gothic exteriors I have, therefore, at present
+taken no notice, as it will be more convenient to embrace this
+subject in one general view of the systems of coloring of the
+Venetian palaces, when we arrive at the period of its richest
+developement.<a name="FnAnchor_98" href="#Footnote_98"><span class="sp">98</span></a> The details, also, of most interest, respecting
+the forms and transitional decoration of their capitals, will be
+given in the final Appendix to the next volume, where we
+shall be able to include in our inquiry the whole extent of the
+Gothic period; and it remains for us, therefore, at present,
+only to review the history, fix the date, and note the most
+important particulars in the structure of the building which at
+once consummates and embodies the entire system of the
+Gothic architecture of Venice,&mdash;the <span class="sc">Ducal Palace</span>.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_75" href="#FnAnchor_75"><span class="fn">75</span></a> 38 ft. 2 in., without its cornice, which is 10 inches deep, and sustains
+pinnacles of stone 7 feet high. I was enabled to get the measures by a
+scaffolding erected in 1851 to repair the front.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_76" href="#FnAnchor_76"><span class="fn">76</span></a> I believe the necessary upper joint is vertical, through the uppermost
+lobe of the quatrefoil, as in the figure; but I have lost my memorandum of
+this joint.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_77" href="#FnAnchor_77"><span class="fn">77</span></a> &ldquo;Dice, che non lauda per alcun modo di metter questo Serenissimo
+Dominio in tanto pericolo d&rsquo; habitar un palazzo fabricato in aria.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Pareri
+di XV. Architetti, con illustrazioni dell&rsquo; Abbate Giuseppe Cadorin</i> (Venice,
+1838), p. 104.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_78" href="#FnAnchor_78"><span class="fn">78</span></a> &ldquo;Il muro della sala č piů grosso delle colonne sott&rsquo; esso piedi uno e
+onze tre, et posto in modo che onze sei sta come in aere sopra la piazza, et
+onze nove dentro.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Pareri di XV. Architetti</i>, p. 47.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_79" href="#FnAnchor_79"><span class="fn">79</span></a> Compare &ldquo;Seven Lamps,&rdquo; chap. iii. § 7.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_80" href="#FnAnchor_80"><span class="fn">80</span></a> Pareri, above quoted, p. 21.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_81" href="#FnAnchor_81"><span class="fn">81</span></a> It is a curious proof how completely, even so early as the beginning of
+the sixteenth century, the Venetians had lost the habit of <i>reading</i> the religious
+art of their ancient churches, that Sanuto, describing this injury,
+says, that &ldquo;four of the <i>Kings</i> in marble fell from their pinnacles above the
+front, at St. Mark&rsquo;s church;&rdquo; and presently afterwards corrects his mistake,
+and apologises for it thus: &ldquo;These were four saints, St. Constantine, St.
+Demetrius, St. George, and St. Theodore, all Greek saints. <i>They look like
+Kings</i>.&rdquo; Observe the perfect, because unintentional, praise given to the
+old sculptor.</p>
+
+<p>I quote the passage from the translation of these precious diaries of
+Sanuto, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, a translation which I hope will
+some day become a standard book in English libraries.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_82" href="#FnAnchor_82"><span class="fn">82</span></a> I am not speaking here of iron balconies. See below, § <span class="scs">XXII.</span></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_83" href="#FnAnchor_83"><span class="fn">83</span></a> A Some details respecting the mechanical structure of the Venetian balcony
+are given in the final Appendix.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_84" href="#FnAnchor_84"><span class="fn">84</span></a> I found it convenient in my own memoranda to express them simply
+as fourths, seconds, &amp;c. But &ldquo;order&rdquo; is an excellent word for any known
+group of forms, whether of windows, capitals, bases, mouldings, or any
+other architectural feature, provided always that it be not understood in any
+wise to imply preëminence or isolation in these groups. Thus I may rationally
+speak of the six orders of Venetian windows, provided I am ready to allow
+a French architect to speak of the six or seven, or eight, or seventy or eighty,
+orders of Norman windows, if so many are distinguishable; and so also we
+may rationally speak, for the sake of intelligibility, of the five orders of
+Greek pillars, provided only we understand that there may be five millions
+of orders as good or better, of pillars <i>not</i> Greek.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_85" href="#FnAnchor_85"><span class="fn">85</span></a> Or in their own curves; as, on a small scale, in the balustrade fig. 6,
+<a href="#plate_13">Plate XIII.</a>, above.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_86" href="#FnAnchor_86"><span class="fn">86</span></a> For all details of this kind, the reader is referred to the final Appendix
+in Vol. III.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_87" href="#FnAnchor_87"><span class="fn">87</span></a> Two threads of white marble, each about an inch wide, inlaid in the
+dark grey pavement, indicate the road to the Rialto from the farthest extremity
+of the north quarter of Venice. The peasant or traveller, lost in the
+intricacy of the pathway in this portion of the city, cannot fail, after a few
+experimental traverses, to cross these white lines, which thenceforward he
+has nothing to do but to follow, though their capricious sinuosities will try
+his patience not a little.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_88" href="#FnAnchor_88"><span class="fn">88</span></a> An account of the conspiracy of Bajamonte may be found in almost
+any Venetian history; the reader may consult Mutinelli, Annali Urbani,
+lib. iii.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_89" href="#FnAnchor_89"><span class="fn">89</span></a> See account of series of capitals in final Appendix.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_90" href="#FnAnchor_90"><span class="fn">90</span></a> If the traveller desire to find them (and they are worth seeking), let
+him row from the Fondamenta S. Biagio down the Rio della Tana, and
+look, on his right, for a low house with windows in it like those in the
+woodcut No. XXXI. above, p. 256. Let him go in at the door of the
+portico in the middle of this house, and he will find himself in a small alley,
+with the windows in question on each side of him.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_91" href="#FnAnchor_91"><span class="fn">91</span></a> The bitterness of feeling with which the Venetians must have remembered
+this, was probably the cause of their magnificent heroism in the final
+siege of the city under Dandolo, and, partly, of the excesses which disgraced
+their victory. The conduct of the allied army of the Crusaders on
+this occasion cannot, however, be brought in evidence of general barbarism
+in the thirteenth century: first, because the masses of the crusading armies
+were in great part composed of the refuse of the nations of Europe; and
+secondly, because such a mode of argument might lead us to inconvenient
+conclusions respecting ourselves, so long as the horses of the Austrian cavalry
+are stabled in the cloister of the convent which contains the Last Supper
+of Leonardo da Vinci. See <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#app_3">Appendix 3</a>, Vol. III.: &ldquo;Austrian Government
+in Italy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_92" href="#FnAnchor_92"><span class="fn">92</span></a> It is generally better to read ten lines of any poet in the original language,
+however painfully, than ten cantos of a translation. But an exception
+may be made in favor of Cary&rsquo;s Dante. If no poet ever was liable to
+lose more in translation, none was ever so carefully translated; and I
+hardly know whether most to admire the rigid fidelity, or the sweet and
+solemn harmony, of Cary&rsquo;s verse. There is hardly a fault in the fragment
+quoted above, except the word &ldquo;lectured,&rdquo; for Dante&rsquo;s beautiful &ldquo;favoleggiava;&rdquo;
+and even in this case, joining the first words of the following
+line, the translation is strictly literal. It is true that the conciseness and
+the rivulet-like melody of Dante must continually be lost; but if I could
+only read English, and had to choose, for a library narrowed by poverty,
+between Cary&rsquo;s Dante and our own original Milton, I should choose Cary
+without an instant&rsquo;s pause.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_93" href="#FnAnchor_93"><span class="fn">93</span></a> See final Appendix, Vol. III., under head &ldquo;Capitals.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_94" href="#FnAnchor_94"><span class="fn">94</span></a> This Plate is not from a drawing of mine. It has been engraved by
+Mr. Armytage, with great skill, from two daguerreotypes.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_95" href="#FnAnchor_95"><span class="fn">95</span></a> Vide final Appendix, under head &ldquo;Archivolt.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_96" href="#FnAnchor_96"><span class="fn">96</span></a> &ldquo;On Thursday, the 20th, the front walls of two of the new houses now
+building in Victoria Street, Westminster, fell to the ground.... The
+roof was on, <i>and a massive compo cornice</i> was put up at top, as well as
+dressings to the upper windows. The roof is formed by girders and
+4&frac12;-brick arches in cement, covered with asphalt to form a flat. The failure
+is attributed <i>to the quantity of rain which has fallen</i>. Others suppose that
+some of the girders were defective, and gave way, carrying the walls with
+them.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Builder</i>, for January 29th, 1853. The rest of this volume might
+be filled with such notices, if we sought for them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_97" href="#FnAnchor_97"><span class="fn">97</span></a> &ldquo;Ysame,&rdquo; collected together.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_98" href="#FnAnchor_98"><span class="fn">98</span></a> Vol. III. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#chap_1">Chap. I.</a> I have had considerable difficulty in the arrangement
+of these volumes, so as to get the points bearing upon each other
+grouped in consecutive and intelligible order.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page281"></a>281</span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="chap_8"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+
+<h5>THE DUCAL PALACE.</h5>
+
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">I.</span> It was stated in the commencement of the preceding
+chapter that the Gothic art of Venice was separated by the
+building of the Ducal Palace into two distinct periods; and
+that in all the domestic edifices which were raised for half a
+century after its completion, their characteristic and chiefly
+effective portions were more or less directly copied from it.
+The fact is, that the Ducal Palace was the great work of
+Venice at this period, itself the principal effort of her imagination,
+employing her best architects in its masonry, and her best
+painters in its decoration, for a long series of years; and we
+must receive it as a remarkable testimony to the influence
+which it possessed over the minds of those who saw it in its
+progress, that, while in the other cities of Italy every palace
+and church was rising in some original and daily more daring
+form, the majesty of this single building was able to give
+pause to the Gothic imagination in its full career; stayed the
+restlessness of innovation in an instant, and forbade the powers
+which had created it thenceforth to exert themselves in new
+directions, or endeavor to summon an image more attractive.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">II.</span> The reader will hardly believe that while the architectural
+invention of the Venetians was thus lost, Narcissus-like,
+in self-contemplation, the various accounts of the progress of
+the building thus admired and beloved are so confused as frequently
+to leave it doubtful to what portion of the palace they
+refer; and that there is actually, at the time being, a dispute
+between the best Venetian antiquaries, whether the main
+façade of the palace be of the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
+The determination of this question is of course necessary before
+we proceed to draw any conclusions from the style of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282"></a>282</span>
+work; and it cannot be determined without a careful review
+of the entire history of the palace, and of all the documents
+relating to it. I trust that this review may not be found tedious,&mdash;assuredly
+it will not be fruitless,&mdash;bringing many facts
+before us, singularly illustrative of the Venetian character.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">III.</span> Before, however, the reader can enter upon any inquiry
+into the history of this building, it is necessary that he
+should be thoroughly familiar with the arrangement and names
+of its principal parts, as it at present stands; otherwise he cannot
+comprehend so much as a single sentence of any of the
+documents referring to it. I must do what I can, by the help
+of a rough plan and bird&rsquo;s-eye view, to give him the necessary
+topographical knowledge:</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fig_36">Fig. <span class="scs">XXXVI.</span></a> opposite is a rude ground plan of the buildings
+round St. Mark&rsquo;s Place; and the following references will
+clearly explain their relative positions:</p>
+
+<div class="quote1">
+<p>A. St. Mark&rsquo;s Place.</p>
+<p>B. Piazzetta.</p>
+<p>P. V. Procuratie Vecchie.</p>
+<p>P. N. (opposite) Procuratie Nuove.</p>
+<p>P. L. Libreria Vecchia.</p>
+<p>I. Piazzetta de&rsquo; Leoni.</p>
+<p>T. Tower of St. Mark.</p>
+<p>F F. Great Façade of St. Mark&rsquo;s Church.</p>
+<p>M. St. Mark&rsquo;s. (It is so united with the Ducal Palace, that the separation
+cannot be indicated in the plan, unless all the walls had been
+marked, which would have confused the whole.)</p>
+<p>D D D. Ducal Palace.</p>
+<p>C. Court of Ducal Palace.</p>
+<p>c. Porta della Carta.</p>
+<p>p p. Ponte della Paglia (Bridge of Straw).</p>
+<p>S. Ponte de&rsquo; Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs).</p>
+<p>R R. Riva de&rsquo; Schiavoni.</p>
+<p>g s. Giant&rsquo;s stair.</p>
+<p>J. Judgment angle.</p>
+<p>a. Fig-tree angle.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The reader will observe that the Ducal Palace is arranged
+somewhat in the form of a hollow square, of which one side
+faces the Piazzetta, B, and another the quay called the Riva
+de&rsquo; Schiavoni, R R; the third is on the dark canal called the
+&ldquo;Rio del Palazzo,&rdquo; and the fourth joins the Church of St.
+Mark.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <a name="fig_36"><img src="images/img282a.jpg" width="650" height="480" alt="Fig. XXXVI." title="Fig. XXXVI." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <a name="fig_37"><img src="images/img282b.jpg" width="650" height="535" alt="Fig. XXXVII." title="Fig. XXXVII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page283"></a>283</span></p>
+
+<p>Of this fourth side, therefore, nothing can be seen. Of the
+other three sides we shall have to speak constantly; and they
+will be respectively called, that towards the Piazzetta, the
+&ldquo;Piazzetta Façade;&rdquo; that towards the Riva de&rsquo; Schiavoni, the
+&ldquo;Sea Façade;&rdquo; and that towards the Rio del Palazzo, the
+&ldquo;Rio Façade.&rdquo; This Rio, or canal, is usually looked upon by
+the traveller with great respect, or even horror, because it
+passes under the Bridge of Sighs. It is, however, one of the
+principal thoroughfares of the city; and the bridge and its
+canal together occupy, in the mind of a Venetian, very much
+the position of Fleet Street and Temple Bar in that of a Londoner,&mdash;at
+least, at the time when Temple Bar was occasionally
+decorated with human heads. The two buildings closely resemble
+each other in form.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IV.</span> We must now proceed to obtain some rough idea of
+the appearance and distribution of the palace itself; but its
+arrangement will be better understood by supposing ourselves
+raised some hundred and fifty feet above the point in the
+lagoon in front of it, so as to get a general view of the Sea
+Façade and Rio Façade (the latter in very steep perspective),
+and to look down into its interior court. <a href="#fig_37">Fig. XXXVII.</a> roughly
+represents such a view, omitting all details on the roofs, in order
+to avoid confusion. In this drawing we have merely to notice
+that, of the two bridges seen on the right, the uppermost,
+above the black canal, is the Bridge of Sighs; the lower one
+is the Ponte della Paglia, the regular thoroughfare from quay
+to quay, and, I believe, called the Bridge of Straw, because
+the boats which brought straw from the mainland used to sell
+it at this place. The corner of the palace, rising above this
+bridge, and formed by the meeting of the Sea Façade and Rio
+Façade, will always be called the Vine angle, because it is
+decorated by a sculpture of the drunkenness of Noah. The
+angle opposite will be called the Fig-tree angle, because it is
+decorated by a sculpture of the Fall of Man. The long and
+narrow range of building, of which the roof is seen in perspective
+behind this angle, is the part of the palace fronting the
+Piazzetta; and the angle under the pinnacle most to the left
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284"></a>284</span>
+of the two which terminate it will be called, for a reason presently
+to be stated, the Judgment angle. Within the square
+formed by the building is seen its interior court (with one of
+its wells), terminated by small and fantastic buildings of the
+Renaissance period, which face the Giant&rsquo;s Stair, of which
+the extremity is seen sloping down on the left.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">V.</span> The great façade which fronts the spectator looks
+southward. Hence the two traceried windows lower than the
+rest, and to the right of the spectator, may be conveniently
+distinguished as the &ldquo;Eastern Windows.&rdquo; There are two
+others like them, filled with tracery, and at the same level,
+which look upon the narrow canal between the Ponte della
+Paglia and the Bridge of Sighs: these we may conveniently
+call the &ldquo;Canal Windows.&rdquo; The reader will observe a vertical
+line in this dark side of the palace, separating its nearer
+and plainer wall from a long four-storied range of rich architecture.
+This more distant range is entirely Renaissance: its
+extremity is not indicated, because I have no accurate sketch
+of the small buildings and bridges beyond it, and we shall have
+nothing whatever to do with this part of the palace in our
+present inquiry. The nearer and undecorated wall is part of
+the older palace, though much defaced by modern opening of
+common windows, refittings of the brickwork, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; width: auto;" summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">Fig. XXXVIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figleft2">
+    <a name="fig_38"><img src="images/img284.jpg" width="150" height="185" alt="Fig. XXXVIII." title="Fig. XXXVIII." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VI.</span> It will be observed that the façade is composed of a
+smooth mass of wall, sustained on two tiers of pillars, one
+above the other. The manner in which these support the whole
+fabric will be understood at once by the rough section, fig.
+XXXVIII., which is supposed to be taken
+right through the palace to the interior court,
+from near the middle of the Sea Façade. Here
+<i>a</i> and <i>d</i> are the rows of shafts, both in the
+inner court and on the Façade, which carry
+the main walls; <i>b</i>, <i>c</i> are solid walls variously
+strengthened with pilasters. A, B, C are the
+three stories of the interior of the palace.</p>
+
+<p>The reader sees that it is impossible for
+any plan to be more simple, and that if the inner floors and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285"></a>285</span>
+walls of the stories A, B were removed, there could be left
+merely the form of a basilica,&mdash;two high walls, carried on
+ranges of shafts, and roofed by a low gable.</p>
+
+<p>The stories A, B are entirely modernized, and divided into
+confused ranges of small apartments, among which what vestiges
+remain of ancient masonry are entirely undecipherable,
+except by investigations such as I have had neither the time
+nor, as in most cases they would involve the removal of modern
+plastering, the opportunity, to make. With the subdivisions
+of this story, therefore, I shall not trouble the reader; but
+those of the great upper story, C, are highly important.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VII.</span> In the bird&rsquo;s-eye view above, <a href="#fig_37">fig. XXXVII.</a>, it will
+be noticed that the two windows on the right are lower than the
+other four of the façade. In this arrangement there is one of
+the most remarkable instances I know of the daring sacrifice
+of symmetry to convenience, which was noticed in <a href="#chap_7">Chap. VII.</a>
+as one of the chief noblenesses of the Gothic schools.</p>
+
+<p>The part of the palace in which the two lower windows
+occur, we shall find, was first built, and arranged in four stories
+in order to obtain the necessary number of apartments. Owing
+to circumstances, of which we shall presently give an account,
+it became necessary, in the beginning of the fourteenth century,
+to provide another large and magnificent chamber for
+the meeting of the senate. That chamber was added at the
+side of the older building; but, as only one room was wanted,
+there was no need to divide the added portion into two stories.
+The entire height was given to the single chamber, being
+indeed not too great for just harmony with its enormous
+length and breadth. And then came the question how to
+place the windows, whether on a line with the two others, or
+above them.</p>
+
+<p>The ceiling of the new room was to be adorned by the
+paintings of the best masters in Venice, and it became of
+great importance to raise the light near that gorgeous roof,
+as well as to keep the tone of illumination in the Council
+Chamber serene; and therefore to introduce light rather in
+simple masses than in many broken streams. A modern
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286"></a>286</span>
+architect, terrified at the idea of violating external symmetry,
+would have sacrificed both the pictures and the peace of the
+council. He would have placed the larger windows at the
+same level with the other two, and have introduced above
+them smaller windows, like those of the upper story in the
+older building, as if that upper story had been continued
+along the façade. But the old Venetian thought of the honor
+of the paintings, and the comfort of the senate, before his own
+reputation. He unhesitatingly raised the large windows to
+their proper position with reference to the interior of the
+chamber, and suffered the external appearance to take care of
+itself. And I believe the whole pile rather gains than loses in
+effect by the variation thus obtained in the spaces of wall above
+and below the windows.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">VIII.</span> On the party wall, between the second and third
+windows, which faces the eastern extremity of the Great
+Council Chamber, is painted the Paradise of Tintoret; and
+this wall will therefore be hereafter called the &ldquo;Wall of the
+Paradise.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In nearly the centre of the Sea Façade, and between the
+first and second windows of the Great Council Chamber, is a
+large window to the ground, opening on a balcony, which is
+one of the chief ornaments of the palace, and will be called
+in future the &ldquo;Sea Balcony.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The façade which looks on the Piazetta is very nearly like
+this to the Sea, but the greater part of it was built in the
+fifteenth century, when people had become studious of their
+symmetries. Its side windows are all on the same level.
+Two light the west end of the Great Council Chamber, one
+lights a small room anciently called the Quarantia Civil
+Nuova; the other three, and the central one, with a balcony
+like that to the Sea, light another large chamber, called Sala
+del Scrutinio, or &ldquo;Hall of Enquiry,&rdquo; which extends to the
+extremity of the palace above the Porta della Carta.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">IX.</span> The reader is now well enough acquainted with the
+topography of the existing building, to be able to follow the
+accounts of its history.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page287"></a>287</span></p>
+
+<p>We have seen above, that there were three principal styles
+of Venetian architecture; Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance.</p>
+
+<p>The Ducal Palace, which was the great work of Venice,
+was built successively in the three styles. There was a Byzantine
+Ducal Palace, a Gothic Ducal Palace, and a Renaissance
+Ducal Palace. The second superseded the first totally; a few
+stones of it (if indeed so much) are all that is left. But the
+third superseded the second in part only, and the existing
+building is formed by the union of the two.</p>
+
+<p>We shall review the history of each in succession.<a name="FnAnchor_99" href="#Footnote_99"><span class="sp">99</span></a></p>
+
+<p>1st. The <span class="sc">Byzantine Palace</span>.</p>
+
+<p>In the year of the death of Charlemagne, 813,<a name="FnAnchor_100" href="#Footnote_100"><span class="sp">100</span></a> the Venetians
+determined to make the island of Rialto the seat of the
+government and capital of their state. Their Doge, Angelo
+or Agnello Participazio, instantly took vigorous means for the
+enlargement of the small group of buildings which were to be
+the nucleus of the future Venice. He appointed persons to
+superintend the raising of the banks of sand, so as to form
+more secure foundations, and to build wooden bridges over
+the canals. For the offices of religion, he built the Church
+of St. Mark; and on, or near, the spot where the Ducal Palace
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288"></a>288</span>
+now stands, he built a palace for the administration of the
+government.<a name="FnAnchor_101" href="#Footnote_101"><span class="sp">101</span></a></p>
+
+<p>The history of the Ducal Palace therefore begins with the
+birth of Venice, and to what remains of it, at this day, is entrusted
+the last representation of her power.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">X.</span> Of the exact position and form of this palace of Participazio
+little is ascertained. Sansovino says that it was
+&ldquo;built near the Ponte della Paglia, and answeringly on the
+Grand Canal,&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_102" href="#Footnote_102"><span class="sp">102</span></a> towards San Giorgio; that is to say, in the
+place now occupied by the Sea Façade; but this was merely
+the popular report of his day. We know, however, positively,
+that it was somewhere upon the site of the existing palace;
+and that it had an important front towards the Piazzetta, with
+which, as we shall see hereafter, the present palace at one
+period was incorporated. We know, also, that it was a pile of
+some magnificence, from the account given by Sagornino of
+the visit paid by the Emperor Otho the Great, to the Doge
+Pietro Orseolo II. The chronicler says that the Emperor
+&ldquo;beheld carefully all the beauty of the palace;&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_103" href="#Footnote_103"><span class="sp">103</span></a> and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289"></a>289</span>
+Venetian historians express pride in the building&rsquo;s being
+worthy of an emperor&rsquo;s examination. This was after the
+palace had been much injured by fire in the revolt against
+Candiano IV.,<a name="FnAnchor_104" href="#Footnote_104"><span class="sp">104</span></a> and just repaired, and richly adorned by
+Orseolo himself, who is spoken of by Sagornino as having
+also &ldquo;adorned the chapel of the Ducal Palace&rdquo; (St. Mark&rsquo;s)
+with ornaments of marble and gold.<a name="FnAnchor_105" href="#Footnote_105"><span class="sp">105</span></a> There can be no doubt
+whatever that the palace at this period resembled and impressed
+the other Byzantine edifices of the city, such as the Fondaco
+de Turchi, &amp;c., whose remains have been already described;
+and that, like them, it was covered with sculpture, and richly
+adorned with gold and color.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XI.</span> In the year 1106, it was for the second time injured
+by fire,<a name="FnAnchor_106" href="#Footnote_106"><span class="sp">106</span></a> but repaired before 1116, when it received another
+emperor, Henry V. (of Germany), and was again honored by
+imperial praise.<a name="FnAnchor_107" href="#Footnote_107"><span class="sp">107</span></a> Between 1173 and the close of the century,
+it seems to have been again repaired and much enlarged by
+the Doge Sebastian Ziani. Sansovino says that this Doge not
+only repaired it, but &ldquo;enlarged it in every direction;&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_108" href="#Footnote_108"><span class="sp">108</span></a> and,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290"></a>290</span>
+after this enlargement, the palace seems to have remained
+untouched for a hundred years, until, in the commencement
+of the fourteenth century, the works of the Gothic Palace
+were begun. As, therefore, the old Byzantine building was,
+at the time when those works first interfered with it, in the
+form given to it by Ziani, I shall hereafter always speak of it
+as the <i>Ziani</i> Palace; and this the rather, because the only
+chronicler whose words are perfectly clear respecting the
+existence of part of this palace so late as the year 1422, speaks
+of it as built by Ziani. The old &ldquo;palace, of which half remains
+to this day, was built, as we now see it, by Sebastian
+Ziani.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_109" href="#Footnote_109"><span class="sp">109</span></a></p>
+
+<p>So far, then, of the Byzantine Palace.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XII.</span> 2nd. The <span class="sc">Gothic Palace</span>. The reader, doubtless,
+recollects that the important change in the Venetian government
+which gave stability to the aristocratic power took place
+about the year 1297,<a name="FnAnchor_110" href="#Footnote_110"><span class="sp">110</span></a> under the Doge Pietro Gradenigo, a man
+thus characterized by Sansovino:&mdash;&ldquo;A prompt and prudent
+man, of unconquerable determination and great eloquence,
+who laid, so to speak, the foundations of the eternity of this
+republic, by the admirable regulations which he introduced
+into the government.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We may now, with some reason, doubt of their admirableness;
+but their importance, and the vigorous will and intellect
+of the Doge, are not to be disputed. Venice was in the zenith
+of her strength, and the heroism of her citizens was displaying
+itself in every quarter of the world.<a name="FnAnchor_111" href="#Footnote_111"><span class="sp">111</span></a> The acquiescence in the
+secure establishment of the aristocratic power was an expression,
+by the people, of respect for the families which had been
+chiefly instrumental in raising the commonwealth to such a
+height of prosperity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page291"></a>291</span></p>
+
+<p>The Serrar del Consiglio fixed the numbers of the Senate
+within certain limits, and it conferred upon them a dignity
+greater than they had ever before possessed. It was natural
+that the alteration in the character of the assembly should be
+attended by some change in the size, arrangement, or decoration
+of the chamber in which they sat.</p>
+
+<p>We accordingly find it recorded by Sansovino, that &ldquo;in
+1301 another saloon was begun on the Rio del Palazzo, <i>under
+the Doge Gradenigo</i>, and finished in 1309, <i>in which year the
+Grand Council first sat in it</i>.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_112" href="#Footnote_112"><span class="sp">112</span></a> In the first year, therefore,
+of the fourteenth century, the Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice
+was begun; and as the Byzantine Palace was, in its foundation,
+coeval with that of the state, so the Gothic Palace was,
+in its foundation, coeval with that of the aristocratic power.
+Considered as the principal representation of the Venetian
+school of architecture, the Ducal Palace is the Parthenon of
+Venice, and Gradenigo its Pericles.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIII.</span> Sansovino, with a caution very frequent among Venetian
+historians, when alluding to events connected with the
+Serrar del Consiglio, does not specially mention the cause for
+the requirement of the new chamber; but the Sivos Chronicle
+is a little more distinct in expression. &ldquo;In 1301, it was determined
+to build a great saloon <i>for the assembling</i> of the Great
+Council, and the room was built which is <i>now</i> called the Sala
+del Scrutinio.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_113" href="#Footnote_113"><span class="sp">113</span></a> <i>Now</i>, that is to say, at the time when the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292"></a>292</span>
+Sivos Chronicle was written; the room has long ago been
+destroyed, and its name given to another chamber on the opposite
+side of the palace: but I wish the reader to remember the
+date 1301, as marking the commencement of a great architectural
+epoch, in which took place the first appliance of the
+energy of the aristocratic power, and of the Gothic style, to
+the works of the Ducal Palace. The operations then begun
+were continued, with hardly an interruption, during the whole
+period of the prosperity of Venice. We shall see the new
+buildings consume, and take the place of, the Ziani Palace,
+piece by piece: and when the Ziani Palace was destroyed,
+they fed upon themselves; being continued round the
+square, until, in the sixteenth century, they reached the point
+where they had been begun in the fourteenth, and pursued
+the track they had then followed some distance beyond the
+junction; destroying or hiding their own commencement, as
+the serpent, which is the type of eternity, conceals its tail in
+its jaws.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIV.</span> We cannot, therefore, <i>see</i> the extremity, wherein lay
+the sting and force of the whole creature,&mdash;the chamber,
+namely, built by the Doge Gradenigo; but the reader must
+keep that commencement and the date of it carefully in his
+mind. The body of the Palace Serpent will soon become visible
+to us.</p>
+
+<p>The Gradenigo Chamber was somewhere on the Rio Façade,
+behind the present position of the Bridge of Sighs; i.e. about
+the point marked on the roof by the dotted lines in the woodcut;
+it is not known whether low or high, but probably on a
+first story. The great façade of the Ziani Palace being, as
+above mentioned, on the Piazzetta, this chamber was as far
+back and out of the way as possible; secrecy and security
+being obviously the points first considered.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XV.</span> But the newly constituted Senate had need of other
+additions to the ancient palace besides the Council Chamber.
+A short, but most significant, sentence is added to Sansovino&rsquo;s
+account of the construction of that room. &ldquo;There were, <i>near</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293"></a>293</span>
+<i>it</i>,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;the Cancellaria, and the <i>Gheba</i> or <i>Gabbia</i>, afterwards
+called the Little Tower.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_114" href="#Footnote_114"><span class="sp">114</span></a></p>
+
+<p>Gabbia means a &ldquo;cage;&rdquo; and there can be no question that
+certain apartments were at this time added at the top of the
+palace and on the Rio Façade, which were to be used as prisons.
+Whether any portion of the old Torresella still remains
+is a doubtful question; but the apartments at the top of the
+palace, in its fourth story, were still used for prisons as late as
+the beginning of the seventeenth century.<a name="FnAnchor_115" href="#Footnote_115"><span class="sp">115</span></a> I wish the reader
+especially to notice that a separate tower or range of apartments
+was built for this purpose, in order to clear the government
+of the accusations so constantly made against them, by
+ignorant or partial historians, of wanton cruelty to prisoners.
+The stories commonly told respecting the &ldquo;piombi&rdquo; of the
+Ducal Palace are utterly false. Instead of being, as usually
+reported, small furnaces under the leads of the palace, they
+were comfortable rooms, with good flat roofs of larch, and carefully
+ventilated.<a name="FnAnchor_116" href="#Footnote_116"><span class="sp">116</span></a> The new chamber, then, and the prisons,
+being built, the Great Council first sat in their retired chamber
+on the Rio in the year 1309.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVI.</span> Now, observe the significant progress of events.
+They had no sooner thus established themselves in power than
+they were disturbed by the conspiracy of the Tiepolos, in the
+year 1310. In consequence of that conspiracy the Council of
+Ten was created, still under the Doge Gradenigo; who, having
+finished his work and left the aristocracy of Venice armed
+with this terrible power, died in the year 1312, some say by
+poison. He was succeeded by the Doge Marino Giorgio, who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294"></a>294</span>
+reigned only one year; and then followed the prosperous government
+of John Soranzo. There is no mention of any additions
+to the Ducal Palace during his reign, but he was succeeded
+by that Francesco Dandolo, the sculptures on whose
+tomb, still existing in the cloisters of the Salute, may be compared
+by any traveller with those of the Ducal Palace. Of
+him it is recorded in the Savina Chronicle: &ldquo;This Doge also
+had the great gate built which is at the entry of the palace,
+above which is his statue kneeling, with the gonfalon in hand,
+before the feet of the Lion of St. Mark&rsquo;s.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_117" href="#Footnote_117"><span class="sp">117</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVII.</span> It appears, then, that after the Senate had completed
+their Council Chamber and the prisons, they required a nobler
+door than that of the old Ziani Palace for their Magnificences
+to enter by. This door is twice spoken of in the government
+accounts of expenses, which are fortunately preserved,<a name="FnAnchor_118" href="#Footnote_118"><span class="sp">118</span></a> in the
+following terms:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="padding-left: 1.5em; text-indent: -1.5em; ">&ldquo;1335, June 1. We, Andrew Dandolo and Mark Loredano,
+procurators of St. Mark&rsquo;s, have paid to Martin the stone-cutter
+and his associates<a name="FnAnchor_119" href="#Footnote_119"><span class="sp">119</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 1em; "> .... </span>for a stone of which
+the lion is made which is put over the gate of the palace.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p style="padding-left: 1.5em; text-indent: -1.5em; ">&ldquo;1344, November 4. We have paid thirty-five golden ducats
+for making gold leaf, to gild the lion which is over the
+door of the palace stairs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The position of this door is disputed, and is of no consequence
+to the reader, the door itself having long ago disappeared, and
+been replaced by the Porta della Carta.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XVIII.</span> But before it was finished, occasion had been discovered
+for farther improvements. The Senate found their
+new Council Chamber inconveniently small, and, about thirty
+years after its completion, began to consider where a larger
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295"></a>295</span>
+and more magnificent one might be built. The government
+was now thoroughly established, and it was probably felt that
+there was some meanness in the retired position, as well as
+insufficiency in the size, of the Council Chamber on the Rio.
+The first definite account which I find of their proceedings,
+under these circumstances, is in the Caroldo Chronicle:<a name="FnAnchor_120" href="#Footnote_120"><span class="sp">120</span></a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;1340. On the 28th of December, in the preceding year,
+Master Marco Erizzo, Nicolo Soranzo, and Thomas Gradenigo,
+were chosen to examine where a new saloon might be built in
+order to assemble therein the Greater Council. . . . . On the
+3rd of June, 1341, the Great Council elected two procurators
+of the work of this saloon, with a salary of eighty ducats a
+year.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It appears from the entry still preserved in the Archivio,
+and quoted by Cadorin, that it was on the 28th of December,
+1340, that the commissioners appointed to decide on this important
+matter gave in their report to the Grand Council, and
+that the decree passed thereupon for the commencement of a
+new Council Chamber on the Grand Canal.<a name="FnAnchor_121" href="#Footnote_121"><span class="sp">121</span></a></p>
+
+<p><i>The room then begun is the one now in existence</i>, and its
+building involved the building of all that is best and most
+beautiful in the present Ducal Palace, the rich arcades of the
+lower stories being all prepared for sustaining this Sala del
+Gran Consiglio.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XIX.</span> In saying that it is the same now in existence, I do
+not mean that it has undergone no alterations; as we shall
+see hereafter, it has been refitted again and again, and some
+portions of its walls rebuilt; but in the place and form in
+which it first stood, it still stands; and by a glance at the
+position which its windows occupy, as shown in <a href="#fig_37">fig. XXXVII.</a>
+above, the reader will see at once that whatever can be known
+respecting the design of the Sea Façade, must be gleaned out
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296"></a>296</span>
+of the entries which refer to the building of this Great Council
+Chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Cadorin quotes two of great importance, to which we shall
+return in due time, made during the progress of the work in
+1342 and 1344; then one of 1349, resolving that the works
+at the Ducal Palace, which had been discontinued during the
+plague, should be resumed; and finally one in 1362, which
+speaks of the Great Council Chamber as having been neglected
+and suffered to fall into &ldquo;great desolation,&rdquo; and resolves that
+it shall be forthwith completed.<a name="FnAnchor_122" href="#Footnote_122"><span class="sp">122</span></a></p>
+
+<p>The interruption had not been caused by the plague only,
+but by the conspiracy of Faliero, and the violent death of the
+master builder.<a name="FnAnchor_123" href="#Footnote_123"><span class="sp">123</span></a> The work was resumed in 1362, and completed
+within the next three years, at least so far as that
+Guariento was enabled to paint his Paradise on the walls;<a name="FnAnchor_124" href="#Footnote_124"><span class="sp">124</span></a> so
+that the building must, at any rate, have been roofed by this
+time. Its decorations and fittings, however, were long in
+completion; the paintings on the roof being only executed in
+1400.<a name="FnAnchor_125" href="#Footnote_125"><span class="sp">125</span></a> They represented the heavens covered with stars,<a name="FnAnchor_126" href="#Footnote_126"><span class="sp">126</span></a>
+this being, says Sansovino, the bearings of the Doge Steno.
+Almost all ceilings and vaults were at this time in Venice covered
+with stars, without any reference to armorial bearings;
+but Steno claims, under his noble title of Stellifer, an important
+share in completing the chamber, in an inscription upon
+two square tablets, now inlaid in the walls on each side of the
+great window towards the sea:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page297"></a>297</span></p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr sc">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Mille quadringenti currebant quatuor anni</p>
+<p>Hoc opus illustris Michael dux stellifer auxit.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>And in fact it is to this Doge that we owe the beautiful
+balcony of that window, though the work above it is partly
+of more recent date; and I think the tablets bearing this
+important inscription have been taken out and reinserted in the
+newer masonry. The labor of these final decorations occupied
+a total period of sixty years. The Grand Council sat in the
+finished chamber for the first time in 1423. In that year the
+Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was completed. It had taken,
+to build it, the energies of the entire period which I have
+above described as the central one of her life.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XX</span>. 3rd. The <span class="sc">Renaissance Palace</span>. I must go back a
+step or two, in order to be certain that the reader understands
+clearly the state of the palace in 1423. The works of addition
+or renovation had now been proceeding, at intervals, during a
+space of a hundred and twenty-three years. Three generations
+at least had been accustomed to witness the gradual
+advancement of the form of the Ducal Palace into more
+stately symmetry, and to contrast the works of sculpture and
+painting with which it was decorated,&mdash;full of the life, knowledge,
+and hope of the fourteenth century,&mdash;with the rude
+Byzantine chiselling of the palace of the Doge Ziani. The
+magnificent fabric just completed, of which the new Council
+Chamber was the nucleus, was now habitually known in
+Venice as the &ldquo;Palazzo Nuovo;&rdquo; and the old Byzantine
+edifice, now ruinous, and more manifest in its decay by its
+contrast with the goodly stones of the building which had
+been raised at its side, was of course known as the &ldquo;Palazzo
+Vecchio.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_127" href="#Footnote_127"><span class="sp">127</span></a> That fabric, however, still occupied the principal
+position in Venice. The new Council Chamber had been
+erected by the side of it towards the Sea; but there was not
+then the wide quay in front, the Riva dei Schiavoni, which
+now renders the Sea Façade as important as that to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298"></a>298</span>
+Piazzetta. There was only a narrow walk between the pillars
+and the water; and the <i>old</i> palace of Ziani still faced the
+Piazzetta, and interrupted, by its decrepitude, the magnificence
+of the square where the nobles daily met. Every
+increase of the beauty of the new palace rendered the discrepancy
+between it and the companion building more painful;
+and then began to arise in the minds of all men a vague idea
+of the necessity of destroying the old palace, and completing
+the front of the Piazzetta with the same splendor as the Sea
+Façade. But no such sweeping measure of renovation had
+been contemplated by the Senate when they first formed the
+plan of their new Council Chamber. First a single additional
+room, then a gateway, then a larger room; but all considered
+merely as necessary additions to the palace, not as involving
+the entire reconstruction of the ancient edifice. The exhaustion
+of the treasury, and the shadows upon the political
+horizon, rendered it more than imprudent to incur the vast
+additional expense which such a project involved; and the
+Senate, fearful of itself, and desirous to guard against the
+weakness of its own enthusiasm, passed a decree, like the
+effort of a man fearful of some strong temptation to keep his
+thoughts averted from the point of danger. It was a decree,
+not merely that the old palace should not be rebuilt, but that
+no one should <i>propose</i> rebuilding it. The feeling of the
+desirableness of doing so was too strong to permit fair discussion,
+and the Senate knew that to bring forward such a motion
+was to carry it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXI</span>. The decree, thus passed in order to guard against
+their own weakness, forbade any one to speak of rebuilding
+the old palace under the penalty of a thousand ducats. But
+they had rated their own enthusiasm too low: there was a
+man among them whom the loss of a thousand ducats could
+not deter from proposing what he believed to be for the good
+of the state.</p>
+
+<p>Some excuse was given him for bringing forward the motion,
+by a fire which occurred in 1419, and which injured both
+the church of St. Mark&rsquo;s, and part of the old palace fronting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299"></a>299</span>
+the Piazzetta. What followed, I shall relate in the words of
+Sanuto.<a name="FnAnchor_128" href="#Footnote_128"><span class="sp">128</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXII</span>. &ldquo;Therefore they set themselves with all diligence
+and care to repair and adorn sumptuously, first God&rsquo;s house;
+but in the Prince&rsquo;s house things went on more slowly, <i>for it
+did not please the Doge<a name="FnAnchor_129" href="#Footnote_129"><span class="sp">129</span></a> to restore it in the form in which it
+was before</i>; and they could not rebuild it altogether in a
+better manner, so great was the parsimony of these old
+fathers; because it was forbidden by laws, which condemned
+in a penalty of a thousand ducats any one who should propose
+to throw down the <i>old</i> palace, and to rebuild it more richly
+and with greater expense. But the Doge, who was magnanimous,
+and who desired above all things what was honorable
+to the city, had the thousand ducats carried into the Senate
+Chamber, and then proposed that the palace should be rebuilt;
+saying: that, &lsquo;since the late fire had ruined in great part the
+Ducal habitation (not only his own private palace, but all the
+places used for public business) this occasion was to be taken
+for an admonishment sent from God, that they ought to
+rebuild the palace more nobly, and in a way more befitting the
+greatness to which, by God&rsquo;s grace, their dominions had
+reached; and that his motive in proposing this was neither
+ambition, nor selfish interest: that, as for ambition, they
+might have seen in the whole course of his life, through so
+many years, that he had never done anything for ambition,
+either in the city, or in foreign business; but in all his actions
+had kept justice first in his thoughts, and then the advantage
+of the state, and the honor of the Venetian name: and that,
+as far as regarded his private interest, if it had not been for
+this accident of the fire, he would never have thought of
+changing anything in the palace into either a more sumptuous
+or a more honorable form; and that during the many years
+in which he had lived in it, he had never endeavored to make
+any change, but had always been content with it, as his predecessors
+had left it; and that he knew well that, if they took
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300"></a>300</span>
+in hand to build it as he exhorted and besought them, being
+now very old, and broken down with many toils, God would
+call him to another life before the walls were raised a pace
+from the ground. And that therefore they might perceive
+that he did not advise them to raise this building for his own
+convenience, but only for the honor of the city and its Dukedom;
+and that the good of it would never be felt by him, but
+by his successors.&rsquo; Then he said, that &lsquo;in order, as he had
+always done, to observe the laws,... he had brought
+with him the thousand ducats which had been appointed as
+the penalty for proposing such a measure, so that he might
+prove openly to all men that it was not his own advantage that
+he sought, but the dignity of the state.&rsquo;&rdquo; There was no one
+(Sanuto goes on to tell us) who ventured, or desired, to oppose
+the wishes of the Doge; and the thousand ducats were unanimously
+devoted to the expenses of the work. &ldquo;And they set
+themselves with much diligence to the work; and the palace
+was begun in the form and manner in which it is at present
+seen; but, as Mocenigo had prophesied, not long after, he
+ended his life, and not only did not see the work brought to a
+close, but hardly even begun.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIII</span>. There are one or two expressions in the above extracts
+which, if they stood alone, might lead the reader to suppose
+that the whole palace had been thrown down and rebuilt.
+We must however remember, that, at this time, the new Council
+Chamber, which had been one hundred years in building,
+was actually unfinished, the council had not yet sat in it; and
+it was just as likely that the Doge should then propose to destroy
+and rebuild it, as in this year, 1853, it is that any one
+should propose in our House of Commons to throw down the
+new Houses of Parliament, under the title of the &ldquo;old palace,&rdquo;
+and rebuild <i>them</i>.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIV</span>. The manner in which Sanuto expresses himself will
+at once be seen to be perfectly natural, when it is remembered
+that although we now speak of the whole building as the
+&ldquo;Ducal Palace,&rdquo; it consisted, in the minds of the old Venetians,
+of four distinct buildings. There were in it the palace,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301"></a>301</span>
+the state prisons, the senate-house, and the offices of public
+business; in other words, it was Buckingham Palace, the
+Tower of olden days, the Houses of Parliament, and Downing
+Street, all in one; and any of these four portions might be
+spoken of, without involving an allusion to any other. &ldquo;Il
+Palazzo&rdquo; was the Ducal residence, which, with most of the
+public offices, Mocenigo <i>did</i> propose to pull down and rebuild,
+and which was actually pulled down and rebuilt. But the
+new Council Chamber, of which the whole façade to the Sea
+consisted, never entered into either his or Sanuto&rsquo;s mind for
+an instant, as necessarily connected with the Ducal residence.</p>
+
+<p>I said that the new Council Chamber, at the time when
+Mocenigo brought forward his measure, had never yet been
+used. It was in the year 1422<a name="FnAnchor_130" href="#Footnote_130"><span class="sp">130</span></a> that the decree passed to rebuild
+the palace: Mocenigo died in the following year,<a name="FnAnchor_131" href="#Footnote_131"><span class="sp">131</span></a> and
+Francesco Foscari was elected in his room. The Great Council
+Chamber was used for the first time on the day when
+Foscari entered the Senate as Doge,&mdash;the 3rd of April, 1423,
+according to the Caroldo Chronicle;<a name="FnAnchor_132" href="#Footnote_132"><span class="sp">132</span></a> the 23rd, which is probably
+correct, by an anonymous MS., No. 60, in the Correr
+Museum;<a name="FnAnchor_133" href="#Footnote_133"><span class="sp">133</span></a>&mdash;and, the following year, on the 27th of March,
+the first hammer was lifted up against the old palace of Ziani.<a name="FnAnchor_134" href="#Footnote_134"><span class="sp">134</span></a></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXV</span>. That hammer stroke was the first act of the period
+properly called the &ldquo;Renaissance.&rdquo; It was the knell of the
+architecture of Venice,&mdash;and of Venice herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page302"></a>302</span></p>
+
+<p>The central epoch of her life was past; the decay had
+already begun: I dated its commencement above (<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_1">Ch. I.</a> Vol.
+1.) from the death of Mocenigo. A year had not yet elapsed
+since that great Doge had been called to his account: his
+patriotism, always sincere, had been in this instance mistaken;
+in his zeal for the honor of future Venice, he had forgotten
+what was due to the Venice of long ago. A thousand palaces
+might be built upon her burdened islands, but none of them
+could take the place, or recall the memory, of that which was
+first built upon her unfrequented shore. It fell; and, as if it had
+been the talisman of her fortunes, the city never flourished again.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVI.</span> I have no intention of following out, in their intricate
+details, the operations which were begun under Foscari
+and continued under succeeding Doges till the palace assumed
+its present form, for I am not in this work concerned, except
+by occasional reference, with the architecture of the fifteenth
+century: but the main facts are the following. The palace of
+Ziani was destroyed; the existing façade to the Piazzetta built,
+so as both to continue and to resemble, in most particulars, the
+work of the Great Council Chamber. It was carried back
+from the Sea as far as the Judgment angle; beyond which is
+the Porta della Carta, begun in 1439, and finished in two years,
+under the Doge Foscari;<a name="FnAnchor_135" href="#Footnote_135"><span class="sp">135</span></a> the interior buildings connected
+with it were added by the Doge Christopher Moro (the Othello
+of Shakspeare)<a name="FnAnchor_136" href="#Footnote_136"><span class="sp">136</span></a> in 1462.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVII.</span> By reference to the figure the reader will see that
+we have now gone the round of the palace, and that the new
+work of 1462 was close upon the first piece of the Gothic
+palace, the <i>new</i> Council Chamber of 1301. Some remnants of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303"></a>303</span>
+the Ziani Palace were perhaps still left between the two extremities
+of the Gothic Palace; or, as is more probable, the
+last stones of it may have been swept away after the fire of
+1419, and replaced by new apartments for the Doge. But
+whatever buildings, old or new, stood on this spot at the time
+of the completion of the Porta della Carta were destroyed by
+another great fire in 1479, together with so much of the palace
+on the Rio that, though the saloon of Gradenigo, then known
+as the Sala de&rsquo; Pregadi, was not destroyed, it became necessary
+to reconstruct the entire façades of the portion of the palace
+behind the Bridge of Sighs, both towards the court and canal.
+This work was entrusted to the best Renaissance architects of
+the close of the fifteenth and opening of the sixteenth centuries;
+Antonio Ricci executing the Giant&rsquo;s staircase, and on
+his absconding with a large sum of the public money, Pietro
+Lombardo taking his place. The whole work must have been
+completed towards the middle of the sixteenth century. The
+architects of the palace, advancing round the square and led by
+fire, had more than reached the point from which they had set
+out; and the work of 1560 was joined to the work of 1301-1340,
+at the point marked by the conspicuous vertical line in
+Figure XXXVII. on the Rio Façade.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXVIII.</span> But the palace was not long permitted to remain
+in this finished form. Another terrific fire, commonly called
+the great fire, burst out in 1574, and destroyed the inner fittings
+and all the precious pictures of the Great Council Chamber,
+and of all the upper rooms on the Sea Façade, and most
+of those on the Rio Façade, leaving the building a mere shell,
+shaken and blasted by the flames. It was debated in the
+Great Council whether the ruin should not be thrown down,
+and an entirely new palace built in its stead. The opinions of
+all the leading architects of Venice were taken, respecting the
+safety of the walls, or the possibility of repairing them as they
+stood. These opinions, given in writing, have been preserved,
+and published by the Abbé Cadorin, in the work already so
+often referred to; and they form one of the most important
+series of documents connected with the Ducal Palace.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page304"></a>304</span></p>
+
+<p>I cannot help feeling some childish pleasure in the accidental
+resemblance to my own name in that of the architect whose
+opinion was first given in favor of the ancient fabric, Giovanni
+Rusconi. Others, especially Palladio, wanted to pull down
+the old palace, and execute designs of their own; but the
+best architects in Venice, and to his immortal honor, chiefly
+Francesco Sansovino, energetically pleaded for the Gothic pile,
+and prevailed. It was successfully repaired, and Tintoret
+painted his noblest picture on the wall from which the Paradise
+of Guariento had withered before the flames.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXIX.</span> The repairs necessarily undertaken at this time
+were however extensive, and interfere in many directions with
+the earlier work of the palace: still the only serious alteration
+in its form was the transposition of the prisons, formerly at the
+top of the palace, to the other side of the Rio del Palazzo;
+and the building of the Bridge of Sighs, to connect them with
+the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The completion of this
+work brought the whole edifice into its present form; with the
+exception of alterations in doors, partitions, and staircases
+among the inner apartments, not worth noticing, and such
+barbarisms and defacements as have been suffered within the
+last fifty years, by, I suppose, nearly every building of importance
+in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXX.</span> Now, therefore, we are liberty to examine some of
+the details of the Ducal Palace, without any doubt about their
+dates. I shall not, however, give any elaborate illustrations of
+them here, because I could not do them justice on the scale of
+the page of this volume, or by means of line engraving. I believe
+a new era is opening to us in the art of illustration,<a name="FnAnchor_137" href="#Footnote_137"><span class="sp">137</span></a> and
+that I shall be able to give large figures of the details of the
+Ducal Palace at a price which will enable every person who is
+interested in the subject to possess them; so that the cost and
+labor of multiplying illustrations here would be altogether
+wasted. I shall therefore direct the reader&rsquo;s attention only to
+points of interest as can be explained in the text.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page305"></a>305</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXI.</span> First, then, looking back to the woodcut at the beginning
+of this chapter, the reader will observe that, as the
+building was very nearly square on the ground plan, a peculiar
+prominence and importance were given to its angles, which
+rendered it necessary that they should be enriched and softened
+by sculpture. I do not suppose that the fitness of this
+arrangement will be questioned; but if the reader will take
+the pains to glance over any series of engravings of church
+towers or other four-square buildings in which great refinement
+of form has been attained, he will at once observe how
+their effect depends on some modification of the sharpness of
+the angle, either by groups of buttresses, or by turrets and
+niches rich in sculpture. It is to be noted also that this principle
+of breaking the angle is peculiarly Gothic, arising partly
+out of the necessity of strengthening the flanks of enormous
+buildings, where composed of imperfect materials, by buttresses
+or pinnacles; partly out of the conditions of Gothic
+warfare, which generally required a tower at the angle; partly
+out of the natural dislike of the meagreness of effect in buildings
+which admitted large surfaces of wall, if the angle were
+entirely unrelieved. The Ducal Palace, in its acknowledgment
+of this principle, makes a more definite concession to the
+Gothic spirit than any of the previous architecture of Venice.
+No angle, up to the time of its erection, had been otherwise
+decorated than by a narrow fluted pilaster of red marble, and
+the sculpture was reserved always, as in Greek and Roman
+work, for the plane surfaces of the building, with, as far as I
+recollect, two exceptions only, both in St. Mark&rsquo;s; namely, the
+bold and grotesque gargoyle on its north-west angle, and the
+angels which project from the four inner angles under the
+main cupola; both of these arrangements being plainly made
+under Lombardic influence. And if any other instances occur,
+which I may have at present forgotten, I am very sure the
+Northern influence will always be distinctly traceable in them.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXII.</span> The Ducal Palace, however, accepts the principle
+in its completeness, and throws the main decoration upon its
+angles. The central window, which looks rich and important
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306"></a>306</span>
+in the woodcut, was entirely restored in the Renaissance time,
+as we have seen, under the Doge Steno; so that we have no
+traces of its early treatment; and the principal interest of the
+older palace is concentrated in the angle sculpture, which is
+arranged in the following manner. The pillars of the two
+bearing arcades are much enlarged in thickness at the angles,
+and their capitals increased in depth, breadth, and fulness of
+subject; above each capital, on the angle of the wall, a sculptural
+subject is introduced, consisting, in the great lower
+arcade, of two or more figures of the size of life; in the
+upper arcade, of a single angel holding a scroll: above these
+angels rise the twisted pillars with their crowning niches,
+already noticed in the account of parapets in the seventh
+chapter; thus forming an unbroken line of decoration from
+the ground to the top of the angle.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIII.</span> It was before noticed that one of the corners of
+the palace joins the irregular outer buildings connected with
+St. Mark&rsquo;s, and is not generally seen. There remain, therefore,
+to be decorated, only the three angles, above distinguished
+as the Vine angle, the Fig-tree angle, and the Judgment angle;
+and at these we have, according to the arrangement just explained,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>First, Three great bearing capitals (lower arcade).</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, Three figure subjects of sculpture above them
+(lower arcade).</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, Three smaller bearing capitals (upper arcade).</p>
+
+<p>Fourthly, Three angels above them (upper arcade).</p>
+
+<p>Fifthly, Three spiral shafts with niches.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIV.</span> I shall describe the bearing capitals hereafter, in
+their order, with the others of the arcade; for the first point
+to which the reader&rsquo;s attention ought to be directed is the
+choice of subject in the great figure sculptures above them.
+These, observe, are the very corner stones of the edifice, and
+in them we may expect to find the most important evidences
+of the feeling, as well as of the skill, of the builder. If he
+has anything to say to us of the purpose with which he built
+the palace, it is sure to be said here; if there was any lesson
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307"></a>307</span>
+which he wished principally to teach to those for whom he
+built, here it is sure to be inculcated; if there was any sentiment
+which they themselves desired to have expressed in the
+principal edifice of their city, this is the place in which we
+may be secure of finding it legibly inscribed.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXV.</span> Now the first two angles, of the Vine and Fig-tree,
+belong to the old, or true Gothic, Palace; the third
+angle belongs to the Renaissance imitation of it: therefore, at
+the first two angles, it is the Gothic spirit which is going to
+speak to us; and, at the third, the Renaissance spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The reader remembers, I trust, that the most characteristic
+sentiment of all that we traced in the working of the Gothic
+heart, was the frank confession of its own weakness; and I
+must anticipate, for a moment, the results of our inquiry in
+subsequent chapters, so far as to state that the principal element
+in the Renaissance spirit, is its firm confidence in its own
+wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>Hear, then, the two spirits speak for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The first main sculpture of the Gothic Palace is on what I
+have called the angle of the Fig-tree:</p>
+
+<p>Its subject is the <span class="sc">Fall of Man</span>.</p>
+
+<p>The second sculpture is on the angle of the Vine:</p>
+
+<p>Its subject is the <span class="sc">Drunkenness of Noah</span>.</p>
+
+<p>The Renaissance sculpture is on the Judgment angle:</p>
+
+<p>Its subject is the <span class="sc">Judgment of Solomon</span>.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to overstate, or to regard with too much
+admiration, the significance of this single fact. It is as if the
+palace had been built at various epochs, and preserved uninjured
+to this day, for the sole purpose of teaching us the difference
+in the temper of the two schools.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVI.</span> I have called the sculpture on the Fig-tree angle
+the principal one; because it is at the central bend of the
+palace, where it turns to the Piazzetta (the façade upon the
+Piazzetta being, as we saw above, the more important one in
+ancient times). The great capital, which sustains this Fig-tree
+angle, is also by far more elaborate than the head of the
+pilaster under the Vine angle, marking the preëminence of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308"></a>308</span>
+former in the architect&rsquo;s mind. It is impossible to say which
+was first executed, but that of the Fig-tree angle is somewhat
+rougher in execution, and more stiff in the design of the
+figures, so that I rather suppose it to have been the earliest
+completed.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XIX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_19"><img src="images/img308.jpg" width="418" height="638" alt="LEAFAGE OF THE VINE ANGLE." title="LEAFAGE OF THE VINE ANGLE." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">LEAFAGE OF THE VINE ANGLE.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVII.</span> In both the subjects, of the Fall and the Drunkenness,
+the tree, which forms the chiefly decorative portion
+of the sculpture,&mdash;fig in the one case, vine in the other,&mdash;was
+a necessary adjunct. Its trunk, in both sculptures, forms the
+true outer angle of the palace; boldly cut separate from the
+stone-work behind, and branching out above the figures so as
+to enwrap each side of the angle, for several feet, with its
+deep foliage. Nothing can be more masterly or superb than
+the sweep of this foliage on the Fig-tree angle; the broad
+leaves lapping round the budding fruit, and sheltering from
+sight, beneath their shadows, birds of the most graceful form
+and delicate plumage. The branches are, however, so strong,
+and the masses of stone hewn into leafage so large, that, notwithstanding
+the depth of the undercutting, the work remains
+nearly uninjured; not so at the Vine angle, where the natural
+delicacy of the vine-leaf and tendril having tempted the
+sculptor to greater effort, he has passed the proper limits of
+his art, and cut the upper stems so delicately that half of them
+have been broken away by the casualties to which the situation
+of the sculpture necessarily exposes it. What remains
+is, however, so interesting in its extreme refinement, that I
+have chosen it for the subject of the opposite illustration rather
+than the nobler masses of the fig-tree, which ought to be rendered
+on a larger scale. Although half of the beauty of the
+composition is destroyed by the breaking away of its central
+masses, there is still enough in the distribution of the variously
+bending leaves, and in the placing of the birds on the lighter
+branches, to prove to us the power of the designer. I have
+already referred to this Plate as a remarkable instance of the
+Gothic Naturalism; and, indeed, it is almost impossible for the
+copying of nature to be carried farther than in the fibres of
+the marble branches, and the careful finishing of the tendrils:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309"></a>309</span>
+note especially the peculiar expression of the knotty joints of
+the vine in the light branch which rises highest. Yet only
+half the finish of the work can be seen in the Plate: for, in
+several cases, the sculptor has shown the under sides of the
+leaves turned boldly to the light, and has literally <i>carved every
+rib and vein upon them, in relief</i>; not merely the main ribs
+which sustain the lobes of the leaf, and actually project in
+nature, but the irregular and sinuous veins which chequer the
+membranous tissues between them, and which the sculptor has
+represented conventionally as relieved like the others, in order
+to give the vine leaf its peculiar tessellated effect upon the
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXVIII.</span> As must always be the case in early sculpture,
+the figures are much inferior to the leafage; yet so skilful in
+many respects, that it was a long time before I could persuade
+myself that they had indeed been wrought in the first half of
+the fourteenth century. Fortunately, the date is inscribed
+upon a monument in the Church of San Simeon Grande,
+bearing a recumbent statue of the saint, of far finer workmanship,
+in every respect, than those figures of the Ducal
+Palace, yet so like them, that I think there can be no question
+that the head of Noah was wrought by the sculptor of the
+palace in emulation of that of the statue of St. Simeon. In
+this latter sculpture, the face is represented in death; the
+mouth partly open, the lips thin and sharp, the teeth carefully
+sculptured beneath; the face full of quietness and majesty,
+though very ghastly; the hair and beard flowing in luxuriant
+wreaths, disposed with the most masterly freedom, yet severity,
+of design, far down upon the shoulders; the hands
+crossed upon the body, carefully studied, and the veins and
+sinews perfectly and easily expressed, yet without any attempt
+at extreme finish or display of technical skill. This monument
+bears date 1317,<a name="FnAnchor_138" href="#Footnote_138"><span class="sp">138</span></a> and its sculptor was justly proud of it;
+thus recording his name:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page310"></a>310</span></p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr sc">
+<p>&ldquo;Celavit Marcus opus hoc insigne Romanis,</p>
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; ">Laudibus non parcus est sua digna manus.&rdquo;</span></p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XXXIX</span>. The head of the Noah on the Ducal Palace, evidently
+worked in emulation of this statue, has the same profusion
+of flowing hair and beard, but wrought in smaller and
+harder curls; and the veins on the arms and breast are more
+sharply drawn, the sculptor being evidently more practised in
+keen and fine lines of vegetation than in those of the figure;
+so that, which is most remarkable in a workman of this early
+period, he has failed in telling his story plainly, regret and
+wonder being so equally marked on the features of all the
+three brothers that it is impossible to say which is intended
+for Ham. Two of the heads of the brothers are seen in the
+Plate; the third figure is not with the rest of the group, but
+set at a distance of about twelve feet, on the other side of the
+arch which springs from the angle capital.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XL</span>. It may be observed, as a farther evidence of the date
+of the group, that, in the figures of all the three youths, the
+feet are protected simply by a bandage arranged in crossed
+folds round the ankle and lower part of the limb; a feature
+of dress which will be found in nearly every piece of figure
+sculpture in Venice, from the year 1300 to 1380, and of which
+the traveller may see an example within three hundred yards
+of this very group, in the bas-reliefs on the tomb of the Doge
+Andrea Dandolo (in St. Mark&rsquo;s), who died in 1354.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLI</span>. The figures of Adam and Eve, sculptured on each
+side of the Fig-tree angle, are more stiff than those of Noah
+and his sons, but are better fitted for their architectural service;
+and the trunk of the tree, with the angular body of the
+serpent writhed around it, is more nobly treated as a terminal
+group of lines than that of the vine.</p>
+
+<p>The Renaissance sculptor of the figures of the Judgment
+of Solomon has very nearly copied the fig-tree from this
+angle, placing its trunk between the executioner and the
+mother, who leans forward to stay his hand. But, though the
+whole group is much more free in design than those of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311"></a>311</span>
+earlier palace, and in many ways excellent in itself, so that it
+always strikes the eye of a careless observer more than the
+others, it is of immeasurably inferior spirit in the workmanship;
+the leaves of the tree, though far more studiously varied
+in flow than those of the fig-tree from which they are partially
+copied, have none of its truth to nature; they are ill set on
+the stems, bluntly defined on the edges, and their curves are
+not those of growing leaves, but of wrinkled drapery.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLII.</span> Above these three sculptures are set, in the upper
+arcade, the statues of the archangels Raphael, Michael, and
+Gabriel: their positions will be understood by reference to
+the lowest figure in <a href="#plate_17">Plate XVII.</a>, where that of Raphael
+above the Vine angle is seen on the right. A diminutive
+figure of Tobit follows at his feet, and he bears in his hand a
+scroll with this inscription:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p>EFICE <span class="uscore">Q</span></p>
+<p>SOFRE</p>
+<p>T<span class="uscore">U</span>R AFA</p>
+<p>EL REVE</p>
+<p>RENDE</p>
+<p>QUIET<span class="uscore">U</span></p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>i.e. Effice (qućso?) fretum, Raphael reverende, quietum.<a name="FnAnchor_139" href="#Footnote_139"><span class="sp">139</span></a> I
+could not decipher the inscription on the scroll borne by the
+angel Michael; and the figure of Gabriel, which is by much
+the most beautiful feature of the Renaissance portion of the
+palace, has only in its hand the Annunciation lily.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIII.</span> Such are the subjects of the main sculptures decorating
+the angles of the palace; notable, observe, for their
+simple expression of two feelings, the consciousness of human
+frailty, and the dependence upon Divine guidance and protection:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312"></a>312</span>
+this being, of course, the general purpose of the
+introduction of the figures of the angels; and, I imagine,
+intended to be more particularly conveyed by the manner in
+which the small figure of Tobit follows the steps of Raphael,
+just touching the hem of his garment. We have next to
+examine the course of divinity and of natural history embodied
+by the old sculpture in the great series of capitals which
+support the lower arcade of the palace; and which, being at
+a height of little more than eight feet above the eye, might be
+read, like the pages of a book, by those (the noblest men
+in Venice) who habitually walked beneath the shadow of this
+great arcade at the time of their first meeting each other for
+morning converse.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIV.</span> The principal sculptures of the capitals consist of
+personifications of the Virtues and Vices, the favorite subjects
+of decorative art, at this period, in all the cities of Italy; and
+there is so much that is significant in the various modes of
+their distinction and general representation, more especially
+with reference to their occurrence as expressions of praise to
+the dead in sepulchral architecture, hereafter to be examined,
+that I believe the reader may both happily and profitably rest
+for a little while beneath the first vault of the arcade, to
+review the manner in which these symbols of the virtues were
+first invented by the Christian imagination, and the evidence
+they generally furnish of the state of religious feeling in those
+by whom they were recognised.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLV.</span> In the early ages of Christianity, there was little
+care taken to analyze character. One momentous question
+was heard over the whole world,&mdash;Dost thou believe in the
+Lord with all thine heart? There was but one division among
+men,&mdash;the great unatoneable division between the disciple and
+adversary. The love of Christ was all, and in all; and in proportion
+to the nearness of their memory of His person and
+teaching, men understood the infinity of the requirements of
+the moral law, and the manner in which it alone could be
+fulfilled. The early Christians felt that virtue, like sin, was a
+subtle universal thing, entering into every act and thought,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313"></a>313</span>
+appearing outwardly in ten thousand diverse ways, diverse
+according to the separate framework of every heart in which
+it dwelt; but one and the same always in its proceeding from
+the love of God, as sin is one and the same in proceeding from
+hatred of God. And in their pure, early, and practical piety,
+they saw there was no need for codes of morality, or systems
+of metaphysics. Their virtue comprehended everything, entered
+into everything; it was too vast and too spiritual to be
+defined; but there was no need of its definition. For through
+faith, working by love, they knew that all human excellence
+would be developed in due order; but that, without faith,
+neither reason could define, nor effort reach, the lowest phase
+of Christian virtue. And therefore, when any of the Apostles
+have occasion to describe or enumerate any forms of vice or
+virtue by name, there is no attempt at system in their words.
+They use them hurriedly and energetically, heaping the
+thoughts one upon another, in order as far as possible to fill
+the reader&rsquo;s mind with a sense of the infinity both of crime
+and of righteousness. Hear St. Paul describe sin: &ldquo;Being
+filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
+maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit,
+malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
+proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
+without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural
+affection, implacable, unmerciful.&rdquo; There is evidently here
+an intense feeling of the universality of sin; and in order to
+express it, the Apostle hurries his words confusedly together,
+little caring about their order, as knowing all the vices to be
+indissolubly connected one with another. It would be utterly
+vain to endeavor to arrange his expressions as if they had
+been intended for the ground of any system, or to give any
+philosophical definition of the vices.<a name="FnAnchor_140" href="#Footnote_140"><span class="sp">140</span></a> So also hear him speaking
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314"></a>314</span>
+of virtue: &ldquo;Rejoice in the Lord. Let your moderation
+be known unto all men. Be careful for nothing, but in
+everything let your requests be made known unto God; and
+whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just,
+whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
+whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue,
+and if there be any praise, think on these things.&rdquo; Observe,
+he gives up all attempt at definition; he leaves the
+definition to every man&rsquo;s heart, though he writes so as to mark
+the overflowing fulness of his own vision of virtue. And so
+it is in all writings of the Apostles; their manner of exhortation,
+and the kind of conduct they press, vary according to the
+persons they address, and the feeling of the moment at which
+they write, and never show any attempt at logical precision.
+And, although the words of their Master are not thus irregularly
+uttered, but are weighed like fine gold, yet, even in His
+teaching, there is no detailed or organized system of morality;
+but the command only of that faith and love which were to
+embrace the whole being of man: &ldquo;On these two commandments
+hang all the law and the prophets.&rdquo; Here and there an
+incidental warning against this or that more dangerous form of
+vice or error, &ldquo;Take heed and beware of covetousness,&rdquo; &ldquo;Beware
+of the leaven of the Pharisees;&rdquo; here and there a plain
+example of the meaning of Christian love, as in the parables
+of the Samaritan and the Prodigal, and His own perpetual
+example: these were the elements of Christ&rsquo;s constant teaching;
+for the Beatitudes, which are the only approximation to
+anything like a systematic statement, belong to different conditions
+and characters of individual men, not to abstract
+virtues. And all early Christians taught in the same manner.
+They never cared to expound the nature of this or that virtue;
+for they knew that the believer who had Christ, had all. Did
+he need fortitude? Christ was his rock: Equity? Christ was
+his righteousness: Holiness? Christ was his sanctification:
+Liberty? Christ was his redemption: Temperance? Christ
+was his ruler: Wisdom? Christ was his light: Truthfulness?
+Christ was the truth: Charity? Christ was love.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page315"></a>315</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVI.</span> Now, exactly in proportion as the Christian religion
+became less vital, and as the various corruptions which time
+and Satan brought into it were able to manifest themselves,
+the person and offices of Christ were less dwelt upon, and
+the virtues of Christians more. The Life of the Believer
+became in some degree separated from the Life of Christ; and
+his virtue, instead of being a stream flowing forth from the
+throne of God, and descending upon the earth, began to be
+regarded by him as a pyramid upon earth, which he had to
+build up, step by step, that from the top of it he might reach
+the Heavens. It was not possible to measure the waves of the
+water of life, but it was perfectly possible to measure the
+bricks of the Tower of Babel; and gradually, as the thoughts
+of men were withdrawn from their Redeemer, and fixed upon
+themselves, the virtues began to be squared, and counted, and
+classified, and put into separate heaps of firsts and seconds;
+some things being virtuous cardinally, and other things virtuous
+only north-north-west. It is very curious to put in close
+juxtaposition the words of the Apostles and of some of the
+writers of the fifteenth century touching sanctification. For
+instance, hear first St. Paul to the Thessalonians: &ldquo;The very
+God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your
+whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto
+the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that
+calleth you, who also will do it.&rdquo; And then the following
+part of a prayer which I translate from a MS. of the fifteenth
+century: &ldquo;May He (the Holy Spirit) govern the five Senses
+of my body; may He cause me to embrace the Seven Works
+of Mercy, and firmly to believe and observe the Twelve Articles
+of the Faith and the Ten Commandments of the Law, and
+defend me from the Seven Mortal Sins, even to the end.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVII.</span> I do not mean that this quaint passage is generally
+characteristic of the devotion of the fifteenth century: the
+very prayer out of which it is taken is in other parts exceedingly
+beautiful:<a name="FnAnchor_141" href="#Footnote_141"><span class="sp">141</span></a> but the passage is strikingly illustrative of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316"></a>316</span>
+the tendency of the later Romish Church, more especially
+in its most corrupt condition, just before the Reformation, to
+throw all religion into forms and ciphers; which tendency, as
+it affected Christian ethics, was confirmed by the Renaissance
+enthusiasm for the works of Aristotle and Cicero, from whom
+the code of the fifteenth century virtues was borrowed, and
+whose authority was then infinitely more revered by all the
+Doctors of the Church than that either of St. Paul or St.
+Peter.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLVIII.</span> Although, however, this change in the tone of the
+Christian mind was most distinctly manifested when the revival
+of literature rendered the works of the heathen philosophers
+the leading study of all the greatest scholars of the
+period, it had been, as I said before, taking place gradually
+from the earliest ages. It is, as far as I know, that root of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page317"></a>317</span>
+the Renaissance poison-tree, which, of all others, is deepest
+struck; showing itself in various measures through the writings
+of all the Fathers, of course exactly in proportion to the
+respect which they paid to classical authors, especially to Plato,
+Aristotle, and Cicero. The mode in which the pestilent study
+of that literature affected them may be well illustrated by the
+examination of a single passage from the works of one of the
+best of them, St. Ambrose, and of the mode in which that
+passage was then amplified and formulized by later writers.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XLIX.</span> Plato, indeed, studied alone, would have done no
+one any harm. He is profoundly spiritual and capacious in all
+his views, and embraces the small systems of Aristotle and
+Cicero, as the solar system does the Earth. He seems to me
+especially remarkable for the sense of the great Christian virtue
+of Holiness, or sanctification; and for the sense of the presence
+of the Deity in all things, great or small, which always runs
+in a solemn undercurrent beneath his exquisite playfulness and
+irony; while all the merely moral virtues may be found in his
+writings defined in the most noble manner, as a great painter
+defines his figures, <i>without outlines</i>. But the imperfect scholarship
+of later ages seems to have gone to Plato, only to
+find in him the system of Cicero; which indeed was very
+definitely expressed by him. For it having been quickly felt
+by all men who strove, unhelped by Christian faith, to enter
+at the strait gate into the paths of virtue, that there were four
+characters of mind which were protective or preservative of
+all that was best in man, namely, Prudence, Justice, Courage,
+and Temperance,<a name="FnAnchor_142" href="#Footnote_142"><span class="sp">142</span></a> these were afterwards, with most illogical
+inaccuracy, called cardinal <i>virtues</i>, Prudence being evidently
+no virtue, but an intellectual gift: but this inaccuracy arose
+partly from the ambiguous sense of the Latin word &ldquo;virtutes,&rdquo;
+which sometimes, in medićval language, signifies virtues,
+sometimes powers (being occasionally used in the Vulgate for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318"></a>318</span>
+the word &ldquo;hosts,&rdquo; as in Psalm ciii. 21, cxlviii. 2, &amp;c., while
+&ldquo;fortitudines&rdquo; and &ldquo;exercitus&rdquo; are used for the same word
+in other places), so that Prudence might properly be styled a
+power, though not properly a virtue; and partly from the
+confusion of Prudence with Heavenly Wisdom. The real
+rank of these four virtues, if so they are to be called, is however
+properly expressed by the term &ldquo;cardinal.&rdquo; They are
+virtues of the compass, those by which all others are directed
+and strengthened; they are not the greatest virtues, but the
+restraining or modifying virtues, thus Prudence restrains zeal,
+Justice restrains mercy, Fortitude and Temperance guide the
+entire system of the passions; and, thus understood, these
+virtues properly assumed their peculiar leading or guiding
+position in the system of Christian ethics. But in Pagan
+ethics, they were not only guiding, but comprehensive. They
+meant a great deal more on the lips of the ancients, than they
+now express to the Christian mind. Cicero&rsquo;s Justice includes
+charity, beneficence, and benignity, truth, and faith in the
+sense of trustworthiness. His Fortitude includes courage,
+self-command, the scorn of fortune and of all temporary felicities.
+His Temperance includes courtesy and modesty. So
+also, in Plato, these four virtues constitute the sum of education.
+I do not remember any more simple or perfect expression
+of the idea, than in the account given by Socrates, in the
+&ldquo;Alcibiades I.,&rdquo; of the education of the Persian kings, for
+whom, in their youth, there are chosen, he says, four tutors
+from among the Persian nobles; namely, the Wisest, the most
+Just, the most Temperate, and the most Brave of them.
+Then each has a distinct duty: &ldquo;The Wisest teaches the
+young king the worship of the gods, and the duties of a
+king (something more here, observe, than our &lsquo;Prudence!&rsquo;);
+the most Just teaches him to speak all truth, and to act out
+all truth, through the whole course of his life; the most Temperate
+teaches him to allow no pleasure to have the mastery
+of him, so that he may be truly free, and indeed a king; and
+the most Brave makes him fearless of all things, showing him
+that the moment he fears anything, he becomes a slave.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page319"></a>319</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">L.</span> All this is exceedingly beautiful, so far as it reaches;
+but the Christian divines were grievously led astray by their
+endeavors to reconcile this system with the nobler law of love.
+At first, as in the passage I am just going to quote from St.
+Ambrose, they tried to graft the Christian system on the four
+branches of the Pagan one; but finding that the tree would
+not grow, they planted the Pagan and Christian branches side
+by side; adding, to the four cardinal virtues, the three called
+by the schoolmen theological, namely, Faith, Hope, and
+Charity: the one series considered as attainable by the
+Heathen, but the other by the Christian only. Thus Virgil
+to Sordello:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Loco e laggiů, non tristo da martiri</p>
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; ">Ma di tenebre solo, ove i lamenti</span></p>
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; ">Non suonan come guai, ma son sospiri:</span></p>
+
+<p style="letter-spacing: 3em; ">.....</p>
+
+<p>Quivi sto io, con quei che le tre sante</p>
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; ">Virtů non si vestiro, e senza vizio</span></p>
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; ">Conobbei l&rsquo; altre, e seguir, tutte quante.&rdquo;</span></p>
+
+<p class="stanza">&nbsp;. . . . . &ldquo;There I with those abide</p>
+<p>Who the Three Holy Virtues put not on,</p>
+<p>But understood the rest, and without blame</p>
+<p>Followed them all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="sc" style="text-align: right; ">Cary.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LI.</span> This arrangement of the virtues was, however, productive
+of infinite confusion and error: in the first place,
+because Faith is classed with its own fruits,&mdash;the gift of God,
+which is the root of the virtues, classed simply as one of them;
+in the second, because the words used by the ancients to
+express the several virtues had always a different meaning
+from the same expressions in the Bible, sometimes a more extended,
+sometimes a more limited one. Imagine, for instance,
+the confusion which must have been introduced into the ideas
+of a student who read St. Paul and Aristotle alternately; considering
+that the word which the Greek writer uses for Justice,
+means, with St. Paul, Righteousness. And lastly, it is impossible
+to overrate the mischief produced in former days, as well
+as in our own, by the mere habit of reading Aristotle, whose
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320"></a>320</span>
+system is so false, so forced, and so confused, that the study of
+it at our universities is quite enough to occasion the utter want
+of accurate habits of thought which so often disgraces men
+otherwise well-educated. In a word, Aristotle mistakes the
+Prudence or Temperance which must regulate the operation of
+the virtues, for the essence of the virtues themselves; and,
+striving to show that all virtues are means between two opposite
+vices, torments his wit to discover and distinguish as many
+pairs of vices as are necessary to the completion of his system,
+not disdaining to employ sophistry where invention fails him.</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, the study of classical literature, in general, not
+only fostered in the Christian writers the unfortunate love of
+systematizing, which gradually degenerated into every species
+of contemptible formulism, but it accustomed them to work
+out their systems by the help of any logical quibble, or verbal
+subtlety, which could be made available for their purpose, and
+this not with any dishonest intention, but in a sincere desire to
+arrange their ideas in systematical groups, while yet their
+powers of thought were not accurate enough, nor their common
+sense stern enough, to detect the fallacy, or disdain the
+finesse, by which these arrangements were frequently accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LII</span>. Thus St. Ambrose, in his commentary on Luke vi.
+20, is resolved to transform the four Beatitudes there described
+into rewards of the four cardinal Virtues, and sets himself
+thus ingeniously to the task:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Blessed be ye poor.&rsquo; Here you have Temperance.
+&lsquo;Blessed are ye that hunger now.&rsquo; He who hungers, pities
+those who are an-hungered; in pitying, he gives to them, and
+in giving he becomes just (largiendo fit Justus). &lsquo;Blessed are
+ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.&rsquo; Here you have Prudence,
+whose part it is to weep, so far as present things are
+concerned, and to seek things which are eternal. &lsquo;Blessed are
+ye when men shall hate you.&rsquo; Here you have Fortitude.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIII</span>. As a preparation for this profitable exercise of wit,
+we have also a reconciliation of the Beatitudes as stated by
+St. Matthew, with those of St. Luke, on the ground that &ldquo;in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321"></a>321</span>
+those eight are these four, and in these four are those eight;&rdquo;
+with sundry remarks on the mystical value of the number
+eight, with which I need not trouble the reader. With St.
+Ambrose, however, this puerile systematization is quite subordinate
+to a very forcible and truthful exposition of the real
+nature of the Christian life. But the classification he employs
+furnishes ground for farther subtleties to future divines; and
+in a MS. of the thirteenth century I find some expressions in
+this commentary on St. Luke, and in the treatise on the duties
+of bishops, amplified into a treatise on the &ldquo;Steps of the Virtues:
+by which every one who perseveres may, by a straight
+path, attain to the heavenly country of the Angels.&rdquo; (&ldquo;Liber
+de Gradibus Virtutum: quibus ad patriam angelorum supernam
+itinere recto ascenditur ab omni perseverante.&rdquo;) These Steps
+are thirty in number (one expressly for each day of the month),
+and the curious mode of their association renders the list well
+worth quoting:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIV.</span></p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="data">
+
+<tr> <td class="tc5" style="width: 4em; ">Primus</td>
+     <td class="tc5">gradus est</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Fides Recta.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Unerring faith.</td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">Secundus</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Spes firma.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Firm hope. </td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">Tertius</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Caritas perfecta.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Perfect charity.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;4.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Patientia vera.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">True patience.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;5.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Humilitas sancta.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Holy humility.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;6.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Mansuetudo</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Meekness.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;7.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Intelligentia.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Understanding.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;8.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Compunctio cordis.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Contrition of heart.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;&nbsp;9.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Oratio.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Prayer.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;10.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Confessio pura.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Pure confession.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;11.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Penitentia digna.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Fitting penance.<a name="FnAnchor_143" href="#Footnote_143"><span class="sp">143</span></a></td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;12.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Abstinentia.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Abstinence (fasting).</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;13.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Timor Dei.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Fear of God.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;14.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Virginitas.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Virginity.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;15.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Justicia.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Justice.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;16.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Misericordia.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Mercy.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;17.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Elemosina.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Almsgiving.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;18.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Hospitalitas.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Hospitality.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;19.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Honor parentum.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Honoring of parents.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;20.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Silencium.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Silence.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;21.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Consilium bonum.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Good counsel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322"></a>322</span></td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;22.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Judicium rectum.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Right judgment.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;23.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Exemplum bonum.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Good example.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;24.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Visitatio infirmorum.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Visitation of the sick.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;25.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Frequentatio sanctorum.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Companying with saints.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;26.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Oblatio justa.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Just oblations.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;27.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Decimas Deo solvere.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Paying tithes to God.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;28.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Sapientia.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Wisdom.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;29.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Voluntas bona.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Goodwill.</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td class="tc5">&nbsp;30.</td>
+     <td class="tc5a">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Perseverantia.</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Perseverance.</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LV</span>. The reader will note that the general idea of Christian
+virtue embodied in this list is true, exalted, and beautiful; the
+points of weakness being the confusion of duties with virtues,
+and the vain endeavor to enumerate the various offices of
+charity as so many separate virtues; more frequently arranged
+as seven distinct works of mercy. This general tendency to a
+morbid accuracy of classification was associated, in later times,
+with another very important element of the Renaissance mind,
+the love of personification; which appears to have reached its
+greatest vigor in the course of the sixteenth century, and is
+expressed to all future ages, in a consummate manner, in the
+poem of Spenser. It is to be noted that personification is, in
+some sort, the reverse of symbolism, and is far less noble.
+Symbolism is the setting forth of a great truth by an imperfect
+and inferior sign (as, for instance, of the hope of the resurrection
+by the form of the ph&oelig;nix); and it is almost always
+employed by men in their most serious moods of faith, rarely
+in recreation. Men who use symbolism forcibly are almost
+always true believers in what they symbolize. But Personification
+is the bestowing of a human or living form upon an abstract
+idea: it is, in most cases, a mere recreation of the fancy,
+and is apt to disturb the belief in the reality of the thing personified.
+Thus symbolism constituted the entire system of the
+Mosaic dispensation: it occurs in every word of Christ&rsquo;s
+teaching; it attaches perpetual mystery to the last and most
+solemn act of His life. But I do not recollect a single instance
+of personification in any of His words. And as we watch,
+thenceforward, the history of the Church, we shall find the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323"></a>323</span>
+declension of its faith exactly marked by the abandonment of
+symbolism,<a name="FnAnchor_144" href="#Footnote_144"><span class="sp">144</span></a> and the profuse employment of personification,&mdash;even
+to such an extent that the virtues came, at last, to be
+confused with the saints; and we find in the later Litanies,
+St. Faith, St. Hope, St. Charity, and St. Chastity, invoked immediately
+after St. Clara and St. Bridget.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVI.</span> Nevertheless, in the hands of its early and earnest
+masters, in whom fancy could not overthrow the foundations
+of faith, personification is, often thoroughly noble and lovely;
+the earlier conditions of it being just as much more spiritual
+and vital than the later ones, as the still earlier symbolism was
+more spiritual than they. Compare, for instance, Dante&rsquo;s
+burning Charity, running and returning at the wheels of the
+chariot of God,&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 4.5em; ">&ldquo;So ruddy, that her form had scarce</span></p>
+<p>Been known within a furnace of clear flame,&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">with Reynolds&rsquo;s Charity, a nurse in a white dress, climbed
+upon by three children.<a name="FnAnchor_145" href="#Footnote_145"><span class="sp">145</span></a> And not only so, but the number
+and nature of the virtues differ considerably in the statements
+of different poets and painters, according to their own views
+of religion, or to the manner of life they had it in mind to
+illustrate. Giotto, for instance, arranges his system altogether
+differently at Assisi, where he is setting forth the monkish
+life, and in the Arena Chapel, where he treats of that of
+mankind in general, and where, therefore, he gives only the
+so-called theological and cardinal virtues; while, at Assisi,
+the three principal virtues are those which are reported to
+have appeared in vision to St. Francis, Chastity, Obedience,
+and Poverty: Chastity being attended by Fortitude, Purity,
+and Penance; Obedience by Prudence and Humility; Poverty
+by Hope and Charity. The systems vary with almost every
+writer, and in almost every important work of art which
+embodies them, being more or less spiritual according to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324"></a>324</span>
+power of intellect by which they were conceived. The most
+noble in literature are, I suppose, those of Dante and Spenser:
+and with these we may compare five of the most interesting
+series in the early art of Italy; namely, those of Orcagna,
+Giotto, and Simon Memmi, at Florence and Padua, and those
+of St. Mark&rsquo;s and the Ducal Palace at Venice. Of course,
+in the richest of these series, the vices are personified together
+with the virtues, as in the Ducal Palace; and by the form or
+name of opposed vice, we may often ascertain, with much
+greater accuracy than would otherwise be possible, the particular
+idea of the contrary virtue in the mind of the writer
+or painter. Thus, when opposed to Prudence, or Prudentia,
+on the one side, we find Folly, or Stultitia, on the other, it
+shows that the virtue understood by Prudence, is not the
+mere guiding or cardinal virtue, but the Heavenly Wisdom,<a name="FnAnchor_146" href="#Footnote_146"><span class="sp">146</span></a>
+opposed to that folly which &ldquo;hath said in its heart, there is
+no God;&rdquo; and of which it is said, &ldquo;the thought of foolishness
+is sin;&rdquo; and again, &ldquo;Such as be foolish shall not stand in thy
+sight.&rdquo; This folly is personified, in early painting and illumination,
+by a half-naked man, greedily eating an apple or other
+fruit, and brandishing a club; showing that sensuality and
+violence are the two principal characteristics of Foolishness,
+and lead into atheism. The figure, in early Psalters, always
+forms the letter D, which commences the fifty-third Psalm,
+&ldquo;<i>Dixit insipiens</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVII.</span> In reading Dante, this mode of reasoning from
+contraries is a great help, for his philosophy of the vices is
+the only one which admits of classification; his descriptions
+of virtue, while they include the ordinary formal divisions,
+are far too profound and extended to be brought under definition.
+Every line of the &ldquo;Paradise&rdquo; is full of the most
+exquisite and spiritual expressions of Christian truth; and
+that poem is only less read than the &ldquo;Inferno&rdquo; because it
+requires far greater attention, and, perhaps, for its full enjoyment,
+a holier heart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page325"></a>325</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LVIII.</span> His system in the &ldquo;Inferno&rdquo; is briefly this. The
+whole nether world is divided into seven circles, deep within
+deep, in each of which, according to its depth, severer punishment
+is inflicted. These seven circles, reckoning them downwards,
+are thus allotted:</p>
+
+<div class="list">
+<p>1. To those who have lived virtuously, but knew not Christ.</p>
+<p>2. To Lust.</p>
+<p>3. To Gluttony.</p>
+<p>4. To Avarice and Extravagance.</p>
+<p>5. To Anger and <i>Sorrow</i>.</p>
+<p>6. To Heresy.</p>
+<p>7. To Violence and Fraud.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This seventh circle is divided into two parts; of which the
+first, reserved for those who have been guilty of Violence, is
+again divided into three, apportioned severally to those who
+have committed, or desired to commit, violence against their
+neighbors, against themselves, or against God.</p>
+
+<p>The lowest hell, reserved for the punishment of Fraud, is
+itself divided into ten circles, wherein are severally punished
+the sins of,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="list">
+<p>&nbsp;1. Betraying women.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;2. Flattery.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;3. Simony.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;4. False prophecy.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;5. Peculation.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;6. Hypocrisy.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;7. Theft.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;8. False counsel.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;9. Schism and Imposture.</p>
+<p>10. Treachery to those who repose entire trust in the traitor.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LIX.</span> There is, perhaps, nothing more notable in this most
+interesting system than the profound truth couched under the
+attachment of so terrible a penalty to sadness or sorrow. It
+is true that Idleness does not elsewhere appear in the scheme,
+and is evidently intended to be included in the guilt of sadness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326"></a>326</span>
+by the word &ldquo;accidioso;&rdquo; but the main meaning of the poet is
+to mark the duty of rejoicing in God, according both to St.
+Paul&rsquo;s command, and Isaiah&rsquo;s promise, &ldquo;Thou meetest him
+that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_147" href="#Footnote_147"><span class="sp">147</span></a> I do not know
+words that might with more benefit be borne with us, and set
+in our hearts momentarily against the minor regrets and rebelliousnesses
+of life, than these simple ones:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 9em; ">&ldquo;Tristi fummo</span></p>
+<p>Nel aer dolce, che del sol s&rsquo;allegra,</p>
+<p>Or ci attristiam, nella belletta negra.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="stanza"><span style="padding-left: 6em; ">&ldquo;We once were sad,</span></p>
+<p>In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun,</p>
+<p>Now in these murky settlings are we sad.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_148" href="#Footnote_148"><span class="sp">148</span></a></p>
+<p class="sc" style="text-align: right">Cary.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The virtue usually opposed to this vice of sullenness is
+Alacritas, uniting the sense of activity and cheerfulness.
+Spenser has cheerfulness simply, in his description, never
+enough to be loved or praised, of the virtues of Womanhood;
+first feminineness or womanhood in specialty; then,&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; ">&ldquo;Next to her sate goodly Shamefastnesse,</span></p>
+<p>Ne ever durst, her eyes from ground upreare,</p>
+<p>Ne ever once did looke up from her desse,<a name="FnAnchor_149" href="#Footnote_149"><span class="sp">149</span></a></p>
+<p>As if some blame of evill she did feare</p>
+<p>That in her cheekes made roses oft appeare:</p>
+<p>And her against sweet Cherefulnesse was placed,</p>
+<p>Whose eyes, like twinkling stars in evening cleare,</p>
+<p>Were deckt with smyles that all sad humours chaced.</p>
+
+<p class="ind03 stanza">&ldquo;And next to her sate sober Modestie,</p>
+<p>Holding her hand upon her gentle hart;</p>
+<p>And her against, sate comely Curtesie,</p>
+<p><i>That unto every person knew her part</i>;</p>
+<p>And her before was seated overthwart</p>
+<p>Soft Silence, and submisse Obedience,</p>
+<p>Both linckt together never to dispart.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page327"></a>327</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LX.</span> Another notable point in Dante&rsquo;s system is the intensity
+of uttermost punishment given to treason, the peculiar
+sin of Italy, and that to which, at this day, she attributes her
+own misery with her own lips. An Italian, questioned as to
+the causes of the failure of the campaign of 1848, always makes
+one answer, &ldquo;We were betrayed;&rdquo; and the most melancholy
+feature of the present state of Italy is principally this, that she
+does not see that, of all causes to which failure might be attributed,
+this is at once the most disgraceful, and the most hopeless.
+In fact, Dante seems to me to have written almost
+prophetically, for the instruction of modern Italy, and chiefly
+so in the sixth canto of the &ldquo;Purgatorio.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXI.</span> Hitherto we have been considering the system of the
+&ldquo;Inferno&rdquo; only. That of the &ldquo;Purgatorio&rdquo; is much simpler,
+it being divided into seven districts, in which the souls are
+severally purified from the sins of Pride, Envy, Wrath,
+Indifference, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust; the poet thus
+implying in opposition, and describing in various instances,
+the seven virtues of Humility, Kindness,<a name="FnAnchor_150" href="#Footnote_150"><span class="sp">150</span></a> Patience, Zeal,
+Poverty, Abstinence, and Chastity, as adjuncts of the Christian
+character, in which it may occasionally fail, while the essential
+group of the three theological and four cardinal virtues are
+represented as in direct attendance on the chariot of the Deity;
+and all the sins of Christians are in the seventeenth canto
+traced to the deficiency or aberration of Affection.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXII.</span> The system of Spenser is unfinished, and exceedingly
+complicated, the same vices and virtues occurring under different
+forms in different places, in order to show their different
+relations to each other. I shall not therefore give any general
+sketch of it, but only refer to the particular personification of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328"></a>328</span>
+each virtue in order to compare it with that of the Ducal
+Palace.<a name="FnAnchor_151" href="#Footnote_151"><span class="sp">151</span></a> The peculiar superiority of his system is in its
+exquisite setting forth of Chastity under the figure of Britomart;
+not monkish chastity, but that of the purest Love. In
+completeness of personification no one can approach him; not
+even in Dante do I remember anything quite so great as the
+description of the Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;As pale and wan as ashes was his looke;</p>
+<p>His body lean and meagre as a rake;</p>
+<p>And skin all withered like a dryed rooke;</p>
+<p>Thereto as cold and drery as a snake;</p>
+<p>That seemed to tremble evermore, and quake:</p>
+<p><i>All in a canvas thin he was bedight,</i></p>
+<p><i>And girded with a belt of twisted brake</i>:</p>
+<p>Upon his head he wore an helmet light,</p>
+<p>Made of a dead man&rsquo;s skull.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>He rides upon a tiger, and in his hand is a bow, bent;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;And many arrows under his right side,</p>
+<p>Headed with flint, and fethers bloody dide.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The horror and the truth of this are beyond everything that
+I know, out of the pages of Inspiration. Note the heading of
+the arrows with flint, because sharper and more subtle in the
+edge than steel, and because steel might consume away with
+rust, but flint not; and consider in the whole description how
+the wasting away of body and soul together, and the <i>coldness</i>
+of the heart, which unholy fire has consumed into ashes, and
+the loss of all power, and the kindling of all terrible impatience,
+and the implanting of thorny and inextricable griefs, are set
+forth by the various images, the belt of brake, the tiger steed,
+and the <i>light</i> helmet, girding the head with death.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIII.</span> Perhaps the most interesting series of the Virtues
+expressed in Italian art are those above mentioned of Simon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329"></a>329</span>
+Memmi in the Spanish chapel at Florence, of Ambrogio di
+Lorenzo in the Palazzo Publico of Pisa, of Orcagna in Or San
+Michele at Florence, of Giotto at Padua and Assisi, in mosaic
+on the central cupola of St. Mark&rsquo;s, and in sculpture on the
+pillars of the Ducal Palace. The first two series are carefully
+described by Lord Lindsay; both are too complicated for
+comparison with the more simple series of the Ducal Palace;
+the other four of course agree in giving first the cardinal and
+evangelical virtues; their variations in the statement of the
+rest will be best understood by putting them in a parallel
+arrangement.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="data">
+
+<tr><td class="tc1"><span class="sc">St. Mark&rsquo;s</span>. </td>
+    <td class="tc1"><span class="sc">Orcagna</span>. </td>
+    <td class="tc1"><span class="sc">Giotto</span>. </td>
+    <td class="tc1"><span class="sc">Ducal Palace</span>.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Constancy.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Perseverance.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Constancy.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Modesty.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Modesty.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Chastity.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Virginity</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Chastity.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Chastity.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Patience.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Patience.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Patience.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Mercy.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Abstinence.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Abstinence?</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Piety.<a name="FnAnchor_152" href="#Footnote_152"><span class="sp">152</span></a></td>
+    <td class="tc5">Devotion.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Benignity.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">Humility.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Humility.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Humility.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Humility.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Obedience.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Obedience.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Obedience.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Docility.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Caution.</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Poverty.</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>Honesty.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">Liberality.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc5"><i>Alacrity</i>.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIV.</span> It is curious, that in none of these lists do we find
+either <i>Honesty</i> or <i>Industry</i> ranked as a virtue, except in the
+Venetian one, where the latter is implied in Alacritas, and
+opposed not only by &ldquo;Accidia&rdquo; or sloth, but by a whole series
+of eight sculptures on another capital, illustrative, as I believe,
+of the temptations to idleness; while various other capitals, as
+we shall see presently, are devoted to the representation of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page330"></a>330</span>
+active trades. Industry, in Northern art and Northern morality,
+assumes a very principal place. I have seen in French
+manuscripts the virtues reduced to these seven, Charity, Chastity,
+Patience, Abstinence, Humility, Liberality, and Industry:
+and I doubt whether, if we were but to add Honesty (or Truth),
+a wiser or shorter list could be made out.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXV.</span> We will now take the pillars of the Ducal Palace
+in their order. It has already been mentioned (Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#chap_1">Chap.
+I.</a> § <span class="scs">XLVI</span>.) that there are, in all, thirty-six great pillars supporting
+the lower story; and that these are to be counted from
+right to left, because then the more ancient of them come first:
+and that, thus arranged, the first, which is not a shaft, but a
+pilaster, will be the support of the Vine angle; the eighteenth
+will be the great shaft of the Fig-tree angle; and the thirty-sixth,
+that of the Judgment angle.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVI.</span> All their capitals, except that of the first, are octagonal,
+and are decorated by sixteen leaves, differently enriched
+in every capital, but arranged in the same way; eight of them
+rising to the angles, and there forming volutes; the eight
+others set between them, on the sides, rising half-way up the
+bell of the capital; there nodding forward, and showing above
+them, rising out of their luxuriance, the groups or single
+figures which we have to examine.<a name="FnAnchor_153" href="#Footnote_153"><span class="sp">153</span></a> In some instances, the
+intermediate or lower leaves are reduced to eight sprays of
+foliage; and the capital is left dependent for its effect on the
+bold position of the figures. In referring to the figures on
+the octagonal capitals, I shall call the outer side, fronting either
+the Sea or the Piazzetta, the first side; and so count round
+from left to right; the fourth side being thus, of course, the
+innermost. As, however, the first five arches were walled up
+after the great fire, only three sides of their capitals are left
+visible, which we may describe as the front and the eastern
+and western sides of each.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page331"></a>331</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVII</span>. <span class="sc">First Capital</span>: i.e. of the pilaster at the Vine
+angle.</p>
+
+<p>In front, towards the Sea. A child holding a bird before
+him, with its wings expanded, covering his breast.</p>
+
+<p>On its eastern side. Children&rsquo;s heads among leaves.</p>
+
+<p>On its western side. A child carrying in one hand a comb;
+in the other, a pair of scissors.</p>
+
+<p>It appears curious, that this, the principal pilaster of the
+façade, should have been decorated only by these graceful
+grotesques, for I can hardly suppose them anything more.
+There may be meaning in them, but I will not venture to conjecture
+any, except the very plain and practical meaning conveyed
+by the last figure to all Venetian children, which it
+would be well if they would act upon. For the rest, I have
+seen the comb introduced in grotesque work as early as the
+thirteenth century, but generally for the purpose of ridiculing
+too great care in dressing the hair, which assuredly is not its
+purpose here. The children&rsquo;s heads are very sweet and full
+of life, but the eyes sharp and small.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXVIII</span>. <span class="sc">Second Capital</span>. Only three sides of the original
+work are left unburied by the mass of added wall. Each side
+has a bird, one web-footed, with a fish, one clawed, with a serpent,
+which opens its jaws, and darts its tongue at the bird&rsquo;s
+breast; the third pluming itself, with a feather between the
+mandibles of its bill. It is by far the most beautiful of the
+three capitals decorated with birds.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Third Capital</span>. Also has three sides only left. They have
+three heads, large, and very ill cut; one female, and crowned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Fourth Capital</span>. Has three children. The eastern one
+is defaced: the one in front holds a small bird, whose plumage
+is beautifully indicated, in its right hand; and with its left
+holds up half a walnut, showing the nut inside: the third
+holds a fresh fig, cut through, showing the seeds.</p>
+
+<p>The hair of all the three children is differently worked:
+the first has luxuriant flowing hair, and a double chin; the
+second, light flowing hair falling in pointed locks on the
+forehead; the third, crisp curling hair, deep cut with drill holes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page332"></a>332</span></p>
+
+<p>This capital has been copied on the Renaissance side of the
+palace, only with such changes in the ideal of the children as
+the workman thought expedient and natural. It is highly
+interesting to compare the child of the fourteenth with the
+child of the fifteenth century. The early heads are full of
+youthful life, playful, humane, affectionate, beaming with sensation
+and vivacity, but with much manliness and firmness,
+also, not a little cunning, and some cruelty perhaps, beneath
+all; the features small and hard, and the eyes keen. There is
+the making of rough and great men in them. But the children
+of the fifteenth century are dull smooth-faced dunces,
+without a single meaning line in the fatness of their stolid
+cheeks; and, although, in the vulgar sense, as handsome as
+the other children are ugly, capable of becoming nothing but
+perfumed coxcombs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Fifth Capital</span>. Still three sides only left, bearing three
+half-length statues of kings; this is the first capital which bears
+any inscription. In front, a king with a sword in his right
+hand points to a handkerchief embroidered and fringed, with
+a head on it, carved on the cavetto of the abacus. His name
+is written above, &ldquo;<span class="scs">TITUS VESPASIAN IMPERATOR</span>&rdquo; (contracted
+<img src="images/img332.jpg" width="70" height="31" alt="" title="" />.</p>
+
+<p>On eastern side, &ldquo;<span class="scs">TRAJANUS IMPERATOR</span>.&rdquo; Crowned, a
+sword in right hand, and sceptre in left.</p>
+
+<p>On western, &ldquo;<span class="scs">(OCT)AVIANUS AUGUSTUS IMPERATOR</span>.&rdquo; The
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">OCT</span>&rdquo; is broken away. He bears a globe in his right hand,
+with &ldquo;<span class="scs">MUNDUS PACIS</span>&rdquo; upon it; a sceptre in his left, which I
+think has terminated in a human figure. He has a flowing
+beard, and a singularly high crown; the face is much injured,
+but has once been very noble in expression.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Sixth Capital</span>. Has large male and female heads, very
+coarsely cut, hard, and bad.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXIX.</span> <span class="sc">Seventh Capital</span>. This is the first of the series
+which is complete; the first open arch of the lower arcade
+being between it and the sixth. It begins the representation
+of the Virtues.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page333"></a>333</span></p>
+
+<p><i>First side</i>. Largitas, or Liberality: always distinguished
+from the higher Charity. A male figure, with his lap full of
+money, which he pours out of his hand. The coins are plain,
+circular, and smooth; there is no attempt to mark device upon
+them. The inscription above is, &ldquo;<span class="scs">LARGITAS ME ONORAT</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In the copy of this design on the twenty-fifth capital, instead
+of showering out the gold from his open hand, the figure
+holds it in a plate or salver, introduced for the sake of disguising
+the direct imitation. The changes thus made in the
+Renaissance pillars are always injuries.</p>
+
+<p>This virtue is the proper opponent of Avarice; though it
+does not occur in the systems of Orcagna or Giotto, being
+included in Charity. It was a leading virtue with Aristotle
+and the other ancients.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXX.</span> <i>Second side</i>. Constancy; not very characteristic.
+An armed man with a sword in his hand, inscribed, &ldquo;<span class="scs">CONSTANTIA
+SUM, NIL TIMENS</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This virtue is one of the forms of fortitude, and Giotto
+therefore sets as the vice opponent to Fortitude, &ldquo;Inconstantia,&rdquo;
+represented as a woman in loose drapery, falling from a
+rolling globe. The vision seen in the interpreter&rsquo;s house in
+the Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress, of the man with a very bold countenance,
+who says to him who has the writer&rsquo;s ink-horn by his
+side, &ldquo;Set down my name,&rdquo; is the best personification of the
+Venetian &ldquo;Constantia&rdquo; of which I am aware in literature.
+It would be well for us all to consider whether we have yet given
+the order to the man with the ink-horn, &ldquo;Set down my name.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXI.</span> <i>Third side</i>. Discord; holding up her finger, but
+needing the inscription above to assure us of her meaning,
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">DISCORDIA SUM, DISCORDANS</span>.&rdquo; In the Renaissance copy she
+is a meek and nun-like person with a veil.</p>
+
+<p>She is the Atë of Spenser; &ldquo;mother of debate,&rdquo; thus
+described in the fourth book:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Her face most fowle and filthy was to see,</p>
+<p>With squinted eyes contrarie wayes intended;</p>
+<p>And loathly mouth, unmeete a mouth to bee,</p>
+<p>That nought but gall and venim comprehended,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page334"></a>334</span></p>
+<p>And wicked wordes that God and man offended:</p>
+<p>Her lying tongue was in two parts divided,</p>
+<p>And both the parts did speake, and both contended;</p>
+<p>And as her tongue, so was her hart discided,</p>
+<p>That never thoght one thing, but doubly stil was guided.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Note the fine old meaning of &ldquo;discided,&rdquo; cut in two; it is
+a great pity we have lost this powerful expression. We might
+keep &ldquo;determined&rdquo; for the other sense of the word.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXII.</span> <i>Fourth side.</i> Patience. A female figure, very
+expressive and lovely, in a hood, with her right hand on her
+breast, the left extended, inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">PATIENTIA MANET MECUM</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She is one of the principal virtues in all the Christian systems:
+a masculine virtue in Spenser, and beautifully placed
+as the <i>Physician</i> in the House of Holinesse. The opponent
+vice, Impatience, is one of the hags who attend the Captain
+of the Lusts of the Flesh; the other being Impotence. In
+like manner, in the &ldquo;Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress,&rdquo; the opposite of
+Patience is Passion; but Spenser&rsquo;s thought is farther carried.
+His two hags, Impatience and Impotence, as attendant upon
+the evil spirit of Passion, embrace all the phenomena of human
+conduct, down even to the smallest matters, according to the
+adage, &ldquo;More haste, worse speed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXIII.</span> <i>Fifth side.</i> Despair. A female figure thrusting
+a dagger into her throat, and tearing her long hair, which
+flows down among the leaves of the capital below her knees.
+One of the finest figures of the series; inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">DESPERACIO
+MÔS</span> (mortis?) <span class="scs">CRUDELIS</span>.&rdquo; In the Renaissance copy she is
+totally devoid of expression, and appears, instead of tearing
+her hair, to be dividing it into long curls on each side.</p>
+
+<p>This vice is the proper opposite of Hope. By Giotto she
+is represented as a woman hanging herself, a fiend coming for
+her soul. Spenser&rsquo;s vision of Despair is well known, it being
+indeed currently reported that this part of the Faerie Queen
+was the first which drew to it the attention of Sir Philip Sidney.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXIV.</span> <i>Sixth side.</i> Obedience: with her arms folded;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page335"></a>335</span>
+meek, but rude and commonplace, looking at a little dog standing
+on its hind legs and begging, with a collar round its neck.
+Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">OBEDIENTI</span> *   *;&rdquo; the rest of the sentence is much
+defaced, but looks like <img src="images/img335a.jpg" width="92" height="25" alt="" title="" /> I suppose the note
+of contraction above the final A has disappeared and that the
+inscription was &ldquo;Obedientiam domino exhibeo.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This virtue is, of course, a principal one in the monkish systems;
+represented by Giotto at Assisi as &ldquo;an angel robed in
+black, placing the finger of his left hand on his mouth, and passing
+the yoke over the head of a Franciscan monk kneeling at
+his feet.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_154" href="#Footnote_154"><span class="sp">154</span></a></p>
+
+<p>Obedience holds a less principal place in Spenser. We
+have seen her above associated with the other peculiar virtues
+of womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXV.</span> <i>Seventh side.</i> Infidelity. A man in a turban, with
+a small image in his hand, or the image of a child. Of the
+inscription nothing but &ldquo;<span class="scs">INFIDELITATE</span> * * *&rdquo; and some fragmentary
+letters, &ldquo;<span class="scs">ILI, CERO</span>,&rdquo; remain.</p>
+
+<p>By Giotto Infidelity is most nobly symbolized as a woman
+helmeted, the helmet having a broad rim which keeps the
+light from her eyes. She is covered with heavy drapery,
+stands infirmly as if about to fall, is <i>bound by a cord round
+her neck to an image</i> which she carries in her hand, and has
+flames bursting forth at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>In Spenser, Infidelity is the Saracen knight Sans Foy,&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 2em; ">&ldquo;Full large of limbe and every joint</span></p>
+<p>He was, and cared not for God or man a point.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>For the part which he sustains in the contest with Godly Fear,
+or the Red-cross knight, see <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#app_2">Appendix 2</a>, Vol. III.</p>
+
+<p>§ LX<span class="scs">XVI.</span> <i>Eighth side</i>. Modesty; bearing a pitcher. (In the
+Renaissance copy, a vase like a coffee-pot.) Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">MODESTIA</span>
+<img src="images/img335b.jpg" width="115" height="25" alt="" title="" /></p>
+
+<p>I do not find this virtue in any of the Italian series, except
+that of Venice. In Spenser she is of course one of those
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page336"></a>336</span>
+attendant on Womanhood, but occurs as one of the tenants
+of the Heart of Man, thus portrayed in the second book:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Straunge was her tyre, and all her garment blew,</p>
+<p>Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight:</p>
+<p>Upon her fist the bird which shonneth vew.</p>
+
+<p style="letter-spacing: 1.5em; font-size: 150%; ">.........</p>
+
+<p>And ever and anone with rosy red</p>
+<p>The bashfull blood her snowy cheekes did dye,</p>
+<p>That her became, as polisht yvory</p>
+<p>Which cunning craftesman hand hath overlayd</p>
+<p>With fayre vermilion or pure castory.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXVII.</span> <span class="sc">Eighth Capital.</span> It has no inscriptions, and its
+subjects are not, by themselves, intelligible; but they appear
+to be typical of the degradation of human instincts.</p>
+
+<p><i>First side.</i> A caricature of Arion on his dolphin; he wears
+a cap ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin
+with a curious twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very
+graphically expressed, but still without anything approaching
+to the power of Northern grotesque. His dolphin has a goodly
+row of teeth, and the waves beat over his back.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> A human figure, with curly hair and the legs
+of a bear; the paws laid, with great sculptural skill, upon the
+foliage. It plays a violin, shaped like a guitar, with a bent
+double-stringed bow.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> A figure with a serpent&rsquo;s tail and a monstrous
+head, founded on a Negro type, hollow-cheeked, large-lipped,
+and wearing a cap made of a serpent&rsquo;s skin, holding a fir-cone
+in its hand.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> A monstrous figure, terminating below in a
+tortoise. It is devouring a gourd, which it grasps greedily
+with both hands; it wears a cap ending in a hoofed leg.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> A centaur wearing a crested helmet, and holding
+a curved sword.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> A knight, riding a headless horse, and wearing
+chain armor, with a triangular shield flung behind his back,
+and a two-edged sword.</p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> A figure like that on the fifth, wearing a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337"></a>337</span>
+round helmet, and with the legs and tail of a horse. He bears
+a long mace with a top like a fir-cone.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> A figure with curly hair, and an acorn in its
+hand, ending below in a fish.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXVIII.</span> Ninth Capital. <i>First side.</i> Faith. She has her
+left hand on her breast, and the cross on her right. Inscribed
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">FIDES OPTIMA IN DEO</span>.&rdquo; The Faith of Giotto holds the cross
+in her right hand; in her left, a scroll with the Apostles&rsquo;
+Creed. She treads upon cabalistic books, and has a key suspended
+to her waist. Spenser&rsquo;s Faith (Fidelia) is still more
+spiritual and noble:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;She was araied all in lilly white,</p>
+<p>And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,</p>
+<p>With wine and water fild up to the hight,</p>
+<p>In which a serpent did himselfe enfold,</p>
+<p>That horrour made to all that did behold;</p>
+<p>But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:</p>
+<p>And in her other hand she fast did hold</p>
+<p>A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood;</p>
+<p>Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXIX.</span> <i>Second side.</i> Fortitude. A long-bearded man
+[Samson?] tearing open a lion&rsquo;s jaw. The inscription is illegible,
+and the somewhat vulgar personification appears to
+belong rather to Courage than Fortitude. On the Renaissance
+copy it is inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">FORTITUDO SUM VIRILIS</span>.&rdquo; The
+Latin word has, perhaps, been received by the sculptor as
+merely signifying &ldquo;Strength,&rdquo; the rest of the perfect idea of
+this virtue having been given in &ldquo;Constantia&rdquo; previously.
+But both these Venetian symbols together do not at all approach
+the idea of Fortitude as given generally by Giotto and
+the Pisan sculptors; clothed with a lion&rsquo;s skin, knotted about
+her neck, and falling to her feet in deep folds; drawing back
+her right hand, with the sword pointed towards her enemy;
+and slightly retired behind her immovable shield, which, with
+Giotto, is square, and rested on the ground like a tower, covering
+her up to above her shoulders; bearing on it a lion, and
+with broken heads of javelins deeply infixed.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Greeks, this is, of course, one of the principal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338"></a>338</span>
+virtues; apt, however, in their ordinary conception of it to
+degenerate into mere manliness or courage.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXX.</span> <i>Third side.</i> Temperance; bearing a pitcher of
+water and a cup. Inscription, illegible here, and on the
+Renaissance copy nearly so, &ldquo;<span class="scs">TEMPERANTIA SUM</span>&rdquo; (<span class="scs">INO<span class="uscore">M</span>&rsquo; L</span><span class="sp">s</span>)?
+only left. In this somewhat vulgar and most frequent conception
+of this virtue (afterwards continually repeated, as by
+Sir Joshua in his window at New College) temperance is
+confused with mere abstinence, the opposite of Gula, or gluttony;
+whereas the Greek Temperance, a truly cardinal virtue,
+is the moderator of <i>all</i> the passions, and so represented by
+Giotto, who has placed a bridle upon her lips, and a sword
+in her hand, the hilt of which she is binding to the scabbard.
+In his system, she is opposed among the vices, not by Gula or
+Gluttony, but by Ira, Anger. So also the Temperance of
+Spenser, or Sir Guyon, but with mingling of much sternness:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;A goodly knight, all armd in harnesse meete,</p>
+<p>That from his head no place appeared to his feete,</p>
+<p>His carriage was full comely and upright;</p>
+<p>His countenance demure and temperate;</p>
+<p>But yett so sterne and terrible in sight,</p>
+<p>That cheard his friendes, and did his foes amate.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The Temperance of the Greeks, <span class="grk" title="sôphrosynę">&#963;&#969;&#966;&#961;&#959;&#963;&#973;&#957;&#951;</span>, involves the
+idea of Prudence, and is a most noble virtue, yet properly
+marked by Plato as inferior to sacred enthusiasm, though necessary
+for its government. He opposes it, under the name
+&ldquo;Mortal Temperance&rdquo; or &ldquo;the Temperance which is of men,&rdquo;
+to divine madness, <span class="grk" title="mania">&#956;&#945;&#957;&#943;&#945;</span>, or inspiration; but he most justly
+and nobly expresses the general idea of it under the term
+<span class="grk" title="hubris">&#8019;&#946;&#961;&#953;&#962;</span>, which, in the &ldquo;Phćdrus,&rdquo; is divided into various intemperances
+with respect to various objects, and set forth under
+the image of a black, vicious, diseased and furious horse, yoked
+by the side of Prudence or Wisdom (set forth under the
+figure of a white horse with a crested and noble head, like
+that which we have among the Elgin Marbles) to the chariot
+of the Soul. The system of Aristotle, as above stated, is
+throughout a mere complicated blunder, supported by sophistry,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page339"></a>339</span>
+the laboriously developed mistake of Temperance for the
+essence of the virtues which it guides. Temperance in the
+medićval systems is generally opposed by Anger, or by Folly,
+or Gluttony: but her proper opposite is Spenser&rsquo;s Acrasia, the
+principal enemy of Sir Guyon, at whose gates we find the subordinate
+vice &ldquo;Excesse,&rdquo; as the introduction to Intemperance;
+a graceful and feminine image, necessary to illustrate the more
+dangerous forms of subtle intemperance, as opposed to the
+brutal &ldquo;Gluttony&rdquo; in the first book. She presses grapes into a
+cup, because of the words of St. Paul, &ldquo;Be not drunk with
+wine, wherein is excess;&rdquo; but always delicately,</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Into her cup she scruzd with daintie breach</p>
+<p>Of her fine fingers, without fowle empeach,</p>
+<p>That so faire winepresse made the wine more sweet.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The reader will, I trust, pardon these frequent extracts
+from Spenser, for it is nearly as necessary to point out the profound
+divinity and philosophy of our great English poet, as
+the beauty of the Ducal Palace.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXI.</span> <i>Fourth side.</i> Humility; with a veil upon her
+head, carrying a lamp in her lap. Inscribed in the copy, &ldquo;<span class="scs">HUMILITAS
+HABITAT IN ME.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This virtue is of course a peculiarly Christian one, hardly
+recognized in the Pagan systems, though carefully impressed
+upon the Greeks in early life in a manner which at this day
+it would be well if we were to imitate, and, together with an
+almost feminine modesty, giving an exquisite grace to the
+conduct and bearing of the well-educated Greek youth. It is,
+of course, one of the leading virtues in all the monkish systems,
+but I have not any notes of the manner of its representation.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXII.</span> <i>Fifth side.</i> Charity. A woman with her lap full
+of loaves (?), giving one to a child, who stretches his arm out
+for it across a broad gap in the leafage of the capital.</p>
+
+<p>Again very far inferior to the Giottesque rendering of this
+virtue. In the Arena Chapel she is distinguished from all the
+other virtues by having a circular glory round her head, and
+a cross of fire; she is crowned with flowers, presents with her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340"></a>340</span>
+right hand a vase of corn and fruit, and with her left receives
+treasure from Christ, who appears above her, to provide her
+with the means of continual offices of beneficence, while she
+tramples under foot the treasures of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar beauty of most of the Italian conceptions of
+Charity, is in the subjection of mere munificence to the glowing
+of her love, always represented by flames; here in the
+form of a cross round her head; in Oreagna&rsquo;s shrine at Florence,
+issuing from a censer in her hand; and, with Dante,
+inflaming her whole form, so that, in a furnace of clear fire,
+she could not have been discerned.</p>
+
+<p>Spenser represents her as a mother surrounded by happy
+children, an idea afterwards grievously hackneyed and vulgarized
+by English painters and sculptors.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXIII.</span> <i>Sixth side.</i> Justice. Crowned, and with sword.
+Inscribed in the copy, &ldquo;<span class="scs">REX SUM JUSTICIE.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This idea was afterwards much amplified and adorned in
+the only good capital of the Renaissance series, under the
+Judgment angle. Giotto has also given his whole strength to
+the painting of this virtue, representing her as enthroned
+under a noble Gothic canopy, holding scales, not by the beam,
+but one in each hand; a beautiful idea, showing that the
+equality of the scales of Justice is not owing to natural laws,
+but to her own immediate weighing the opposed causes in
+her own hands. In one scale is an executioner beheading a
+criminal; in the other an angel crowning a man who seems
+(in Selvatico&rsquo;s plate) to have been working at a desk or table.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath her feet is a small predella, representing various
+persons riding securely in the woods, and others dancing to
+the sound of music.</p>
+
+<p>Spenser&rsquo;s Justice, Sir Artegall, is the hero of an entire
+book, and the betrothed knight of Britomart, or chastity.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXIV.</span> <i>Seventh side.</i> Prudence. A man with a book
+and a pair of compasses, wearing the noble cap, hanging down
+towards the shoulder, and bound in a fillet round the brow,
+which occurs so frequently during the fourteenth century in
+Italy in the portraits of men occupied in any civil capacity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page341"></a>341</span></p>
+
+<p>This virtue is, as we have seen, conceived under very different
+degrees of dignity, from mere worldly prudence up to
+heavenly wisdom, being opposed sometimes by Stultitia, sometimes
+by Ignorantia. I do not find, in any of the representations
+of her, that her truly distinctive character, namely, <i>forethought</i>,
+is enough insisted upon: Giotto expresses her vigilance
+and just measurement or estimate of all things by painting
+her as Janus-headed, and gazing into a convex mirror,
+with compasses in her right hand; the convex mirror showing
+her power of looking at many things in small compass. But
+forethought or anticipation, by which, independently of greater
+or less natural capacities, one man becomes more <i>prudent</i> than
+another, is never enough considered or symbolized.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of this virtue oscillates, in the Greek systems,
+between Temperance and Heavenly Wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXV.</span> <i>Eighth side.</i> Hope. A figure full of devotional
+expression, holding up its hands as in prayer, and looking to a
+hand which is extended towards it out of sunbeams. In the
+Renaissance copy this hand does not appear.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the virtues, this is the most distinctively Christian (it
+could not, of course, enter definitely into any Pagan scheme);
+and above all others, it seems to me the <i>testing</i> virtue,&mdash;that
+by the possession of which we may most certainly determine
+whether we are Christians or not; for many men have charity,
+that is to say, general kindness of heart, or even a kind of
+faith, who have not any habitual <i>hope</i> of, or longing for,
+heaven. The Hope of Giotto is represented as winged, rising
+in the air, while an angel holds a crown before her. I do not
+know if Spenser was the first to introduce our marine virtue,
+leaning on an anchor, a symbol as inaccurate as it is vulgar:
+for, in the first place, anchors are not for men, but for ships;
+and in the second, anchorage is the characteristic not of Hope,
+but of Faith. Faith is dependent, but Hope is aspirant.
+Spenser, however, introduces Hope twice,&mdash;the first time as
+the Virtue with the anchor; but afterwards fallacious Hope,
+far more beautifully, in the Masque of Cupid:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;She always smyld, and in her hand did hold</p>
+<p>An holy-water sprinckle, dipt in deowe.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page342"></a>342</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXVI. Tenth Capital.</span> <i>First side.</i> Luxury (the opposite
+of chastity, as above explained). A woman with a jewelled
+chain across her forehead, smiling as she looks into a
+mirror, exposing her breast by drawing down her dress with
+one hand. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">LUXURIA SUM IMENSA</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These subordinate forms of vice are not met with so frequently
+in art as those of the opposite virtues, but in Spenser
+we find them all. His Luxury rides upon a goat:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;In a greene gowne he clothed was full faire,</p>
+<p>Which underneath did hide his filthinesse,</p>
+<p>And in his hand a burning hart he bare.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>But, in fact, the proper and comprehensive expression of
+this vice is the Cupid of the ancients; and there is not any
+minor circumstance more indicative of the <i>intense</i> difference
+between the medićval and the Renaissance spirit, than the
+mode in which this god is represented.</p>
+
+<p>I have above said, that all great European art is rooted in
+the thirteenth century; and it seems to me that there is a
+kind of central year about which we may consider the energy
+of the middle ages to be gathered; a kind of focus of time
+which, by what is to my mind a most touching and impressive
+Divine appointment, has been marked for us by the greatest
+writer of the middle ages, in the first words he utters; namely,
+the year 1300, the &ldquo;mezzo del cammin&rdquo; of the life of Dante.
+Now, therefore, to Giotto, the contemporary of Dante, and
+who drew Dante&rsquo;s still existing portrait in this very year,
+1300, we may always look for the central medićval idea in
+any subject: and observe how he represents Cupid; as one
+of three, a terrible trinity, his companions being Satan and
+Death; and he himself &ldquo;a lean scarecrow, with bow, quiver,
+and fillet, and feet ending in claws,&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_155" href="#Footnote_155"><span class="sp">155</span></a> thrust down into Hell
+by Penance, from the presence of Purity and Fortitude.
+Spenser, who has been so often noticed as furnishing the exactly
+intermediate type of conception between the medićval
+and the Renaissance, indeed represents Cupid under the form
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343"></a>343</span>
+of a beautiful winged god, and riding on a lion, but still no
+plaything of the Graces, but full of terror:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;With that the darts which his right hand did straine</p>
+<p>Full dreadfully he shooke, that all did quake,</p>
+<p>And clapt on hye his coloured winges twaine,</p>
+<p>That all his many it afraide did make.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>His <i>many</i>, that is to say, his company; and observe what a
+company it is. Before him go Fancy, Desire, Doubt, Danger,
+Fear, Fallacious Hope, Dissemblance, Suspicion, Grief, Fury,
+Displeasure, Despite, and Cruelty. After him, Reproach, Repentance,
+Shame,</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Unquiet Care, and fond Unthriftyhead,</p>
+<p>Lewd Losse of Time, and Sorrow seeming dead,</p>
+<p>Inconstant Chaunge, and false Disloyalty,</p>
+<p>Consuming Riotise, and guilty Dread</p>
+<p>Of heavenly vengeaunce; faint Infirmity,</p>
+<p>Vile Poverty, and lastly Death with infamy.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Compare these two pictures of Cupid with the Love-god of
+the Renaissance, as he is represented to this day, confused
+with angels, in every faded form of ornament and allegory, in
+our furniture, our literature, and our minds.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXVII.</span> <i>Second side.</i> Gluttony. A woman in a turban,
+with a jewelled cup in her right hand. In her left, the clawed
+limb of a bird, which she is gnawing. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">GULA SINE
+ORDINE SUM</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Spenser&rsquo;s Gluttony is more than usually fine:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;His belly was upblowne with luxury,</p>
+<p>And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,</p>
+<p>And like a crane his necke was long and fyne,</p>
+<p>Wherewith he swallowed up excessive feast,</p>
+<p>For want whereof poore people oft did pyne.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>He rides upon a swine, and is clad in vine-leaves, with a
+garland of ivy. Compare the account of Excesse, above, as
+opposed to Temperance.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXVIII.</span> <i>Third side.</i> Pride. A knight, with a heavy
+and stupid face, holding a sword with three edges: his armor
+covered with ornaments in the form of roses, and with two
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344"></a>344</span>
+ears attached to his helmet. The inscription indecipherable,
+all but &ldquo;<span class="scs">SUPERBIA</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Spenser has analyzed this vice with great care. He first
+represents it as the Pride of life; that is to say, the pride which
+runs in a deep under current through all the thoughts and acts
+of men. As such, it is a feminine vice, directly opposed to
+Holiness, and mistress of a castle called the House of Pryde,
+and her chariot is driven by Satan, with a team of beasts,
+ridden by the mortal sins. In the throne chamber of her
+palace she is thus described:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;So proud she shyned in her princely state,</p>
+<p>Looking to Heaven, for Earth she did disdayne;</p>
+<p>And sitting high, for lowly she did hate:</p>
+<p>Lo, underneath her scornefull feete was layne</p>
+<p>A dreadfull dragon with an hideous trayne;</p>
+<p>And in her hand she held a mirrhour bright,</p>
+<p>Wherein her face she often vewed fayne&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The giant Orgoglio is a baser species of pride, born of the
+Earth and Eolus; that is to say, of sensual and vain conceits.
+His foster-father and the keeper of his castle is Ignorance.
+(Book I. canto <span class="scs">VIII</span>.)</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Disdain is introduced, in other places, as the form
+of pride which vents itself in insult to others.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">LXXXIX.</span> <i>Fourth side.</i> Anger. A woman tearing her dress
+open at her breast. Inscription here undecipherable; but in
+the Renaissance copy it is &ldquo;<span class="scs">IRA CRUDELIS EST IN ME</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Giotto represents this vice under the same symbol; but it
+is the weakest of all the figures in the Arena Chapel. The
+&ldquo;Wrath&rdquo;  of Spenser rides upon a lion, brandishing a fire-brand,
+his garments stained with blood. Rage, or Furor,
+occurs subordinately in other places. It appears to me very
+strange that neither Giotto nor Spenser should have given any
+representation of the <i>restrained</i> Anger, which is infinitely the
+most terrible; both of them make him violent.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XC.</span> <i>Fifth side.</i> Avarice. An old woman with a veil
+over her forehead, and a bag of money in each hand. A figure
+very marvellous for power of expression. The throat is all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345"></a>345</span>
+made up of sinews with skinny channels deep between them,
+strained as by anxiety, and wasted by famine; the features
+hunger-bitten, the eyes hollow, the look glaring and intense,
+yet without the slightest: caricature. Inscribed in the Renaissance
+copy, &ldquo;<span class="sc">avaritia impletor</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Spenser&rsquo;s Avarice (the vice) is much feebler than this; but
+the god Mammon and his kingdom have been described by
+him with his usual power. Note the position of the house of
+Richesse:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Betwixt them both was but a little stride,</p>
+<p>That did the House of Richesse from Hell-mouth divide.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>It is curious that most moralists confuse avarice with
+covetousness, although they are vices totally different in their
+operation on the human heart, and on the frame of society.
+The love of money, the sin of Judas and Ananias, is indeed
+the root of all evil in the hardening of the heart; but &ldquo;covetousness,
+which is idolatry,&rdquo; the sin of Ahab, that is, the inordinate
+desire of some seen or recognized good,&mdash;thus destroying
+peace of mind,&mdash;is probably productive of much more
+misery in heart, and error in conduct, than avarice itself, only
+covetousness is not so inconsistent with Christianity: for covetousness
+may partly proceed from vividness of the affections
+and hopes, as in David, and be consistent with, much charity;
+not so avarice.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCI</span>. <i>Sixth side</i>. Idleness. Accidia. A figure much
+broken away, having had its arms round two branches of trees.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know why Idleness should be represented as among
+trees, unless, in the Italy of the fourteenth century, forest country
+was considered as desert, and therefore the domain of Idleness.
+Spenser fastens this vice especially upon the clergy,&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Upon a slouthfull asse he chose to ryde,</p>
+<p>Arayd in habit blacke, and amis thin,</p>
+<p>Like to an holy monck, the service to begin.</p>
+<p>And in his hand his portesse still he bare,</p>
+<p>That much was worne, but therein little redd.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>And he properly makes him the leader of the train of the vices:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;May seem the wayne was very evil ledd,</p>
+<p>When such an one had guiding of the way&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page346"></a>346</span></p>
+
+<p>Observe that subtle touch of truth in the &ldquo;wearing&rdquo; of the
+portesse, indicating the abuse of books by idle readers, so
+thoroughly characteristic of unwilling studentship from the
+schoolboy upwards.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCII</span>. <i>Seventh side.</i> Vanity. She is smiling complacently
+as she looks into a mirror in her lap. Her robe is embroidered
+with roses, and roses form her crown. Undecipherable.</p>
+
+<p>There is some confusion in the expression of this vice,
+between pride in the personal appearance and lightness of
+purpose. The word Vanitas generally, I think, bears, in the
+medićval period, the sense given it in Scripture. &ldquo;Let not
+him that is deceived trust in Vanity, for Vanity shall be his
+recompense.&rdquo; &ldquo;Vanity of Vanities.&rdquo; &ldquo;The Lord knoweth
+the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.&rdquo; It is difficult
+to find this sin,&mdash;which, after Pride, is the most universal, perhaps
+the most fatal, of all, fretting the whole depth of our
+humanity into storm &ldquo;to waft a feather or to drown a fly,&rdquo;&mdash;definitely
+expressed in art. Even Spenser, I think, has only
+partially expressed it under the figure of Phćdria, more
+properly Idle Mirth, in the second book. The idea is, however,
+entirely worked out in the Vanity Fair of the &ldquo;Pilgrim&rsquo;s
+Progress.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCIII</span>. <i>Eighth side.</i> Envy. One of the noblest pieces of
+expression in the series. She is pointing malignantly with her
+finger; a serpent is wreathed about her head like a cap, another
+forms the girdle of her waist, and a dragon rests in her
+lap.</p>
+
+<p>Giotto has, however, represented her, with still greater
+subtlety, as having her fingers terminating in claws, and raising
+her right hand with an expression partly of impotent
+regret, partly of involuntary grasping; a serpent, issuing from
+her mouth, is about to bite her between the eyes; she has
+long membranous ears, horns on her head, and flames consuming
+her body. The Envy of Spenser is only inferior to that
+of Giotto, because the idea of folly and quickness of hearing
+is not suggested by the size of the ear: in other respects it is
+even finer, joining the idea of fury, in the wolf on which he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page347"></a>347</span>
+rides, with that of corruption on his lips, and of discoloration
+or distortion in the whole mind:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 7em; ">&ldquo;Malicious Envy rode</span></p>
+<p>Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw</p>
+<p>Between his cankred teeth a venemous tode,</p>
+<p>That all the poison ran about his jaw.</p>
+<p><i>All in a kirtle of discolourd say</i></p>
+<p><i>He clothed was, ypaynted full of eies,</i></p>
+<p>And in his bosome secretly there lay</p>
+<p>An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes</p>
+<p>In many folds, and mortall sting implyes.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>He has developed the idea in more detail, and still more
+loathsomely, in the twelfth canto of the fifth book.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCIV</span>. <span class="sc">Eleventh Capital</span>. Its decoration is composed
+of eight birds, arranged as shown in Plate V. of the &ldquo;Seven
+Lamps,&rdquo; which, however, was sketched from the Renaissance
+copy. These birds are all varied in form and action, but not
+so as to require special description.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCV</span>. <span class="sc">Twelfth Capital</span>. This has been very interesting,
+but is grievously defaced, four of its figures being entirely
+broken away, and the character of two others quite undecipherable.
+It is fortunate that it has been copied in the thirty-third
+capital of the Renaissance series, from which we are able
+to identify the lost figures.</p>
+
+<p><i>First side.</i> Misery. A man with a wan face, seemingly
+pleading with a child who has its hands crossed on its breast.
+There is a buckle at his own breast in the shape of a cloven
+heart. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">MISERIA</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The intention of this figure is not altogether apparent, as it
+is by no means treated as a vice; the distress seeming real,
+and like that of a parent in poverty mourning over his child.
+Yet it seems placed here as in direct opposition to the virtue
+of Cheerfulness, which follows next in order; rather, however,
+I believe, with the intention of illustrating human life, than
+the character of the vice which, as we have seen, Dante placed
+in the circle of hell. The word in that case would, I think,
+have been &ldquo;Tristitia,&rdquo; the &ldquo;unholy Griefe&rdquo; of Spenser&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page348"></a>348</span></p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 4em; ">&ldquo;All in sable sorrowfully clad,</span></p>
+<p>Downe hanging his dull head with heavy chere:</p>
+
+<p style="letter-spacing: 2em; font-size: 150%; ">........</p>
+
+<p>A pair of pincers in his hand he had,</p>
+<p>With which he pinched people to the heart.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>He has farther amplified the idea under another figure in
+the fifth canto of the fourth book:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,</p>
+<p>That neither day nor night from working spared;</p>
+<p>But to small purpose yron wedges made:</p>
+<p>Those be unquiet thoughts that carefull minds invade.</p>
+<p>Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,</p>
+<p>Ne better had he, ne for better cared;</p>
+<p>With blistered hands among the cinders brent.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>It is to be noticed, however, that in the Renaissance copy
+this figure is stated to be, not Miseria, but &ldquo;Misericordia.&rdquo;
+The contraction is a very moderate one, Misericordia being in
+old MS. written always as &ldquo;Mia.&rdquo; If this reading be right,
+the figure is placed here rather as the companion, than the
+opposite, of Cheerfulness; unless, indeed, it is intended to unite
+the idea of Mercy and Compassion with that of Sacred Sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCVI</span>. <i>Second side.</i> Cheerfulness. A woman with long
+flowing hair, crowned with roses, playing on a tambourine,
+and with open lips, as singing. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="sc">alacritas</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We have already met with this virtue among those especially
+set by Spenser to attend on Womanhood. It is inscribed
+in the Renaissance copy, &ldquo;<span class="scs">ALACHRITAS CHANIT MECUM</span>.&rdquo; Note
+the gutturals of the rich and fully developed Venetian dialect
+now affecting the Latin, which is free from them in the earlier
+capitals.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCVII</span>. <i>Third side.</i> Destroyed; but, from the copy, we
+find it has been Stultitia, Folly; and it is there represented
+simply as a man <i>riding</i>, a sculpture worth the consideration
+of the English residents who bring their horses to Venice.
+Giotto gives Stultitia a feather, cap, and club. In early manuscripts
+he is always eating with one hand, and striking with
+the other; in later ones he has a cap and bells, or cap crested
+with a cock&rsquo;s head, whence the word &ldquo;coxcomb.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page349"></a>349</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCVIII</span>. <i>Fourth side.</i> Destroyed, all but a book, which
+identifies it with the &ldquo;Celestial Chastity&rdquo; of the Renaissance
+copy; there represented as a woman pointing to a book (connecting
+the convent life with the pursuit of literature?).</p>
+
+<p>Spenser&rsquo;s Chastity, Britomart, is the most exquisitely
+wrought of all his characters; but, as before noticed, she is
+not the Chastity of the convent, but of wedded life.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">XCIX</span>. <i>Fifth side.</i> Only a scroll is left; but, from the
+copy, we find it has been Honesty or Truth. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">HONESTATEM
+DILIGO</span>.&rdquo; It is very curious, that among all the Christian
+systems of the virtues which we have examined, we should
+find this one in Venice only.</p>
+
+<p>The Truth of Spenser, Una, is, after Chastity, the most
+exquisite character in the &ldquo;Faerie Queen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">C</span>. <i>Sixth side.</i> Falsehood. An old woman leaning on
+a crutch; and inscribed in the copy, &ldquo;<span class="scs">FALSITAS IN ME SEMPER
+EST</span>.&rdquo; The Fidessa of Spenser, the great enemy of Una, or
+Truth, is far more subtly conceived, probably not without
+special reference to the Papal deceits. In her true form she
+is a loathsome hag, but in her outward aspect,</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;A goodly lady, clad in scarlot red,</p>
+<p>Purfled with gold and pearle;...</p>
+<p>Her wanton palfrey all was overspred</p>
+<p>With tinsell trappings, woven like a wave,</p>
+<p>Whose bridle rung with golden bels and bosses brave.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Dante&rsquo;s Fraud, Geryon, is the finest personification of all,
+but the description (Inferno, canto <span class="scs">XVII</span>.) is too long to be
+quoted.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CI</span>. <i>Seventh side.</i> Injustice. An armed figure holding
+a halbert; so also in the copy. The figure used by Giotto
+with the particular intention of representing unjust government,
+is represented at the gate of an embattled castle in a
+forest, between rocks, while various deeds of violence are committed
+at his feet. Spenser&rsquo;s &ldquo;Adicia&rdquo; is a furious hag, at
+last transformed into a tiger.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> A man with a dagger looking sorrowfully at
+a child, who turns its back to him. I cannot understand this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350"></a>350</span>
+figure. It is inscribed in the copy, &ldquo;<span class="scs">ASTINECIA</span> (Abstinentia?)
+<span class="scs">OPITIMA</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CII.</span> Thirteenth Capital. It has lions&rsquo; heads all round,
+coarsely cut.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Fourteenth Capital.</span> It has various animals, each sitting
+on its haunches. Three dogs, one a greyhound, one long-haired,
+one short-haired with bells about its neck; two
+monkeys, one with fan-shaped hair projecting on each side
+of its face; a noble boar, with its tusks, hoofs, and bristles
+sharply cut; and a lion and lioness.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CIII.</span> <span class="sc">Fifteenth Capital.</span> The pillar to which it belongs is
+thicker than the rest, as well as the one over it in the upper arcade.</p>
+
+<p>The sculpture of this capital is also much coarser, and seems
+to me later than that of the rest; and it has no inscription,
+which is embarrassing, as its subjects have had much meaning;
+but I believe Selvatico is right in supposing it to have been
+intended for a general illustration of Idleness.</p>
+
+<p><i>First side.</i> A woman with a distaff; her girdle richly
+decorated, and fastened by a buckle.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> A youth in a long mantle, with a rose in his hand.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> A woman in a turban stroking a puppy which
+she holds by the haunches.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> A man with a parrot.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> A woman in very rich costume, with braided
+hair, and dress thrown into minute folds, holding a rosary(?)
+in her left hand, her right on her breast.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> A man with a very thoughtful face, laying his
+hand upon the leaves of the capital.</p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> A crowned lady, with a rose in her hand.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> A boy with a ball in his left hand, and his
+right laid on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CIV.</span> <span class="sc">Sixteenth Capital.</span> It is decorated with eight
+large heads, partly intended to be grotesque,<a name="FnAnchor_156" href="#Footnote_156"><span class="sp">156</span></a> and very coarse
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page351"></a>351</span>
+and bad, except only that in the sixth side, which is totally different
+from all the rest, and looks like a portrait. It is thin,
+thoughtful, and dignified; thoroughly fine in every way. It
+wears a cap surmounted by two winged lions; and, therefore,
+I think Selvatico must have inaccurately written the list given
+in the note, for this head is certainly meant to express the
+superiority of the Venetian character over that of other
+nations. Nothing is more remarkable in all early sculpture,
+than its appreciation of the signs of dignity of character in
+the features, and the way in which it can exalt the principal
+figure in any subject by a few touches.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CV.</span> <span class="sc">Seventeenth Capital</span>. This has been so destroyed
+by the sea wind, which sweeps at this point of the arcade
+round the angle of the palace, that its inscriptions are no
+longer legible, and great part of its figures are gone. Selvatico
+states them as follows: Solomon, the wise; Priscian,
+the grammarian; Aristotle, the logician; Tully, the orator;
+Pythagoras, the philosopher; Archimedes, the mechanic; Orpheus,
+the musician; Ptolemy, the astronomer. The fragments
+actually remaining are the following:</p>
+
+<p><i>First side.</i> A figure with two books, in a robe richly
+decorated with circles of roses. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">SALOMON (SAP)IENS.&rdquo;</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> A man with one book, poring over it: he
+has had a long stick or reed in his hand. Of inscription only
+the letters &ldquo;<span class="scs">GRAMMATIC</span>&rdquo; remain.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> &ldquo;<span class="scs">ARISTOTLE:</span>&rdquo; so inscribed. He has a peaked
+double beard and a flat cap, from under which his long hair
+falls down his back.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> Destroyed.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> Destroyed, all but a board with three (counters?)
+on it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i>  A figure with compasses. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">GEOMET * *</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> Nothing is left but a guitar with its handle
+wrought into a lion&rsquo;s head.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> Destroyed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page352"></a>352</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CVI.</span> We have now arrived at the <span class="sc">Eighteenth Capital</span>,
+the most interesting and beautiful of the palace. It represents
+the planets, and the sun and moon, in those divisions of
+the zodiac known to astrologers as their &ldquo;houses;&rdquo; and perhaps
+indicates, by the position in which they are placed, the
+period of the year at which this great corner-stone was laid.
+The inscriptions above have been in quaint Latin rhyme, but
+are now decipherable only in fragments, and that with the
+more difficulty because the rusty iron bar that binds the
+abacus has broken away, in its expansion, nearly all the upper
+portions of the stone, and with them the signs of contraction,
+which are of great importance. I shall give the fragments of
+them that I could decipher; first as the letters actually stand
+(putting those of which I am doubtful in brackets, with a
+note of interrogation), and then as I would read them.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CVII.</span> It should be premised that, in modern astrology,
+the houses of the planets are thus arranged:</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="data">
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1" style="width: 6em; ">The house of</td>
+     <td class="tc1" style="width: 2em; ">the</td>
+     <td class="tc5" style="width: 5em; ">Sun,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">is</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Leo.</td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc1">&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Moon,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Cancer.</td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc1">of</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Mars,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Aries and Scorpio.</td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc1">&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Venus,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Taurus and Libra.</td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc1">&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Mercury,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Gemini and Virgo.</td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc1">&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Jupiter,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Sagittarius and Pisces.</td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc1">&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Saturn,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Capricorn.</td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc1">&nbsp;</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Herschel,</td>
+     <td class="tc1">"</td>
+     <td class="tc5">Aquarius.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The Herschel planet being of course unknown to the old
+astrologers, we have only the other six planetary powers,
+together with the sun; and Aquarius is assigned to Saturn
+as his house. I could not find Capricorn at all; but this sign
+may have been broken away, as the whole capital is grievously
+defaced. The eighth side of the capital, which the Herschel
+planet would now have occupied, bears a sculpture of the Creation
+of Man: it is the most conspicuous side, the one set diagonally
+across the angle; or the eighth in our usual mode of
+reading the capitals, from which I shall not depart.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CVIII.</span> <i>The first side</i>, then, or that towards the Sea, has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353"></a>353</span>
+Aquarius, as the house of Saturn, represented as a seated
+figure beautifully draped, pouring a stream of water out of an
+amphora over the leaves of the capital. His inscription is:</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">ET SATURNE DOMUS (ECLOCERUNT?) 1<span class="sp">s</span> 7BRE.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CIX.</span> <i>Second side.</i> Jupiter, in his houses Sagittarius
+and Pisces, represented throned, with an upper dress disposed
+in radiating folds about his neck, and hanging down upon his
+breast, ornamented by small pendent trefoiled studs or bosses.
+He wears the drooping bonnet and long gloves; but the folds
+about the neck, shot forth to express the rays of the star, are
+the most remarkable characteristic of the figure. He raises
+his sceptre in his left hand over Sagittarius, represented as the
+centaur Chiron; and holds two thunnies in his right. Something
+rough, like a third fish, has been broken away below
+them; the more easily because this part of the group is
+entirely undercut, and the two fish glitter in the light, relieved
+on the deep gloom below the leaves. The inscription is:</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">INDE JOVI&rsquo;<a name="FnAnchor_157" href="#Footnote_157"><span class="sp">157</span></a> DONA PISES SIMUL ATQ<span class="sp">s</span> CIRONA.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="noind">Or,</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Inde Jovis dona</p>
+<p>Pisces simul atque Chirona.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">Domus is, I suppose, to be understood before Jovis: &ldquo;Then
+the house of Jupiter gives (or governs?) the fishes and
+Chiron.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CX.</span> <i>Third side.</i> Mars, in his houses Aries and Scorpio.
+Represented as a very ugly knight in chain mail, seated
+sideways on the ram, whose horns are broken away, and having
+a large scorpion in his left hand, whose tail is broken also, to
+the infinite injury of the group, for it seems to have curled
+across to the angle leaf, and formed a bright line of light, like
+the fish in the hand of Jupiter. The knight carries a shield,
+on which fire and water are sculptured, and bears a banner
+upon his lance, with the word &ldquo;<span class="scs">DEFEROSUM</span>,&rdquo; which puzzled
+me for some time. It should be read, I believe, &ldquo;De ferro
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page354"></a>354</span>
+sum;&rdquo; which would be good <i>Venetian</i> Latin for &ldquo;I am of
+iron.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXI</span>. <i>Fourth side.</i> The Sun, in his house Leo. Represented
+under the figure of Apollo, sitting on the Lion, with
+rays shooting from his head, and the world in his hand.
+The inscription:</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">TU ES DOMU&rsquo; SOLIS (QUO *?) SIGNE LEONI.&rdquo;</span></p>
+
+<p>I believe the first phrase is, &ldquo;Tunc est Domus solis;&rdquo; but
+there is a letter gone after the &ldquo;quo,&rdquo; and I have no idea
+what case of signum &ldquo;signe&rdquo; stands for.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXII</span>. <i>Fifth side.</i> Venus, in her houses Taurus and Libra.
+The most beautiful figure of the series. She sits upon the
+bull, who is deep in the dewlap, and better cut than most of
+the animals, holding a mirror in her right hand, and the scales
+in her left. Her breast is very nobly and tenderly indicated
+under the folds of her drapery, which is exquisitely studied in
+its fall. What is left of the inscription, runs:</p>
+
+<p class="centerf"><span class="scs">&ldquo;LIBRA CUM TAURO DOMUS</span> * * * <span class="scs">PURIOR AUR</span> *.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXIII</span>. <i>Sixth side.</i> Mercury, represented as wearing a
+pendent cap, and holding a book: he is supported by three
+children in reclining attitudes, representing his houses Gemini
+and Virgo. But I cannot understand the inscription, though
+more than usually legible.</p>
+
+<p class="centerf"><span class="scs">&ldquo;OCCUPAT ERIGONE STIBONS GEMINUQ&rsquo; LACONE.&rdquo;</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXIV</span>. <i>Seventh side.</i> The Moon, in her house Cancer.
+This sculpture, which is turned towards the Piazzetta, is the
+most picturesque of the series. The moon is represented as a
+woman in a boat, upon the sea, who raises the crescent in her
+right hand, and with her left draws a crab out of the waves,
+up the boat&rsquo;s side. The moon was, I believe, represented in
+Egyptian sculptures as in a boat; but I rather think the Venetian
+was not aware of this, and that he meant to express the
+peculiar sweetness of the moonlight at Venice, as seen across
+the lagoons. Whether this was intended by putting the planet
+in the boat, may be questionable, but assuredly the idea was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355"></a>355</span>
+meant to be conveyed by the dress of the figure. For all the
+draperies of the other figures on this capital, as well as on the
+rest of the façade, are disposed in severe but full folds, showing
+little of the forms beneath them; but the moon&rsquo;s drapery
+<i>ripples</i> down to her feet, so as exactly to suggest the trembling
+of the moonlight on the waves. This beautiful idea is highly
+characteristic of the thoughtfulness of the early sculptors: five
+hundred men may be now found who could have cut the
+drapery, as such, far better, for one who would have disposed
+its folds with this intention. The inscription is:</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">LUNE CANCER DOMU T. PBET IORBE SIGNORU.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXV.</span> <i>Eighth side.</i> God creating Man. Represented as a
+throned figure, with a glory round the head, laying his left
+hand on the head of a naked youth, and sustaining him with
+his right hand. The inscription puzzled me for a long time;
+but except the lost r and m of &ldquo;formavit,&rdquo; and a letter
+quite undefaced, but to me unintelligible, before the word
+Eva, in the shape of a figure of 7, I have safely ascertained
+the rest.</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">DELIMO DSADA DECO STAFO * * AVIT7EVA.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="noind">Or</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; ">&ldquo;De limo Dominus Adam, de costa fo(rm) avit Evam;&rdquo;</span></p>
+<p>From the dust the Lord made Adam, and from the rib Eve.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">I imagine the whole of this capital, therefore&mdash;the principal
+one of the old palace,&mdash;to have been intended to signify, first,
+the formation of the planets for the service of man upon the
+earth; secondly, the entire subjection of the fates and fortune
+of man to the will of God, as determined from the time when
+the earth and stars were made, and, in fact, written in the
+volume of the stars themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Thus interpreted, the doctrines of judicial astrology were
+not only consistent with, but an aid to, the most spiritual and
+humble Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>In the workmanship and grouping of its foliage, this capital
+is, on the whole, the finest I know in Europe. The sculptor
+has put his whole strength into it. I trust that it will appear
+among the other Venetian casts lately taken for the Crystal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356"></a>356</span>
+Palace; but if not, I have myself cast all its figures, and two
+of its leaves, and I intend to give drawings of them on a large
+scale in my folio work.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXVI</span>. <span class="sc">Nineteenth Capital</span>. This is, of course, the second
+counting from the Sea, on the Piazzetta side of the palace, calling
+that of the Fig-tree angle the first.</p>
+
+<p>It is the most important capital, as a piece of evidence in
+point of dates, in the whole palace. Great pains have been
+taken with it, and in some portion of the accompanying furniture
+or ornaments of each of its figures a small piece of
+colored marble has been inlaid, with peculiar significance:
+for the capital represents the <i>arts of sculpture and architecture</i>;
+and the inlaying of the colored stones (which are far
+too small to be effective at a distance, and are found in this
+one capital only of the whole series) is merely an expression
+of the architect&rsquo;s feeling of the essential importance of this art
+of inlaying, and of the value of color generally in his own art.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXVII</span>. <i>First side.</i> &ldquo;<span class="scs">ST. SIMPLICIUS</span>&rdquo;: so inscribed. A
+figure working with a pointed chisel on a small oblong block
+of green serpentine, about four inches long by one wide, inlaid
+in the capital. The chisel is, of course, in the left hand, but
+the right is held up open, with the palm outwards.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> A crowned figure, carving the image of a
+child on a small statue, with a ground of red marble. The
+sculptured figure is highly finished, and is in type of head
+much like the Ham or Japheth at the Vine angle. Inscription
+effaced.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> An old man, uncrowned, but with curling
+hair, at work on a small column, with its capital complete, and
+a little shaft of dark red marble, spotted with paler red. The
+capital is precisely of the form of that found in the palace of
+the Tiepolos and the other thirteenth century work of Venice.
+This one figure would be quite enough, without any other
+evidence whatever, to determine the date of this flank of the
+Ducal Palace as not later, at all events, than the first half of
+the fourteenth century. Its inscription is broken away, all but
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">DISIPULO</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page357"></a>357</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> A crowned figure; but the object on which
+it has been working is broken away, and all the inscription except
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">ST. E(N?)AS</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> A man with a turban, and a sharp chisel, at
+work on a kind of panel or niche, the back of which is of red
+marble.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> A crowned figure, with hammer and chisel,
+employed <i>on a little range of windows of the fifth order</i>, having
+roses set, instead of orbicular ornaments, between the spandrils,
+with a rich cornice, and a band of marble inserted above.
+This sculpture assures us of the date of the fifth order window,
+which it shows to have been universal in the early fourteenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>There are also five arches in the block on which the sculptor
+is working, marking the frequency of the number five in the
+window groups of the time.</p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> A figure at work on a pilaster, with Lombardic
+thirteenth century capital (for account of the series of forms in
+Venetian capitals, see the final Appendix of the next volume),
+the shaft of dark red spotted marble.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> A figure with a rich open crown, working on
+a delicate recumbent statue, the head of which is laid on a
+pillow covered with a rich chequer pattern; the whole supported
+on a block of dark red marble. Inscription broken away, all
+but &ldquo;<span class="scs">ST. SYM</span>. (Symmachus?) <span class="scs">TV</span> * * <span class="scs">ANVS</span>.&rdquo; There appear,
+therefore, altogether to have been five saints, two of them
+popes, if Simplicius is the pope of that name (three in front,
+two on the fourth and sixth sides), alternating with the three
+uncrowned workmen in the manual labor of sculpture. I did
+not, therefore, insult our present architects in saying above
+that they &ldquo;ought to work in the mason&rsquo;s yard with their men.&rdquo;
+It would be difficult to find a more interesting expression of
+the devotional spirit in which all great work was undertaken at
+this time.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXVIII</span>. <span class="sc">Twentieth Capital</span>. It is adorned with heads of
+animals, and is the finest of the whole series in the broad massiveness
+of its effect; so simply characteristic, indeed, of the grandeur
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358"></a>358</span>
+of style in the entire building, that I chose it for the first
+Plate in my folio work. In spite of the sternness of its plan,
+however, it is wrought with great care in surface detail; and the
+ornamental value of the minute chasing obtained by the delicate
+plumage of the birds, and the clustered bees on the honeycomb
+in the bear&rsquo;s mouth, opposed to the strong simplicity of
+its general form, cannot be too much admired. There are also
+more grace, life, and variety in the sprays of foliage on each
+side of it, and under the heads, than in any other capital of the
+series, though the earliness of the workmanship is marked by
+considerable hardness and coldness in the larger heads. A
+Northern Gothic workman, better acquainted with bears and
+wolves than it was possible to become in St. Mark&rsquo;s Place,
+would have put far more life into these heads, but he could not
+have composed them more skilfully.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXIX</span>. <i>First side.</i> A lion with a stag&rsquo;s haunch in his
+mouth. Those readers who have the folio plate, should observe
+the peculiar way in which the ear is cut into the shape of a
+ring, jagged or furrowed on the edge; an archaic mode of
+treatment peculiar, in the Ducal Palace, to the lions&rsquo; heads of
+the fourteenth century. The moment we reach the Renaissance
+work, the lions&rsquo; ears are smooth. Inscribed simply, &ldquo;<span class="scs">LEO</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> A wolf with a dead bird in his mouth, its
+body wonderfully true in expression of the passiveness of
+death. The feathers are each wrought with a central quill and
+radiating filaments. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">LUPUS</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> A fox, not at all like one, with a dead cock in
+his mouth, its comb and pendent neck admirably designed so as
+to fall across the great angle leaf of the capital, its tail hanging
+down on the other side, its long straight feathers exquisitely
+cut. Inscribed &ldquo;(<span class="scs">VULP</span>?)<span class="sc">is</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> Entirely broken away.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side</i>. &ldquo;<span class="scs">APER.</span>&rdquo; Well tusked, with a head of maize
+in his mouth; at least I suppose it to be maize, though shaped
+like a pine-cone.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> &ldquo;<span class="scs">CHANIS</span>.&rdquo; With a bone, very ill cut; and a
+bald-headed species of dog, with ugly flap ears.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page359"></a>359</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> &ldquo;<span class="scs">MUSCIPULUS</span>.&rdquo; With a rat (?) in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> &ldquo;<span class="scs">URSUS</span>.&rdquo; With a honeycomb, covered with
+large bees.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXX</span>. <span class="sc">Twenty-first Capital</span>. Represents the principal
+inferior professions.</p>
+
+<p><i>First side.</i> An old man, with his brow deeply wrinkled,
+and very expressive features, beating in a kind of mortar with
+a hammer. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">LAPICIDA SUM</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> I believe, a goldsmith; he is striking a small
+flat bowl or patera, on a pointed anvil, with a light hammer.
+The inscription is gone.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> A shoemaker with a shoe in his hand, and an
+instrument for cutting leather suspended beside him. Inscription
+undecipherable.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> Much broken. A carpenter planing a beam
+resting on two horizontal logs. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">CARPENTARIUS SUM</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> A figure shovelling fruit into a tub; the latter
+very carefully carved from what appears to have been an excellent
+piece of cooperage. Two thin laths cross each other over
+the top of it. The inscription, now lost, was, according to Selvatico,
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">MENSURATOR</span>&rdquo;?</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> A man, with a large hoe, breaking the ground,
+which lies in irregular furrows and clods before him. Now
+undecipherable, but according to Selvatico, &ldquo;<span class="scs">AGRICHOLA</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> A man, in a pendent cap, writing on a large
+scroll which falls over his knee. Inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">NOTARIUS
+SUM</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> A man forging a sword, or scythe-blade: he
+wears a large skull-cap; beats with a large hammer on a solid
+anvil; and is inscribed &ldquo;<span class="scs">FABER SUM</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXI</span>. <span class="sc">Twenty-second Capital</span>. The Ages of Man; and
+the influence of the planets on human life.</p>
+
+<p><i>First side.</i> The moon, governing infancy for four years,
+according to Selvatico. I have no note of this side, having, I
+suppose, been prevented from raising the ladder against it by
+some fruit-stall or other impediment in the regular course of
+my examination; and then forgotten to return to it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page360"></a>360</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> A child with a tablet, and an alphabet inscribed
+on it. The legend above is</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">MECUREU<span class="sp">s</span> <span class="uscore">D</span>NT. PUERICIE PAN. X.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="noind">Or, &ldquo;Mercurius dominatur pueritić per annos X.&rdquo; (Selvatico
+reads VII.) &ldquo;Mercury governs boyhood for ten (or seven)
+years.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> An older youth, with another tablet, but broken.
+Inscribed</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">ADOLOSCENCIE * * * P. AN. VII.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Selvatico misses this side altogether, as I did the first, so
+that the lost planet is irrecoverable, as the inscription is now
+defaced. Note the o for e in adolescentia; so also we constantly
+find u for o; showing, together with much other incontestable
+evidence of the same kind, how full and deep the
+old pronunciation of Latin always remained, and how ridiculous
+our English mincing of the vowels would have sounded
+to a Roman ear.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> A youth with a hawk on his fist.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; "><span class="scs">&ldquo;IUVENTUTI <span class="uscore">D</span>N<span class="uscore">T</span> SOL. P. AN. XIX.&rdquo;</span></span></p>
+<p>The son governs youth for nineteen years.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> A man sitting, helmed, with a sword over his
+shoulder. Inscribed</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 1em; "><span class="scs">&ldquo;SENECTUTI <span class="uscore">D</span>NT MARS. P. AN. XV.&rdquo;</span></span></p>
+<p>Mars governs manhood for fifteen years.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> A very graceful and serene figure, in the pendent
+cap, reading.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03"><span class="scs">&ldquo;SENICIE <span class="uscore">D</span>N<span class="uscore">T</span> JUPITER, P. ANN. XII.&rdquo;</span></p>
+<p>Jupiter governs age for twelve years.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> An old man in a skull-cap, praying.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span class="scs">&ldquo;DECREPITE <span class="uscore">D</span>N<span class="uscore">T</span> SAT<span class="uscore">N</span> U<span class="uscore">Q</span><span class="sp">s</span> ADM<span class="uscore">O</span>T<span class="uscore">E</span>.&rdquo;</span> (Saturnus usque ad mortem.)</p>
+<p><span style="padding-left: 6em; ">Saturn governs decrepitude until death.</span></p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> The dead body lying on a mattress.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span class="scs" style="padding-left: 1em; ">&ldquo;ULTIMA EST MORS PENA PECCATI.&rdquo;</span></p>
+<p>Last comes death, the penalty of sin.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page361"></a>361</span></p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXII</span>. Shakspeare&rsquo;s Seven Ages are of course merely the
+expression of this early and well known system. He has deprived
+the dotage of its devotion; but I think wisely, as the
+Italian system would imply that devotion was, or should be,
+always delayed until dotage.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Twenty-third Capital</span>. I agree with Selvatico in thinking
+this has been restored. It is decorated with large and vulgar
+heads.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXIII.</span> <span class="sc">Twenty-fourth Capital</span>. This belongs to the
+large shaft which sustains the great party wall of the Sala del
+Gran Consiglio. The shaft is thicker than the rest; but the
+capital, though ancient, is coarse and somewhat inferior in
+design to the others of the series. It represents the history
+of marriage: the lover first seeing his mistress at a window,
+then addressing her, bringing her presents; then the bridal,
+the birth and the death of a child. But I have not been able
+to examine these sculptures properly, because the pillar is
+encumbered by the railing which surrounds the two guns set
+before the Austrian guard-house.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXIV.</span> <span class="sc">Twenty-fifth Capital</span>. We have here the employments
+of the months, with which we are already tolerably
+acquainted. There are, however, one or two varieties worth
+noticing in this series.</p>
+
+<p><i>First side.</i> March. Sitting triumphantly in a rich dress, as
+the beginning of the year.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> April and May. April with a lamb: May
+with a feather fan in her hand.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> June. Carrying cherries in a basket.</p>
+
+<p>I did not give this series with the others in the previous
+chapter, because this representation of June is peculiarly
+Venetian. It is called &ldquo;the month of cherries,&rdquo; mese delle
+ceriese, in the popular rhyme on the conspiracy of Tiepolo,
+quoted above, Vol. I.</p>
+
+<p>The cherries principally grown near Venice are of a deep
+red color, and large, but not of high flavor, though refreshing.
+They are carved upon the pillar with great care, all their stalks
+undercut.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page362"></a>362</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> July and August. The first reaping; the
+<i>leaves</i> of the straw being given, shooting out from the tubular
+stalk. August, opposite, beats (the grain?) in a basket.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> September. A woman standing in a wine-tub,
+and holding a branch of vine. Very beautiful.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> October and November. I could not make
+out their occupation; they seem to be roasting or boiling some
+root over a fire.</p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> December. Killing pigs, as usual.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> January warming his feet, and February
+frying fish. This last employment is again as characteristic
+of the Venetian winter as the cherries are of the Venetian
+summer.</p>
+
+<p>The inscriptions are undecipherable, except a few letters
+here and there, and the words <span class="scs">MARCIUS</span>, <span class="scs">APRILIS</span>, and <span class="scs">FEBRUARIUS</span>.</p>
+
+<p>This is the last of the capitals of the early palace; the next,
+or twenty-sixth capital, is the first of those executed in the
+fifteenth century under Foscari; and hence to the Judgment
+angle the traveller has nothing to do but to compare the base
+copies of the earlier work with their originals, or to observe
+the total want of invention in the Renaissance sculptor, wherever
+he has depended on his own resources. This, however,
+always with the exception of the twenty-seventh and of the
+last capital, which are both fine.</p>
+
+<p>I shall merely enumerate the subjects and point out the
+plagiarisms of these capitals, as they are not worth description.</p>
+
+<p>§ CXXV. <span class="sc">Twenty-sixth Capital</span>. Copied from the fifteenth,
+merely changing the succession of the figures.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Twenty-seventh Capital</span>. I think it possible that this
+may be part of the old work displaced in joining the new
+palace with the old; at all events, it is well designed, though
+a little coarse. It represents eight different kinds of fruit,
+each in a basket; the characters well given, and groups well
+arranged, but without much care or finish. The names are
+inscribed above, though somewhat unnecessarily, and with
+certainly as much disrespect to the beholder&rsquo;s intelligence as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363"></a>363</span>
+the sculptor&rsquo;s art, namely, <span class="scs">ZEREXIS</span>, <span class="scs">PIRI</span>, <span class="scs">CHUCUMERIS</span>, <span class="scs">PERSICI</span>,
+<span class="scs">ZUCHE</span>, <span class="scs">MOLONI</span>, <span class="scs">FICI</span>, <span class="scs">HUVA</span>. Zerexis (cherries) and Zuche
+(gourds) both begin with the same letter, whether meant for
+z, s, or c I am not sure. The Zuche are the common gourds,
+divided into two protuberances, one larger than the other,
+like a bottle compresed near the neck; and the Moloni are
+the long water-melons, which, roasted, form a staple food of
+the Venetians to this day.</p>
+
+<p>§ CXXVI. <span class="sc">Twenty-eighth Capital</span>. Copied from the seventh.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Twenty-ninth Capital</span>. Copied from the ninth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Thirtieth Capital</span>. Copied from the tenth. The
+&ldquo;Accidia&rdquo; is noticeable as having the inscription complete,
+&ldquo;<span class="scs">ACCIDIA ME STRINGIT</span>;&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Luxuria&rdquo; for its utter want
+of expression, having a severe and calm face, a robe up to the
+neck, and her hand upon her breast. The inscription is also
+different: &ldquo;<span class="sc">luxuria sum sterc<span class="sp">s</span></span> (?) <span class="sc">inferi</span>&rdquo; (?).</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Thirty-first Capital</span>. Copied from the eighth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Thirty-second Capital</span>. Has no inscription, only fully
+robed figures laying their hands, without any meaning, on their
+own shoulders, heads, or chins, or on the leaves around them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Thirty-third Capital</span>. Copied from the twelfth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Thirty-fourth Capital</span>.  Copied from the eleventh.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Thirty-fifth Capital</span>. Has children, with birds or fruit,
+pretty in features, and utterly inexpressive, like the cherubs
+of the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>§ CXXVII. <span class="sc">Thirty-sixth Capital</span>. This is the last of the
+Piazzetta façade, the elaborate one under the Judgment angle.
+Its foliage is copied from the eighteenth at the opposite side,
+with an endeavor on the part of the Renaissance sculptor to
+refine upon it, by which he has merely lost some of its truth
+and force. This capital will, however, be always thought, at
+first, the most beautiful of the whole series: and indeed it is
+very noble; its groups of figures most carefully studied, very
+graceful, and much more pleasing than those of the earlier
+work, though with less real power in them; and its foliage is
+only inferior to that of the magnificent Fig-tree angle. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364"></a>364</span>
+represents, on its front or first side, Justice enthroned, seated
+on two lions; and on the seven other sides examples of acts of
+justice or good government, or figures of lawgivers, in the
+following order:</p>
+
+<p><i>Second side.</i> Aristotle, with two pupils, giving laws.
+Inscribed:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="scs">ARISTOT</span> * * <span class="scs">CHE DIE LEGE</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Aristotle who declares laws.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><i>Third side.</i> I have mislaid my note of this side: Selvatico
+and Lazari call it &ldquo;Isidore&rdquo; (?).<a name="FnAnchor_158" href="#Footnote_158"><span class="sp">158</span></a></p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth side.</i> Solon with his pupils. Inscribed:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;<span class="scs">SAL<span class="sp">O</span> UNO DEI SETE SAVI DI GRECIA CHE DIE LEGE</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Solon, one of the seven sages of Greece, who declares laws.</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Note, by the by, the pure Venetian dialect used in this capital,
+instead of the Latin in the more ancient ones. One of the
+seated pupils in this sculpture is remarkably beautiful in the
+sweep of his flowing drapery.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth side.</i> The chastity of Scipio. Inscribed:</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">ISIPIONE A CHASTITA CH</span> * * * <span class="scs">E LA FIA</span> (e la figlia?) * * <span class="scs">ARE</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A soldier in a plumed bonnet presents a kneeling maiden to
+the seated Scipio, who turns thoughtfully away.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth side.</i> Numa Pompilius building churches.</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">NUMA POMPILIO IMPERADOR EDIFICHADOR DI TEMPI E CHIESE</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Numa, in a kind of hat with a crown above it, directing a
+soldier in Roman armor (note this, as contrasted with the
+mail of the earlier capitals). They point to a tower of three
+stories filled with tracery.</p>
+
+<p><i>Seventh side.</i> Moses receiving the law. Inscribed:</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">QUANDO MOSE RECEVE LA LEGE I SUL MONTE</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Moses kneels on a rock, whence springs a beautifully fancied
+tree, with clusters of three berries in the centre of three leaves,
+sharp and quaint, like fine Northern Gothic. The half figure
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365"></a>365</span>
+of the Deity comes out of the abacus, the arm meeting that of
+Moses, both at full stretch, with the stone tablets between.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eighth side.</i> Trajan doing justice to the Widow.</p>
+
+<p class="centerf">&ldquo;<span class="scs">TRAJANO IMPERADOR CHE FA JUSTITIA A LA VEDOVA</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He is riding spiritedly, his mantle blown out behind: the
+widow kneeling before his horse.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXVIII.</span> The reader will observe that this capital is of
+peculiar interest in its relation to the much disputed question
+of the character of the later government of Venice. It is the
+assertion by that government of its belief that Justice only
+could be the foundation of its stability; as these stones of
+Justice and Judgment are the foundation of its halls of council.
+And this profession of their faith may be interpreted in two
+ways. Most modern historians would call it, in common
+with the continual reference to the principles of justice in the
+political and judicial language of the period,<a name="FnAnchor_159" href="#Footnote_159"><span class="sp">159</span></a> nothing more
+than a cloak for consummate violence and guilt; and it may
+easily be proved to have been so in myriads of instances. But
+in the main, I believe the expression of feeling to be genuine.
+I do not believe, of the majority of the leading Venetians of
+this period whose portraits have come down to us, that they
+were deliberately and everlastingly hypocrites. I see no
+hypocrisy in their countenances. Much capacity of it, much
+subtlety, much natural and acquired reserve; but no meanness.
+On the contrary, infinite grandeur, repose, courage, and the
+peculiar unity and tranquillity of expression which come of
+sincerity or <i>wholeness</i> of heart, and which it would take much
+demonstration to make me believe could by any possibility be
+seen on the countenance of an insincere man. I trust, therefore,
+that these Venetian nobles of the fifteenth century did, in
+the main, desire to do judgment and justice to all men; but,
+as the whole system of morality had been by this time undermined
+by the teaching of the Romish Church, the idea of
+justice had become separated from that of truth, so that dissimulation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366"></a>366</span>
+in the interest of the state assumed the aspect of
+duty. We had, perhaps, better consider, with some carefulness,
+the mode in which our own government is carried on,
+and the occasional difference between parliamentary and private
+morality, before we judge mercilessly of the Venetians
+in this respect. The secrecy with which their political and
+criminal trials were conducted, appears to modern eyes like a
+confession of sinister intentions; but may it not also be considered,
+and with more probability, as the result of an endeavor
+to do justice in an age of violence?&mdash;the only means by
+which Law could establish its footing in the midst of feudalism.
+Might not Irish juries at this day justifiably desire to conduct
+their proceedings with some greater approximation to the
+judicial principles of the Council of Ten? Finally, if we
+examine, with critical accuracy, the evidence on which our
+present impressions of Venetian government are founded, we
+shall discover, in the first place, that two-thirds of the traditions
+of its cruelties are romantic fables: in the second, that
+the crimes of which it can be proved to have been guilty,
+differ only from those committed by the other Italian powers
+in being done less wantonly, and under profounder conviction
+of their political expediency: and lastly, that the final degradation
+of the Venetian power appears owing not so much to
+the principles of its government, as to their being forgotten in
+the pursuit of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXIX.</span> We have now examined the portions of the palace
+which contain the principal evidence of the feeling of its
+builders. The capitals of the upper arcade are exceedingly
+various in their character; their design is formed, as in the
+lower series, of eight leaves, thrown into volutes at the
+angles, and sustaining figures at the flanks; but these figures
+have no inscriptions, and though evidently not without meaning,
+cannot be interpreted without more knowledge than I
+possess of ancient symbolism. Many of the capitals toward
+the Sea appear to have been restored, and to be rude copies
+of the ancient ones; others, though apparently original, have
+been somewhat carelessly wrought; but those of them, which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page367"></a>367</span>
+are both genuine and carefully treated, are even finer in composition
+than any, except the eighteenth, in the lower arcade.
+The traveller in Venice ought to ascend into the corridor,
+and examine with great care the series of capitals which
+extend on the Piazzetta side from the Fig-tree angle to the
+pilaster which carries the party wall of the Sala del Gran
+Consiglio. As examples of graceful composition in massy
+capitals meant for hard service and distant effect, these are
+among the finest things I know in Gothic art; and that above
+the fig-tree is remarkable for its sculptures of the four winds;
+each on the side turned towards the wind represented. Levante,
+the east wind; a figure with rays round its head, to
+show that it is always clear weather when that wind blows,
+raising the sun out of the sea: Hotro, the south wind;
+crowned, holding the sun in its right hand; Ponente, the
+west wind; plunging the sun into the sea: and Tramontana,
+the north wind; looking up at the north star. This capital
+should be carefully examined, if for no other reason than to
+attach greater distinctness of idea to the magnificent verbiage
+of Milton:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 6em; ">&ldquo;Thwart of these, as fierce,</span></p>
+<p>Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,</p>
+<p>Eurus, and Zephyr; with their lateral noise,</p>
+<p>Sirocco and Libecchio.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>I may also especially point out the bird feeding its three
+young ones on the seventh pillar on the Piazzetta side; but
+there is no end to the fantasy of these sculptures; and the
+traveller ought to observe them all carefully, until he comes
+to the great Pilaster or complicated pier which sustains the
+party wall of the Sala del Consiglio; that is to say, the forty-seventh
+capital of the whole series, counting from the pilaster
+of the Vine angle inclusive, as in the series of the lower
+arcade. The forty-eighth, forty-ninth, and fiftieth are bad
+work, but they are old; the fifty-first is the first Renaissance
+capital of the upper arcade: the first new lion&rsquo;s head with
+smooth ears, cut in the time of Foscari, is over the fiftieth
+capital; and that capital, with its shaft, stands on the apex
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page368"></a>368</span>
+of the eighth arch from the Sea, on the Piazzetta side, of which
+one spandril is masonry of the fourteenth and the other of the
+fifteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXX.</span> The reader who is not able to examine the building
+on the spot may be surprised at the definiteness with
+which the point of junction is ascertainable; but a glance at
+the lowest range of leaves in the opposite Plate (<a href="#plate_20">XX.</a>) will
+enable him to judge of the grounds on which the above statement
+is made. Fig. 12 is a cluster of leaves from the capital
+of the Four Winds; early work of the finest time. Fig. 13
+is a leaf from the great Renaissance capital at the Judgment
+angle, worked in imitation of the older leafage. Fig. 14 is a
+leaf from one of the Renaissance capitals of the upper arcade,
+which are all worked in the natural manner of the period.
+It will be seen that it requires no great ingenuity to distinguish
+between such design as that of fig. 12 and that of
+fig. 14.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption1">XX.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter">
+    <a name="plate_20"><img src="images/img368.jpg" width="420" height="650" alt="LEAFAGE OF THE VENETIAN CAPITALS." title="LEAFAGE OF THE VENETIAN CAPITALS." /></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="caption">LEAFAGE OF THE VENETIAN CAPITALS.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXI.</span> It is very possible that the reader may at first like
+fig. 14 the best. I shall endeavor, in the next chapter, to
+show why he should not; but it must also be noted, that
+fig. 12 has lost, and fig. 14 gained, both largely, under the
+hands of the engraver. All the bluntness and coarseness of
+feeling in the workmanship of fig. 14 have disappeared on
+this small scale, and all the subtle refinements in the broad
+masses of fig. 12 have vanished. They could not, indeed, be
+rendered in line engraving, unless by the hand of Albert
+Durer; and I have, therefore, abandoned, for the present, all
+endeavor to represent any more important mass of the early
+sculpture of the Ducal Palace: but I trust that, in a few
+months, casts of many portions will be within the reach of the
+inhabitants of London, and that they will be able to judge for
+themselves of their perfect, pure, unlabored naturalism; the
+freshness, elasticity, and softness of their leafage, united with
+the most noble symmetry and severe reserve,&mdash;no running to
+waste, no loose or experimental lines, no extravagance, and no
+weakness. Their design is always sternly architectural; there
+is none of the wildness or redundance of natural vegetation,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369"></a>369</span>
+but there is all the strength, freedom, and tossing flow of the
+breathing leaves, and all the undulation of their surfaces,
+rippled, as they grew, by the summer winds, as the sands are
+by the sea.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXII.</span> This early sculpture of the Ducal Palace, then,
+represents the state of Gothic work in Venice at its central
+and proudest period, i.e. circa 1350. After this time, all is
+decline,&mdash;of what nature and by what steps, we shall inquire
+in the ensuing chapter; for as this investigation, though still
+referring to Gothic architecture, introduces us to the first
+symptoms of the Renaissance influence, I have considered it as
+properly belonging to the third division of our subject.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXIII.</span> And as, under the shadow of these nodding
+leaves, we bid farewell to the great Gothic spirit, here also we
+may cease our examination of the details of the Ducal Palace;
+for above its upper arcade there are only the four traceried
+windows,<a name="FnAnchor_160" href="#Footnote_160"><span class="sp">160</span></a> and one or two of the third order on the Rio
+Façade, which can be depended upon as exhibiting the original
+workmanship of the older palace. I examined the capitals of
+the four other windows on the façade, and of those on the
+Piazzetta, one by one, with great care, and I found them all
+to be of far inferior workmanship to those which retain their
+traceries: I believe the stone framework of these windows
+must have been so cracked and injured by the flames of the
+great fire, as to render it necessary to replace it by new
+traceries; and that the present mouldings and capitals are base
+imitations of the original ones. The traceries were at first,
+however, restored in their complete form, as the holes for the
+bolts which fastened the bases of their shafts are still to be
+seen in the window-sills, as well as the marks of the inner
+mouldings on the soffits. How much the stone facing of the
+façade, the parapets, and the shafts and niches of the angles,
+retain of their original masonry, it is also impossible to determine;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370"></a>370</span>
+but there is nothing in the workmanship of any of them
+demanding especial notice; still less in the large central windows
+on each façade, which are entirely of Renaissance execution.
+All that is admirable in these portions of the building
+is the disposition of their various parts and masses, which is
+without doubt the same as in the original fabric, and calculated,
+when seen from a distance, to produce the same impression.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXIV.</span> Not so in the interior. All vestige of the earlier
+modes of decoration was here, of course, destroyed by the
+fires; and the severe and religious work of Guariento and
+Bellini has been replaced by the wildness of Tintoret and the
+luxury of Veronese. But in this case, though widely different
+in temper, the art of the renewal was at least intellectually as
+great as that which had perished: and though the halls of the
+Ducal Palace are no more representative of the character of
+the men by whom it was built, each of them is still a colossal
+casket of priceless treasure; a treasure whose safety has till
+now depended on its being despised, and which at this moment,
+and as I write, is piece by piece being destroyed for ever.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXV.</span> The reader will forgive my quitting our more
+immediate subject, in order briefly to explain the causes and
+the nature of this destruction; for the matter is simply the
+most important of all that can be brought under our present
+consideration respecting the state of art in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The fact is, that the greater number of persons or societies
+throughout Europe, whom wealth, or chance, or inheritance
+has put in possession of valuable pictures, do not know a good
+picture from a bad one,<a name="FnAnchor_161" href="#Footnote_161"><span class="sp">161</span></a> and have no idea in what the value
+of a picture really consists. The reputation of certain works
+is raised, partly by accident, partly by the just testimony of
+artists, partly by the various and generally bad taste of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371"></a>371</span>
+public (no picture, that I know of, has ever, in modern times,
+attained popularity, in the full sense of the term, without having
+some exceedingly bad qualities mingled with its good
+ones), and when this reputation has once been completely
+established, it little matters to what state the picture may be
+reduced: few minds are so completely devoid of imagination
+as to be unable to invest it with the beauties which they have
+heard attributed to it.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXVI.</span> This being so, the pictures that are most valued
+are for the most part those by masters of established renown,
+which are highly or neatly finished, and of a size small enough
+to admit of their being placed in galleries or saloons, so as to
+be made subjects of ostentation, and to be easily seen by a
+crowd. For the support of the fame and value of such pictures,
+little more is necessary than that they should be kept
+bright, partly by cleaning, which is incipient destruction, and
+partly by what is called &ldquo;restoring,&rdquo; that is, painting over,
+which is of course total destruction. Nearly all the gallery
+pictures in modern Europe have been more or less destroyed
+by one or other of these operations, generally exactly in proportion
+to the estimation in which they are held; and as,
+originally, the smaller and more highly finished works of any
+great master are usually his worst, the contents of many of
+our most celebrated galleries are by this time, in reality, of
+very small value indeed.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXVII.</span> On the other hand, the most precious works of
+any noble painter are usually those which have been done
+quickly, and in the heat of the first thought, on a large scale,
+for places where there was little likelihood of their being well
+seen, or for patrons from whom there was little prospect of
+rich remuneration. In general, the best things are done in
+this way, or else in the enthusiasm and pride of accomplishing
+some great purpose, such as painting a cathedral or a camposanto
+from one end to the other, especially when the time has
+been short, and circumstances disadvantageous.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXVIII.</span> Works thus executed are of course despised, on
+account of their quantity, as well as their frequent slightness,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page372"></a>372</span>
+in the places where they exist; and they are too large to
+be portable, and too vast and comprehensive to be read on
+the spot, in the hasty temper of the present age. They are,
+therefore, almost universally neglected, whitewashed by custodes,
+shot at by soldiers, suffered to drop from the walls
+piecemeal in powder and rags by society in general; but,
+which is an advantage more than counterbalancing all this
+evil, they are not often &ldquo;restored.&rdquo; What is left of them,
+however fragmentary, however ruinous, however obscured and
+defiled, is almost always <i>the real thing</i>; there are no fresh
+readings: and therefore the greatest treasures of art which
+Europe at this moment possesses are pieces of old plaster on
+ruinous brick walls, where the lizards burrow and bask, and
+which few other living creatures ever approach; and torn
+sheets of dim canvas, in waste corners of churches; and
+mildewed stains, in the shape of human figures, on the walls
+of dark chambers, which now and then an exploring traveller
+causes to be unlocked by their tottering custode, looks hastily
+round, and retreats from in a weary satisfaction at his accomplished
+duty.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXXXIX.</span> Many of the pictures on the ceilings and walls
+of the Ducal Palace, by Paul Veronese and Tintoret, have
+been more or less reduced, by neglect, to this condition.
+Unfortunately they are not altogether without reputation, and
+their state has drawn the attention of the Venetian authorities
+and academicians. It constantly happens, that public bodies
+who will not pay five pounds to preserve a picture, will pay
+fifty to repaint it:<a name="FnAnchor_162" href="#Footnote_162"><span class="sp">162</span></a> and when I was at Venice in 1846, there
+were two remedial operations carrying on, at one and the
+same time, in the two buildings which contain the pictures of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page373"></a>373</span>
+greatest value in the city (as pieces of color, of greatest value
+in the world), curiously illustrative of this peculiarity in
+human nature. Buckets were set on the floor of the Scuola
+di San Rocco, in every shower, to catch the rain which came
+through the pictures of Tintoret on the ceiling; while in the
+Ducal Palace, those of Paul Veronese were themselves laid
+on the floor to be repainted; and I was myself present at the
+re-illumination of the breast of a white horse, with a brush, at
+the end of a stick five feet long, luxuriously dipped in a common
+house-painter&rsquo;s vessel of paint.</p>
+
+<p>This was, of course, a large picture. The process has
+already been continued in an equally destructive, though
+somewhat more delicate manner, over the whole of the humbler
+canvases on the ceiling of the Sala del Gran Consiglio;
+and I heard it threatened when I was last in Venice (1851-2)
+to the &ldquo;Paradise&rdquo; at its extremity, which is yet in tolerable
+condition,&mdash;the largest work of Tintoret, and the most wonderful
+piece of pure, manly, and masterly oil-painting in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>§ <span class="scs">CXL.</span> I leave these facts to the consideration of the European
+patrons of art. Twenty years hence they will be
+acknowledged and regretted; at present, I am well aware,
+that it is of little use to bring them forward, except only to
+explain the present impossibility of stating what pictures <i>are</i>,
+and what <i>were</i>, in the interior of the Ducal Palace. I can
+only say, that in the winter of 1851, the &ldquo;Paradise&rdquo; of Tintoret
+was still comparatively uninjured, and that the Camera
+di Collegio, and its antechamber, and the Sala de&rsquo; Pregadi
+were full of pictures by Veronese and Tintoret, that made
+their walls as precious as so many kingdoms; so precious
+indeed, and so full of majesty, that sometimes when walking
+at evening on the Lido, whence the great chain of the Alps,
+crested with silver clouds, might be seen rising above the
+front of the Ducal Palace, I used to feel as much awe in
+gazing on the building as on the hills, and could believe that
+God had done a greater work in breathing into the narrowness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374"></a>374</span>
+of dust the mighty spirits by whom its haughty walls
+had been raised, and its burning legends written, than in
+lifting the rocks of granite higher than the clouds of heaven,
+and veiling them with their various mantle of purple flower
+and shadowy pine.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_99" href="#FnAnchor_99"><span class="fn">99</span></a> The reader will find it convenient to note the following editions of the
+printed books which have been principally consulted in the following inquiry.
+The numbers of the manuscripts referred to in the Marcian Library are
+given with the quotations.</p>
+
+<div class="list">
+<p>Sansovino. <span class="spc">Venetia Descritta. 4to, Venice, 1663.</span></p>
+<p>Sansovino. <span class="spc">Lettera intorno al Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1829.</span></p>
+<p>Temanza. <span class="spc">Antica Pianta di Venezia, with text. Venice, 1780.</span></p>
+<p>Cadorin. <span class="spc">Pareri di XV. Architetti. 8vo, Venice, 1838.</span></p>
+<p>Filiasi. <span class="spc">Memorie storiche. 8vo, Padua, 1811.</span></p>
+<p>Bettio. <span class="spc">Lettera discorsiva del Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1837.</span></p>
+<p>Selvatico. <span class="spc">Architettura di Venezia. 8vo, Venice, 1847.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_100" href="#FnAnchor_100"><span class="fn">100</span></a> The year commonly given is 810, as in the Savina Chronicle (Cod.
+Marcianus), p. 13. &ldquo;Del 810 fece principiar el pallazzo Ducal nel luogo ditto
+Bruolo in confin di S. Moisč, et fece riedificar la isola di Eraclia.&rdquo; The Sagornin
+Chronicle gives 804; and Filiasi, vol. vi. chap. 1, corrects this date
+to 813.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_101" href="#FnAnchor_101"><span class="fn">101</span></a> &ldquo;Ampliň la cittŕ, fornilla di casamenti, <i>e per il culto d&rsquo; Iddio e l&rsquo; amministrazione
+della giustizia</i> eresse la cappella di S. Marco, e il palazzo di sua
+residenza.&rdquo;&mdash;Pareri, p. 120. Observe, that piety towards God, and justice
+towards man, have been at least the nominal purposes of every act and
+institution of ancient Venice. Compare also Temanza, p. 24. &ldquo;Quello
+che abbiamo di certo si č che il suddetto Agnello lo incominciň da fondamenti,
+e cost pure la cappella ducale di S. Marco.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_102" href="#FnAnchor_102"><span class="fn">102</span></a> What I call the Sea, was called &ldquo;the Grand Canal&rdquo; by the Venetians,
+as well as the great water street of the city; but I prefer calling it &ldquo;the
+Sea,&rdquo; in order to distinguish between that street and the broad water in
+front of the Ducal Palace, which, interrupted only by the island of San
+Giorgio, stretches for many miles to the south, and for more than two to
+the boundary of the Lido. It was the deeper channel, just in front of the
+Ducal Palace, continuing the line of the great water street itself which the
+Venetians spoke of as &ldquo;the Grand Canal.&rdquo; The words of Sansovino are:
+&ldquo;Fu cominciato dove si vede, vicino al ponte della paglia, et rispondente
+sul canal grande.&rdquo; Filiasi says simply: &ldquo;The palace was built where it
+now is.&rdquo; &ldquo;Il palazio fu fatto dove ora pure esiste.&rdquo;&mdash;Vol. iii. chap. 27.
+The Savina Chronicle, already quoted, says: &ldquo;In the place called the Bruolo
+(or Broglio), that is to say, on the Piazzetta.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_103" href="#FnAnchor_103"><span class="fn">103</span></a> &ldquo;Omni decoritate illius perlustrata.&rdquo;&mdash;Sagornino, quoted by Cadorin
+and Temanza.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_104" href="#FnAnchor_104"><span class="fn">104</span></a> There is an interesting account of this revolt in Monaci, p. 68. Some
+historians speak of the palace as having been destroyed entirely; but, that it
+did not even need important restorations, appears from Sagornino&rsquo;s expression,
+quoted by Cadorin and Temanza. Speaking of the Doge Participazio,
+he says: &ldquo;Qui Palatii hucusque manentis fuerit fabricator.&rdquo; The reparations
+of the palace are usually attributed to the successor of Candiano,
+Pietro Orseolo I.; but the legend, under the picture of that Doge in the
+Council Chamber, speaks only of his rebuilding St. Mark&rsquo;s, and &ldquo;performing
+many miracles.&rdquo; His whole mind seems to have been occupied with
+ecclesiastical affairs; and his piety was finally manifested in a way somewhat
+startling to the state, by his absconding with a French priest to St.
+Michael&rsquo;s, in Gascony, and there becoming a monk. What repairs, therefore,
+were necessary to the Ducal Palace, were left to be undertaken by his
+son, Orseolo II., above named.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_105" href="#FnAnchor_105"><span class="fn">105</span></a> &ldquo;Quam non modo marmoreo, verum aureo compsit ornamento.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Temanza</i>,
+p. 25.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_106" href="#FnAnchor_106"><span class="fn">106</span></a> &ldquo;L&rsquo;anno 1106, uscito fuoco d&rsquo;una casa privata, arse parte del palazzo.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansovino</i>.
+Of the beneficial effect of these fires, vide Cadorin, p. 121, 123.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_107" href="#FnAnchor_107"><span class="fn">107</span></a> &ldquo;Urbis situm, ćdificiorum decorem, et regiminis ćquitatem multipliciter
+commendavit.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Cronaca Dandolo</i>, quoted by Cadorin.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_108" href="#FnAnchor_108"><span class="fn">108</span></a> &ldquo;Non solamente rinovň il palazzo, ma lo aggrandě per ogni verso.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansovino</i>.
+Zanotto quotes the Altinat Chronicle for account of these repairs.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_109" href="#FnAnchor_109"><span class="fn">109</span></a> &ldquo;El palazzo che anco di mezzo se vede vecchio, per M. Sebastian Ziani
+fu fatto compir, come el se vede.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Chronicle of Pietro Dolfino</i>, Cod. Ven. p.
+47. This Chronicle is spoken of by Sansovino as &ldquo;molto particolare e distinta.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansovino,
+Venezia descritta</i>, p. 593.&mdash;It terminates in the year 1422.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_110" href="#FnAnchor_110"><span class="fn">110</span></a> See Vol. I. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h/30754-h.htm#app_3">Appendix 3</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_111" href="#FnAnchor_111"><span class="fn">111</span></a> Vide Sansovino&rsquo;s enumeration of those who flourished in the reign of
+Gradenigo, p. 564.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_112" href="#FnAnchor_112"><span class="fn">112</span></a> Sansovino, 324, 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_113" href="#FnAnchor_113"><span class="fn">113</span></a> &ldquo;1301 fu presa parte di fare una sala grande per la riduzione del gran
+consiglio, e fu fatta quella che ora si chiama dello Scrutinio.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Cronaca Sivos</i>,
+quoted by Cadorin. There is another most interesting entry in the Chronicle
+of Magno, relating to this event; but the passage is so ill written, that I am
+not sure if I have deciphered it correctly:&mdash;&ldquo;Del 1301 fu preso de fabrichar
+la sala fo ruina e fu fata (fatta) quella se adoperava a far el pregadi e fu adopera
+per far el Gran Consegio fin 1423, che fu anni 122.&rdquo; This last sentence,
+which is of great importance, is luckily unmistakable:&mdash;&ldquo;The room was
+used for the meetings of the Great Council until 1423, that is to say, for 122
+years.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Cod. Ven</i>. tom. i. p. 126. The Chronicle extends from 1253 to
+1454.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_114" href="#FnAnchor_114"><span class="fn">114</span></a> &ldquo;Vi era appresso la Cancellaria, e la Gheba o Gabbia, chiamata poi
+Torresella.&rdquo;&mdash;P. 324. A small square tower is seen above the Vine angle in
+the view of Venice dated 1500, and attributed to Albert Durer. It appears
+about 25 feet square, and is very probably the Torresella in question.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_115" href="#FnAnchor_115"><span class="fn">115</span></a> Vide Bettio, Lettera, p. 23.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_116" href="#FnAnchor_116"><span class="fn">116</span></a> Bettio, Lettera, p. 20. &ldquo;Those who wrote without having seen them
+described them as covered with lead; and those who have seen them know
+that, between their flat timber roofs and the sloping leaden roof of the
+palace, the interval is five metres where it is least, and nine where it is
+greatest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_117" href="#FnAnchor_117"><span class="fn">117</span></a> &ldquo;Questo Dose anche fese far la porta granda che se al intrar del Pallazzo,
+in su la qual vi e la sua statua che sta in zenocchioni con lo confalon
+in man, davanti li pie de lo Lion S. Marco,&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Savin Chronicle</i>, Cod. Ven. p.
+120.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_118" href="#FnAnchor_118"><span class="fn">118</span></a> These documents I have not examined myself, being satisfied of the
+accuracy of Cadorin, from whom I take the passages quoted.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_119" href="#FnAnchor_119"><span class="fn">119</span></a> &ldquo;Libras tres, soldos 15 grossorum.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Cadorin</i>, 189, 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_120" href="#FnAnchor_120"><span class="fn">120</span></a> Cod. Ven., No. <span class="scs">CXLI.</span> p. 365.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_121" href="#FnAnchor_121"><span class="fn">121</span></a> Sansovino is more explicit than usual in his reference to this decree:
+&ldquo;For it having appeared that the place (the first Council Chamber) was not
+capacious enough, the saloon on the Grand Canal was ordered.&rdquo; &ldquo;Per cio
+parendo che il luogo non fosse capace, fu ordinata la Sala sul Canal Grande.&rdquo;&mdash;P.
+324.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_122" href="#FnAnchor_122"><span class="fn">122</span></a> Cadorin, 185, 2. The decree of 1342 is falsely given as of 1345 by the
+Sivos Chronicle, and by Magno; while Sanuto gives the decree to its right
+year, 1342, but speaks of the Council Chamber as only begun in 1345.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_123" href="#FnAnchor_123"><span class="fn">123</span></a> Calendario. See <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#app_1">Appendix 1</a>, Vol. III.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_124" href="#FnAnchor_124"><span class="fn">124</span></a> &ldquo;Il primo che vi colorisse fu Guariento, il quale l&rsquo; anno 1365 vi fece il
+Paradiso in testa della sala.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansovino.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_125" href="#FnAnchor_125"><span class="fn">125</span></a> &ldquo;L&rsquo; an poi 1400 vi fece il cielo compartita a quadretti d&rsquo; oro, ripieni di
+stelle, ch&rsquo; era la insegna del Doge Steno.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansovino</i>, lib. <span class="scs">VIII</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_126" href="#FnAnchor_126"><span class="fn">126</span></a> &ldquo;In questi tempi si messe in oro il cielo della sala del Gran Consiglio
+et si fece il pergolo del finestra grande chi guarda sul canale, adornato l&rsquo;
+uno e l&rsquo; altro di stelle, ch&rsquo; erano l&rsquo; insegne del Doge.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sansovino</i>, lib. <span class="scs">XIII.</span>
+Compare also Pareri, p. 129.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_127" href="#FnAnchor_127"><span class="fn">127</span></a> Baseggio (Pareri, p. 127) is called the Proto of the <i>New</i> Palace. Farther
+notes will be found in <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#app_1">Appendix 1</a>, Vol. III.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_128" href="#FnAnchor_128"><span class="fn">128</span></a> Cronaca Sanudo, No. <span class="scs">CXXV</span>. in the Marcian Library, p. 568.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_129" href="#FnAnchor_129"><span class="fn">129</span></a> Tomaso Mocenigo.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_130" href="#FnAnchor_130"><span class="fn">130</span></a> Vide notes in <span class="correction" title="Appendi in the original">Appendix</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_131" href="#FnAnchor_131"><span class="fn">131</span></a> On the 4th of April, 1423, according to the copy of the Zancarol Chronicle
+in the Marcian Library, but previously, according to the Caroldo
+Chronicle, which makes Foscari enter the Senate as Doge on the 3rd of
+April.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_132" href="#FnAnchor_132"><span class="fn">132</span></a> &ldquo;Nella quale (the Sala del Gran Consiglio) non si fece Gran Consiglio
+salvo nell&rsquo; anno 1423, alli 3 April, et fu il primo giorno che il Duce Foscari
+venisse in Gran Consiglio dopo la sua creatione.&rdquo;&mdash;Copy in Marcian Library,
+p. 365.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_133" href="#FnAnchor_133"><span class="fn">133</span></a> &ldquo;E a di 23 April (1423, by the context) sequente fo fatto Gran Conseio
+in la salla nuovo dovi avanti non esta piů fatto Gran Conseio si che el primo
+Gran Conseio dopo la sua (Foscari&rsquo;s) creation, fo fatto in la salla nuova, nel
+qual conseio fu el Marchese di Mantoa,&rdquo; &amp;c., p. 426.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_134" href="#FnAnchor_134"><span class="fn">134</span></a> Compare <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#app_1">Appendix 1</a>, Vol. III.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_135" href="#FnAnchor_135"><span class="fn">135</span></a> &ldquo;Tutte queste fatture si compirono sotto il dogado del Foscari, nel
+1441.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Pareri</i>, p. 131.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_136" href="#FnAnchor_136"><span class="fn">136</span></a> This identification has been accomplished, and I think conclusively, by
+my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has devoted all the leisure which, during
+the last twenty years, his manifold offices of kindness to almost every
+English visitant of Venice have left him, in discovering and translating the
+passages of the Venetian records which bear upon English history and literature.
+I shall have occasion to take advantage hereafter of a portion of his
+labors, which I trust will shortly be made public.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_137" href="#FnAnchor_137"><span class="fn">137</span></a> See the last chapter of the third volume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_138" href="#FnAnchor_138"><span class="fn">138</span></a> &ldquo;<span class="sc">In X<span class="uscore">ri</span>&mdash;n<span class="uscore">oi</span>e amen annincarnationis mcccxvii. In<span class="uscore">eset</span>br</span>.&rdquo; &ldquo;In
+the name of Christ, Amen, in the year of the incarnation, 1317, in the
+month of September,&rdquo; &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_139" href="#FnAnchor_139"><span class="fn">139</span></a> &ldquo;Oh, venerable Raphael, make thou the gulf calm, we beseech thee.&rdquo;
+The peculiar office of the angel Raphael is, in general, according to tradition,
+the restraining the harmful influences of evil spirits. Sir Charles Eastlake
+told me, that sometimes in this office he is represented bearing the gall
+of the fish caught by Tobit; and reminded me of the peculiar superstitions
+of the Venetians respecting the raising of storms by fiends, as embodied in
+the well-known tale of the Fisherman and St. Mark&rsquo;s ring.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_140" href="#FnAnchor_140"><span class="fn">140</span></a> In the original, the succession of words is evidently suggested partly
+by similarity of sound; and the sentence is made weighty by an alliteration
+which is quite lost in our translation; but the very allowance of influence
+to these minor considerations is a proof how little any metaphysical order
+or system was considered necessary in the statement.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_141" href="#FnAnchor_141"><span class="fn">141</span></a> It occurs in a prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit, &ldquo;That He
+may keep my soul, and direct my way; compose my bearing, and form my
+thoughts in holiness; may He govern my body, and protect my mind;
+strengthen me in action, approve my vows, and accomplish my desires;
+cause me to lead an honest and honorable life, and give me good hope,
+charity and chastity, humility and patience: may He govern the Five
+Senses of my body,&rdquo; &amp;c. The following prayer is also very characteristic
+of this period. It opens with a beautiful address to Christ upon the cross;
+then proceeds thus: &ldquo;Grant to us, O Lord, we beseech thee, this day and
+ever, the use of penitence, of abstinence, of humility, and chastity; and
+grant to us light, judgment, understanding, and true knowledge, even to
+the end.&rdquo; One thing I note in comparing old prayers with modern ones,
+that however quaint, or however erring, they are always tenfold more condensed,
+comprehensive, and to their purpose, whatever that may be. There
+is no dilution in them, no vain or monotonous phraseology. They ask for
+what is desired plainly and earnestly, and never could be shortened by a
+syllable. The following series of ejaculations are deep in spirituality, and
+curiously to our present purpose in the philological quaintness of being
+built upon prepositions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="nomarg" style="margin-left: -0.4em; ">&ldquo;Domine Jesu Christe, sancta cruce tua apud me sis, ut me defendas.</p>
+<p class="nomarg">Domine Jesu Christe, pro veneranda cruce tua post me sis, ut me gubernes.</p>
+<p class="nomarg">Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua intra me sis, ut me reficeas.</p>
+<p class="nomarg">Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua circa me sis, ut me conserves.</p>
+<p class="nomarg">Domine Jesu Christe, pro gloriosa cruce tua ante me sis, ut me deduces.</p>
+<p class="nomarg">Domine Jesu Christe, pro laudanda cruce tua super me sis, ut benedicas.</p>
+<p class="nomarg">Domine Jesu Christe, pro magnifica cruce tua in me sis, ut me ad regnum tuum perducas, per D. N. J. C. Amen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_142" href="#FnAnchor_142"><span class="fn">142</span></a> This arrangement of the cardinal virtues is said to have been first
+made by Archytas. See D&rsquo;Ancarville&rsquo;s illustration of the three figures of
+Prudence, Fortitude, and Charity, in Selvatico&rsquo;s &ldquo;Cappellina degli Scrovegni,&rdquo;
+Padua, 1836.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_143" href="#FnAnchor_143"><span class="fn">143</span></a> Or Penitence: but I rather think this is understood only in Compunctio cordis.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_144" href="#FnAnchor_144"><span class="fn">144</span></a> The transformation of a symbol into a reality, observe, as in transubstantiation,
+is as much an abandonment of symbolism as the forgetfulness
+of symbolic meaning altogether.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_145" href="#FnAnchor_145"><span class="fn">145</span></a> On the window of New College, Oxford.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_146" href="#FnAnchor_146"><span class="fn">146</span></a> Uniting the three ideas expressed by the Greek philosophers under the
+terms <span class="grk" title="phronęei">&#981;&#961;&#972;&#957;&#951;&#7956;&#953;</span>,
+<span class="grk" title="sophia">&#963;&#959;&#966;&#943;&#945;</span>, and
+<span class="grk" title="epistęmę">&#7952;&#960;&#953;&#963;&#964;&#942;&#956;&#951;</span>; and part of the idea of
+<span class="grk" title="sôphrosonę">&#963;&#969;&#966;&#961;&#959;&#963;&#959;&#957;&#951;</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_147" href="#FnAnchor_147"><span class="fn">147</span></a> Isa. lxiv. 5.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_148" href="#FnAnchor_148"><span class="fn">148</span></a> I can hardly think it necessary to point out to the reader the association
+between sacred cheerfulness and solemn thought, or to explain any appearance
+of contradiction between passages in which (as above in <a href="#chap_5">Chap. V.</a>)
+I have had to oppose sacred pensiveness to unholy mirth, and those in which
+I have to oppose sacred cheerfulness to unholy sorrow.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_149" href="#FnAnchor_149"><span class="fn">149</span></a> &ldquo;Desse,&rdquo; seat.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_150" href="#FnAnchor_150"><span class="fn">150</span></a> Usually called Charity: but this virtue in its full sense is one of the
+attendant spirits by the Throne; the Kindness here meant is Charity with a
+special object; or Friendship and Kindness, as opposed to Envy, which has
+always, in like manner, a special object. Hence the love of Orestes and
+Pylades is given as an instance of the virtue of Friendship; and the Virgin&rsquo;s,
+&ldquo;They have no wine,&rdquo; at Cana, of general kindness and sympathy with
+others&rsquo; pleasure.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_151" href="#FnAnchor_151"><span class="fn">151</span></a> The &ldquo;Faerie Queen,&rdquo; like Dante&rsquo;s &ldquo;Paradise,&rdquo; is only half estimated,
+because few persons take the pains to think out its meaning. I have put a
+brief analysis of the first book in <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#app_2">Appendix 2</a>, Vol. III.; which may perhaps
+induce the reader to follow out the subject for himself. No time devoted
+to profane literature will be better rewarded than that spent <i>earnestly</i> on
+Spenser.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_152" href="#FnAnchor_152"><span class="fn">152</span></a> Inscribed, I believe, Pietas, meaning general reverence and godly fear.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_153" href="#FnAnchor_153"><span class="fn">153</span></a> I have given one of these capitals carefully already in my folio work,
+and hope to give most of the others in due time. It was of no use to draw
+them here, as the scale would have been too small to allow me to show the
+expression of the figures.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_154" href="#FnAnchor_154"><span class="fn">154</span></a> Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 226.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_155" href="#FnAnchor_155"><span class="fn">155</span></a> Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. letter <span class="scs">IV</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_156" href="#FnAnchor_156"><span class="fn">156</span></a> Selvatico states that these are intended to be representative of eight
+nations, Latins, Tartars, Turks, Hungarians, Greeks, Goths, Egyptians, and
+Persians. Either the inscriptions are now defaced or I have carelessly
+omitted to note them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_157" href="#FnAnchor_157"><span class="fn">157</span></a> The comma in these inscriptions stands for a small cuneiform mark, I
+believe of contraction, and the small <span class="sp">s</span> for a zigzag mark of the same kind.
+The dots or periods are similarly marked, on the stone.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_158" href="#FnAnchor_158"><span class="fn">158</span></a> Can they have mistaken the <span class="scs">ISIPIONE</span> of the fifth side for the word
+Isidore?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_159" href="#FnAnchor_159"><span class="fn">159</span></a> Compare the speech of the Doge Mocenigo, above,&mdash;&ldquo;first justice, and
+<i>then</i> the interests of the state:&rdquo; and see Vol. III. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#chap_2">Chap. II.</a> § <span class="scs">LIX</span>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_160" href="#FnAnchor_160"><span class="fn">160</span></a> Some further details respecting these portions, as well as some necessary
+confirmations of my statements of dates, are, however, given in <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h/30756-h.htm#app_1">Appendix 1</a>,
+Vol. III. I feared wearying the general reader by introducing them into
+the text.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_161" href="#FnAnchor_161"><span class="fn">161</span></a> Many persons, capable of quickly sympathizing with any excellence,
+when once pointed out to them, easily deceive themselves into the supposition
+that they are judges of art. There is only one real test of such power
+of judgment. Can they, at a glance, discover a good picture obscured by the
+filth, and confused among the rubbish, of the pawnbroker&rsquo;s or dealer&rsquo;s
+garret?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_162" href="#FnAnchor_162"><span class="fn">162</span></a> This is easily explained. There are, of course, in every place and at all
+periods, bad painters who conscientiously believe that they can improve
+every picture they touch; and these men are generally, in their presumption,
+the most influential over the innocence, whether of monarchs or municipalities.
+The carpenter and slater have little influence in recommending the
+repairs of the roof; but the bad painter has great influence, as well as interest,
+in recommending those of the picture.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page375"></a>375</span></p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>APPENDIX.</h3>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_1"></a>1. THE GONDOLIER&rsquo;S CRY.</p>
+
+<p>Most persons are now well acquainted with the general aspect
+of the Venetian gondola, but few have taken the pains to
+understand the cries of warning uttered by its boatmen, although
+those cries are peculiarly characteristic, and very impressive
+to a stranger, and have been even very sweetly introduced
+in poetry by Mr. Monckton Milnes. It may perhaps be
+interesting to the traveller in Venice to know the general method
+of management of the boat to which he owes so many happy
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>A gondola is in general rowed only by one man, <i>standing</i> at
+the stern; those of the upper classes having two or more boatmen,
+for greater speed and magnificence. In order to raise the
+oar sufficiently, it rests, not on the side of the boat, but on a
+piece of crooked timber like the branch of a tree, rising about a
+foot from the boat&rsquo;s side, and called a &ldquo;fórcola.&rdquo; The fórcola
+is of different forms, according to the size and uses of the boat,
+and it is always somewhat complicated in its parts and curvature,
+allowing the oar various kinds of rests and catches on both
+its sides, but perfectly free play in all cases; as the management
+of the boat depends on the gondolier&rsquo;s being able in an instant
+to place his oar in any position. The fórcola is set on the right-hand
+side of the boat, some six feet from the stern: the gondolier
+stands on a little flat platform or deck behind it, and throws
+nearly the entire weight of his body upon the forward stroke.
+The effect of this stroke would be naturally to turn the boat&rsquo;s
+head round to the left, as well as to send it forward; but this
+tendency is corrected by keeping the blade of the oar under the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page376"></a>376</span>
+water on the return stroke, and raising it gradually, as a full
+spoon is raised out of any liquid, so that the blade emerges from
+the water only an instant before it again plunges. A <i>downward</i>
+and lateral pressure upon the fórcola is thus obtained, which
+entirely counteracts the tendency given by the forward stroke;
+and the effort, after a little practice, becomes hardly conscious,
+though, as it adds some labor to the back stroke, rowing a gondola
+at speed is hard and breathless work, though it appears
+easy and graceful to the looker-on.</p>
+
+<p>If then the gondola is to be turned to the left, the forward
+impulse is given without the return stroke; if it is to be turned
+to the right, the plunged oar is brought forcibly up to the surface;
+in either case a single strong stroke being enough to turn
+the light and flat-bottomed boat. But as it has no keel, when
+the turn is made sharply, as out of one canal into another very
+narrow one, the impetus of the boat in its former direction gives
+it an enormous lee-way, and it drifts laterally up against the
+wall of the canal, and that so forcibly, that if it has turned at
+speed, no gondolier can arrest the motion merely by strength or
+rapidity of stroke of oar; but it is checked by a strong thrust of
+the foot against the wall itself, the head of the boat being of
+course turned for the moment almost completely round to the
+opposite wall, and greater exertion made to give it, as quickly as
+possible, impulse in the new direction.</p>
+
+<p>The boat being thus guided, the cry &ldquo;Premi&rdquo; is the order
+from one gondolier to another that he should &ldquo;press&rdquo; or thrust
+forward his oar, without the back stroke, so as to send the boat&rsquo;s
+head round <i>to the left</i>; and the cry &ldquo;Stali&rdquo; is the order that he
+should give the return or upward stroke which sends the boat&rsquo;s
+head round to the <i>right</i>. Hence, if two gondoliers meet under
+any circumstances which render it a matter of question on which
+side they should pass each other, the gondolier who has at the
+moment the least power over his boat, cries to the other,
+&ldquo;Premi,&rdquo; if he wishes the boats to pass with their right-hand
+sides to each other, and &ldquo;Stali,&rdquo; if with their left. Now, in
+turning a corner, there is of course risk of collision between
+boats coming from opposite sides, and warning is always clearly
+and loudly given on approaching an angle of the canals. It is
+of course presumed that the boat which gives the warning will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377"></a>377</span>
+be nearer the turn than the one which receives and answers it;
+and therefore will not have so much time to check itself or alter
+its course. Hence the advantage of the turn, that is, the outside,
+which allows the fullest swing and greatest room for lee-way,
+is always yielded to the boat which gives warning. Therefore,
+if the warning boat is going to turn to the right, as it is to
+have the outside position, it will keep its own right-hand side
+to the boat which it meets, and the cry of warning is therefore
+&ldquo;Premi,&rdquo; twice given; first as soon as it can be heard round
+the angle, prolonged and loud, with the accent on the e, and
+another strongly accented e added, a kind of question, &ldquo;Prémi-é,&rdquo;
+followed at the instant of turning, with &ldquo;Ah Premí,&rdquo;
+with the accent sharp on the final i. If, on the other hand, the
+warning boat is going to turn to the left, it will pass with its
+left-hand side to the one it meets; and the warning cry is,
+&ldquo;Stáli-é, Ah Stalí.&rdquo; Hence the confused idea in the mind of
+the traveller that Stali means "to the left,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Premi&rdquo; to
+the right; while they mean, in reality, the direct reverse; the
+Stali, for instance, being the order to the unseen gondolier who
+may be behind the corner, coming from the left-hand side, that
+he should hold as much as possible <i>to his own right</i>; this being
+the only safe order for him, whether he is going to turn the corner
+himself, or to go straight on; for as the warning gondola
+will always swing right across the canal in turning, a collision
+with it is only to be avoided by keeping well within it, and close
+up to the corner which it turns.</p>
+
+<p>There are several other cries necessary in the management
+of the gondola, but less frequently, so that the reader will hardly
+care for their interpretation; except only the &ldquo;sciar,&rdquo; which is
+the order to the opposite gondolier to stop the boat as suddenly
+as possible by slipping his oar in front of the fórcola. The <i>cry</i>
+is never heard except when the boatmen have got into some unexpected
+position, involving a risk of collision; but the action
+is seen constantly, when the gondola is rowed by two or more
+men (for if performed by the single gondolier it only swings the
+boat&rsquo;s head sharp round to the right), in bringing up at a
+landing-place, especially when there is any intent of display, the
+boat being first urged to its full speed and then stopped with as
+much foam about the oar-blades as possible, the effect being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378"></a>378</span>
+much like that of stopping a horse at speed by pulling him on
+his haunches.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_2"></a>2. OUR LADY OF SALVATION.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Santa Maria della Salute,&rdquo; Our Lady of Health, or of
+Safety, would be a more literal translation, yet not perhaps
+fully expressing the force of the Italian word in this case. The
+church was built between 1630 and 1680, in acknowledgment of
+the cessation of the plague;&mdash;of course to the Virgin, to whom
+the modern Italian has recourse in all his principal distresses,
+and who receives his gratitude for all principal deliverances.</p>
+
+<p>The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration
+of this building; but there is a notable lesson to be derived
+from it, which is not often read. On the opposite side of the
+broad canal of the Giudecca is a small church, celebrated among
+Renaissance architects as of Palladian design, but which would
+hardly attract the notice of the general observer, unless on
+account of the pictures by John Bellini which it contains, in
+order to see which the traveller may perhaps remember having
+been taken across the Giudecca to the Church of the &ldquo;Redentore.&rdquo;
+But he ought carefully to compare these two buildings
+with each other, the one built &ldquo;to the Virgin,&rdquo; the other &ldquo;to
+the Redeemer&rdquo; (also a votive offering after the cessation of the
+plague of 1576); the one, the most conspicuous church in
+Venice, its dome, the principal one by which she is first discerned,
+rising out of the distant sea: the other, small and contemptible,
+on a suburban island, and only becoming an object
+of interest because it contains three small pictures! For in the
+relative magnitude and conspicuousness of these two buildings,
+we have an accurate index of the relative importance of the ideas
+of the Madonna and of Christ, in the modern Italian mind.</p>
+
+<p>Some further account of this church is given in the final
+Index to the Venetian buildings at the close of the third
+Volume.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_3"></a>3. TIDES OF VENICE, AND MEASURES AT TORCELLO.</p>
+
+<p>The lowest and highest tides take place in Venice at different
+periods, the lowest during the winter, the highest in the summer
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379"></a>379</span>
+and autumn. During the period of the highest tides, the
+city is exceedingly beautiful, especially if, as is not unfrequently
+the case, the water rises high enough partially to flood St.
+Mark&rsquo;s Place. Nothing can be more lovely or fantastic than
+the scene, when the Campanile and the Golden Church are
+reflected in the calm water, and the lighter gondolas floating
+under the very porches of the façade. On the other hand, a
+winter residence in Venice is rendered peculiarly disagreeable by
+the low tides, which sometimes leave the smaller canals entirely
+dry, and large banks of mud beneath the houses, along the
+borders of even the Grand Canal. The difference between the
+levels of the highest and lowest tides I saw in Venice was 6 ft. 3
+in. The average fall rise is from two to three feet.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The measures of Torcello were intended for <a href="#app_4">Appendix 4</a>;
+but having by a misprint referred the reader to <a href="#app_3">Appendix 3</a>, I
+give them here. The entire breadth of the church within the
+walls is 70 feet; of which the square bases of the pillars, 3 feet
+on each side, occupy 6 feet; and the nave, from base to base,
+measures 31 ft. 1 in.; the aisles from base to wall, 16 feet odd
+inches, not accurately ascertainable on account of the modern
+wainscot fittings. The intervals between the bases of the pillars
+are 8 feet each, increasing towards the altar to 8 ft. 3 in., in
+order to allow for a corresponding diminution in the diameter
+of the bases from 3 ft. to 2 ft. 11 in. or 2 ft. 10. in. This
+subtle diminution of the bases is in order to prevent the eye
+from feeling the greater narrowness of the shafts in that part of
+the nave, their average circumference being 6 ft. 10 in.; and
+one, the second on the north side, reaching 7 feet, while those
+at the upper end of the nave vary from 6 ft. 8 in. to 6 ft. 4 in.
+It is probable that this diminution in the more distant pillars
+adds slightly to the perspective effect of length in the body of
+the church, as it is seen from the great entrance: but whether
+this was the intention or not, the delicate adaptation of this
+diminished base to the diminished shaft is a piece of fastidiousness
+in proportion which I rejoice in having detected; and this the
+more, because the rude contours of the bases themselves would
+little induce the spectator to anticipate any such refinement.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page380"></a>380</span></p>
+
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_4"></a>4. DATE OF THE DUOMO OF TORCELLO.</p>
+
+<p>The first flight to the lagoons for shelter was caused by the
+invasion of Attila in the fifth century, so that in endeavoring to
+throw back the thought of the reader to the former solitude of
+the islands, I spoke of them as they must have appeared &ldquo;1300
+years ago.&rdquo; Altinum, however, was not finally destroyed till the
+Lombard invasion in 641, when the episcopal seat was removed
+to Torcello, and the inhabitants of the mainland city, giving up
+all hope of returning to their former homes, built their Duomo
+there. It is a disputed point among Venetian antiquarians,
+whether the present church be that which was built in the
+seventh century, partially restored in 1008, or whether the words
+of Sagornino, &ldquo;ecclesiam jam vetustate consumptam recreare,&rdquo;
+justify them in assuming an entire rebuilding of the fabric. I
+quite agree with the Marchese Selvatico, in believing the present
+church to be the earlier building, variously strengthened,
+refitted, and modified by subsequent care; but, in all its main
+features, preserving its original aspect, except, perhaps, in the
+case of the pulpit and chancel screen, which, if the Chevalier
+Bunsen&rsquo;s conclusions respecting early pulpits in the Roman
+basilicas be correct (see the next article of this Appendix), may
+possibly have been placed in their present position in the tenth
+century, and the fragmentary character of the workmanship of
+the latter, noticed in §§ <span class="scs">X.</span> and <span class="scs">XI</span>., would in that case have
+been the result of innovation, rather than of haste. The question,
+however, whether they are of the seventh or eleventh century,
+does not in the least affect our conclusions, drawn from
+the design of these portions of the church, respecting pulpits in
+general.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_5"></a>5. MODERN PULPITS.</p>
+
+<p>There is no character of an ordinary modern English church
+which appears to me more to be regretted than the peculiar
+pompousness of the furniture of the pulpits, contrasted, as it
+generally is, with great meagreness and absence of color in the
+other portions of the church; a pompousness, besides, altogether
+without grace or meaning, and dependent merely on certain
+applications of upholstery; which, curiously enough, are always
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381"></a>381</span>
+in worse taste than even those of our drawing-rooms. Nor do I
+understand how our congregations can endure the aspect of the
+wooden sounding-board attached only by one point of its circumference
+to an upright pillar behind the preacher; and looking
+as if the weight of its enormous leverage must infallibly,
+before the sermon is concluded, tear it from its support, and
+bring it down upon the preacher&rsquo;s head. These errors in taste
+and feeling will however, I believe, be gradually amended as
+more Gothic churches are built; but the question of the position
+of the pulpit presents a more disputable ground of discussion.
+I can perfectly sympathise with the feeling of those who wish
+the eastern extremity of the church to form a kind of holy place
+for the communion table; nor have I often received a more
+painful impression than on seeing the preacher at the Scotch
+church in George Street, Portman Square, taking possession of
+a perfect apse; and occupying therein, during the course of the
+service, very nearly the same position which the figure of Christ
+does in that of the Cathedral of Pisa. But I nevertheless believe
+that the Scotch congregation are perfectly right, and have
+restored the real arrangement of the primitive churches. The
+Chevalier Bunsen informed me very lately, that, in all the early
+basilicas he has examined, the lateral pulpits are of more recent
+date than the rest of the building; that he knows of none placed
+in the position which they now occupy, both in the basilicas and
+Gothic cathedrals, before the ninth century; and that there can
+be no doubt that the bishop always preached or exhorted, in the
+primitive times, from his throne in the centre of the apse, the
+altar being always set at the centre of the church, in the crossing
+of the transepts. His Excellency found by experiment in
+Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest of the Roman basilicas, that
+the voice could be heard more plainly from the centre of the
+apse than from any other spot in the whole church; and, if this
+be so, it will be another very important reason for the adoption
+of the Romanesque (or Norman) architecture in our churches,
+rather than of the Gothic. The reader will find some farther
+notice of this question in the concluding chapter of the third
+volume.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving this subject, however, I must be permitted to
+say one word to those members of the Scotch Church who are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382"></a>382</span>
+severe in their requirement of the nominal or apparent extemporization
+of all addresses delivered from the pulpit. Whether
+they do right in giving those among their ministers who <i>cannot</i>
+preach extempore, the additional and useless labor of committing
+their sermons to memory, may be a disputed question; but
+it can hardly be so, that the now not unfrequent habit of making
+a desk of the Bible, and reading the sermon stealthily, by
+slipping the sheets of it between the sacred leaves, so that the
+preacher consults his own notes <i>on pretence</i> of consulting the
+Scriptures, is a very unseemly consequence of their over-strictness.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_6"></a>6. APSE OF MURANO.</p>
+
+<p>The following passage succeeded in the original text to § XV.
+of <a href="#chap_3">Chap. III.</a> Finding it not likely to interest the general
+reader, I have placed it here, as it contains matter of some interest
+to architects.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On this plinth, thus carefully studied in relations of magnitude,
+the shafts are set at the angles, as close to each other as
+possible, as seen in the ground-plan. These shafts are founded
+on pure Roman tradition; their bases have no spurs, and the
+shaft itself is tapered in a bold curve, according to the classical
+model. But, in the adjustment of the bases to each other, we
+have a most curious instance of the first beginning of the Gothic
+principle of aggregation of shafts. They have a singularly
+archaic and simple profile, composed of a single cavetto and roll,
+which are circular, on a square plinth. Now when these bases
+are brought close to each other at the angles of the apse, their
+natural position would be as in fig. 3, <a href="#plate_1">Plate I.</a>, leaving an awkward
+fissure between the two square plinths. This offended the
+architect&rsquo;s eye; so he cut part of each of the bases away, and
+fitted them close to each other, as in fig. 5, <a href="#plate_1">Plate I.</a>, which is
+their actual position. As before this piece of rough harmonization
+the circular mouldings reached the sides of the squares,
+they were necessarily cut partly away in the course of the adjustment,
+and run into each other as in the figure, so as to give us
+one of the first Venetian instances of the continuous Gothic
+base.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page383"></a>383</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The shafts measure on the average 2 ft. 8&frac12; in. in circumference,
+at the base, tapering so much that under the lowest
+fillet of their necks they measure only 2 feet round, though their
+height is only 5 ft. 6 in., losing thus eight inches of girth in
+five feet and a half of height. They are delicately curved all
+the way up; and are 2&frac12; in. apart from each other where they
+are nearest, and about 5 in. at the necks of their capitals.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_7"></a>7. EARLY VENETIAN DRESS.</p>
+
+<p>Sansovino&rsquo;s account of the changes in the dress of the Venetians
+is brief, masterly, and full of interest; one or two passages
+are deserving of careful notice, especially the introductory sentence.
+&ldquo;For the Venetians from their first origin, having
+made it their aim to be peaceful and religious, and to keep on
+an equality with one another, that equality might induce stability
+and concord (as disparity produces confusion and ruin),
+made their dress a matter of conscience, ...; and our
+ancestors, observant lovers of religion, upon which all their acts
+were founded, and desiring that their young men should direct
+themselves to virtue, the true soul of all human action, <i>and
+above all to peace</i>, invented a dress conformable to their gravity,
+such, that in clothing themselves with it, they might clothe
+themselves also with modesty and honor. And because their
+mind was bent upon giving no offence to any one, and living
+quietly as far as might be permitted them, it seemed good to
+them to show to every one, even by external signs, this their endeavor,
+by wearing a long dress, which was in no wise convenient
+for persons of a quick temperament, or of eager and fierce
+spirits.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Respecting the color of the women&rsquo;s dress, it is noticeable
+that blue is called &ldquo;Venetian color&rdquo; by Cassiodorus, translated
+&ldquo;turchino&rdquo; by Filiasi, vol. v. chap. iv. It was a very pale blue,
+as the place in which the word occurs is the description by Cassiodorus
+of the darkness which came over the sun&rsquo;s disk at the
+time of the Belisarian wars and desolation of the Gothic kingdom.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page384"></a>384</span></p>
+
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_8"></a>8. INSCRIPTIONS AT MURANO.</p>
+
+<p>There are two other inscriptions on the border of the concha;
+but these, being written on the soffit of the face arch, which, as
+before noticed, is supported by the last two shafts of the chancel,
+could not be read by the congregation, and only with difficulty
+by those immediately underneath them. One of them is in
+black, the other in red letters. The first:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Mutat quod sumsit, quod sollat crimina tandit</p>
+<p>Et quod sumpsit, vultus vestisq. refulsit.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The second:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Discipuli testes, prophete certa videntes</p>
+<p>Et cernunt purum, sibi credunt ese futurum.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>I have found no notice of any of these inscriptions in any Italian
+account of the church of Murano, and have seldom seen even
+Monkish Latin less intelligible. There is no mistake in the letters,
+which are all large and clear; but wrong letters may have
+been introduced by ignorant restorers, as has often happened in
+St. Mark&rsquo;s.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_9"></a>9. SHAFTS OF ST. MARK.</p>
+
+<p>The principal pillars which carry the nave and transepts,
+fourteen in number, are of white alabaster veined with grey and
+amber; each of a single block, 15 ft. high, and 6 ft. 2 in. round
+at the base. I in vain endeavored to ascertain their probable
+value. Every sculptor whom I questioned on this subject told
+me there were no such pieces of alabaster in the market, and
+that they were to be considered as without price.</p>
+
+<p>On the façade of the church alone are two great ranges of
+shafts, seventy-two in the lower range, and seventy-nine in the
+upper; all of porphyry, alabaster, and verd-antique or fine marble;
+the lower about 9 ft., the upper about 7 ft. high, and of
+various circumferences, from 4 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. round.</p>
+
+<p>There are now so many published engravings, and, far better
+than engravings, calotypes, of this façade, that I may point out
+one or two circumstances for the reader&rsquo;s consideration without
+giving any plate of it here. And first, we ought to note the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385"></a>385</span>
+relations of the shafts and wall, the latter being first sheeted
+with alabaster, and then the pillars set within two or three
+inches of it, forming such a grove of golden marble that the
+porches open before us as we enter the church like glades in a
+deep forest. The reader may perhaps at first question the
+propriety of placing the wall so close behind the shafts that the
+latter have nearly as little work to do as the statues in a Gothic
+porch; but the philosophy of this arrangement is briefly deducible
+from the principles stated in the text. The builder had at
+his disposal shafts of a certain size only, not fit to sustain the
+whole weight of the fabric above. He therefore turns just as
+much of the wall veil into shaft as he has strength of marble at
+his disposal, and leaves the rest in its massive form. And that
+there may be no dishonesty in this, nor any appearance in the
+shafts of doing more work than is really allotted to them, many
+are left visibly with half their capitals projecting beyond the
+archivolts they sustain, showing that the wall is very slightly
+dependent on their co-operation, and that many of them are
+little more than mere bonds or connecting rods between the
+foundation and cornices. If any architect ventures to blame
+such an arrangement, let him look at our much vaunted early
+English piers in Salisbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey,
+where the small satellitic shafts are introduced in the same
+gratuitous manner, but with far less excuse or reason: for those
+small shafts have nothing but their delicacy and purely theoretical
+connection with the archivolt mouldings to recommend
+them; but the St. Mark&rsquo;s shafts have an intrinsic beauty and
+value of the highest order, and the object of the whole system
+of architecture, as above stated, is in great part to set forth the
+beauty and value of the shaft itself. Now, not only is this accomplished
+by withdrawing it occasionally from servile work,
+but the position here given to it, within three or four inches of
+a wall from which it nevertheless stands perfectly clear all the
+way up, is exactly that which must best display its color and
+quality. When there is much vacant space left behind a pillar,
+the shade against which it is relieved is comparatively indefinite,
+the eye passes by the shaft, and penetrates into the vacancy.
+But when a broad surface of wall is brought near the shaft, its
+own shadow is, in almost every effect of sunshine, so sharp and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386"></a>386</span>
+dark as to throw out its colors with the highest possible brilliancy;
+if there be no sunshine, the wall veil is subdued and
+varied by the most subtle gradations of delicate half shadow,
+hardly less advantageous to the shaft which it relieves. And,
+as far as regards pure effect in open air (all artifice of excessive
+darkness or mystery being excluded), I do not know anything
+whatsoever in the whole compass of the European architecture
+I have seen, which can for a moment be compared with the
+quaint shade and delicate color, like that of Rembrandt and
+Paul Veronese united, which the sun brings out, as his rays
+move from porch to porch along the St. Mark&rsquo;s façade.</p>
+
+<p>And, as if to prove that this was indeed the builder&rsquo;s intention,
+and that he did not leave his shafts idle merely because he
+did not know how to set them to work safely, there are two
+pieces of masonry at the extremities of the façade, which are
+just as remarkable for their frank trust in the bearing power of
+the shafts as the rest are for their want of confidence in them.
+But, before we come to these, we must say a word or two respecting
+the second point named above, the superior position of
+the shafts.</p>
+
+<p>It was assuredly not in the builder&rsquo;s power, even had he been
+so inclined, to obtain shafts high enough to sustain the whole
+external gallery, as it is sustained in the nave, on one arcade.
+He had, as above noticed, a supply of shafts of every sort and
+size, from which he chose the largest for his nave shafts; the
+smallest were set aside for windows, jambs, balustrades, supports
+of pulpits, niches, and such other services, every conceivable
+size occurring in different portions of the building; and the
+middle-sized shafts were sorted into two classes, of which on the
+average one was about two-thirds the length of the other, and
+out of these the two stories of the façade and sides of the church
+are composed, the smaller shafts of course uppermost, and more
+numerous than the lower, according to the ordinary laws of
+superimposition adopted by all the Romanesque builders, and
+observed also in a kind of architecture quite as beautiful as any
+we are likely to invent, that of forest trees.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more singular than the way in which this kind of
+superimposition (the only right one in the case of shafts) will
+shock a professed architect. He has been accustomed to see, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387"></a>387</span>
+the Renaissance designs, shaft put on the top of shaft, three or
+four times over, and he thinks this quite right; but the moment
+he is shown a properly subdivided superimposition, in
+which the upper shafts diminish in size and multiply in number,
+so that the lower pillars would balance them safely even without
+cement, he exclaims that it is &ldquo;against law,&rdquo; as if he had never
+seen a tree in his life.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the idea of the Byzantine superimposition was taken
+from trees, any more than that of Gothic arches. Both are simple
+compliances with laws of nature, and, therefore, approximations
+to the forms of nature.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, one very essential difference between tree
+structure and the shaft structure in question; namely, that the
+marble branches, having no vital connexion with the stem, must
+be provided with a firm tablet or second foundation whereon to
+stand. This intermediate plinth or tablet runs along the whole
+façade at one level, is about eighteen inches thick, and left with
+little decoration as being meant for hard service. The small
+porticos, already spoken of as the most graceful pieces of composition
+with which I am acquainted, are sustained on detached
+clusters of four or five columns, forming the continuation of
+those of the upper series, and each of these clusters is balanced
+on one grand detached shaft; as much trust being thus placed
+in the pillars here, as is withdrawn from them elsewhere. The
+northern portico has only one detached pillar at its outer angle,
+which sustains three shafts and a square pilaster; of these shafts
+the one at the outer angle of the group is the thickest (so as to
+balance the pilaster on the inner angle), measuring 3 ft. 2 in.
+round, while the others measure only 2 ft. 10 in. and 2 ft. 11 in.;
+and in order to make this increase of diameter, and the importance
+of the shaft, more manifest to the eye, the old builders
+made the shaft <i>shorter</i> as well as thicker, increasing the depth
+both of its capital and the base, with what is to the thoughtless
+spectator ridiculous incongruity, and to the observant one a most
+beautiful expression of constructive genius. Nor is this all.
+Observe: the whole strength of this angle depends on accuracy
+of <i>poise</i>, not on breadth or strength of foundation. It is a <i>balanced</i>,
+not a propped structure: if the balance fails, it must fall
+instantly; if the balance is maintained, no matter how the lower
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388"></a>388</span>
+shaft is fastened into the ground, all will be safe. And to mark
+this more definitely, the great lower shaft <i>has a different base
+from all the others of the façade</i>, remarkably high in proportion
+to the shaft, on a circular instead of a square plinth, and <i>without
+spurs</i>, while all the other bases have spurs without exception.
+Glance back at what is said of the spurs at p. 79 of the first
+volume, and reflect that all expression of <i>grasp</i> in the foot of the
+pillar is here useless, and to be replaced by one of balance merely,
+and you will feel what the old builder wanted to say to us, and
+how much he desired us to follow him with our understanding
+as he laid stone above stone.</p>
+
+<p>And this purpose of his is hinted to us once more, even by
+the position of this base in the ground plan of the foundation of
+the portico; for, though itself circular, it sustains a hexagonal
+plinth <i>set obliquely to the walls of the church</i>, as if expressly to
+mark to us that it did not matter how the base was set, so only
+that the weights were justly disposed above it.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_10"></a>10. PROPER SENSE OF THE WORD IDOLATRY.</p>
+
+<p>I do not intend, in thus applying the word &ldquo;Idolatry&rdquo; to certain
+ceremonies of Romanist worship, to admit the propriety of
+the ordinary Protestant manner of regarding those ceremonies as
+distinctively idolatrous, and as separating the Romanist from the
+Protestant Church by a gulf across which we must not look to
+our fellow-Christians but with utter reprobation and disdain.
+The Church of Rome does indeed distinctively violate the <i>second</i>
+commandment; but the true force and weight of the sin of idolatry
+are in the violation of the first, of which we are all of us
+guilty, in probably a very equal degree, considered only as members
+of this or that communion, and not as Christians or unbelievers.
+Idolatry is, both literally and verily, not the mere bowing
+down before sculptures, but the serving or becoming the
+slave of any images or imaginations which stand between us and
+God, and it is otherwise expressed in Scripture as &ldquo;walking after
+the <i>Imagination</i>&rdquo; of our own hearts. And observe also that while,
+at least on one occasion, we find in the Bible an indulgence
+granted to the mere external and literal violation of the second
+commandment, &ldquo;When I bow myself in the house of Rimmon,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389"></a>389</span>
+the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing,&rdquo; we find no indulgence
+in any instance, or in the slightest degree, granted to &ldquo;covetousness,
+which is idolatry&rdquo; (Col. iii. 5; no casual association
+of terms, observe, but again energetically repeated in Ephesians,
+v. 5, &ldquo;No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance
+in the kingdom of Christ&rdquo;); nor any to that denial of God,
+idolatry in one of its most subtle forms, following so often on the
+possession of that wealth against which Agur prayed so earnestly,
+&ldquo;Give me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee,
+and say, &lsquo;Who is the Lord?&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And in this sense, which of us is not an idolater? Which of
+us has the right, in the fulness of that better knowledge, in spite
+of which he nevertheless is not yet separated from the service of
+this world, to speak scornfully of any of his brethren, because,
+in a guiltless ignorance, they have been accustomed to bow their
+knees before a statue? Which of us shall say that there may not
+be a spiritual worship in their apparent idolatry, or that there is
+not a spiritual idolatry in our own apparent worship?</p>
+
+<p>For indeed it is utterly impossible for one man to judge of
+the feeling with which another bows down before an image.
+From that pure reverence in which Sir Thomas Brown wrote, &ldquo;I
+can dispense with my hat at the sight of a cross, but not with a
+thought of my Redeemer,&rdquo; to the worst superstition of the most
+ignorant Romanist, there is an infinite series of subtle transitions;
+and the point where simple reverence and the use of the
+image merely to render conception more vivid, and feeling more
+intense, change into definite idolatry by the attribution of Power
+to the image itself, is so difficultly determinable that we cannot
+be too cautions in asserting that such a change has actually taken
+place in the case of any individual. Even when it is definite and
+certain, we shall oftener find it the consequence of dulness of intellect
+than of real alienation of heart from God; and I have no
+manner of doubt that half of the poor and untaught Christians
+who are this day lying prostrate before crucifixes, Bambinos, and
+Volto Santos, are finding more acceptance with God, than many
+Protestants who idolize nothing but their own opinions or their
+own interests. I believe that those who have worshipped the
+thorns of Christ&rsquo;s crown will be found at last to have been holier
+and wiser than those who worship the thorns of the world&rsquo;s service,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page390"></a>390</span>
+and that to adore the nails of the cross is a less sin than to
+adore the hammer of the workman.</p>
+
+<p>But, on the other hand, though the idolatry of the lower orders
+in the Romish Church may thus be frequently excusable,
+the ordinary subterfuges by which it is defended are not so. It
+may be extenuated, but cannot be denied; and the attribution
+of power to the image,<a name="FnAnchor_163" href="#Footnote_163"><span class="sp">163</span></a> in which it consists, is not merely a form
+of popular feeling, but a tenet of priestly instruction, and may
+be proved, over and over again, from any book of the Romish
+Church services. Take for instance the following prayer, which
+occurs continually at the close of the service of the Holy Cross:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="ind03">&ldquo;Saincte vraye Croye aourée,</p>
+<p>Qui du corps Dieu fu aournée</p>
+<p>Et de sa sueur arrousée,</p>
+<p>Et de son sanc enluminée,</p>
+<p>Par ta vertu, par ta puissance,</p>
+<p>Defent mon corps de meschance,</p>
+<p>Et montroie moy par ton playsir</p>
+<p>Que vray confes puisse mourir.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p style="text-indent: -1em; margin-left: 2em; font-size: 90%; ">&ldquo;Oh holy, true, and golden Cross, which wast adorned with God&rsquo;s body,
+  and watered with His sweat, and illuminated with His blood, by thy
+  healing virtue and thy power, defend my body from mischance; and
+  by thy good pleasure, let me make a good confession when I die.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There can be no possible defence imagined for the mere
+terms in which this prayer and other such are couched: yet it is
+always to be remembered, that in many cases they are rather
+poetical effusions than serious prayers; the utterances of imaginative
+enthusiasm, rather than of reasonable conviction; and
+as such, they are rather to be condemned as illusory and fictitious,
+than as idolatrous, nor even as such, condemned altogether,
+for strong love and faith are often the roots of them and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page391"></a>391</span>
+the errors of affection are better than the accuracies of apathy.
+But the unhappy results, among all religious sects, of the habit
+of allowing imaginative and poetical belief to take the place of
+deliberate, resolute, and prosaic belief, have been fully and admirably
+traced by the author of the &ldquo;Natural History of Enthusiasm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_11"></a>11. SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES.</p>
+
+<p class="center bmarg">(1.) <i>The Terraced House.</i></p>
+
+<p>The most conspicuous pile in the midmost reach of the
+Grand Canal is the Casa Grimani, now the Post-Office. Letting
+his boat lie by the steps of this great palace, the traveller will
+see, on the other side of the canal, a building with a small terrace
+in front of it, and a little court with a door to the water,
+beside the terrace. Half of the house is visibly modern, and
+there is a great seam, like the edge of a scar, between it and the
+ancient remnant, in which the circular bands of the Byzantine
+arches will be instantly recognized. This building not having,
+as far as I know, any name except that of its present proprietor,
+I shall in future distinguish it simply as the Terraced House.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center bmarg">(2.) <i>Casa Businello.</i></p>
+
+<p>To the left of this edifice (looking from the Post-Office)
+there is a modern palace, on the other side of which the Byzantine
+mouldings appear again in the first and second stories of a
+house lately restored. It might be thought that the shafts and
+arches had been raised yesterday, the modern walls having been
+deftly adjusted to them, and all appearance of antiquity, together
+with the ornamentation and proportions of the fabric,
+having been entirely destroyed. I cannot, however, speak with
+unmixed sorrow of these changes, since, without his being implicated
+in the shame of them, they fitted this palace to become
+the residence of the kindest friend I had in Venice. It is generally
+known as the Casa Businello.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page392"></a>392</span></p>
+
+<p class="center bmarg">(3.) <i>The Braided House.</i></p>
+
+<p>Leaving the steps of the Casa Grimani, and turning the gondola
+away from the Rialto, we will pass the Casa Businello, and
+the three houses which succeed it on the right. The fourth is
+another restored palace, white and conspicuous, but retaining of
+its ancient structure only the five windows in its second story,
+and an ornamental moulding above them which appears to be
+ancient, though it is inaccessible without scaffolding, and I cannot
+therefore answer for it. But the five central windows are
+very valuable; and as their capitals differ from most that we
+find (except in St. Mark&rsquo;s), in their plaited or braided border
+and basket-worked sides, I shall call this house, in future, the
+Braided House.<a name="FnAnchor_164" href="#Footnote_164"><span class="sp">164</span></a></p>
+
+
+<p class="center bmarg">(4.) <i>The Madonnetta House.</i></p>
+
+<p>On the other side of this palace is the Traghetto called
+&ldquo;Della Madonnetta;&rdquo; and beyond this Traghetto, still facing
+the Grand Canal, a small palace, of which the front shows mere
+vestiges of arcades, the old shafts only being visible, with obscure
+circular seams in the modern plaster which covers the
+arches. The side of it is a curious agglomeration of pointed
+and round windows in every possible position, and of nearly
+every date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It is
+the smallest of the buildings we have to examine, but by no
+means the least interesting: I shall call it, from the name of its
+Traghetto, the Madonnetta House.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center bmarg">(5.) <i>The Rio Foscari House.</i></p>
+
+<p>We must now descend the Grand Canal as far as the Palazzo
+Foscari, and enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca&rsquo;
+Foscari, at the side of that palace. Almost immediately after
+passing the great gateway of the Foscari courtyard, we shall see
+on our left, in the ruinous and time-stricken walls which totter
+over the water, the white curve of a circular arch covered with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393"></a>393</span>
+sculpture, and fragments of the bases of small pillars, entangled
+among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I have already, in
+the folio plates which accompanied the first volume, partly illustrated
+this building. In what references I have to make to it
+here, I shall speak of it as the Rio Foscari House.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center bmarg">(6.) <i>Casa Farsetti.</i></p>
+
+<p>We have now to reascend the Grand Canal, and approach the
+Rialto. As soon as we have passed the Casa Grimani, the traveller
+will recognize, on his right, two rich and extensive masses
+of building, which form important objects in almost every
+picturesque view of the noble bridge. Of these, the first, that
+farthest from the Rialto, retains great part of its ancient materials
+in a dislocated form. It has been entirely modernized in
+its upper stories, but the ground floor and first floor have nearly
+all their original shafts and capitals, only they have been shifted
+hither and thither to give room for the introduction of various
+small apartments, and present, in consequence, marvellous
+anomalies in proportion. This building is known in Venice as
+the Casa Farsetti.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center bmarg">(7.) <i>Casa Loredan.</i></p>
+
+<p>The one next to it, though not conspicuous, and often passed
+with neglect, will, I believe, be felt at last, by all who examine
+it carefully, to be the most beautiful palace in the whole extent
+of the Grand Canal. It has been restored often, once in the
+Gothic, once in the Renaissance times,&mdash;some writers say, even
+rebuilt; but, if so, rebuilt in its old form. The Gothic additions
+harmonize exquisitely with its Byzantine work, and it is easy,
+as we examine its lovely central arcade, to forget the Renaissance
+additions which encumber it above. It is known as the
+Casa Loredan.</p>
+
+<p>The eighth palace is the Fondaco de&rsquo; Turchi, described in
+the text. A ninth existed, more interesting apparently than
+any of these, near the Church of San Moisč, but it was thrown
+down in the course of &ldquo;improvements&rdquo; a few years ago. A
+woodcut of it is given in M. Lazari&rsquo;s Guide.</p>
+
+<div class="pd2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page394"></a>394</span></p>
+
+<p class="center scs bmarg"><a name="app_12"></a>12. MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days,
+we have defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and
+few of more practical importance than this, which I shall have
+occasion again and again to allege in support of many future
+deductions:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself
+the objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly
+attainable; and becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose
+to itself any other objects, better attainable with other materials.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,&mdash;as
+in ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or
+wreaths of hair,&mdash;is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work
+or in painting, but only with great difficulty and imperfectly
+expressible in sculpture. All sculpture, therefore, which
+professes as its chief end the expression of such characters, is
+debased; and if the suggestion of them be accidentally required
+of it, that suggestion is only to be given to an extent compatible
+with perfect ease of execution in the given material,&mdash;not to the
+utmost possible extent. For instance: some of the most delightful
+drawings of our own water-color painter, Hunt, have
+been of birds&rsquo; nests; of which, in painting, it is perfectly possible
+to represent the intricate fibrous or mossy structure; therefore,
+the effort is a legitimate one, and the art is well employed.
+But to carve a bird&rsquo;s nest out of marble would be physically impossible,
+and to reach any approximate expression of its structure
+would require prolonged and intolerable labor. Therefore,
+all sculpture which set itself to carving birds&rsquo; nests as an end,
+or which, if a bird&rsquo;s nest were required of it, carved it to the
+utmost possible point of realization, would be debased. Nothing
+but the general form, and as much of the fibrous structure
+as could be with perfect ease represented, ought to be attempted
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>But more than this. The workman has not done his duty,
+and is not working on safe principles, unless he even so far
+<i>honors</i> the materials with which he is working as to set himself
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395"></a>395</span>
+to bring out their beauty, and to recommend and exalt, as far
+as lie can, their peculiar qualities. If he is working in marble,
+he should insist upon and exhibit its transparency and solidity;
+if in iron, its strength and tenacity; if in gold, its ductility;
+and he will invariably find the material grateful, and that his
+work is all the nobler for being eulogistic of the substance of
+which it is made. But of all the arts, the working of glass is
+that in which we ought to keep these principles most vigorously
+in mind. For we owe it so much, and the possession of it is so
+great a blessing, that all our work in it should be completely
+and forcibly expressive of the peculiar characters which give it
+so vast a value.</p>
+
+<p>These are two, namely, its <span class="scs">DUCTILITY</span> when heated, and
+<span class="scs">TRANSPARENCY</span> when cold, both nearly perfect. In its employment
+for vessels, we ought always to exhibit its ductility, and
+in its employment for windows, its transparency. All work in
+glass is bad which does not, with loud voice, proclaim one or
+other of these great qualities.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently, <i>all cut glass</i> is barbarous: for the cutting conceals
+its ductility, and confuses it with crystal. Also, all very
+neat, finished, and perfect form in glass is barbarous: for this
+fails in proclaiming another of its great virtues; namely, the
+ease with which its light substance can be moulded or blown
+into any form, so long as perfect accuracy be not required. In
+metal, which, even when heated enough to be thoroughly malleable,
+retains yet such weight and consistency as render it susceptible
+of the finest handling and retention of the most delicate
+form, great precision of workmanship is admissible; but in
+glass, which when once softened must be blown or moulded,
+not hammered, and which is liable to lose, by contraction or
+subsidence, the fineness of the forms given to it, no delicate
+outlines are to be attempted, but only such fantastic and fickle
+grace as the mind of the workman can conceive and execute on
+the instant. The more wild, extravagant, and grotesque in
+their gracefulness the forms are, the better. No material is so
+adapted for giving full play to the imagination, but it must not
+be wrought with refinement or painfulness, still less with costliness.
+For as in gratitude we are to proclaim its virtues, so in
+all honesty we are to confess its imperfections; and while we
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page396"></a>396</span>
+triumphantly set forth its transparency, we are also frankly to
+admit its fragility, and therefore not to waste much time upon
+it, nor put any real art into it when intended for daily use. No
+workman ought ever to spend more than an hour in the making
+of any glass vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Next in the case of windows, the points which we have to
+insist upon are, the transparency of the glass and its susceptibility
+of the most brilliant colors; and therefore the attempt to
+turn painted windows into pretty pictures is one of the most
+gross and ridiculous barbarisms of this pre-eminently barbarous
+century. It originated, I suppose, with the Germans, who seem
+for the present distinguished among European nations by the
+loss of the sense of color; but it appears of late to have considerable
+chance of establishing itself in England: and it is a two-edged
+error, striking in two directions; first at the healthy
+appreciation of painting, and then at the healthy appreciation
+of glass. Color, ground with oil, and laid on a solid
+opaque ground, furnishes to the human hand the most exquisite
+means of expression which the human sight and invention
+can find or require. By its two opposite qualities, each
+naturally and easily attainable, of transparency in shadow and
+opacity in light, it complies with the conditions of nature;
+and by its perfect governableness it permits the utmost possible
+fulness and subtlety in the harmonies of color, as well as the
+utmost perfection in the drawing. Glass, considered as a material
+for a picture, is exactly as bad as oil paint is good. It
+sets out by reversing the conditions of nature, by making the
+lights transparent and the shadows opaque; and the ungovernableness
+of its color (changing in the furnace), and its violence
+(being always on a high key, because produced by actual light),
+render it so disadvantageous in every way, that the result of
+working in it for pictorial effect would infallibly be the destruction
+of all the appreciation of the noble qualities of pictorial
+color.</p>
+
+<p>In the second place, this modern barbarism destroys the true
+appreciation of the qualities of glass. It denies, and endeavors
+as far as possible to conceal, the transparency, which is not only
+its great virtue in a merely utilitarian point of view, but its
+great spiritual character; the character by which in church architecture
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page397"></a>397</span>
+it becomes most touchingly impressive, as typical of
+the entrances of the Holy Spirit into the heart of man; a typical
+expression rendered specific and intense by the purity and brilliancy
+of its sevenfold hues;<a name="FnAnchor_165" href="#Footnote_165"><span class="sp">165</span></a> and therefore in endeavoring to
+turn the window into a picture, we at once lose the sanctity and
+power of the noble material, and employ it to an end which is
+utterly impossible it should ever worthily attain. The true perfection
+of a painted window is to be serene, intense, brilliant,
+like flaming jewellery; full of easily legible and quaint subjects,
+and exquisitely subtle, yet simple, in its harmonies. In a word,
+this perfection has been consummated in the designs, never to
+be surpassed, if ever again to be approached by human art, of
+the French windows of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_163" href="#FnAnchor_163"><span class="fn">163</span></a> I do not like to hear Protestants speaking with gross and uncharitable
+contempt even of the worship of relics. Elisha once trusted his own staff
+too far; nor can I see any reasonable ground for the scorn, or the unkind
+rebuke, of those who have been taught from their youth upwards that to
+hope even in the hem of the garment may sometimes be better than to
+spend the living on physicians.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_164" href="#FnAnchor_164"><span class="fn">164</span></a> Casa Tiepolo (?) in Lazari&rsquo;s Guide.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_165" href="#FnAnchor_165"><span class="fn">165</span></a> I do not think that there is anything more necessary to the progress
+of European art in the present day than the complete understanding of this
+sanctity of Color. I had much pleasure in finding it, the other day, fully
+understood and thus sweetly expressed in a little volume of poems by a
+Miss Maynard:</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="ind05">&ldquo;For still in every land, though to Thy name</p>
+<p>Arose no temple,&mdash;still in every age,</p>
+<p>Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise,</p>
+<p><i>We</i> praised Thee; and at rise and set of sun</p>
+<p>Did we assemble duly, and intone</p>
+<p>A choral hymn that all the lands might hear.</p>
+<p>In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee,</p>
+<p>Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood.</p>
+<p>But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come,</p>
+<p>Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house,</p>
+<p>We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise</p>
+<p>Thee, Light of Light! Thee, God of very God!&rdquo;</p>
+
+                        <p style="text-align: right; "><i>A Dream of Fair Colors.</i></p>
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable for a very unobtrusive
+and pure religious feeling in subjects connected with art.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="art" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="pg">
+<table class="pg" border="0" style="background-color: #ddddee;" cellpadding="10">
+<tr><td><a name="tntag" id="tntag"></a>
+<h4>Transcriber's Note:</h4>
+<p>This is the second volume of three.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The index is in Volume III, with links to all
+three volumes; and some footnotes are linked between volumes.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>These links are designed to work when
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+
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+2. In that directory (folder) create 3 directories (folders) named</p>
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+
+<p>
+4. Download the <i>zipped</i> html version of each volume.
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3), by
+John Ruskin
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3)
+
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 31, 2009  [eBook #30755]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STONES OF VENICE, VOLUME II
+(OF 3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marius Masi, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 30755-h.htm or 30755-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30755/30755-h/30755-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30755/30755-h.zip)
+
+
+      Volumes I and III are available in the Project Gutenberg
+      Library:
+      Volume I--see http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30754
+      Volume III--see http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30756
+
+      Volume III contains the index for all three volumes. The
+      index in the html version of Volume III has links to the
+      the other two volumes.
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      A few typographical errors have been corrected. They are
+      listed at the end of the text.
+
+      Characters following a caret were printed as superscript
+      in the original. For example, St^a; here the "a" is a
+      superscript.
+
+
+
+
+
+Library Edition
+
+The Complete Works of John Ruskin
+
+STONES OF VENICE
+
+VOLUMES I-II
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+National Library Association
+New York             Chicago
+
+
+
+
+The Complete Works of John Ruskin
+
+Volume VIII
+
+STONES OF VENICE
+
+VOLUME II
+
+
+
+
+THE STONES OF VENICE
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+The Sea Stories
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+It was originally intended that this Work should consist of two volumes
+only; the subject has extended to three. The second volume, however,
+will conclude the account of the ancient architecture of Venice. The
+third will embrace the Early, the Roman, and the Grotesque Renaissance;
+and an Index, which, as it gives, in alphabetical order, a brief account
+of all the buildings in Venice, or references to the places where they
+are mentioned in the text, will be found a convenient guide for the
+traveller. In order to make it more serviceable, I have introduced some
+notices of the pictures which I think most interesting in the various
+churches, and in the Scuola di San Rocco.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD.
+
+                         CHAPTER I.
+                                                      PAGE
+    The Throne,                                          1
+
+                        CHAPTER II.
+    Torcello,                                           11
+
+                       CHAPTER III.
+    Murano,                                             27
+
+                        CHAPTER IV.
+    St. Mark's,                                         57
+
+                        CHAPTER V.
+    Byzantine Palaces,                                 118
+
+
+  SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD.
+
+                        CHAPTER VI.
+    The Nature of Gothic,                              151
+
+                       CHAPTER VII.
+    Gothic Palaces,                                    231
+
+                       CHAPTER VIII.
+    The Ducal Palace,                                  281
+
+
+  APPENDIX.
+
+     1. The Gondolier's Cry,                           375
+     2. Our Lady of Salvation,                         378
+     3. Tides of Venice and Measures at Torcello,      378
+     4. Date of the Duomo of Torcello,                 380
+     5. Modern Pulpits,                                380
+     6. Apse of Murano,                                382
+     7. Early Venetian Dress,                          383
+     8. Inscriptions at Murano,                        384
+     9. Shafts of St. Mark's,                          384
+    10. Proper Sense of the Word Idolatry,             388
+    11. Situations of Byzantine Palaces,               391
+    12. Modern Paintings on Glass,                     394
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PLATES.
+
+
+                                                           Facing Page
+ Plate 1. Plans of Torcello and Murano,                             14
+
+   "   2. The Acanthus of Torcello,                                 15
+
+   "   3. Inlaid Bands of Murano,                                   40
+
+   "   4. Sculptures of Murano,                                     42
+
+   "   5. Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano,                         45
+
+   "   6. The Vine, Free and in Service,                            96
+
+   "   7. Byzantine Capitals--Convex Group,                        131
+
+   "   8. Byzantine Capitals--Concave Group,                       132
+
+   "   9. Lily Capital of St. Mark's,                              136
+
+   "  10. The Four Venetian Flower Order,                          137
+
+   "  11. Byzantine Sculptures,                                    138
+
+   "  12. Linear and Surface Gothic,                               224
+
+   "  13. Balconies,                                               247
+
+   "  14. The Orders of Venetian Arches,                           248
+
+   "  15. Windows of the Second Order,                             254
+
+   "  16. Windows of the Fourth Order,                             257
+
+   "  17. Windows of the Early Gothic Palaces,                     259
+
+   "  18. Windows of the Fifth Order,                              266
+
+   "  19. Leafage of the Vine Angle,                               308
+
+   "  20. Leafage of the Venetian Capitals,                        368
+
+
+
+
+               THE
+
+        STONES OF VENICE.
+
+  FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE THRONE.
+
+
+Sec. I. In the olden days of travelling, now to return no more, in which
+distance could not be vanquished without toil, but in which that toil
+was rewarded, partly by the power of deliberate survey of the countries
+through which the journey lay, and partly by the happiness of the
+evening hours, when, from the top of the last hill he had surmounted,
+the traveller beheld the quiet village where he was to rest, scattered
+among the meadows beside its valley stream; or, from the long-hoped-for
+turn in the dusty perspective of the causeway, saw, for the first time,
+the towers of some famed city, faint in the rays of sunset--hours of
+peaceful and thoughtful pleasure, for which the rush of the arrival in
+the railway station is perhaps not always, or to all men, an
+equivalent,--in those days, I say, when there was something more to be
+anticipated and remembered in the first aspect of each successive
+halting-place, than a new arrangement of glass roofing and iron girder,
+there were few moments of which the recollection was more fondly
+cherished by the traveller than that which, as I endeavored to describe
+in the close of the last chapter, brought him within sight of Venice, as
+his gondola shot into the open lagoon from the canal of Mestre. Not but
+that the aspect of the city itself was generally the source of some
+slight disappointment, for, seen in this direction, its buildings are
+far less characteristic than those of the other great towns of Italy;
+but this inferiority was partly disguised by distance, and more than
+atoned for by the strange rising of its walls and towers out of the
+midst, as it seemed, of the deep sea, for it was impossible that the
+mind or the eye could at once comprehend the shallowness of the vast
+sheet of water which stretched away in leagues of rippling lustre to the
+north and south, or trace the narrow line of islets bounding it to the
+east. The salt breeze, the white moaning sea-birds, the masses of black
+weed separating and disappearing gradually, in knots of heaving shoal,
+under the advance of the steady tide, all proclaimed it to be indeed the
+ocean on whose bosom the great city rested so calmly; not such blue,
+soft, lake-like ocean as bathes the Neapolitan promontories, or sleeps
+beneath the marble rocks of Genoa, but a sea with the bleak power of our
+own northern waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious rest, and
+changed from its angry pallor into a field of burnished gold, as the sun
+declined behind the belfry tower of the lonely island church, fitly
+named "St. George of the Seaweed." As the boat drew nearer to the city,
+the coast which the traveller had just left sank behind him into one
+long, low, sad-colored line, tufted irregularly with brushwood and
+willows: but, at what seemed its northern extremity, the hills of Arqua
+rose in a dark cluster of purple pyramids, balanced on the bright mirage
+of the lagoon; two or three smooth surges of inferior hill extended
+themselves about their roots, and beyond these, beginning with the
+craggy peaks above Vicenza, the chain of the Alps girded the whole
+horizon to the north--a wall of jagged blue, here and there showing
+through its clefts a wilderness of misty precipices, fading far back
+into the recesses of Cadore, and itself rising and breaking away
+eastward, where the sun struck opposite upon its snow, into mighty
+fragments of peaked light, standing up behind the barred clouds of
+evening, one after another, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea,
+until the eye turned back from pursuing them, to rest upon the nearer
+burning of the campaniles of Murano, and on the great city, where it
+magnified itself along the waves, as the quick silent pacing of the
+gondola drew nearer and nearer. And at last, when its walls were
+reached, and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered, not
+through towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two
+rocks of coral in the Indian sea; when first upon the traveller's sight
+opened the long ranges of columned palaces,--each with its black boat
+moored at the portal,--each with its image cast down, beneath its feet,
+upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of
+rich tessellation; when first, at the extremity of the bright vista, the
+shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve slowly forth from behind the
+palace of the Camerlenghi; that strange curve, so delicate, so
+adamantine, strong as a mountain cavern, graceful as a bow just bent;
+when first, before its moonlike circumference was all risen, the
+gondolier's cry, "Ah! Stali,"[1] struck sharp upon the ear, and the prow
+turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met over the narrow
+canal, where the plash of the water followed close and loud, ringing
+along the marble by the boat's side; and when at last that boat darted
+forth upon the breadth of silver sea, across which the front of the
+Ducal palace, flushed with its sanguine veins, looks to the snowy dome
+of Our Lady of Salvation,[2] it was no marvel that the mind should be so
+deeply entranced by the visionary charm of a scene so beautiful and so
+strange, as to forget the darker truths of its history and its being.
+Well might it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the
+rod of the enchanter, than the fear of the fugitive; that the waters
+which encircled her had been chosen for the mirror of her state, rather
+than the shelter of her nakedness; and that all which in nature was wild
+or merciless,--Time and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests,--had
+been won to adorn her instead of to destroy, and might still spare, for
+ages to come, that beauty which seemed to have fixed for its throne the
+sands of the hour-glass as well as of the sea.
+
+Sec. II. And although the last few eventful years, fraught with change to
+the face of the whole earth, have been more fatal in their influence on
+Venice than the five hundred that preceded them; though the noble
+landscape of approach to her can now be seen no more, or seen only by a
+glance, as the engine slackens its rushing on the iron line; and though
+many of her palaces are for ever defaced, and many in desecrated ruins,
+there is still so much of magic in her aspect, that the hurried
+traveller, who must leave her before the wonder of that first aspect has
+been worn away, may still be led to forget the humility of her origin,
+and to shut his eyes to the depth of her desolation. They, at least, are
+little to be envied, in whose hearts the great charities of the
+imagination lie dead, and for whom the fancy has no power to repress the
+importunity of painful impressions, or to raise what is ignoble, and
+disguise what is discordant, in a scene so rich in its remembrances, so
+surpassing in its beauty. But for this work of the imagination there
+must be no permission during the task which is before us. The impotent
+feelings of romance, so singularly characteristic of this century, may
+indeed gild, but never save the remains of those mightier ages to which
+they are attached like climbing flowers; and they must be torn away from
+the magnificent fragments, if we would see them as they stood in their
+own strength. Those feelings, always as fruitless as they are fond, are
+in Venice not only incapable of protecting, but even of discerning, the
+objects to which they ought to have been attached. The Venice of modern
+fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of
+decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into
+dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow
+deserved sympathy, ever crossed that "Bridge of Sighs," which is the
+centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever
+saw that Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless
+interest: the statue which Byron makes Faliero address as of one of his
+great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty
+years after Faliero's death; and the most conspicuous parts of the city
+have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three centuries,
+that if Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be summoned from their
+tombs, and stood each on the deck of his galley at the entrance of the
+Grand Canal, that renowned entrance, the painter's favorite subject, the
+novelist's favorite scene, where the water first narrows by the steps of
+the Church of La Salute,--the mighty Doges would not know in what spot
+of the world they stood, would literally not recognize one stone of the
+great city, for whose sake, and by whose ingratitude, their grey hairs
+had been brought down with bitterness to the grave. The remains of
+_their_ Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which were the
+delight of the nation in its dotage; hidden in many a grass-grown court,
+and silent pathway, and lightless canal, where the slow waves have
+sapped their foundations for five hundred years, and must soon prevail
+over them for ever. It must be our task to glean and gather them forth,
+and restore out of them some faint image of the lost city, more gorgeous
+a thousand-fold than that which now exists, yet not created in the
+day-dream of the prince, nor by the ostentation of the noble, but built
+by iron hands and patient hearts, contending against the adversity of
+nature and the fury of man, so that its wonderfulness cannot be grasped
+by the indolence of imagination, but only after frank inquiry into the
+true nature of that wild and solitary scene, whose restless tides and
+trembling sands did indeed shelter the birth of the city, but long
+denied her dominion.
+
+Sec. III. When the eye falls casually on a map of Europe, there is no
+feature by which it is more likely to be arrested than the strange
+sweeping loop formed by the junction of the Alps and Apennines, and
+enclosing the great basin of Lombardy. This return of the mountain chain
+upon itself causes a vast difference in the character of the
+distribution of its debris on its opposite sides. The rock fragments and
+sediment which the torrents on the north side of the Alps bear into the
+plains are distributed over a vast extent of country, and, though here
+and there lodged in beds of enormous thickness, soon permit the firm
+substrata to appear from underneath them; but all the torrents which
+descend from the southern side of the High Alps, and from the northern
+slope of the Apennines, meet concentrically in the recess or mountain
+bay which the two ridges enclose; every fragment which thunder breaks
+out of their battlements, and every grain of dust which the summer rain
+washes from their pastures, is at last laid at rest in the blue sweep of
+the Lombardic plain; and that plain must have risen within its rocky
+barriers as a cup fills with wine, but for two contrary influences which
+continually depress, or disperse from its surface, the accumulation of
+the ruins of ages.
+
+Sec. IV. I will not tax the reader's faith in modern science by insisting
+on the singular depression of the surface of Lombardy, which appears for
+many centuries to have taken place steadily and continually; the main
+fact with which we have to do is the gradual transport, by the Po and
+its great collateral rivers, of vast masses of the finer sediment to the
+sea. The character of the Lombardic plains is most strikingly expressed
+by the ancient walls of its cities, composed for the most part of large
+rounded Alpine pebbles alternating with narrow courses of brick; and was
+curiously illustrated in 1848, by the ramparts of these same pebbles
+thrown up four or five feet high round every field, to check the
+Austrian cavalry in the battle under the walls of Verona. The finer dust
+among which these pebbles are dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed
+into continual strength by the Alpine snow, so that, however pure their
+waters may be when they issue from the lakes at the foot of the great
+chain, they become of the color and opacity of clay before they reach
+the Adriatic; the sediment which they bear is at once thrown down as
+they enter the sea, forming a vast belt of low land along the eastern
+coast of Italy. The powerful stream of the Po of course builds forward
+the fastest; on each side of it, north and south, there is a tract of
+marsh, fed by more feeble streams, and less liable to rapid change than
+the delta of the central river. In one of these tracts is built RAVENNA,
+and in the other VENICE.
+
+Sec. V. What circumstances directed the peculiar arrangement of this
+great belt of sediment in the earliest times, it is not here the place to
+inquire. It is enough for us to know that from the mouths of the Adige
+to those of the Piave there stretches, at a variable distance of from
+three to five miles from the actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into
+long islands by narrow channels of sea. The space between this bank and
+the true shore consists of the sedimentary deposits from these and other
+rivers, a great plain of calcareous mud, covered, in the neighborhood of
+Venice, by the sea at high water, to the depth in most places of a foot
+or a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere exposed at low tide, but
+divided by an intricate network of narrow and winding channels, from
+which the sea never retires. In some places, according to the run of the
+currents, the land has risen into marshy islets, consolidated, some by
+art, and some by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon, or
+fruitful enough to be cultivated: in others, on the contrary, it has not
+reached the sea-level; so that, at the average low water, shallow
+lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of seaweed. In the
+midst of the largest of these, increased in importance by the confluence
+of several large river channels towards one of the openings in the sea
+bank, the city of Venice itself is built, on a crowded cluster of
+islands; the various plots of higher ground which appear to the north
+and south of this central cluster, have at different periods been also
+thickly inhabited, and now bear, according to their size, the remains of
+cities, villages, or isolated convents and churches, scattered among
+spaces of open ground, partly waste and encumbered by ruins, partly
+under cultivation for the supply of the metropolis.
+
+Sec. VI. The average rise and fall of the tide is about three feet
+(varying considerably with the seasons[3]); but this fall, on so flat a
+shore, is enough to cause continual movement in the waters, and in the
+main canals to produce a reflux which frequently runs like a mill stream.
+At high water no land is visible for many miles to the north or south
+of Venice, except in the form of small islands crowned with towers or
+gleaming with villages: there is a channel, some three miles wide, between
+the city and the mainland, and some mile and a half wide between it and
+the sandy breakwater called the Lido, which divides the lagoon from the
+Adriatic, but which is so low as hardly to disturb the impression of the
+city's having been built in the midst of the ocean, although the secret of
+its true position is partly, yet not painfully, betrayed by the clusters
+of piles set to mark the deep-water channels, which undulate far away in
+spotty chains like the studded backs of huge sea-snakes, and by the
+quick glittering of the crisped and crowded waves that flicker and dance
+before the strong winds upon the unlifted level of the shallow sea. But
+the scene is widely different at low tide. A fall of eighteen or twenty
+inches is enough to show ground over the greater part of the lagoon; and
+at the complete ebb the city is seen standing in the midst of a dark
+plain of seaweed, of gloomy green, except only where the larger branches
+of the Brenta and its associated streams converge towards the port of
+the Lido. Through this salt and sombre plain the gondola and the
+fishing-boat advance by tortuous channels, seldom more than four or five
+feet deep, and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow
+the bottom till their crossing tracks are seen through the clear sea
+water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes
+upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed
+that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to
+and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide. The scene is
+often profoundly oppressive, even at this day, when every plot of higher
+ground bears some fragment of fair building: but, in order to know what
+it was once, let the traveller follow in his boat at evening the
+windings of some unfrequented channel far into the midst of the
+melancholy plain; let him remove, in his imagination, the brightness of
+the great city that still extends itself in the distance, and the walls
+and towers from the islands that are near; and so wait, until the bright
+investiture and sweet warmth of the sunset are withdrawn from the
+waters, and the black desert of their shore lies in its nakedness
+beneath the night, pathless, comfortless, infirm, lost in dark languor
+and fearful silence, except where the salt runlets plash into the
+tideless pools, or the sea-birds flit from their margins with a
+questioning cry; and he will be enabled to enter in some sort into the
+horror of heart with which this solitude was anciently chosen by man for
+his habitation. They little thought, who first drove the stakes into the
+sand, and strewed the ocean reeds for their rest, that their children
+were to be the princes of that ocean, and their palaces its pride; and
+yet, in the great natural laws that rule that sorrowful wilderness, let
+it be remembered what strange preparation had been made for the things
+which no human imagination could have foretold, and how the whole
+existence and fortune of the Venetian nation were anticipated or
+compelled, by the setting of those bars and doors to the rivers and the
+sea. Had deeper currents divided their islands, hostile navies would
+again and again have reduced the rising city into servitude; had
+stronger surges beaten their shores, all the richness and refinement of
+the Venetian architecture must have been exchanged for the walls and
+bulwarks of an ordinary sea-port. Had there been no tide, as in other
+parts of the Mediterranean, the narrow canals of the city would have
+become noisome, and the marsh in which it was built pestiferous. Had the
+tide been only a foot or eighteen inches higher in its rise, the
+water-access to the doors of the palaces would have been impossible:
+even as it is, there is sometimes a little difficulty, at the ebb, in
+landing without setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps: and the
+highest tides sometimes enter the courtyards, and overflow the entrance
+halls. Eighteen inches more of difference between the level of the flood
+and ebb would have rendered the doorsteps of every palace, at low water,
+a treacherous mass of weeds and limpets, and the entire system of
+water-carriage for the higher classes, in their easy and daily
+intercourse, must have been done away with. The streets of the city
+would have been widened, its network of canals filled up, and all the
+peculiar character of the place and the people destroyed.
+
+Sec. VII. The reader may perhaps have felt some pain in the contrast
+between this faithful view of the site of the Venetian Throne, and the
+romantic conception of it which we ordinarily form; but this pain, if he
+have felt it, ought to be more than counterbalanced by the value of the
+instance thus afforded to us at once of the inscrutableness and the
+wisdom of the ways of God. If, two thousand years ago, we had been
+permitted to watch the slow settling of the slime of those turbid rivers
+into the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters of
+the lifeless, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we have
+understood the purpose with which those islands were shaped out of the
+void, and the torpid waters enclosed with their desolate walls of sand!
+How little could we have known, any more than of what now seems to us
+most distressful, dark, and objectless, the glorious aim which was then
+in the mind of Him in whose hand are all the corners of the earth! how
+little imagined that in the laws which were stretching forth the gloomy
+margins of those fruitless banks, and feeding the bitter grass among
+their shallows, there was indeed a preparation, and _the only
+preparation possible_, for the founding of a city which was to be set
+like a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to write her history on
+the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it in their thunder,
+and to gather and give forth, in worldwide pulsation, the glory of the
+West and of the East, from the burning heart of her Fortitude and
+Splendor.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [1] Appendix 1, "The Gondolier's Cry."
+
+  [2] Appendix 2, "Our Lady of Salvation."
+
+  [3] Appendix 3, "Tides of Venice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Torcello.
+
+
+Sec. I. Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near
+the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher
+level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised
+here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks
+of sea. One of the feeblest of these inlets, after winding for some time
+among buried fragments of masonry, and knots of sunburnt weeds whitened
+with webs of fucus, stays itself in an utterly stagnant pool beside a
+plot of greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this mound
+is built a rude brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which
+if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder us, the door
+of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its hinges), we may command
+from it one of the most notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far
+as the eye can reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey;
+not like our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath,
+but lifeless, the color of sackcloth, with the corrupted sea-water
+soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and gleaming hither and
+thither through its snaky channels. No gathering of fantastic mists, nor
+coursing of clouds across it; but melancholy clearness of space in the
+warm sunset, oppressive, reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To
+the very horizon, on the north-east; but, to the north and west, there
+is a blue line of higher land along the border of it, and above this,
+but farther back, a misty band of mountains, touched with snow. To the
+east, the paleness and roar of the Adriatic, louder at momentary
+intervals as the surf breaks on the bars of sand; to the south, the
+widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple and pale
+green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight sky; and almost
+beneath our feet, on the same field which sustains the tower we gaze
+from, a group of four buildings, two of them little larger than cottages
+(though built of stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry), the third
+an octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little more than the flat
+red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a considerable church with
+nave and aisles, but of which, in like manner, we can see little but the
+long central ridge and lateral slopes of roof, which the sunlight
+separates in one glowing mass from the green field beneath and grey moor
+beyond. There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any
+vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a little
+company of ships becalmed on a far-away sea.
+
+Sec. II. Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening branches of
+the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into which they gather,
+there are a multitude of towers, dark, and scattered among square-set
+shapes of clustered palaces, a long and irregular line fretting the
+southern sky.
+
+Mother and daughter, you behold them both in their widowhood,--TORCELLO
+and VENICE.
+
+Thirteen hundred years ago, the grey moorland looked as it does this
+day, and the purple mountains stood as radiantly in the deep distances
+of evening; but on the line of the horizon, there were strange fires
+mixed with the light of sunset, and the lament of many human voices
+mixed with the fretting of the waves on their ridges of sand. The flames
+rose from the ruins of Altinum; the lament from the multitude of its
+people, seeking, like Israel of old, a refuge from the sword in the
+paths of the sea.
+
+The cattle are feeding and resting upon the site of the city that they
+left; the mower's scythe swept this day at dawn over the chief street of
+the city that they built, and the swathes of soft grass are now sending
+up their scent into the night air, the only incense that fills the
+temple of their ancient worship. Let us go down into that little space
+of meadow land.
+
+Sec. III. The inlet which runs nearest to the base of the campanile is
+not that by which Torcello is commonly approached. Another, somewhat
+broader, and overhung by alder copse, winds out of the main channel of
+the lagoon up to the very edge of the little meadow which was once the
+Piazza of the city, and there, stayed by a few grey stones which present
+some semblance of a quay, forms its boundary at one extremity. Hardly
+larger than an ordinary English farmyard, and roughly enclosed on each
+side by broken palings and hedges of honeysuckle and briar, the narrow
+field retires from the water's edge, traversed by a scarcely traceable
+footpath, for some forty or fifty paces, and then expanding into the
+form of a small square, with buildings on three sides of it, the fourth
+being that which opens to the water. Two of these, that on our left and
+that in front of us as we approach from the canal, are so small that
+they might well be taken for the out-houses of the farm, though the
+first is a conventual building, and the other aspires to the title of
+the "Palazzo publico," both dating as far back as the beginning of the
+fourteenth century; the third, the octagonal church of Santa Fosca, is
+far more ancient than either, yet hardly on a larger scale. Though the
+pillars of the portico which surrounds it are of pure Greek marble, and
+their capitals are enriched with delicate sculpture, they, and the
+arches they sustain, together only raise the roof to the height of a
+cattle-shed; and the first strong impression which the spectator
+receives from the whole scene is, that whatever sin it may have been
+which has on this spot been visited with so utter a desolation, it could
+not at least have been ambition. Nor will this impression be diminished
+as we approach, or enter, the larger church to which the whole group of
+building is subordinate. It has evidently been built by men in flight
+and distress,[4] who sought in the hurried erection of their island
+church such a shelter for their earnest and sorrowful worship as, on the
+one hand, could not attract the eyes of their enemies by its splendor,
+and yet, on the other, might not awaken too bitter feelings by its
+contrast with the churches which they had seen destroyed. There is
+visible everywhere a simple and tender effort to recover some of the
+form of the temples which they had loved, and to do honor to God by that
+which they were erecting, while distress and humiliation prevented the
+desire, and prudence precluded the admission, either of luxury of
+ornament or magnificence of plan. The exterior is absolutely devoid of
+decoration, with the exception only of the western entrance and the
+lateral door, of which the former has carved sideposts and architrave,
+and the latter, crosses of rich sculpture; while the massy stone
+shutters of the windows, turning on huge rings of stone, which answer
+the double purpose of stanchions and brackets, cause the whole building
+rather to resemble a refuge from Alpine storm than the cathedral of a
+populous city; and, internally, the two solemn mosaics of the eastern
+and western extremities,--one representing the Last Judgment, the other
+the Madonna, her tears falling as her hands are raised to bless,--and
+the noble range of pillars which enclose the space between, terminated
+by the high throne for the pastor and the semicircular raised seats for
+the superior clergy, are expressive at once of the deep sorrow and the
+sacred courage of men who had no home left them upon earth, but who
+looked for one to come, of men "persecuted but not forsaken, cast down
+but not destroyed."
+
+Sec. IV. I am not aware of any other early church in Italy which has this
+peculiar expression in so marked a degree; and it is so consistent with
+all that Christian architecture ought to express in every age (for the
+actual condition of the exiles who built the cathedral of Torcello is
+exactly typical of the spiritual condition which every Christian ought
+to recognize in himself, a state of homelessness on earth, except so far
+as he can make the Most High his habitation), that I would rather fix
+the mind of the reader on this general character than on the separate
+details, however interesting, of the architecture itself. I shall
+therefore examine these only so far as is necessary to give a clear idea
+of the means by which the peculiar expression of the building is
+attained.
+
+[Illustration: Plate I.
+               PLANS OF TORCELLO AND MURANO.]
+
+Sec. V. On the opposite page, the uppermost figure, 1, is a rude plan
+of the church. I do not answer for the thickness and external
+disposition of the walls, which are not to our present purpose, and
+which I have not carefully examined; but the interior arrangement is
+given with sufficient accuracy. The church is built on the usual plan of
+the Basilica[5] that is to say, its body divided into a nave and aisles
+by two rows of massive shafts, the roof of the nave being raised high
+above the aisles by walls sustained on two ranks of pillars, and pierced
+with small arched windows. At Torcello the aisles are also lighted in
+the same manner, and the nave is nearly twice their breadth.[6]
+
+[Illustration: Plate II.
+               THE ACANTHUS OF TORCELLO.]
+
+The capitals of all the great shafts are of white marble, and are among
+the best I have ever seen, as examples of perfectly calculated effect
+from every touch of the chisel. Mr. Hope calls them "indifferently
+imitated from the Corinthian:"[7] but the expression is as inaccurate as
+it is unjust; every one of them is different in design, and their
+variations are as graceful as they are fanciful. I could not, except by
+an elaborate drawing, give any idea of the sharp, dark, deep
+penetrations of the chisel into their snowy marble, but a single example
+is given in the opposite plate, fig. 1, of the nature of the changes
+effected in them from the Corinthian type. In this capital, although a
+kind of acanthus (only with rounded lobes) is indeed used for the upper
+range of leaves, the lower range is not acanthus at all, but a kind of
+vine, or at least that species of plant which stands for vine in all
+early Lombardic and Byzantine work (vide Vol. I. Appendix 8); the leaves
+are trefoiled, and the stalks cut clear so that they might be grasped
+with the hand, and cast sharp dark shadows, perpetually changing, across
+the bell of the capital behind them. I have drawn one of these vine
+plants larger in fig. 2, that the reader may see how little imitation
+of the Corinthian there is in them, and how boldly the stems of the
+leaves are detached from the ground. But there is another circumstance
+in this ornament still more noticeable. The band which encircles the
+shaft beneath the spring of the leaves is copied from the common
+classical wreathed or braided fillet, of which the reader may see
+examples on almost every building of any pretensions in modern London.
+But the mediaeval builders could not be content with the dead and
+meaningless scroll: the Gothic energy and love of life, mingled with the
+early Christian religious symbolism, were struggling daily into more
+vigorous expression, and they turned the wreathed band into a serpent of
+three times the length necessary to undulate round the shaft, which,
+knotting itself into a triple chain, shows at one side of the shaft its
+tail and head, as if perpetually gliding round it beneath the stalks of
+the vines. The vine, as is well known, was one of the early symbols of
+Christ, and the serpent is here typical either of the eternity of his
+dominion, or of the Satanic power subdued.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+Sec. VI. Nor even when the builder confines himself to the acanthus leaf
+(or to that representation of it, hereafter to be more particularly
+examined, constant in Romanesque work) can his imagination allow him to
+rest content with its accustomed position. In a common Corinthian
+capital the leaves nod forward only, thrown out on every side from the
+bell which they surround: but at the base of one of the capitals on the
+opposite side of the nave from this of the vines,[8] two leaves are
+introduced set with their sides outwards, forming spirals by curling
+back, half-closed, in the position shown in fig. 4 in Plate II., there
+represented as in a real acanthus leaf; for it will assist our future
+inquiries into the ornamentation of capitals that the reader should be
+acquainted with the form of the acanthus leaf itself. I have drawn it,
+therefore, in the two positions, figs. 3 and 4 in Plate II.; while fig.
+5 is the translation of the latter form into marble by the sculptor of
+Torcello. It is not very like the acanthus, but much liker than any
+Greek work; though still entirely conventional in its cinquefoiled
+lobes. But these are disposed with the most graceful freedom of line,
+separated at the roots by deep drill holes, which tell upon the eye far
+away like beads of jet; and changed, before they become too crowded to
+be effective, into a vigorous and simple zigzagged edge, which saves the
+designer some embarrassment in the perspective of the terminating
+spiral. But his feeling of nature was greater than his knowledge of
+perspective; and it is delightful to see how he has rooted the whole
+leaf in the strong rounded under-stem, the indication of its closing
+with its face inwards, and has thus given organization and elasticity to
+the lovely group of spiral lines; a group of which, even in the lifeless
+sea-shell, we are never weary, but which becomes yet more delightful
+when the ideas of elasticity and growth are joined to the sweet
+succession of its involution.
+
+Sec. VII. It is not, however, to be expected that either the mute language
+of early Christianity (however important a part of the expression of the
+building at the time of its erection), or the delicate fancies of the
+Gothic leafage springing into new life, should be read, or perceived, by
+the passing traveller who has never been taught to expect anything in
+architecture except five orders: yet he can hardly fail to be struck by
+the simplicity and dignity of the great shafts themselves; by the frank
+diffusion of light, which prevents their severity from becoming
+oppressive; by the delicate forms and lovely carving of the pulpit and
+chancel screen; and, above all, by the peculiar aspect of the eastern
+extremity of the church, which, instead of being withdrawn, as in later
+cathedrals, into a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, or contributing by
+the brilliancy of its windows to the splendor of the altar, and
+theatrical effect of the ceremonies performed there, is a simple and
+stern semicircular recess, filled beneath by three ranks of seats,
+raised one above the other, for the bishop and presbyters, that they
+might watch as well as guide the devotions of the people, and discharge
+literally in the daily service the functions of bishops or _overseers_
+of the flock of God.
+
+Sec. VIII. Let us consider a little each of these characters in
+succession; and first (for of the shafts enough has been said already),
+what is very peculiar to this church, its luminousness. This perhaps
+strikes the traveller more from its contrast with the excessive gloom
+of the Church of St. Mark's; but it is remarkable when we compare the
+Cathedral of Torcello with any of the contemporary basilicas in South
+Italy or Lombardic churches in the North. St. Ambrogio at Milan, St.
+Michele at Pavia, St. Zeno at Verona, St. Frediano at Lucca, St. Miniato
+at Florence, are all like sepulchral caverns compared with Torcello, where
+the slightest details of the sculptures and mosaics are visible, even
+when twilight is deepening. And there is something especially touching
+in our finding the sunshine thus freely admitted into a church built by
+men in sorrow. They did not need the darkness; they could not perhaps
+bear it. There was fear and depression upon them enough, without a
+material gloom. They sought for comfort in their religion, for tangible
+hopes and promises, not for threatenings or mysteries; and though the
+subjects chosen for the mosaics on the walls are of the most solemn
+character, there are no artificial shadows cast upon them, nor dark
+colors used in them: all is fair and bright, and intended evidently to
+be regarded in hopefulness, and not with terror.
+
+Sec. IX. For observe this choice of subjects. It is indeed possible that
+the walls of the nave and aisles, which are now whitewashed, may have
+been covered with fresco or mosaic, and thus have supplied a series of
+subjects, on the choice of which we cannot speculate. I do not, however,
+find record of the destruction of any such works; and I am rather
+inclined to believe that at any rate the central division of the
+building was originally decorated, as it is now, simply by mosaics
+representing Christ, the Virgin, and the apostles, at one extremity, and
+Christ coming to judgment at the other. And if so, I repeat, observe the
+significance of this choice. Most other early churches are covered with
+imagery sufficiently suggestive of the vivid interest of the builders in
+the history and occupations of the world. Symbols or representations of
+political events, portraits of living persons, and sculptures of
+satirical, grotesque, or trivial subjects are of constant occurrence,
+mingled with the more strictly appointed representations of scriptural
+or ecclesiastical history; but at Torcello even these usual, and one
+should have thought almost necessary, successions of Bible events do not
+appear. The mind of the worshipper was fixed entirely upon two great
+facts, to him the most precious of all facts,--the present mercy of
+Christ to His Church, and His future coming to judge the world. That
+Christ's mercy was, at this period, supposed chiefly to be attainable
+through the pleading of the Virgin, and that therefore beneath the
+figure of the Redeemer is seen that of the weeping Madonna in the act of
+intercession, may indeed be matter of sorrow to the Protestant beholder,
+but ought not to blind him to the earnestness and singleness of the
+faith with which these men sought their sea-solitudes; not in hope of
+founding new dynasties, or entering upon new epochs of prosperity, but
+only to humble themselves before God, and to pray that in His infinite
+mercy He would hasten the time when the sea should give up the dead
+which were in it, and Death and Hell give up the dead which were in
+them, and when they might enter into the better kingdom, "where the
+wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."
+
+Sec. X. Nor were the strength and elasticity of their minds, even in the
+least matters, diminished by thus looking forward to the close of all
+things. On the contrary, nothing is more remarkable than the finish and
+beauty of all the portions of the building, which seem to have been
+actually executed for the place they occupy in the present structure.
+The rudest are those which they brought with them from the mainland; the
+best and most beautiful, those which appear to have been carved for
+their island church: of these, the new capitals already noticed, and the
+exquisite panel ornaments of the chancel screen, are the most
+conspicuous; the latter form a low wall across the church between the
+six small shafts whose places are seen in the plan, and serve to enclose
+a space raised two steps above the level of the nave, destined for the
+singers, and indicated also in the plan by an open line _a b c d_. The
+bas-reliefs on this low screen are groups of peacocks and lions, two
+face to face on each panel, rich and fantastic beyond description,
+though not expressive of very accurate knowledge either of leonine or
+pavonine forms. And it is not until we pass to the back of the stair of
+the pulpit, which is connected with the northern extremity of this
+screen, that we find evidence of the haste with which the church was
+constructed.
+
+Sec. XI. The pulpit, however, is not among the least noticeable of its
+features. It is sustained on the four small detached shafts marked at
+_p_ in the plan, between the two pillars at the north side of the
+screen; both pillars and pulpit studiously plain, while the staircase
+which ascends to it is a compact mass of masonry (shaded in the plan),
+faced by carved slabs of marble; the parapet of the staircase being also
+formed of solid blocks like paving-stones, lightened by rich, but not
+deep, exterior carving. Now these blocks, or at least those which adorn
+the staircase towards the aisle, have been brought from the mainland;
+and, being of size and shape not easily to be adjusted to the
+proportions of the stair, the architect has cut out of them pieces of
+the size he needed, utterly regardless of the subject or symmetry of the
+original design. The pulpit is not the only place where this rough
+procedure has been permitted: at the lateral door of the church are two
+crosses, cut out of slabs of marble, formerly covered with rich
+sculpture over their whole surfaces, of which portions are left on the
+surface of the crosses; the lines of the original design being, of
+course, just as arbitrarily cut by the incisions between the arms, as
+the patterns upon a piece of silk which has been shaped anew. The fact
+is, that in all early Romanesque work, large surfaces are covered with
+sculpture for the sake of enrichment only; sculpture which indeed had
+always meaning, because it was easier for the sculptor to work with some
+chain of thought to guide his chisel, than without any; but it was not
+always intended, or at least not always hoped, that this chain of
+thought might be traced by the spectator. All that was proposed appears
+to have been the enrichment of surface, so as to make it delightful to
+the eye; and this being once understood, a decorated piece of marble
+became to the architect just what a piece of lace or embroidery is to a
+dressmaker, who takes of it such portions as she may require, with
+little regard to the places where the patterns are divided. And though
+it may appear, at first sight, that the procedure is indicative of
+bluntness and rudeness of feeling, we may perceive, upon reflection,
+that it may also indicate the redundance of power which sets little
+price upon its own exertion. When a barbarous nation builds its
+fortress-walls out of fragments of the refined architecture it has
+overthrown, we can read nothing but its savageness in the vestiges of
+art which may thus chance to have been preserved; but when the new work
+is equal, if not superior, in execution, to the pieces of the older art
+which are associated with it, we may justly conclude that the rough
+treatment to which the latter have been subjected is rather a sign of
+the hope of doing better things, than of want of feeling for those
+already accomplished. And, in general, this careless fitting of ornament
+is, in very truth, an evidence of life in the school of builders, and of
+their making a due distinction between work which is to be used for
+architectural effect, and work which is to possess an abstract
+perfection; and it commonly shows also that the exertion of design is so
+easy to them, and their fertility so inexhaustible, that they feel no
+remorse in using somewhat injuriously what they can replace with so
+slight an effort.
+
+Sec. XII. It appears however questionable in the present instance,
+whether, if the marbles had not been carved to his hand, the architect
+would have taken the trouble to enrich them. For the execution of the rest
+of the pulpit is studiously simple, and it is in this respect that its
+design possesses, it seems to me, an interest to the religious spectator
+greater than he will take in any other portion of the building. It is
+supported, as I said, on a group of four slender shafts; itself of a
+slightly oval form, extending nearly from one pillar of the nave to the
+next, so as to give the preacher free room for the action of the entire
+person, which always gives an unaffected impressiveness to the
+eloquence of the southern nations. In the centre of its curved front, a
+small bracket and detached shaft sustain the projection of a narrow
+marble desk (occupying the place of a cushion in a modern pulpit), which
+is hollowed out into a shallow curve on the upper surface, leaving a
+ledge at the bottom of the slab, so that a book laid upon it, or rather
+into it, settles itself there, opening as if by instinct, but without
+the least chance of slipping to the side, or in any way moving beneath
+the preacher's hands.[9] Six balls, or rather almonds, of purple marble
+veined with white are set round the edge of the pulpit, and form its
+only decoration. Perfectly graceful, but severe and almost cold in its
+simplicity, built for permanence and service, so that no single member,
+no stone of it, could be spared, and yet all are firm and uninjured as
+when they were first set together, it stands in venerable contrast both
+with the fantastic pulpits of mediaeval cathedrals and with the rich
+furniture of those of our modern churches. It is worth while pausing for
+a moment to consider how far the manner of decorating a pulpit may have
+influence on the efficiency of its service, and whether our modern
+treatment of this, to us all-important, feature of a church be the best
+possible.
+
+Sec. XIII. When the sermon is good we need not much concern ourselves
+about the form of the pulpit. But sermons cannot always be good; and I
+believe that the temper in which the congregation set themselves to
+listen may be in some degree modified by their perception of fitness or
+unfitness, impressiveness or vulgarity, in the disposition of the place
+appointed for the speaker,--not to the same degree, but somewhat in the
+same way, that they may be influenced by his own gestures or expression,
+irrespective of the sense of what he says. I believe, therefore, in the
+first place, that pulpits ought never to be highly decorated; the
+speaker is apt to look mean or diminutive if the pulpit is either on a
+very large scale or covered with splendid ornament, and if the interest
+of the sermon should flag the mind is instantly tempted to wander. I
+have observed that in almost all cathedrals, when the pulpits are
+peculiarly magnificent, sermons are not often preached from them; but
+rather, and especially if for any important purpose, from some temporary
+erection in other parts of the building: and though this may often be
+done because the architect has consulted the effect upon the eye more
+than the convenience of the ear in the placing of his larger pulpit, I
+think it also proceeds in some measure from a natural dislike in the
+preacher to match himself with the magnificence of the rostrum, lest the
+sermon should not be thought worthy of the place. Yet this will rather
+hold of the colossal sculptures, and pyramids of fantastic tracery which
+encumber the pulpits of Flemish and German churches, than of the
+delicate mosaics and ivory-like carving of the Romanesque basilicas, for
+when the form is kept simple, much loveliness of color and costliness of
+work may be introduced, and yet the speaker not be thrown into the shade
+by them.
+
+Sec. XIV. But, in the second place, whatever ornaments we admit ought
+clearly to be of a chaste, grave, and noble kind; and what furniture we
+employ, evidently more for the honoring of God's word than for the ease
+of the preacher. For there are two ways of regarding a sermon, either as
+a human composition, or a Divine message. If we look upon it entirely as
+the first, and require our clergymen to finish it with their utmost care
+and learning, for our better delight whether of ear or intellect, we
+shall necessarily be led to expect much formality and stateliness in its
+delivery, and to think that all is not well if the pulpit have not a
+golden fringe round it, and a goodly cushion in front of it, and if the
+sermon be not fairly written in a black book, to be smoothed upon the
+cushion in a majestic manner before beginning; all this we shall duly
+come to expect: but we shall at the same time consider the treatise thus
+prepared as something to which it is our duty to listen without
+restlessness for half an hour or three quarters, but which, when that
+duty has been decorously performed, we may dismiss from our minds in
+happy confidence of being provided with another when next it shall be
+necessary. But if once we begin to regard the preacher, whatever his
+faults, as a man sent with a message to us, which it is a matter of life
+or death whether we hear or refuse; if we look upon him as set in charge
+over many spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed to him but an
+hour or two in the seven days to speak to them; if we make some endeavor
+to conceive how precious these hours ought to be to him, a small vantage
+on the side of God after his flock have been exposed for six days
+together to the full weight of the world's temptation, and he has been
+forced to watch the thorn and the thistle springing in their hearts, and
+to see what wheat had been scattered there snatched from the wayside by
+this wild bird and the other, and at last, when breathless and weary
+with the week's labor they give him this interval of imperfect and
+languid hearing, he has but thirty minutes to get at the separate hearts
+of a thousand men, to convince them of all their weaknesses, to shame
+them for all their sins, to warn them of all their dangers, to try by
+this way and that to stir the hard fastenings of those doors where the
+Master himself has stood and knocked yet none opened, and to call at the
+openings of those dark streets where Wisdom herself hath stretched forth
+her hands and no man regarded,--thirty minutes to raise the dead
+in,--let us but once understand and feel this, and we shall look with
+changed eyes upon that frippery of gay furniture about the place from
+which the message of judgment must be delivered, which either breathes
+upon the dry bones that they may live, or, if ineffectual, remains
+recorded in condemnation, perhaps against the utterer and listener
+alike, but assuredly against one of them. We shall not so easily bear
+with the silk and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of
+oratory in the mouth of the messenger: we shall wish that his words may
+be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the place from which he
+speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people have
+gathered in their thirst.
+
+Sec. XV. But the severity which is so marked in the pulpit at Torcello
+is still more striking in the raised seats and episcopal throne which
+occupy the curve of the apse. The arrangement at first somewhat recalls
+to the mind that of the Roman amphitheatres; the flight of steps which
+lead up to the central throne divides the curve of the continuous steps
+or seats (it appears in the first three ranges questionable which were
+intended, for they seem too high for the one, and too low and close for
+the other), exactly as in an amphitheatre the stairs for access
+intersect the sweeping ranges of seats. But in the very rudeness of this
+arrangement, and especially in the want of all appliances of comfort
+(for the whole is of marble, and the arms of the central throne are not
+for convenience, but for distinction, and to separate it more
+conspicuously from the undivided seats), there is a dignity which no
+furniture of stalls nor carving of canopies ever could attain, and well
+worth the contemplation of the Protestant, both as sternly significative
+of an episcopal authority which in the early days of the Church was
+never disputed, and as dependent for all its impressiveness on the utter
+absence of any expression either of pride or self-indulgence.
+
+Sec. XVI. But there is one more circumstance which we ought to remember as
+giving peculiar significance to the position which the episcopal throne
+occupies in this island church, namely, that in the minds of all early
+Christians the Church itself was most frequently symbolized under the
+image of a ship, of which the bishop was the pilot. Consider the force
+which this symbol would assume in the imaginations of men to whom the
+spiritual Church had become an ark of refuge in the midst of a
+destruction hardly less terrible than that from which the eight souls
+were saved of old, a destruction in which the wrath of man had become as
+broad as the earth and as merciless as the sea, and who saw the actual
+and literal edifice of the Church raised up, itself like an ark in the
+midst of the waters. No marvel if with the surf of the Adriatic rolling
+between them and the shores of their birth, from which they were
+separated for ever, they should have looked upon each other as the
+disciples did when the storm came down on the Tiberias Lake, and have
+yielded ready and loving obedience to those who ruled them in His name,
+who had there rebuked the winds and commanded stillness to the sea. And
+if the stranger would yet learn in what spirit it was that the dominion
+of Venice was begun, and in what strength she went forth conquering and
+to conquer, let him not seek to estimate the wealth of her arsenals or
+number of her armies, nor look upon the pageantry of her palaces, nor
+enter into the secrets of her councils; but let him ascend the highest
+tier of the stern ledges that sweep round the altar of Torcello, and
+then, looking as the pilot did of old along the marble ribs of the
+goodly temple ship, let him repeople its veined deck with the shadows of
+its dead mariners, and strive to feel in himself the strength of heart
+that was kindled within them, when first, after the pillars of it had
+settled in the sand, and the roof of it had been closed against the
+angry sky that was still reddened by the fires of their
+homesteads,--first, within the shelter of its knitted walls, amidst the
+murmur of the waste of waves and the beating of the wings of the
+sea-birds round the rock that was strange to them,--rose that ancient
+hymn, in the power of their gathered voices:
+
+  THE SEA IS HIS, AND HE MADE IT:
+  AND HIS HANDS PREPARED THE DRY LAND.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [4] Appendix 4, "Date of the Duomo of Torcello."
+
+  [5] For a full account of the form and symbolical meaning of the
+    Basilica, see Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art," vol. i. p. 12. It is
+    much to be regretted that the Chevalier Bunsen's work on the
+    Basilicas of Rome is not translated into English.
+
+  [6] The measures are given in Appendix 3.
+
+  [7] Hope's "Historical Essay on Architecture" (third edition, 1840),
+    chap. ix. p. 95. In other respects Mr. Hope has done justice to this
+    building, and to the style of the early Christian churches in
+    general.
+
+  [8] A sketch has been given of this capital in my folio work.
+
+  [9] Appendix 5, "Modern Pulpits."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MURANO.
+
+
+Sec. I. The decay of the city of Venice is, in many respects, like that
+of an outwearied and aged human frame; the cause of its decrepitude is
+indeed at the heart, but the outward appearances of it are first at the
+extremities. In the centre of the city there are still places where some
+evidence of vitality remains, and where, with kind closing of the eyes
+to signs, too manifest even there, of distress and declining fortune,
+the stranger may succeed in imagining, for a little while, what must
+have been the aspect of Venice in her prime. But this lingering
+pulsation has not force enough any more to penetrate into the suburbs
+and outskirts of the city; the frost of death has there seized upon it
+irrevocably, and the grasp of mortal disease is marked daily by the
+increasing breadth of its belt of ruin. Nowhere is this seen more
+grievously than along the great north-eastern boundary, once occupied by
+the smaller palaces of the Venetians, built for pleasure or repose; the
+nobler piles along the grand canal being reserved for the pomp and
+business of daily life. To such smaller palaces some garden ground was
+commonly attached, opening to the water-side; and, in front of these
+villas and gardens, the lagoon was wont to be covered in the evening by
+gondolas: the space of it between this part of the city and the island
+group of Murano being to Venice, in her time of power, what its parks
+are to London; only gondolas were used instead of carriages, and the
+crowd of the population did not come out till towards sunset, and
+prolonged their pleasures far into the night, company answering to
+company with alternate singing.
+
+Sec. II. If, knowing this custom of the Venetians, and with a vision in
+his mind of summer palaces lining the shore, and myrtle gardens sloping
+to the sea, the traveller now seeks this suburb of Venice, he will be
+strangely and sadly surprised to find a new but perfectly desolate quay,
+about a mile in length, extending from the arsenal to the Sacca della
+Misericordia, in front of a line of miserable houses built in the course
+of the last sixty or eighty years, yet already tottering to their ruin;
+and not less to find that the principal object in the view which these
+houses (built partly in front and partly on the ruins of the ancient
+palaces) now command is a dead brick wall, about a quarter of a mile
+across the water, interrupted only by a kind of white lodge, the
+cheerfulness of which prospect is not enhanced by his finding that this
+wall encloses the principal public cemetery of Venice. He may, perhaps,
+marvel for a few moments at the singular taste of the old Venetians in
+taking their pleasure under a churchyard wall: but, on further inquiry,
+he will find that the building on the island, like those on the shore,
+is recent, that it stands on the ruins of the Church of St. Cristoforo
+della Pace; and that with a singular, because unintended, moral, the
+modern Venetians have replaced the Peace of the Christ-bearer by the
+Peace of Death, and where they once went, as the sun set daily, to their
+pleasure, now go, as the sun sets to each of them for ever, to their
+graves.
+
+Sec. III. Yet the power of Nature cannot be shortened by the folly, nor
+her beauty altogether saddened by the misery, of man. The broad tides
+still ebb and flow brightly about the island of the dead, and the linked
+conclave of the Alps know no decline from their old pre-eminence, nor
+stoop from their golden thrones in the circle of the horizon. So lovely
+is the scene still, in spite of all its injuries, that we shall find
+ourselves drawn there again and again at evening out of the narrow
+canals and streets of the city, to watch the wreaths of the sea-mists
+weaving themselves like mourning veils around the mountains far away,
+and listen to the green waves as they fret and sigh along the cemetery
+shore.
+
+Sec. IV. But it is morning now: we have a hard day's work to do at Murano,
+and our boat shoots swiftly from beneath the last bridge of Venice, and
+brings us out into the open sea and sky.
+
+The pure cumuli of cloud lie crowded and leaning against one another,
+rank beyond rank, far over the shining water, each cut away at its
+foundation by a level line, trenchant and clear, till they sink to the
+horizon like a flight of marble steps, except where the mountains meet
+them, and are lost in them, barred across by the grey terraces of those
+cloud foundations, and reduced into one crestless bank of blue, spotted
+here and there with strange flakes of wan, aerial, greenish light,
+strewed upon them like snow. And underneath is the long dark line of the
+mainland, fringed with low trees; and then the wide-waving surface of
+the burnished lagoon trembling slowly, and shaking out into forked bands
+of lengthening light the images of the towers of cloud above. To the
+north, there is first the great cemetery wall, then the long stray
+buildings of Murano, and the island villages beyond, glittering in
+intense crystalline vermilion, like so much jewellery scattered on a
+mirror, their towers poised apparently in the air a little above the
+horizon, and their reflections, as sharp and vivid and substantial as
+themselves, thrown on the vacancy between them and the sea. And thus the
+villages seem standing on the air; and, to the east, there is a cluster
+of ships that seem sailing on the land; for the sandy line of the Lido
+stretches itself between us and them, and we can see the tall white
+sails moving beyond it, but not the sea, only there is a sense of the
+great sea being indeed there, and a solemn strength of gleaming light in
+sky above.
+
+Sec. V. The most discordant feature in the whole scene is the cloud which
+hovers above the glass furnaces of Murano; but this we may not regret,
+as it is one of the last signs left of human exertion among the ruinous
+villages which surround us. The silent gliding of the gondola brings it
+nearer to us every moment; we pass the cemetery, and a deep sea-channel
+which separates it from Murano, and finally enter a narrow water-street,
+with a paved footpath on each side, raised three or four feet above the
+canal, and forming a kind of quay between the water and the doors of the
+houses. These latter are, for the most part, low, but built with massy
+doors and windows of marble or Istrian stone, square-set and barred with
+iron; buildings evidently once of no mean order, though now inhabited
+only by the poor. Here and there an ogee window of the fourteenth
+century, or a doorway deeply enriched with cable mouldings, shows itself
+in the midst of more ordinary features; and several houses, consisting
+of one story only carried on square pillars, forming a short arcade
+along the quay, have windows sustained on shafts of red Verona marble,
+of singular grace and delicacy. All now in vain: little care is there
+for their delicacy or grace among the rough fishermen sauntering on the
+quay with their jackets hanging loose from their shoulders, jacket and
+cap and hair all of the same dark-greenish sea-grey. But there is some
+life in the scene, more than is usual in Venice: the women are sitting
+at their doors knitting busily, and various workmen of the glass-houses
+sifting glass dust upon the pavement, and strange cries coming from one
+side of the canal to the other, and ringing far along the crowded water,
+from venders of figs and grapes, and gourds and shell-fish; cries partly
+descriptive of the eatables in question, but interspersed with others of
+a character unintelligible in proportion to their violence, and
+fortunately so if we may judge by a sentence which is stencilled in
+black, within a garland, on the whitewashed walls of nearly every other
+house in the street, but which, how often soever written, no one seems
+to regard: "Bestemme non piu. Lodate Gesu."
+
+Sec. VI. We push our way on between large barges laden with fresh water
+from Fusina, in round white tubs seven feet across, and complicated
+boats full of all manner of nets that look as if they could never be
+disentangled, hanging from their masts and over their sides; and
+presently pass under a bridge with the lion of St. Mark on its
+archivolt, and another on a pillar at the end of the parapet, a small
+red lion with much of the puppy in his face, looking vacantly up into
+the air (in passing we may note that, instead of feathers, his wings are
+covered with hair, and in several other points the manner of his
+sculpture is not uninteresting). Presently the canal turns a little to
+the left, and thereupon becomes more quiet, the main bustle of the
+water-street being usually confined to the first straight reach of it,
+some quarter of a mile long, the Cheapside of Murano. We pass a
+considerable church on the left, St. Pietro, and a little square
+opposite to it with a few acacia trees, and then find our boat suddenly
+seized by a strong green eddy, and whirled into the tide-way of one of
+the main channels of the lagoon, which divides the town of Murano into
+two parts by a deep stream some fifty yards over, crossed only by one
+wooden bridge. We let ourselves drift some way down the current, looking
+at the low line of cottages on the other side of it, hardly knowing if
+there be more cheerfulness or melancholy in the way the sunshine glows
+on their ruinous but whitewashed walls, and sparkles on the rushing of
+the green water by the grass-grown quay. It needs a strong stroke of the
+oar to bring us into the mouth of another quiet canal on the farther
+side of the tide-way, and we are still somewhat giddy when we run the
+head of the gondola into the sand on the left-hand side of this more
+sluggish stream, and land under the east end of the Church of San
+Donato, the "Matrice" or "Mother" Church of Murano.
+
+Sec. VII. It stands, it and the heavy campanile detached from it a few
+yards, in a small triangular field of somewhat fresher grass than is
+usual near Venice, traversed by a paved walk with green mosaic of short
+grass between the rude squares of its stones, bounded on one side by
+ruinous garden walls, on another by a line of low cottages, on the
+third, the base of the triangle, by the shallow canal from which we have
+just landed. Near the point of the triangular space is a simple well,
+bearing date 1502; in its widest part, between the canal and campanile,
+is a four-square hollow pillar, each side formed by a separate slab of
+stone, to which the iron hasps are still attached that once secured the
+Venetian standard.
+
+The cathedral itself occupies the northern angle of the field,
+encumbered with modern buildings, small outhouse-like chapels, and
+wastes of white wall with blank square windows, and itself utterly
+defaced in the whole body of it, nothing but the apse having been
+spared; the original plan is only discoverable by careful examination,
+and even then but partially. The whole impression and effect of the
+building are irretrievably lost, but the fragments of it are still most
+precious.
+
+We must first briefly state what is known of its history.
+
+Sec. VIII. The legends of the Romish Church, though generally more insipid
+and less varied than those of Paganism, deserve audience from us on this
+ground, if on no other, that they have once been sincerely believed by
+good men, and have had no ineffective agency in the foundation of the
+existent European mind. The reader must not therefore accuse me of
+trifling, when I record for him the first piece of information I have
+been able to collect respecting the cathedral of Murano: namely, that
+the emperor Otho the Great, being overtaken by a storm on the Adriatic,
+vowed, if he were preserved, to build and dedicate a church to the
+Virgin, in whatever place might be most pleasing to her; that the storm
+thereupon abated; and the Virgin appearing to Otho in a dream showed
+him, covered with red lilies, that very triangular field on which we
+were but now standing, amidst the ragged weeds and shattered pavement.
+The emperor obeyed the vision; and the church was consecrated on the
+15th of August, 957.
+
+Sec. IX. Whatever degree of credence we may feel disposed to attach to
+this piece of history, there is no question that a church was built on
+this spot before the close of the tenth century: since in the year 999
+we find the incumbent of the Basilica (note this word, it is of some
+importance) di Santa Maria Plebania di Murano taking an oath of
+obedience to the Bishop of the Altinat church, and engaging at the same
+time to give the said bishop his dinner on the Domenica in Albis, when
+the prelate held a confirmation in the mother church, as it was then
+commonly called, of Murano. From this period, for more than a century, I
+can find no records of any alterations made in the fabric of the church,
+but there exist very full details of the quarrels which arose between
+its incumbents and those of San Stefano, San Cipriano, San Salvatore,
+and the other churches of Murano, touching the due obedience which their
+less numerous or less ancient brotherhoods owed to St. Mary's.
+
+These differences seem to have been renewed at the election of every new
+abbot by each of the fraternities, and must have been growing serious
+when the patriarch of Grado, Henry Dandolo, interfered in 1102, and, in
+order to seal a peace between the two principal opponents, ordered that
+the abbot of St. Stephen's should be present at the service in St.
+Mary's on the night of the Epiphany, and that the abbot of St. Mary's
+should visit him of St. Stephen's on St. Stephen's day; and that then
+the two abbots "should eat apples and drink good wine together, in peace
+and charity."[10]
+
+Sec. X. But even this kindly effort seems to have been without result: the
+irritated pride of the antagonists remained unsoothed by the love-feast
+of St. Stephen's day; and the breach continued to widen until the abbot
+of St. Mary's obtained a timely accession to his authority in the year
+1125. The Doge Domenico Michele, having in the second crusade secured
+such substantial advantages for the Venetians as might well
+counterbalance the loss of part of their trade with the East, crowned
+his successes by obtaining possession in Cephalonia of the body of St.
+Donato, bishop of Euroea; which treasure he having presented on his
+return to the Murano basilica, that church was thenceforward called the
+church of Sts. Mary and Donato. Nor was the body of the saint its only
+acquisition: St. Donato's principal achievement had been the destruction
+of a terrible dragon in Epirus; Michele brought home the bones of the
+dragon as well as of the saint; the latter were put in a marble
+sarcophagus, and the former hung up over the high altar.
+
+Sec. XI. But the clergy of St. Stefano were indomitable. At the very
+moment when their adversaries had received this formidable accession of
+strength, they had the audacity "ad onta de' replicati giuramenti, e
+dell'inveterata consuetudine,"[11] to refuse to continue in the
+obedience which they had vowed to their mother church. The matter was
+tried in a provincial council; the votaries of St. Stephen were
+condemned, and remained quiet for about twenty years, in wholesome dread
+of the authority conferred on the abbot of St. Donate, by the Pope's
+legate, to suspend any o the clergy of the island from their office if
+they refused submission. In 1172, however, they appealed to Pope
+Alexander III, and were condemned again: and we find the struggle
+renewed at every promising opportunity, during the course of the 12th
+and 13th centuries; until at last, finding St. Donate and the dragon
+together too strong for him, the abbot of St. Stefano "discovered" in
+his church the bodies of two hundred martyrs at once!--a discovery, it
+is to be remembered, in some sort equivalent in those days to that of
+California in ours. The inscription, however, on the facade of the
+church, recorded it with quiet dignity:--"MCCCLXXIV. a di XIV. di
+Aprile. Furono trovati nella presente chiesa del protomartire San
+Stefano, duecento e piu corpi de' Santi Martiri, dal Ven. Prete Matteo
+Fradello, piovano della chiesa."[12] Corner, who gives this inscription,
+which no longer exists, goes on to explain with infinite gravity, that
+the bodies in question, "being of infantile form and stature, are
+reported by tradition to have belonged to those fortunate innocents who
+suffered martyrdom under King Herod; but that when, or by whom, the
+church was enriched with so vast a treasure, is not manifested by any
+document."[13]
+
+Sec. XII. The issue of the struggle is not to our present purpose. We have
+already arrived at the fourteenth century without finding record of any
+effort made by the clergy of St. Mary's to maintain their influence by
+restoring or beautifying their basilica; which is the only point at
+present of importance to us. That great alterations were made in it at
+the time of the acquisition of the body of St. Donato is however highly
+probable, the mosaic pavement of the interior, which bears its date
+inscribed, 1140, being probably the last of the additions. I believe
+that no part of the ancient church can be shown to be of more recent
+date than this; and I shall not occupy the reader's time by any inquiry
+respecting the epochs or authors of the destructive modern restorations;
+the wreck of the old fabric, breaking out beneath them here and there,
+is generally distinguishable from them at a glance; and it is enough for
+the reader to know that none of these truly ancient fragments can be
+assigned to a more recent date than 1140, and that some of them may with
+probability be looked upon as remains of the shell of the first church,
+erected in the course of the latter half of the tenth century. We shall
+perhaps obtain some further reason for this belief as we examine these
+remains themselves.
+
+Sec. XIII. Of the body of the church, unhappily, they are few and obscure;
+but the general form and extent of the building, as shown in the plan,
+Plate I. fig. 2, are determined, first, by the breadth of the uninjured
+east end D E; secondly, by some remains of the original brickwork of the
+clerestory, and in all probability of the side walls also, though these
+have been refaced; and finally by the series of nave shafts, which are
+still perfect. The doors A and B may or may not be in their original
+positions; there must of course have been always, as now, a principal
+entrance at the west end. The ground plan is composed, like that of
+Torcello, of nave and aisles only, but the clerestory has transepts
+extending as far as the outer wall of the aisles. The semicircular apse,
+thrown out in the centre of the east end, is now the chief feature of
+interest in the church, though the nave shafts and the eastern
+extremities of the aisles, outside, are also portions of the original
+building; the latter having been modernized in the interior, it cannot
+now be ascertained whether, as is probable, the aisles had once round
+ends as well as the choir. The spaces F G form small chapels, of which G
+has a straight terminal wall behind its altar, and F a curved one,
+marked by the dotted line; the partitions which divide these chapels
+from the presbytery are also indicated by dotted lines, being modern
+work.
+
+Sec. XIV. The plan is drawn carefully to scale, but the relation in which
+its proportions are disposed can hardly be appreciated by the eye. The
+width of the nave from shaft to opposite shaft is 32 feet 8 inches: of
+the aisles, from the shaft to the wall, 16 feet 2 inches, or allowing 2
+inches for the thickness of the modern wainscot, 16 feet 4 inches, half
+the breadth of the nave exactly. The intervals between the shafts are
+exactly one fourth of the width of the nave, or 8 feet 2 inches, and the
+distance between the great piers which form the pseudo-transept is 24
+feet 6 inches, exactly three times the interval of the shafts. So the
+four distances are accurately in arithmetical proportion; i.e.
+
+                                  Ft. In.
+  Interval of shafts               8   2
+  Width of aisle                  16   4
+  Width of transept               24   6
+  Width of nave                   32   8
+
+The shafts average 5 feet 4 inches in circumference, as near the base as
+they can be got at, being covered with wood; and the broadest sides of
+the main piers are 4 feet 7 inches wide, their narrowest sides 3 feet 6
+inches. The distance _a c_ from the outmost angle of these piers to the
+beginning of the curve of the apse is 25 feet, and from that point the
+apse is nearly semicircular, but it is so encumbered with renaissance
+fittings that its form cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy. It
+is roofed by a concha, or semi-dome; and the external arrangement of its
+walls provides for the security of this dome by what is, in fact, a
+system of buttresses as effective and definite as that of any of the
+northern churches, although the buttresses are obtained entirely by
+adaptations of the Roman shaft and arch, the lower story being formed by
+a thick mass of wall lightened by ordinary semicircular round-headed
+niches, like those used so extensively afterwards in renaissance
+architecture, each niche flanked by a pair of shafts standing clear of
+the wall, and bearing deeply moulded arches thrown over the niche. The
+wall with its pillars thus forms a series of massy buttresses (as seen
+in the ground plan), on the top of which is an open gallery, backed by a
+thinner wall, and roofed by arches whose shafts are set above the pairs
+of shafts below. On the heads of these arches rests the roof. We have,
+therefore, externally a heptagonal apse, chiefly of rough and common
+brick, only with marble shafts and a few marble ornaments; but for that
+very reason all the more interesting, because it shows us what may be
+done, and what was done, with materials such as are now at our own
+command; and because in its proportions, and in the use of the few
+ornaments it possesses, it displays a delicacy of feeling rendered
+doubly notable by the roughness of the work in which laws so subtle are
+observed, and with which so thoughtful ornamentation is associated.
+
+Sec. XV. First, for its proportions: I shall have occasion in Chapter V.
+to dwell at some length on the peculiar subtlety of the early Venetian
+perception for ratios of magnitude; the relations of the sides of this
+heptagonal apse supply one of the first and most curious instances of
+it. The proportions above given of the nave and aisles might have been
+dictated by a mere love of mathematical precision; but those of the apse
+could only have resulted from a true love of harmony.
+
+In fig. 6, Plate I. the plan of this part of the church is given on a
+large scale, showing that its seven external sides are arranged on a
+line less than a semicircle, so that if the figure were completed, it
+would have sixteen sides; and it will be observed also, that the seven
+sides are arranged in four magnitudes, the widest being the central one.
+The brickwork is so much worn away, that the measures of the arches are
+not easily ascertainable, but those of the plinth on which they stand,
+which is nearly uninjured, may be obtained accurately. This plinth is
+indicated by the open line in the ground plan, and its sides measure
+respectively:
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  1st. _a b_ in plan               6    7
+  2nd. _b c_                       7    7
+  3rd. _c d_                       7    5
+  4th. _d e_ (central)             7   10
+  5th. _e f_                       7    5
+  6th  _f g_                       7    8
+  7th. _g h_                       6   10
+
+Sec. XVI. Now observe what subtle feeling is indicated by this delicacy
+of proportion. How fine must the perceptions of grace have been in those
+builders who could not be content without _some_ change between the
+second and third, the fifth and sixth terms of proportion, such as
+should oppose the general direction of its cadence, and yet _were_
+content with a diminution of two inches on a breadth of seven feet and a
+half! For I do not suppose that the reader will think the curious
+lessening of the third and fifth arch a matter of accident, and even if
+he did so, I shall be able to prove to him hereafter that it was not,
+but that the early builders were always desirous of obtaining some
+alternate proportion of this kind. The relations of the numbers are not
+easily comprehended in the form of feet and inches, but if we reduce the
+first four of them into inches, and then subtract some constant number,
+suppose 75, from them all, the remainders 4, 16, 14, 19, will exhibit
+the ratio of proportion in a clearer, though exaggerated form.
+
+Sec. XVII. The pairs of circular spots at _b_, _c_, _d_, etc., on the
+ground plan fig. 6, represent the bearing shafts, which are all of solid
+marble as well as their capitals. Their measures and various other
+particulars respecting them are given in Appendix 6. "Apse of Murano;"
+here I only wish the reader to note the coloring of their capitals.
+Those of the two single shafts in the angles (_a_, _h_) are both of deep
+purple marble; the two next pairs, _b_ and _g_, are of white marble; the
+pairs _c_ and _f_ are of purple, and _d_ and _e_ are of white: thus
+alternating with each other on each side; two white meeting in the
+centre. Now observe, _the purple capitals are all left plain; the white
+are all sculptured_. For the old builders knew that by carving the
+purple capitals they would have injured them in two ways: first, they
+would have mixed a certain quantity of grey shadow with the surface hue,
+and so adulterated the purity of the color; secondly, they would have
+drawn away the thoughts from the color, and prevented the mind from
+fixing upon it or enjoying it, by the degree of attention which the
+sculpture would have required. So they left their purple capitals full
+broad masses of color; and sculptured the white ones, which would
+otherwise have been devoid of interest.
+
+Sec. XVIII. But the feature which is most to be noted in this apse is a
+band of ornament, which runs round it like a silver girdle, composed of
+sharp wedges of marble, preciously inlaid, and set like jewels into the
+brickwork; above it there is another band of triangular recesses in the
+bricks, of nearly similar shape, and it seems equally strange that all
+the marbles should have fallen from it, or that it should have been
+originally destitute of them. The reader may choose his hypothesis; but
+there is quite enough left to interest us in the lower band, which is
+fortunately left in its original state, as is sufficiently proved by the
+curious niceties in the arrangement of its colors, which are assuredly
+to be attributed to the care of the first builder. A word or two, in the
+first place, respecting the means of color at his disposal.
+
+Sec. XIX. I stated that the building was, for the most part, composed of
+yellow brick. This yellow is very nearly pure, much more positive and
+somewhat darker than that of our English light brick, and the material
+of the brick is very good and hard, looking, in places, almost
+vitrified, and so compact as to resemble stone. Together with this brick
+occurs another of a deep full red, and more porous substance, which is
+used for decoration chiefly, while all the parts requiring strength are
+composed of the yellow brick. Both these materials are _cast into any
+shape and size_ the builder required, either into curved pieces for the
+arches, or flat tiles for filling the triangles; and, what is still more
+curious, the thickness of the yellow bricks used for the walls varies
+considerably, from two inches to four; and their length also, some of
+the larger pieces used in important positions being a foot and a half
+long.
+
+With these two kinds of brick, the builder employed five or six kinds of
+marble: pure white, and white veined with purple; a brecciated marble of
+white and black; a brecciated marble of white and deep green; another,
+deep red, or nearly of the color of Egyptian porphyry; and a grey and
+black marble, in fine layers.
+
+Sec. XX. The method of employing these materials will be understood at
+once by a reference to the opposite plate (Plate III.), which represents
+two portions of the lower band. I could not succeed in expressing the
+variation and chequering of color in marble, by real tints in the print;
+and have been content, therefore, to give them in line engraving. The
+different triangles are, altogether, of ten kinds:
+
+  a. Pure white marble with sculptured surface (as the third and fifth
+       in the upper series of Plate III.).
+
+  b. Cast triangle of red brick with a sculptured round-headed piece of
+       white marble inlaid (as the first and seventh of the upper
+       series, Plate III.).
+
+  c. A plain triangle of greenish black marble, now perhaps
+       considerably paler in color than when first employed (as the
+       second and sixth of the upper series of Plate III.).
+
+  d. Cast red brick triangle, with a diamond inlaid of the
+       above-mentioned black marble (as the fourth in the upper series
+       of Plate III.).
+
+  e. Cast white brick, with an inlaid round-headed piece of marble,
+       variegated with black and yellow, or white and violet (not seen
+       in the plate).
+
+  f. Occurs only once, a green-veined marble, forming the upper part of
+       the triangle, with a white piece below.
+
+  g. Occurs only once. A brecciated marble of intense black and pure
+       white, the centre of the lower range in Plate III.
+
+  h. Sculptured white marble with a triangle of veined purple marble
+       inserted (as the first, third, fifth, and seventh of the lower
+       range in Plate III.).
+
+  i. Yellow or white marble veined with purple (as the second and sixth
+       of the lower range in Plate III.).
+
+  k. Pure purple marble, not seen in this plate.
+
+[Illustration: Plate III.
+               INLAID BANDS OF MURANO.]
+
+Sec. XXI. The band, then, composed of these triangles, set close to each
+other in varied but not irregular relations, is thrown, like a necklace
+of precious stones, round the apse and along the ends of the aisles;
+each side of the apse taking, of course, as many triangles as its width
+permits. If the reader will look back to the measures of the sides of
+the apse, given before, p. 42, he will see that the first and seventh of
+the series, being much narrower than the rest, cannot take so many
+triangles in their band. Accordingly, they have only six each, while the
+other five sides have seven. Of these groups of seven triangles each,
+that used for the third and fifth sides of the apse is the uppermost in
+Plate III.; and that used for the centre of the apse, and of the whole
+series, is the lowermost in the same plate; _the piece of black and
+white marble being used to emphasize the centre of the chain_, exactly
+as a painter would use a dark touch for a similar purpose.
+
+Sec. XXII. And now, with a little trouble, we can set before the reader,
+at a glance, the arrangement of the groups along the entire extremity of
+the church.
+
+There are thirteen recesses, indicative of thirteen arches, seen in the
+ground plan, fig. 2, Plate I. Of these, the second and twelfth arches
+rise higher than the rest; so high as to break the decorated band; and
+the groups of triangles we have to enumerate are, therefore, only eleven
+in number; one above each of the eleven low arches. And of these eleven,
+the first and second, tenth and eleventh, are at the ends of the aisles;
+while the third to the ninth, inclusive, go round the apse. Thus, in the
+following table, the numerals indicate the place of each entire group
+(counting from the south to the north side of the church, or from left
+to right), and the letters indicate the species of triangle of which it
+is composed, as described in the list given above.
+
+                        6. h. i. h. g. h. i. h.
+         5. b. c. a. d. a. c. b.       7. b. c. a. d. a. c. b.
+      4. b. a. b. c. a. e. a.             8. a. e. a. c. b. a. b.
+    3. b. a. b. e. b. a.                       9. a. b. e. b. a. b.
+  2. a. b. c.                                     10. a. b. c. b.
+  1. a. b. c. b. a.                               11. b. a. c. f. a. a.
+
+The central group is put first, that it may be seen how the series on
+the two sides of the apse answer each other. It was a very curious freak
+to insert the triangle e, in the outermost place _but one_ of both the
+fourth and eighth sides of the apse, and in the outermost _but two_ in
+the third and ninth; in neither case having any balance to it in its own
+group, and the real balance being only effected on the other side of the
+apse, which it is impossible that any one should see at the same time.
+This is one of the curious pieces of system which so often occur in
+mediaeval work, of which the key is now lost. The groups at the ends of
+the transepts correspond neither in number nor arrangement; we shall
+presently see why, but must first examine more closely the treatment of
+the triangles themselves, and the nature of the floral sculpture
+employed upon them.
+
+[Illustration: Plate IV.
+               SCULPTURES OF MURANO.]
+
+Sec. XXIII. As the scale of Plate III. is necessarily small, I have
+given three of the sculptured triangles on a larger scale in Plate IV.
+opposite. Fig. 3 is one of the four in the lower series of Plate IV.,
+and figs. 4 and 5 from another group. The forms of the trefoils are here
+seen more clearly; they, and all the other portions of the design, are
+thrown out in low and flat relief, the intermediate spaces being cut out
+to the depth of about a quarter of an inch. I believe these vacant
+spaces were originally filled with a black composition, which is used in
+similar sculptures at St. Mark's, and of which I found some remains in
+an archivolt moulding here, though not in the triangles. The surface of
+the whole would then be perfectly smooth, and the ornamental form
+relieved by a ground of dark grey; but, even though this ground is lost,
+the simplicity of the method insures the visibility of all its parts at
+the necessary distance (17 or 18 feet), and the quaint trefoils have a
+crispness and freshness of effect which I found it almost impossible to
+render in a drawing. Nor let us fail to note in passing how strangely
+delightful to the human mind the trefoil always is. We have it here
+repeated five or six hundred times in the space of a few yards, and yet
+are never weary of it. In fact, there are two mystical feelings at the
+root of our enjoyment of this decoration: the one is the love of
+trinity in unity, the other that of the sense of fulness with order; of
+every place being instantly filled, and yet filled with propriety and
+ease; the leaves do not push each other, nor put themselves out of their
+own way, and yet whenever there is a vacant space, a leaf is always
+ready to step in and occupy it.
+
+Sec. XXIV. I said the trefoil was five or six hundred times repeated. It
+is so, but observe, it is hardly ever twice of the same size; and this
+law is studiously and resolutely observed. In the carvings _a_ and _b_ of
+the upper series, Plate III., the diminution of the leaves might indeed
+seem merely representative of the growth of the plant. But look at the
+lower: the triangles of inlaid purple marble are made much more nearly
+equilateral than those of white marble, into whose centres they are set,
+so that the leaves may continually diminish in size as the ornament
+descends at the sides. The reader may perhaps doubt the accuracy of the
+drawing on the smaller scale, but in that given larger, fig. 3, Plate
+IV., the angles are all measured, and the _purposeful_ variation of
+width in the border therefore admits of no dispute.[14] Remember how
+absolutely this principle is that of nature; the same leaf continually
+repeated, but never twice of the same size. Look at the clover under
+your feet, and then you will see what this Murano builder meant, and
+that he was not altogether a barbarian.
+
+Sec. XXV. Another point I wish the reader to observe is, the importance
+attached to _color_ in the mind of the designer. Note especially--for it
+is of the highest importance to see how the great principles of art are
+carried out through the whole building--that, as only the white capitals
+are sculptured below, only the white triangles are sculptured above. No
+colored triangle is touched with sculpture; note also, that in the two
+principal groups of the apse, given in Plate III., the centre of the
+group is color, not sculpture, and the eye is evidently intended to be
+drawn as much to the chequers of the stone, as to the intricacies of the
+chiselling. It will be noticed also how much more precious the lower
+series, which is central in the apse, is rendered, than the one above it
+in the plate, which flanks it: there is no brick in the lower one, and
+three kinds of variegated marble are used in it, whereas the upper is
+composed of brick, with black and white marble only; and lastly--for
+this is especially delightful--see how the workman made his chiselling
+finer where it was to go with the variegated marbles, and used a bolder
+pattern with the coarser brick and dark stone. The subtlety and
+perfection of artistical feeling in all this are so redundant, that in
+the building itself the eye can rest upon this colored chain with the
+same kind of delight that it has in a piece of the embroidery of Paul
+Veronese.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. II.]
+
+Sec. XXVI. Such being the construction of the lower band, that of the
+upper is remarkable only for the curious change in its proportions. The
+two are separated, as seen in the little woodcut here at the side, by
+a string-course composed of two layers of red bricks, of which the
+uppermost projects as a cornice, and is sustained by an intermediate
+course of irregular brackets, obtained by setting the thick yellow
+bricks edgeways, in the manner common to this day. But the wall above is
+carried up perpendicularly from this projection, so that the whole upper
+band is advanced to the thickness of a brick over the lower one. The
+result of this is, of course, that each side of the apse is four or five
+inches broader above than below; so that the same number of triangles
+which filled a whole side of the lower band, leave an inch or two blank
+at each angle in the upper. This would have looked awkward, if there had
+been the least appearance of its being an accidental error; so that, in
+order to draw the eye to it, and show that it is done on purpose, the
+upper triangles are made about two inches higher than the lower ones, so
+as to be much more acute in proportion and effect, and actually to
+look considerably narrower, though of the same width at the base. By
+this means they are made lighter in effect, and subordinated to the
+richly decorated series of the lower band, and the two courses, instead
+of repeating, unite with each other, and become a harmonious whole.
+
+[Illustration: Plate V.
+               Archivolt in the Duomo of Murano.]
+
+In order, however, to make still more sure that this difference in the
+height of the triangles should not escape the eye, another course of
+plain bricks is added above their points, increasing the width of the
+band by another two inches. There are five courses of bricks in the
+lower band, and it measures 1 ft. 6 in. in height: there are seven
+courses in the upper (of which six fall between the triangles), and it
+measures 1 ft. 10 in. in height, except at the extremity of the northern
+aisle, where for some mysterious reason the intermediate cornice is
+sloped upwards so as to reduce the upper triangles to the same height as
+those below. And here, finally, observe how determined the builder was
+that the one series should not be a mere imitation of the other; he
+could not now make them acute by additional height--so he here, and here
+only, _narrowed their bases_, and we have seven of them above, to six
+below.
+
+Sec. XXVII. We come now to the most interesting portion of the whole east
+end, the archivolt at the end of the northern aisle.
+
+It was above stated, that the band of triangles was broken by two higher
+arches at the ends of the aisles. That, however, on the northern side of
+the apse does not entirely interrupt, but lifts it, and thus forms a
+beautiful and curious archivolt, drawn opposite, in Plate V. The upper
+band of triangles cannot rise together with the lower, as it would
+otherwise break the cornice prepared to receive the second story; and
+the curious zigzag with which its triangles die away against the sides
+of the arch, exactly as waves break upon the sand, is one of the most
+curious features in the structure.
+
+It will be also seen that there is a new feature in the treatment of the
+band itself when it turns the arch. Instead of leaving the bricks
+projecting between the sculptured or colored stones, reversed triangles
+of marble are used, inlaid to an equal depth with the others in the
+brickwork, but projecting beyond them so as to produce a sharp dark line
+of zigzag at their junctions. Three of these supplementary stones have
+unhappily fallen out, so that it is now impossible to determine the full
+harmony of color in which they were originally arranged. The central
+one, corresponding to the keystone in a common arch, is, however, most
+fortunately left, with two lateral ones on the right hand, and one on
+the left.
+
+Sec. XXVIII. The keystone, if it may be so called, is of white marble,
+the lateral voussoirs of purple; and these are the only colored stones
+in the whole building which are sculptured; but they are sculptured in a
+way which, more satisfactorily proves that the principle above stated
+was understood by the builders, than if they had been left blank. The
+object, observe, was to make the archivolt as rich as possible; eight of
+the white sculptured marbles were used upon it in juxtaposition. Had the
+purple marbles been left altogether plain, they would have been out of
+harmony with the elaboration of the rest. It became necessary to touch
+them with sculpture as a mere sign of carefulness and finish, but at the
+same time destroying their colored surface as little as possible. _The
+ornament is merely outlined upon them with a fine incision_, as if it
+had been etched out on their surface preparatory to being carved. In two
+of them it is composed merely of three concentric lines, parallel with
+the sides of the triangle; in the third, it is a wreath of beautiful
+design, which I have drawn of larger size in fig. 2, Plate V., that the
+reader may see how completely the surface is left undestroyed by the
+delicate incisions of the chisel, and may compare the method of working
+with that employed on the white stones, two of which are given in that
+plate, figs. 4 and 5. The keystone, of which we have not yet spoken, is
+the only white stone worked with the light incision; its design not
+being capable of the kind of workmanship given to the floral ornaments,
+and requiring either to be carved in complete relief, or left as we see
+it. It is given at fig. 1 of Plate IV. The sun and moon on each side of
+the cross are, as we shall see in the fifth Chapter, constantly employed
+on the keystones of Byzantine arches.
+
+Sec. XXIX. We must not pass without notice the grey and green pieces of
+marble inserted at the flanks of the arch. For, observe, there was a
+difficulty in getting the forms of the triangle into anything like
+reconciliation at this point, and a mediaeval artist always delights in a
+difficulty: instead of concealing it, he boasts of it; and just as we
+saw above that he directed the eye to the difficulty of filling the
+expanded sides of the upper band by elongating his triangles, so here,
+having to put in a piece of stone of awkward shape, he makes that very
+stone the most conspicuous in the whole arch, on both sides, by using in
+one case a dark, cold grey; in the other a vigorous green, opposed to
+the warm red and purple and white of the stones above and beside it. The
+green and white piece on the right is of a marble, as far as I know,
+exceedingly rare. I at first thought the white fragments were inlaid, so
+sharply are they defined upon their ground. They are indeed inlaid, but
+I believe it is by nature; and that the stone is a calcareous breccia of
+great mineralogical interest. The white spots are of singular value in
+giving piquancy to the whole range of more delicate transitional hues
+above. The effect of the whole is, however, generally injured by the
+loss of the three large triangles above. I have no doubt they were
+purple, like those which remain, and that the whole arch was thus one
+zone of white, relieved on a purple ground, encircled by the scarlet
+cornices of brick, and the whole chord of color contrasted by the two
+precious fragments of grey and green at either side.
+
+Sec. XXX. The two pieces of carved stone inserted at each side of the
+arch, as seen at the bottom of Plate V., are of different workmanship from
+the rest; they do not match each other, and form part of the evidence
+which proves that portions of the church had been brought from the
+mainland. One bears an inscription, which, as its antiquity is confirmed
+by the shapelessness of its letters, I was much gratified by not being
+able to read; but M. Lazari, the intelligent author of the latest and best
+Venetian guide, with better skill, has given as much of it as remains,
+thus:
+
+[Illustration: T    SCEMARIEDIGENETRICISETBEATIESTEFANIMART
+               IRIEGOINDIGNVSETPECCATURDOMENICUST]
+
+I have printed the letters as they are placed in the inscription, in
+order that the reader may form some idea of the difficulty of reading
+such legends when the letters, thus thrown into one heap, are themselves
+of strange forms, and half worn away; any gaps which at all occur
+between them coming in the wrong places. There is no doubt, however, as
+to the reading of this fragment:--"T ... Sancte Marie Domini Genetricis
+et beati Estefani martiri ego indignus et peccator Domenicus T." On
+these two initial and final T's, expanding one into Templum, the other
+into Torcellanus, M. Lazari founds an ingenious conjecture that the
+inscription records the elevation of the church under a certain bishop
+Dominic of Torcello (named in the Altinat Chronicle), who flourished in
+the middle of the ninth century. If this were so, as the inscription
+occurs broken off on a fragment inserted scornfully in the present
+edifice, this edifice must be of the twelfth century, worked with
+fragments taken from the ruins of that built in the ninth. The two T's
+are, however, hardly a foundation large enough to build the church upon,
+a hundred years before the date assigned to it both by history and
+tradition (see above, Sec. VIII.): and the reader has yet to be made
+aware of the principal fact bearing on the question.
+
+Sec. XXXI. Above the first story of the apse runs, as he knows already,
+a gallery under open arches, protected by a light balustrade. This
+balustrade is worked on the _outside_ with mouldings, of which I shall
+only say at present that they are of exactly the same school as the
+greater part of the work of the existing church. But the great
+horizontal pieces of stone which form the top of this balustrade are
+fragments of an older building turned inside out. They are covered with
+sculptures on the back, only to be seen by mounting into the gallery.
+They have once had an arcade of low wide arches traced on their surface,
+the spandrils filled with leafage, and archivolts enriched with studded
+chainwork and with crosses in their centres. These pieces have been used
+as waste marble by the architect of the existing apse. The small arches
+of the present balustrade are cut mercilessly through the old work, and
+the profile of the balustrade is cut out of what was once the back of
+the stone; only some respect is shown for the crosses in the old design,
+the blocks are cut so that these shall be not only left uninjured, but
+come in the centre of the balustrades.
+
+Sec. XXXII. Now let the reader observe carefully that this balustrade
+of Murano is a fence of other things than the low gallery round the
+deserted apse. It is a barrier between two great schools of early
+architecture. On one side it was cut by Romanesque workmen of the early
+Christian ages, and furnishes us with a distinct type of a kind of
+ornament which, as we meet with other examples of it, we shall be able
+to describe in generic terms, and to throw back behind this balustrade,
+out of our way. The _front_ of the balustrade presents us with a totally
+different condition of design, less rich, more graceful, and here shown
+in its simplest possible form. From the outside of this bar of marble we
+shall commence our progress in the study of existing Venetian
+architecture. The only question is, do we begin from the tenth or from
+the twelfth century?
+
+Sec. XXXIII. I was in great hopes once of being able to determine this
+positively; but the alterations in all the early buildings of Venice are
+so numerous, and the foreign fragments introduced so innumerable, that I
+was obliged to leave the question doubtful. But one circumstance must be
+noted, bearing upon it closely.
+
+In the woodcut on page 50, Fig. III., _b_ is an archivolt of Murano, _a_
+one of St. Mark's; the latter acknowledged by all historians and all
+investigators to be of the twelfth century.
+
+_All_ the twelfth century archivolts in Venice, without exception, are
+on the model of _a_, differing only in their decorations and sculpture.
+There is not one which resembles that of Murano.
+
+But the deep mouldings of Murano are almost exactly similar to those of
+St. Michele of Pavia, and other Lombard churches built, some as early as
+the seventh, others in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries.
+
+On this ground it seems to me probable that the existing apse of Murano
+is part of the original earliest church, and that the inscribed
+fragments used in it have been brought from the mainland. The
+balustrade, however, may still be later than the rest; it will be
+examined, hereafter, more carefully.[15]
+
+I have not space to give any farther account of the exterior of the
+building, though one half of what is remarkable in it remains untold. We
+must now see what is left of interest within the walls.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. III.]
+
+Sec. XXXIV. All hope is taken away by our first glance; for it falls on a
+range of shafts whose bases are concealed by wooden panelling, and which
+sustain arches decorated in the most approved style of Renaissance
+upholstery, with stucco roses in squares under the soffits, and egg and
+arrow mouldings on the architraves, gilded, on a ground of spotty black
+and green, with a small pink-faced and black-eyed cherub on every
+keystone; the rest of the church being for the most part concealed
+either by dirty hangings, or dirtier whitewash, or dim pictures on
+warped and wasting canvas; all vulgar, vain, and foul. Yet let us not
+turn back, for in the shadow of the apse our more careful glance shows
+us a Greek Madonna, pictured on a field of gold; and we feel giddy at
+the first step we make on the pavement, for it, also, is of Greek mosaic
+waved like the sea, and dyed like a dove's neck.
+
+Sec. XXXV. Nor are the original features of the rest of the edifice
+altogether indecipherable; the entire series of shafts marked in the
+ground plan on each side of the nave, from the western entrance to the
+apse, are nearly uninjured; and I believe the stilted arches they
+sustain are those of the original fabric, though the masonry is covered
+by the Renaissance stucco mouldings. Their capitals, for a wonder, are
+left bare, and appear to have sustained no farther injury than has
+resulted from the insertion of a large brass chandelier into each of
+their abaci, each chandelier carrying a sublime wax candle two inches
+thick, fastened with wire to the wall above. The due arrangement of
+these appendages, previous to festal days, can only be effected from a
+ladder set against the angle of the abacus; and ten minutes before I
+wrote this sentence, I had the privilege of watching the candlelighter
+at his work, knocking his ladder about the heads of the capitals as if
+they had given him personal offence. He at last succeeded in breaking
+away one of the lamps altogether, with a bit of the marble of the
+abacus; the whole falling in ruin to the pavement, and causing much
+consultation and clamor among a tribe of beggars who were assisting the
+sacristan with their wisdom respecting the festal arrangements.
+
+Sec. XXXVI. It is fortunate that the capitals themselves, being somewhat
+rudely cut, can bear this kind of treatment better than most of those in
+Venice. They are all founded on the Corinthian type, but the leaves are
+in every one different: those of the easternmost capital of the southern
+range are the best, and very beautiful, but presenting no feature of
+much interest, their workmanship being inferior to most of the
+imitations of Corinthian common at the period; much more to the rich
+fantasies which we have seen at Torcello. The apse itself, to-day (12th
+September, 1851), is not to be described; for just in front of it,
+behind the altar, is a magnificent curtain of new red velvet with a
+gilt edge and two golden tassels, held up in a dainty manner by two
+angels in the upholsterer's service; and above all, for concentration of
+effect, a star or sun, some five feet broad, the spikes of which conceal
+the whole of the figure of the Madonna except the head and hands.
+
+Sec. XXXVII. The pavement is however still left open, and it is of
+infinite interest, although grievously distorted and defaced. For whenever
+a new chapel has been built, or a new altar erected, the pavement has been
+broken up and readjusted so as to surround the newly inserted steps or
+stones with some appearance of symmetry; portions of it either covered or
+carried away, others mercilessly shattered or replaced by modern
+imitations, and those of very different periods, with pieces of the old
+floor left here and there in the midst of them, and worked round so as to
+deceive the eye into acceptance of the whole as ancient. The portion,
+however, which occupies the western extremity of the nave, and the parts
+immediately adjoining it in the aisles, are, I believe, in their original
+positions, and very little injured: they are composed chiefly of groups
+of peacocks, lions, stags, and griffins,--two of each in a group,
+drinking out of the same vase, or shaking claws together,--enclosed by
+interlacing bands, and alternating with chequer or star patterns, and
+here and there an attempt at representation of architecture, all worked
+in marble mosaic. The floors of Torcello and of St. Mark's are executed
+in the same manner; but what remains at Murano is finer than either, in
+the extraordinary play of color obtained by the use of variegated
+marbles. At St. Mark's the patterns are more intricate, and the pieces
+far more skilfully set together; but each piece is there commonly of one
+color: at Murano every fragment is itself variegated, and all are
+arranged with a skill and feeling not to be caught, and to be observed
+with deep reverence, for that pavement is not dateless, like the rest of
+the church; it bears its date on one of its central circles, 1140, and
+is, in my mind, one of the most precious monuments in Italy, showing thus
+early, and in those rude chequers which the bared knee of the Murano
+fisher wears in its daily bending, the beginning of that mighty spirit of
+Venetian color, which was to be consummated in Titian.
+
+Sec. XXXVIII. But we must quit the church for the present, for its
+garnishings are completed; the candles are all upright in their sockets,
+and the curtains drawn into festoons, and a paste-board crescent, gay
+with artificial flowers, has been attached to the capital of every
+pillar, in order, together with the gilt angels, to make the place look
+as much like Paradise as possible. If we return to-morrow, we shall find
+it filled with woful groups of aged men and women, wasted and
+fever-struck, fixed in paralytic supplication, half-kneeling,
+half-couched upon the pavement; bowed down, partly in feebleness, partly
+in a fearful devotion, with their grey clothes cast far over their
+faces, ghastly and settled into a gloomy animal misery, all but the
+glittering eyes and muttering lips.
+
+Fit inhabitants, these, for what was once the Garden of Venice, "a
+terrestrial paradise,--a place of nymphs and demi-gods!"[16]
+
+Sec. XXXIX. We return, yet once again, on the following day. Worshippers
+and objects of worship, the sickly crowd and gilded angels, all are
+gone; and there, far in the apse, is seen the sad Madonna standing in
+her folded robe, lifting her hands in vanity of blessing. There is
+little else to draw away our thoughts from the solitary image. An old
+wooden tablet, carved into a rude effigy of San Donato, which occupies
+the central niche in the lower part of the tribune, has an interest of
+its own, but is unconnected with the history of the older church. The
+faded frescoes of saints, which cover the upper tier of the wall of the
+apse, are also of comparatively recent date, much more the piece of
+Renaissance workmanship, shaft and entablature, above the altar, which
+has been thrust into the midst of all, and has cut away part of the feet
+of the Madonna. Nothing remains of the original structure but the
+semi-dome itself, the cornice whence it springs, which is the same as
+that used on the exterior of the church, and the border and face-arch
+which surround it. The ground of the dome is of gold, unbroken except by
+the upright Madonna, and usual inscription, M R [Greek: Theta] V. The
+figure wears a robe of blue, deeply fringed with gold, which seems to be
+gathered on the head and thrown back on the shoulders, crossing the
+breast, and falling in many folds to the ground. The under robe, shown
+beneath it where it opens at the breast, is of the same color; the
+whole, except the deep gold fringe, being simply the dress of the women
+of the time. "Le donne, anco elle del 1100, vestivano _di turchino con
+manti in spalla_, che le coprivano dinanzi e di dietro."[17]
+
+Round the dome there is a colored mosaic border; and on the edge of its
+arch, legible by the whole congregation, this inscription:
+
+  "QUOS EVA CONTRIVIT, PIA VIRGO MARIA REDEMIT;
+   HANC CUNCTI LAUDENT, QUI CRISTI MUNERE GAUDENT."[18]
+
+The whole edifice is, therefore, simply a temple to the Virgin: to her
+is ascribed the fact of Redemption, and to her its praise.
+
+Sec. XL. "And is this," it will be asked of me, "the time, is this
+the worship, to which you would have us look back with reverence and
+regret?" Inasmuch as redemption is ascribed to the Virgin, No. Inasmuch
+as redemption is a thing desired, believed, rejoiced in, Yes,--and Yes a
+thousand times. As far as the Virgin is worshipped in place of God, No;
+but as far as there is the evidence of worship itself, and of the sense
+of a Divine presence, Yes. For there is a wider division of men than
+that into Christian and Pagan: before we ask what a man worships, we
+have to ask whether he worships at all. Observe Christ's own words on
+this head: "God is a spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him
+in spirit, _and_ in truth." The worshipping in spirit comes first, and
+it does not necessarily imply the worshipping in truth. Therefore, there
+is first the broad division of men into Spirit worshippers and Flesh
+worshippers; and then, of the Spirit worshippers, the farther division
+into Christian and Pagan,--worshippers in Falsehood or in Truth. I
+therefore, for the moment, omit all inquiry how far the Mariolatry of
+the early church did indeed eclipse Christ, or what measure of deeper
+reverence for the Son of God was still felt through all the grosser
+forms of Madonna worship. Let that worship be taken at its worst; let
+the goddess of this dome of Murano be looked upon as just in the same
+sense an idol as the Athene of the Acropolis, or the Syrian Queen of
+Heaven; and then, on this darkest assumption, balance well the
+difference between those who worship and those who worship not;--that
+difference which there is in the sight of God, in all ages, between the
+calculating, smiling, self-sustained, self-governed man, and the
+believing, weeping, wondering, struggling, Heaven-governed man;--between
+the men who say in their hearts "there is no God," and those who
+acknowledge a God at every step, "if haply they might feel after Him and
+find Him." For that is indeed the difference which we shall find, in the
+end, between the builders of this day and the builders on that sand
+island long ago. They _did_ honor something out of themselves; they did
+believe in spiritual presence judging, animating, redeeming them; they
+built to its honor and for its habitation; and were content to pass away
+in nameless multitudes, so only that the labor of their hands might fix
+in the sea-wilderness a throne for their guardian angel. In this was
+their strength, and there was indeed a Spirit walking with them on the
+waters, though they could not discern the form thereof, though the
+Masters voice came not to them, "It is I." What their error cost them,
+we shall see hereafter; for it remained when the majesty and the
+sincerity of their worship had departed, and remains to this day.
+Mariolatry is no special characteristic of the twelfth century; on the
+outside of that very tribune of San Donato, in its central recess, is an
+image of the Virgin which receives the reverence once paid to the blue
+vision upon the inner dome. With rouged cheeks and painted brows, the
+frightful doll stands in wretchedness of rags, blackened with the smoke
+of the votive lamps at its feet; and if we would know what has been lost
+or gained by Italy in the six hundred years that have worn the marbles
+of Murano, let us consider how far the priests who set up this to
+worship, the populace who have this to adore, may be nobler than the men
+who conceived that lonely figure standing on the golden field, or than
+those to whom it seemed to receive their prayer at evening, far away,
+where they only saw the blue clouds rising out of the burning sea.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [10] "Mela, e buon vino, con pace e carita," Memorie Storiche de'
+    Veneti Primi e Secondi, di Jacopo Filiasi (Padua, 1811), tom. iii.
+    cap. 23. Perhaps, in the choice of the abbot's cheer, there was some
+    occult reference to the verse of Solomon's Song: "Stay me with
+    flagons, comfort me with apples."
+
+  [11] Notizie Storiche delle Chiese di Venezia, illustrate da Flaminio
+    Corner (Padua, 1758), p. 615.
+
+  [12] "On the 14th day of April, 1374, there were found, in this
+    church of the first martyr St. Stefano, two hundred and more bodies
+    of holy martyrs, by the venerable priest, Matthew Fradello,
+    incumbent of the church."
+
+  [13] Notizie Storiche, p. 620.
+
+  [14] The intention is farther confirmed by the singular variation in
+    the breadth of the small fillet which encompasses the inner marble.
+    It is much narrower at the bottom than at the sides, so as to
+    recover the original breadth in the lower border.
+
+  [15] Its elevation is given to scale in fig. 4, Plate XIII., below.
+
+  [16] "Luogo de' ninfe e de' semidei."--_M. Andrea Calmo_, quoted by
+    Mutinelli, Annali Urbani di Venezia (Venice, 1841), p. 362.
+
+  [17] "The women, even as far back as 1100, wore dresses of blue,
+    with mantles on the shoulder, which clothed them before and
+    behind."--_Sansorino_.
+
+    It would be difficult to imagine a dress more modest and beautiful.
+    See Appendix 7.
+
+  [18]   "Whom Eve destroyed, the pious Virgin Mary redeemed;
+          All praise her, who rejoice in the Grace of Christ."
+
+    Vide Appendix 8.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ST. MARK'S.
+
+
+Sec. I. "And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus." If as the
+shores of Asia lessened upon his sight, the spirit of prophecy had
+entered into the heart of the weak disciple who had turned back when his
+hand was on the plough, and who had been judged, by the chiefest of
+Christ's captains, unworthy thenceforward to go forth with him to the
+work,[19] how wonderful would he have thought it, that by the lion
+symbol in future ages he was to be represented among men! how woful,
+that the war-cry of his name should so often reanimate the rage of the
+soldier, on those very plains where he himself had failed in the courage
+of the Christian, and so often dye with fruitless blood that very
+Cypriot Sea, over whose waves, in repentance and shame, he was following
+the Son of Consolation!
+
+Sec. II. That the Venetians possessed themselves of his body in the ninth
+century, there appears no sufficient reason to doubt, nor that it was
+principally in consequence of their having done so, that they chose him
+for their patron saint. There exists, however, a tradition that before
+he went into Egypt he had founded the Church at Aquileia, and was thus,
+in some sort, the first bishop of the Venetian isles and people. I
+believe that this tradition stands on nearly as good grounds as that of
+St. Peter having been the first bishop of Rome;[20] but, as usual, it is
+enriched by various later additions and embellishments, much resembling
+the stories told respecting the church of Murano. Thus we find it
+recorded by the Santo Padre who compiled the "Vite de' Santi spettanti
+alle Chiese di Venezia,"[21] that "St. Mark having seen the people of
+Aquileia well grounded in religion, and being called to Rome by St.
+Peter, before setting off took with him the holy bishop Hermagoras, and
+went in a small boat to the marshes of Venice. There were at that period
+some houses built upon a certain high bank called Rialto, and the boat
+being driven by the wind was anchored in a marshy place, when St. Mark,
+snatched into ecstasy, heard the voice of an angel saying to him: 'Peace
+be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest.'" The angel goes on to
+foretell the building of "una stupenda, ne piu veduta Citta;" but the
+fable is hardly ingenious enough to deserve farther relation.
+
+Sec. III. But whether St. Mark was first bishop of Aquileia or not, St.
+Theodore was the first patron of the city; nor can he yet be considered
+as having entirely abdicated his early right, as his statue, standing on
+a crocodile, still companions the winged lion on the opposing pillar of
+the piazzetta. A church erected to this Saint is said to have occupied,
+before the ninth century, the site of St. Mark's; and the traveller,
+dazzled by the brilliancy of the great square, ought not to leave it
+without endeavoring to imagine its aspect in that early time, when it
+was a green field cloister-like and quiet,[22] divided by a small canal,
+with a line of trees on each side; and extending between the two
+churches of St. Theodore and St. Geminian, as the little piazza of
+Torcello lies between its "palazzo" and cathedral.
+
+Sec. IV. But in the year 813, when the seat of government was finally
+removed to the Rialto, a Ducal Palace, built on the spot where the
+present one stands, with a Ducal Chapel beside it,[23] gave a very
+different character to the Square of St. Mark; and fifteen years later,
+the acquisition of the body of the Saint, and its deposition in the
+Ducal Chapel, perhaps not yet completed, occasioned the investiture of
+that chapel with all possible splendor. St. Theodore was deposed from
+his patronship, and his church destroyed, to make room for the
+aggrandizement of the one attached to the Ducal Palace, and
+thenceforward known as "St. Mark's."[24]
+
+Sec. V. This first church was however destroyed by fire, when the Ducal
+Palace was burned in the revolt against Candiano, in 976. It was partly
+rebuilt by his successor, Pietro Orseolo, on a larger scale; and, with
+the assistance of Byzantine architects, the fabric was carried on under
+successive Doges for nearly a hundred years; the main building being
+completed in 1071, but its incrustation with marble not till
+considerably later. It was consecrated on the 8th of October, 1085,[25]
+according to Sansovino and the author of the "Chiesa Ducale di S.
+Marco," in 1094 according to Lazari, but certainly between 1084 and
+1096, those years being the limits of the reign of Vital Falier; I
+incline to the supposition that it was soon after his accession to the
+throne in 1085, though Sansovino writes, by mistake, Ordelafo instead of
+Vital Falier. But, at all events, before the close of the eleventh
+century the great consecration of the church took place. It was again
+injured by fire in 1106, but repaired; and from that time to the fall of
+Venice there was probably no Doge who did not in some slight degree
+embellish or alter the fabric, so that few parts of it can be
+pronounced boldly to be of any given date. Two periods of interference
+are, however, notable above the rest: the first, that in which the
+Gothic school, had superseded the Byzantine towards the close of the
+fourteenth century, when the pinnacles, upper archivolts, and window
+traceries were added to the exterior, and the great screen, with various
+chapels and tabernacle-work, to the interior; the second, when the
+Renaissance school superseded the Gothic, and the pupils of Titian and
+Tintoret substituted, over one half of the church, their own
+compositions for the Greek mosaics with which it was originally
+decorated;[26] happily, though with no good will, having left enough to
+enable us to imagine and lament what they destroyed. Of this irreparable
+loss we shall have more to say hereafter; meantime, I wish only to fix
+in the reader's mind the succession of periods of alteration as firmly
+and simply as possible.
+
+Sec. VI. We have seen that the main body of the church may be broadly
+stated to be of the eleventh century, the Gothic additions of the
+fourteenth, and the restored mosaics of the seventeenth. There is no
+difficulty in distinguishing at a glance the Gothic portions from the
+Byzantine; but there is considerable difficulty in ascertaining how
+long, during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
+additions were made to the Byzantine church, which cannot be easily
+distinguished from the work of the eleventh century, being purposely
+executed in the same manner. Two of the most important pieces of
+evidence on this point are, a mosaic in the south transept, and another
+over the northern door of the facade; the first representing the
+interior, the second the exterior, of the ancient church.
+
+Sec. VII. It has just been stated that the existing building was
+consecrated by the Doge Vital Falier. A peculiar solemnity was given to
+that act of consecration, in the minds of the Venetian people, by what
+appears to have been one of the best arranged and most successful
+impostures ever attempted by the clergy of the Romish church. The body
+of St. Mark had, without doubt, perished in the conflagration of 976;
+but the revenues of the church depended too much upon the devotion
+excited by these relics to permit the confession of their loss. The
+following is the account given by Corner, and believed to this day by
+the Venetians, of the pretended miracle by which it was concealed.
+
+"After the repairs undertaken by the Doge Orseolo, the place in which
+the body of the holy Evangelist rested had been altogether forgotten; so
+that the Doge Vital Falier was entirely ignorant of the place of the
+venerable deposit. This was no light affliction, not only to the pious
+Doge, but to all the citizens and people; so that at last, moved by
+confidence in the Divine mercy, they determined to implore, with prayer
+and fasting, the manifestation of so great a treasure, which did not now
+depend upon any human effort. A general fast being therefore proclaimed,
+and a solemn procession appointed for the 25th day of June, while the
+people assembled in the church interceded with God in fervent prayers
+for the desired boon, they beheld, with as much amazement as joy, a
+slight shaking in the marbles of a pillar (near the place where the
+altar of the Cross is now), which, presently falling to the earth,
+exposed to the view of the rejoicing people the chest of bronze in which
+the body of the Evangelist was laid."
+
+Sec. VIII. Of the main facts of this tale there is no doubt. They were
+embellished afterwards, as usual, by many fanciful traditions; as, for
+instance, that, when the sarcophagus was discovered, St. Mark extended
+his hand out of it, with a gold ring on one of the fingers, which he
+permitted a noble of the Dolfin family to remove; and a quaint and
+delightful story was further invented of this ring, which I shall not
+repeat here, as it is now as well known as any tale of the Arabian
+Nights. But the fast and the discovery of the coffin, by whatever means
+effected, are facts; and they are recorded in one of the best-preserved
+mosaics of the north transept, executed very certainly not long after
+the event had taken place, closely resembling in its treatment that of
+the Bayeux tapestry, and showing, in a conventional manner, the
+interior of the church, as it then was, filled by the people, first in
+prayer, then in thanksgiving, the pillar standing open before them, and
+the Doge, in the midst of them, distinguished by his crimson bonnet
+embroidered with gold, but more unmistakably by the inscription "Dux"
+over his head, as uniformly is the case in the Bayeux tapestry, and most
+other pictorial works of the period. The church is, of course, rudely
+represented, and the two upper stories of it reduced to a small scale in
+order to form a background to the figures; one of those bold pieces of
+picture history which we in our pride of perspective, and a thousand
+things besides, never dare attempt. We should have put in a column or
+two of the real or perspective size, and subdued it into a vague
+background: the old workman crushed the church together that he might
+get it all in, up to the cupolas; and has, therefore, left us some
+useful notes of its ancient form, though any one who is familiar with
+the method of drawing employed at the period will not push the evidence
+too far. The two pulpits are there, however, as they are at this day,
+and the fringe of mosaic flower-work which then encompassed the whole
+church, but which modern restorers have destroyed, all but one fragment
+still left in the south aisle. There is no attempt to represent the
+other mosaics on the roof, the scale being too small to admit of their
+being represented with any success; but some at least of those mosaics
+had been executed at that period, and their absence in the
+representation of the entire church is especially to be observed, in
+order to show that we must not trust to any negative evidence in such
+works. M. Lazari has rashly concluded that the central archivolt of St.
+Mark's _must_ be posterior to the year 1205, because it does not appear
+in the representation of the exterior of the church over the northern
+door;[27] but he justly observes that this mosaic (which is the other
+piece of evidence we possess respecting the ancient form of the
+building) cannot itself be earlier than 1205, since it represents the
+bronze horses which were brought from Constantinople in that year. And
+this one fact renders it very difficult to speak with confidence
+respecting the date of any part of the exterior of St. Mark's; for we
+have above seen that it was consecrated in the eleventh century, and yet
+here is one of its most important exterior decorations assuredly
+retouched, if not entirely added, in the thirteenth, although its style
+would have led us to suppose it had been an original part of the fabric.
+However, for all our purposes, it will be enough for the reader to
+remember that the earliest parts of the building belong to the eleventh,
+twelfth, and first part of the thirteenth century; the Gothic portions
+to the fourteenth; some of the altars and embellishments to the
+fifteenth and sixteenth; and the modern portion of the mosaics to the
+seventeenth.
+
+Sec. IX. This, however, I only wish him to recollect in order that I may
+speak generally of the Byzantine architecture of St. Mark's, without
+leading him to suppose the whole church to have been built and decorated
+by Greek artists. Its later portions, with the single exception of the
+seventeenth century mosaics, have been so dexterously accommodated to
+the original fabric that the general effect is still that of a Byzantine
+building; and I shall not, except when it is absolutely necessary,
+direct attention to the discordant points, or weary the reader with
+anatomical criticism. Whatever in St. Mark's arrests the eye, or affects
+the feelings, is either Byzantine, or has been modified by Byzantine
+influence; and our inquiry into its architectural merits need not
+therefore be disturbed by the anxieties of antiquarianism, or arrested
+by the obscurities of chronology.
+
+Sec. X. And now I wish that the reader, before I bring him into St.
+Mark's Place, would imagine himself for a little time in a quiet English
+cathedral town, and walk with me to the west front of its cathedral. Let
+us go together up the more retired street, at the end of which we can
+see the pinnacles of one of the towers, and then through the low grey
+gateway, with its battlemented top and small latticed window in the
+centre, into the inner private-looking road or close, where nothing
+goes in but the carts of the tradesmen who supply the bishop and the
+chapter, and where there are little shaven grass-plots, fenced in by
+neat rails, before old-fashioned groups of somewhat diminutive and
+excessively trim houses, with little oriel and bay windows jutting out
+here and there, and deep wooden cornices and eaves painted cream color
+and white, and small porches to their doors in the shape of
+cockle-shells, or little, crooked, thick, indescribable wooden gables
+warped a little on one side; and so forward till we come to larger
+houses, also old-fashioned, but of red brick, and with gardens behind
+them, and fruit walls, which show here and there, among the nectarines,
+the vestiges of an old cloister arch or shaft, and looking in front on
+the cathedral square itself, laid out in rigid divisions of smooth grass
+and gravel walk, yet not uncheerful, especially on the sunny side where
+the canons' children are walking with their nurserymaids. And so, taking
+care not to tread on the grass, we will go along the straight walk to
+the west front, and there stand for a time, looking up at its
+deep-pointed porches and the dark places between their pillars where
+there were statues once, and where the fragments, here and there, of a
+stately figure are still left, which has in it the likeness of a king,
+perhaps indeed a king on earth, perhaps a saintly king long ago in
+heaven; and so higher and higher up to the great mouldering wall of
+rugged sculpture and confused arcades, shattered, and grey, and grisly
+with heads of dragons and mocking fiends, worn by the rain and swirling
+winds into yet unseemlier shape, and colored on their stony scales by
+the deep russet-orange lichen, melancholy gold; and so, higher still, to
+the bleak towers, so far above that the eye loses itself among the
+bosses of their traceries, though they are rude and strong, and only
+sees like a drift of eddying black points, now closing, now scattering,
+and now settling suddenly into invisible places among the bosses and
+flowers, the crowed of restless birds that fill the whole square with
+that strange clangor of theirs, so harsh and yet so soothing, like the
+cries of birds on a solitary coast between the cliffs and sea.
+
+Sec. XI. Think for a little while of that scene, and the meaning of all
+its small formalisms, mixed with its serene sublimity. Estimate its
+secluded, continuous, drowsy felicities, and its evidence of the sense
+and steady performance of such kind of duties as can be regulated by the
+cathedral clock; and weigh the influence of those dark towers on all who
+have passed through the lonely square at their feet for centuries, and
+on all who have seen them rising far away over the wooded plain, or
+catching on their square masses the last rays of the sunset, when the
+city at their feet was indicated only by the mist at the bend of the
+river. And then let us quickly recollect that we are in Venice, and land
+at the extremity of the Calle Lunga San Moise, which may be considered
+as there answering to the secluded street that led us to our English
+cathedral gateway.
+
+Sec. XII. We find ourselves in a paved alley, some seven feet wide
+where it is widest, full of people, and resonant with cries of itinerant
+salesmen,--a shriek in their beginning, and dying away into a kind of
+brazen ringing, all the worse for its confinement between the high
+houses of the passage along which we have to make our way. Over-head an
+inextricable confusion of rugged shutters, and iron balconies and
+chimney flues pushed out on brackets to save room, and arched windows
+with projecting sills of Istrian stone, and gleams of green leaves here
+and there where a fig-tree branch escapes over a lower wall from some
+inner cortile, leading the eye up to the narrow stream of blue sky high
+over all. On each side, a row of shops, as densely set as may be,
+occupying, in fact, intervals between the square stone shafts, about
+eight feet high, which carry the first floors: intervals of which one is
+narrow and serves as a door; the other is, in the more respectable
+shops, wainscoted to the height of the counter and glazed above, but in
+those of the poorer tradesmen left open to the ground, and the wares
+laid on benches and tables in the open air, the light in all cases
+entering at the front only, and fading away in a few feet from the
+threshold into a gloom which the eye from without cannot penetrate, but
+which is generally broken by a ray or two from a feeble lamp at the
+back of the shop, suspended before a print of the Virgin. The less pious
+shop-keeper sometimes leaves his lamp unlighted, and is contented with a
+penny print; the more religious one has his print colored and set in a
+little shrine with a gilded or figured fringe, with perhaps a faded
+flower or two on each side, and his lamp burning brilliantly. Here at
+the fruiterer's, where the dark-green water-melons are heaped upon the
+counter like cannon balls, the Madonna has a tabernacle of fresh laurel
+leaves; but the pewterer next door has let his lamp out, and there is
+nothing to be seen in his shop but the dull gleam of the studded
+patterns on the copper pans, hanging from his roof in the darkness. Next
+comes a "Vendita Frittole e Liquori," where the Virgin, enthroned in a
+very humble manner beside a tallow candle on a back shelf, presides over
+certain ambrosial morsels of a nature too ambiguous to be defined or
+enumerated. But a few steps farther on, at the regular wine-shop of the
+calle, where we are offered "Vino Nostrani a Soldi 28.32," the Madonna
+is in great glory, enthroned above ten or a dozen large red casks of
+three-year-old vintage, and flanked by goodly ranks of bottles of
+Maraschino, and two crimson lamps; and for the evening, when the
+gondoliers will come to drink out, under her auspices, the money they
+have gained during the day, she will have a whole chandelier.
+
+Sec. XIII. A yard or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the Black
+Eagle, and, glancing as we pass through the square door of marble, deeply
+moulded, in the outer wall, we see the shadows of its pergola of vines
+resting on an ancient well, with a pointed shield carved on its side;
+and so presently emerge on the bridge and Campo San Moise, whence to the
+entrance into St. Mark's Place, called the Bocca di Piazza (mouth of the
+square), the Venetian character is nearly destroyed, first by the
+frightful facade of San Moise, which we will pause at another time to
+examine, and then by the modernizing of the shops as they near the
+piazza, and the mingling with the lower Venetian populace of lounging
+groups of English and Austrians. We will push fast through them into the
+shadow of the pillars at the end of the "Bocca di Piazza," and then we
+forget them all; for between those pillars there opens a great light,
+and, in the midst of it, as we advance slowly, the vast tower of St.
+Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level field of
+chequered stones; and, on each side, the countless arches prolong
+themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and irregular houses
+that pressed together above us in the dark alley had been struck back
+into sudden obedience and lovely order, and all their rude casements and
+broken walls had been transformed into arches charged with goodly
+sculpture, and fluted shafts of delicate stone.
+
+Sec. XIV. And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of ordered
+arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square
+seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far
+away;--a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low
+pyramid of colored light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and
+partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great
+vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of
+alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory,--sculpture fantastic
+and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates,
+and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined
+together into an endless network of buds and plumes; and, in the midst
+of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and
+leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among
+the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them,
+interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the
+branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago. And
+round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated
+stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted with
+flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the
+sunshine, Cleopatra-like, "their bluest veins to kiss"--the shadow, as
+it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation,
+as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with
+interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of
+acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the
+Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of
+language and of life--angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labors of
+men, each in its appointed season upon the earth; and above these,
+another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged
+with scarlet flowers,--a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts
+of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden
+strength, and the St. Mark's Lion, lifted on a blue field covered with
+stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break
+into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes
+and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore
+had been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid
+them with coral and amethyst.
+
+Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an interval! There
+is a type of it in the very birds that haunt them; for, instead of the
+restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak
+upper air, the St. Mark's porches are full of doves, that nestle among
+the marble foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their living
+plumes, changing at every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely,
+that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years.
+
+Sec. XV. And what effect has this splendor on those who pass beneath it?
+You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro, before the gateway of
+St. Mark's, and you will not see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance
+brightened by it. Priest and layman, soldier and civilian, rich and
+poor, pass by it alike regardlessly. Up to the very recesses of the
+porches, the meanest tradesmen of the city push their counters; nay, the
+foundations of its pillars are themselves the seats--not "of them that
+sell doves" for sacrifice, but of the vendors of toys and caricatures.
+Round the whole square in front of the church there is almost a
+continuous line of cafes, where the idle Venetians of the middle classes
+lounge, and read empty journals; in its centre the Austrian bands play
+during the time of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ
+notes,--the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen crowd
+thickening round them,--a crowd, which, if it had its will, would
+stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the
+porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed
+and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded
+children,--every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation
+and stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with cursing,--gamble,
+and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised
+centesimi upon the marble ledges of the church porch. And the images of
+Christ and His angels look down upon it continually.
+
+That we may not enter the church out of the midst of the horror of this,
+let us turn aside under the portico which looks towards the sea, and
+passing round within the two massive pillars brought from St. Jean
+d'Acre, we shall find the gate of the Baptistery; let us enter there.
+The heavy door closes behind us instantly, and the light, and the
+turbulence of the Piazzetta, are together shut out by it.
+
+Sec. XVI. We are in a low vaulted room; vaulted, not with arches, but
+with small cupolas starred with gold, and chequered with gloomy figures:
+in the centre is a bronze font charged with rich bas-reliefs, a small
+figure of the Baptist standing above it in a single ray of light that
+glances across the narrow room, dying as it falls from a window high in
+the wall, and the first thing that it strikes, and the only thing that
+it strikes brightly, is a tomb. We hardly know if it be a tomb indeed;
+for it is like a narrow couch set beside the window, low-roofed and
+curtained, so that it might seem, but that it has some height above the
+pavement, to have been drawn towards the window, that the sleeper might
+be wakened early;--only there are two angels who have drawn the curtain
+back, and are looking down upon him. Let us look also, and thank that
+gentle light that rests upon his forehead for ever, and dies away upon
+his breast.
+
+The face is of a man in middle life, but there are two deep furrows
+right across the forehead, dividing it like the foundations of a tower:
+the height of it above is bound by the fillet of the ducal cap. The
+rest of the features are singularly small and delicate, the lips sharp,
+perhaps the sharpness of death being added to that of the natural lines;
+but there is a sweet smile upon them, and a deep serenity upon the whole
+countenance. The roof of the canopy above has been blue, filled with
+stars; beneath, in the centre of the tomb on which the figure rests, is
+a seated figure of the Virgin, and the border of it all around is of
+flowers and soft leaves, growing rich and deep, as if in a field in
+summer.
+
+It is the Doge Andrea Dandolo, a man early great among the great of
+Venice; and early lost. She chose him for her king in his 36th year; he
+died ten years later, leaving behind him that history to which we owe
+half of what we know of her former fortunes.
+
+Sec. XVII. Look round at the room in which he lies. The floor of it is of
+rich mosaic, encompassed by a low seat of red marble, and its walls are
+of alabaster, but worn and shattered, and darkly stained with age,
+almost a ruin,--in places the slabs of marble have fallen away
+altogether, and the rugged brickwork is seen through the rents, but all
+beautiful; the ravaging fissures fretting their way among the islands
+and channelled zones of the alabaster, and the time-stains on its
+translucent masses darkened into fields of rich golden brown, like the
+color of seaweed when the sun strikes on it through deep sea. The light
+fades away into the recess of the chamber towards the altar, and the eye
+can hardly trace the lines of the bas-relief behind it of the baptism of
+Christ: but on the vaulting of the roof the figures are distinct, and
+there are seen upon it two great circles, one surrounded by the
+"Principalities and powers in heavenly places," of which Milton has
+expressed the ancient division in the single massy line,
+
+  "Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,"
+
+and around the other, the Apostles; Christ the centre of both; and upon
+the walls, again and again repeated, the gaunt figure of the Baptist, in
+every circumstance of his life and death; and the streams of the Jordan
+running down between their cloven rocks; the axe laid to the root of a
+fruitless tree that springs upon their shore. "Every tree that bringeth
+not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire." Yes,
+verily: to be baptized with fire, or to be cast therein; it is the
+choice set before all men. The march-notes still murmur through the
+grated window, and mingle with the sounding in our ears of the sentence
+of judgment, which the old Greek has written on that Baptistery wall.
+Venice has made her choice.
+
+Sec. XVIII. He who lies under that stony canopy would have taught her
+another choice, in his day, if she would have listened to him; but he
+and his counsels have long been forgotten by her, and the dust lies upon
+his lips.
+
+Through the heavy door whose bronze network closes the place of his
+rest, let us enter the church itself. It is lost in still deeper
+twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments before
+the form of the building can be traced; and then there opens before us a
+vast cave, hewn out into the form of a Cross, and divided into shadowy
+aisles by many pillars. Round the domes of its roof the light enters
+only through narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there a ray
+or two from some far away casement wanders into the darkness, and casts
+a narrow phosphoric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall
+in a thousand colors along the floor. What else there is of light is
+from torches, or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of
+the chapels; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered
+with alabaster, give back at every curve and angle some feeble gleaming
+to the flames; and the glories round the heads of the sculptured saints
+flash out upon us as we pass them, and sink again into the gloom. Under
+foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one
+picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and
+terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of
+prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running
+fountains and feed from vases of crystal; the passions and the pleasures
+of human life symbolized together, and the mystery of its redemption;
+for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at
+last to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every
+stone; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt round it, sometimes
+with doves beneath its arms, and sweet herbage growing forth from its
+feet; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the
+church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of
+the apse. And although in the recesses of the aisles and chapels, when
+the mist of the incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure
+traced in faint lines upon their marble, a woman standing with her eyes
+raised to heaven, and the inscription above her, "Mother of God," she is
+not here the presiding deity. It is the Cross that is first seen, and
+always, burning in the centre of the temple; and every dome and hollow
+of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised
+in power, or returning in judgment.
+
+Sec. XIX. Nor is this interior without effect on the minds of the people.
+At every hour of the day there are groups collected before the various
+shrines, and solitary worshippers scattered through the darker places of
+the church, evidently in prayer both deep and reverent, and, for the
+most part, profoundly sorrowful. The devotees at the greater number of
+the renowned shrines of Romanism may be seen murmuring their appointed
+prayers with wandering eyes and unengaged gestures; but the step of the
+stranger does not disturb those who kneel on the pavement of St. Mark's;
+and hardly a moment passes, from early morning to sunset, in which we
+may not see some half-veiled figure enter beneath the Arabian porch,
+cast itself into long abasement on the floor of the temple, and then
+rising slowly with more confirmed step, and with a passionate kiss and
+clasp of the arms given to the feet of the crucifix, by which the lamps
+burn always in the northern aisle, leave the church, as if comforted.
+
+Sec. XX. But we must not hastily conclude from this that the nobler
+characters of the building have at present any influence in fostering a
+devotional spirit. There is distress enough in Venice to bring many to
+their knees, without excitement from external imagery; and whatever
+there may be in the temper of the worship offered in St. Mark's more
+than can be accounted for by reference to the unhappy circumstances of
+the city, is assuredly not owing either to the beauty of its
+architecture or to the impressiveness of the Scripture histories
+embodied in its mosaics. That it has a peculiar effect, however slight,
+on the popular mind, may perhaps be safely conjectured from the number
+of worshippers which it attracts, while the churches of St. Paul and the
+Frari, larger in size and more central in position, are left
+comparatively empty.[28] But this effect is altogether to be ascribed to
+its richer assemblage of those sources of influence which address
+themselves to the commonest instincts of the human mind, and which, in
+all ages and countries, have been more or less employed in the support
+of superstition. Darkness and mystery; confused recesses of building;
+artificial light employed in small quantity, but maintained with a
+constancy which seems to give it a kind of sacredness; preciousness of
+material easily comprehended by the vulgar eye; close air loaded with a
+sweet and peculiar odor associated only with religious services, solemn
+music, and tangible idols or images having popular legends attached to
+them,--these, the stage properties of superstition, which have been from
+the beginning of the world, and must be to the end of it, employed by
+all nations, whether openly savage or nominally civilized, to produce a
+false awe in minds incapable of apprehending the true nature of the
+Deity, are assembled in St. Mark's to a degree, as far as I know,
+unexampled in any other European church. The arts of the Magus and the
+Brahmin are exhausted in the animation of a paralyzed Christianity; and
+the popular sentiment which these arts excite is to be regarded by us
+with no more respect than we should have considered ourselves justified
+in rendering to the devotion of the worshippers at Eleusis, Ellora, or
+Edfou.[29]
+
+Sec. XXI. Indeed, these inferior means of exciting religious emotion were
+employed in the ancient Church as they are at this day, but not employed
+alone. Torchlight there was, as there is now; but the torchlight
+illumined Scripture histories on the walls, which every eye traced and
+every heart comprehended, but which, during my whole residence in
+Venice, I never saw one Venetian regard for an instant. I never heard
+from any one the most languid expression of interest in any feature of
+the church, or perceived the slightest evidence of their understanding
+the meaning of its architecture; and while, therefore, the English
+cathedral, though no longer dedicated to the kind of services for which
+it was intended by its builders, and much at variance in many of its
+characters with the temper of the people by whom it is now surrounded,
+retains yet so much of its religious influence that no prominent feature
+of its architecture can be said to exist altogether in vain, we have in
+St. Mark's a building apparently still employed in the ceremonies for
+which it was designed, and yet of which the impressive attributes have
+altogether ceased to be comprehended by its votaries. The beauty which
+it possesses is unfelt, the language it uses is forgotten; and in the
+midst of the city to whose service it has so long been consecrated, and
+still filled by crowds of the descendants of those to whom it owes its
+magnificence, it stands, in reality, more desolate than the ruins
+through which the sheep-walk passes unbroken in our English valleys; and
+the writing on its marble walls is less regarded and less powerful for
+the teaching of men, than the letters which the shepherd follows with
+his finger, where the moss is lightest on the tombs in the desecrated
+cloister.
+
+Sec. XXII. It must therefore be altogether without reference to its
+present usefulness, that we pursue our inquiry into the merits and meaning
+of the architecture of this marvellous building; and it can only be after
+we have terminated that inquiry, conducting it carefully on abstract
+grounds, that we can pronounce with any certainty how far the present
+neglect of St. Mark's is significative of the decline of the Venetian
+character, or how far this church is to be considered as the relic of a
+barbarous age, incapable of attracting the admiration, or influencing
+the feelings of a civilized community.
+
+The inquiry before us is twofold. Throughout the first volume, I
+carefully kept the study of _expression_ distinct from that of abstract
+architectural perfection; telling the reader that in every building we
+should afterwards examine, he would have first to form a judgment of its
+construction and decorative merit, considering it merely as a work of
+art; and then to examine farther, in what degree it fulfilled its
+expressional purposes. Accordingly, we have first to judge of St. Mark's
+merely as a piece of architecture, not as a church; secondly, to
+estimate its fitness for its special duty as a place of worship, and the
+relation in which it stands, as such, to those northern cathedrals that
+still retain so much of the power over the human heart, which the
+Byzantine domes appear to have lost for ever.
+
+Sec. XXIII. In the two succeeding sections of this work, devoted
+respectively to the examination of the Gothic and Renaissance buildings
+in Venice, I have endeavored to analyze and state, as briefly as
+possible, the true nature of each school,--first in Spirit, then in
+Form. I wished to have given a similar analysis, in this section, of the
+nature of Byzantine architecture; but could not make my statements
+general, because I have never seen this kind of building on its native
+soil. Nevertheless, in the following sketch of the principles
+exemplified in St. Mark's, I believe that most of the leading features
+and motives of the style will be found clearly enough distinguished to
+enable the reader to judge of it with tolerable fairness, as compared
+with the better known systems of European architecture in the middle
+ages.
+
+Sec. XXIV. Now the first broad characteristic of the building, and the
+root nearly of every other important peculiarity in it, is its confessed
+_incrustation_. It is the purest example in Italy of the great school of
+architecture in which the ruling principle is the incrustation of brick
+with more precious materials; and it is necessary before we proceed to
+criticise any one of its arrangements, that the reader should carefully
+consider the principles which are likely to have influenced, or might
+legitimately influence, the architects of such a school, as
+distinguished from those whose designs are to be executed in massive
+materials.
+
+It is true, that among different nations, and at different times, we may
+find examples of every sort and degree of incrustation, from the mere
+setting of the larger and more compact stones by preference at the
+outside of the wall, to the miserable construction of that modern brick
+cornice, with its coating of cement, which, but the other day, in
+London, killed its unhappy workmen in its fall.[30] But just as it is
+perfectly possible to have a clear idea of the opposing characteristics
+of two different species of plants or animals, though between the two
+there are varieties which it is difficult to assign either to the one or
+the other, so the reader may fix decisively in his mind the legitimate
+characteristics of the incrusted and the massive styles, though between
+the two there are varieties which confessedly unite the attributes of
+both. For instance, in many Roman remains, built of blocks of tufa and
+incrusted with marble, we have a style, which, though truly solid,
+possesses some of the attributes of incrustation; and in the Cathedral
+of Florence, built of brick and coated with marble, the marble facing is
+so firmly and exquisitely set, that the building, though in reality
+incrusted, assumes the attributes of solidity. But these intermediate
+examples need not in the least confuse our generally distinct ideas of
+the two families of buildings: the one in which the substance is alike
+throughout, and the forms and conditions of the ornament assume or prove
+that it is so, as in the best Greek buildings, and for the most part in
+our early Norman and Gothic; and the other, in which the substance is of
+two kinds, one internal, the other external, and the system of
+decoration is founded on this duplicity, as pre-eminently in St. Mark's.
+
+Sec. XXV. I have used the word duplicity in no depreciatory sense. In
+chapter ii. of the "Seven Lamps," Sec. 18, I especially guarded this
+incrusted school from the imputation of insincerity, and I must do so
+now at greater length. It appears insincere at first to a Northern
+builder, because, accustomed to build with solid blocks of freestone, he
+is in the habit of supposing the external superficies of a piece of
+masonry to be some criterion of its thickness. But, as soon as he gets
+acquainted with the incrusted style, he will find that the Southern
+builders had no intention to deceive him. He will see that every slab of
+facial marble is fastened to the next by a confessed _rivet_, and that
+the joints of the armor are so visibly and openly accommodated to the
+contours of the substance within, that he has no more right to complain
+of treachery than a savage would have, who, for the first time in his
+life seeing a man in armor, had supposed him to be made of solid steel.
+Acquaint him with the customs of chivalry, and with the uses of the coat
+of mail, and he ceases to accuse of dishonesty either the panoply or the
+knight.
+
+These laws and customs of the St. Mark's architectural chivalry it must
+be our business to develope.
+
+Sec. XXVI. First, consider the natural circumstances which give rise to
+such a style. Suppose a nation of builders, placed far from any quarries
+of available stone, and having precarious access to the mainland where
+they exist; compelled therefore either to build entirely with brick, or
+to import whatever stone they use from great distances, in ships of
+small tonnage, and for the most part dependent for speed on the oar
+rather than the sail. The labor and cost of carriage are just as great,
+whether they import common or precious stone, and therefore the natural
+tendency would always be to make each shipload as valuable as possible.
+But in proportion to the preciousness of the stone, is the limitation of
+its possible supply; limitation not determined merely by cost, but by
+the physical conditions of the material, for of many marbles, pieces
+above a certain size are not to be had for money. There would also be a
+tendency in such circumstances to import as much stone as possible ready
+sculptured, in order to save weight; and therefore, if the traffic of
+their merchants led them to places where there were ruins of ancient
+edifices, to ship the available fragments of them home. Out of this
+supply of marble, partly composed of pieces of so precious a quality
+that only a few tons of them could be on any terms obtained, and partly
+of shafts, capitals, and other portions of foreign buildings, the island
+architect has to fashion, as best he may, the anatomy of his edifice. It
+is at his choice either to lodge his few blocks of precious marble here
+and there among his masses of brick, and to cut out of the sculptured
+fragments such new forms as may be necessary for the observance of fixed
+proportions in the new building; or else to cut the colored stones into
+thin pieces, of extent sufficient to face the whole surface of the
+walls, and to adopt a method of construction irregular enough to admit
+the insertion of fragmentary sculptures; rather with a view of
+displaying their intrinsic beauty, than of setting them to any regular
+service in the support of the building.
+
+An architect who cared only to display his own skill, and had no respect
+for the works of others, would assuredly have chosen the former
+alternative, and would have sawn the old marbles into fragments in order
+to prevent all interference with his own designs. But an architect who
+cared for the preservation of noble work, whether his own or others',
+and more regarded the beauty of his building than his own fame, would
+have done what those old builders of St. Mark's did for us, and saved
+every relic with which he was entrusted.
+
+Sec. XXVII. But these were not the only motives which influenced the
+Venetians in the adoption of their method of architecture. It might,
+under all the circumstances above stated, have been a question with
+other builders, whether to import one shipload of costly jaspers, or
+twenty of chalk flints; and whether to build a small church faced with
+porphyry and paved with agate, or to raise a vast cathedral in
+freestone. But with the Venetians it could not be a question for an
+instant; they were exiles from ancient and beautiful cities, and had
+been accustomed to build with their ruins, not less in affection than in
+admiration: they had thus not only grown familiar with the practice of
+inserting older fragments in modern buildings, but they owed to that
+practice a great part of the splendor of their city, and whatever charm
+of association might aid its change from a Refuge into a Home. The
+practice which began in the affections of a fugitive nation, was
+prolonged in the pride of a conquering one; and beside the memorials of
+departed happiness, were elevated the trophies of returning victory. The
+ship of war brought home more marble in triumph than the merchant vessel
+in speculation; and the front of St. Mark's became rather a shrine at
+which to dedicate the splendor of miscellaneous spoil, than the
+organized expression of any fixed architectural law, or religious
+emotion.
+
+Sec. XXVIII. Thus far, however, the justification of the style of this
+church depends on circumstances peculiar to the time of its erection,
+and to the spot where it arose. The merit of its method, considered in
+the abstract, rests on far broader grounds.
+
+In the fifth chapter of the "Seven Lamps," Sec. 14, the reader will find
+the opinion of a modern architect of some reputation, Mr. Wood, that the
+chief thing remarkable in this church "is its extreme ugliness;" and he
+will find this opinion associated with another, namely, that the works
+of the Caracci are far preferable to those of the Venetian painters.
+This second statement of feeling reveals to us one of the principal
+causes of the first; namely, that Mr. Wood had not any perception of
+color, or delight in it. The perception of color is a gift just as
+definitely granted to one person, and denied to another, as an ear for
+music; and the very first requisite for true judgment of St. Mark's, is
+the perfection of that color-faculty which few people ever set
+themselves seriously to find out whether they possess or not. For it is
+on its value as a piece of perfect and unchangeable coloring, that the
+claims of this edifice to our respect are finally rested; and a deaf man
+might as well pretend to pronounce judgment on the merits of a full
+orchestra, as an architect trained in the composition of form only, to
+discern the beauty of St. Mark's. It possesses the charm of color in
+common with the greater part of the architecture, as well as of the
+manufactures, of the East; but the Venetians deserve especial note as
+the only European people who appear to have sympathized to the full with
+the great instinct of the Eastern races. They indeed were compelled to
+bring artists from Constantinople to design the mosaics of the vaults of
+St. Mark's, and to group the colors of its porches; but they rapidly
+took up and developed, under more masculine conditions, the system of
+which the Greeks had shown them the example: while the burghers and
+barons of the North were building their dark streets and grisly castles
+of oak and sandstone, the merchants of Venice were covering their
+palaces with porphyry and gold; and at last, when her mighty painters
+had created for her a color more priceless than gold or porphyry, even
+this, the richest of her treasures, she lavished upon walls whose
+foundations were beaten by the sea; and the strong tide, as it runs
+beneath the Rialto, is reddened to this day by the reflection of the
+frescoes of Giorgione.
+
+Sec. XXIX. If, therefore, the reader does not care for color, I must
+protest against his endeavor to form any judgment whatever of this
+church of St. Mark's. But, if he both cares for and loves it, let him
+remember that the school of incrusted architecture is _the only one in
+which perfect and permanent chromatic decoration is possible_; and let
+him look upon every piece of jasper and alabaster given to the architect
+as a cake of very hard color, of which a certain portion is to be ground
+down or cut off, to paint the walls with. Once understand this
+thoroughly, and accept the condition that the body and availing strength
+of the edifice are to be in brick, and that this under muscular power
+of brickwork is to be clothed with the defence and the brightness of the
+marble, as the body of an animal is protected and adorned by its scales
+or its skin, and all the consequent fitnesses and laws of the structure
+will be easily discernible: These I shall state in their natural order.
+
+Sec. XXX. LAW I. _That the plinths and cornices used for binding the
+armor are to be light and delicate._ A certain thickness, at least two or
+three inches, must be required in the covering pieces (even when
+composed of the strongest stone, and set on the least exposed parts), in
+order to prevent the chance of fracture, and to allow for the wear of
+time. And the weight of this armor must not be trusted to cement; the
+pieces must not be merely glued to the rough brick surface, but
+connected with the mass which they protect by binding cornices and
+string courses; and with each other, so as to secure mutual support,
+aided by the rivetings, but by no means dependent upon them. And, for
+the full honesty and straight-forwardness of the work, it is necessary
+that these string courses and binding plinths should not be of such
+proportions as would fit them for taking any important part in the hard
+work of the inner structure, or render them liable to be mistaken for
+the great cornices and plinths already explained as essential parts of
+the best solid building. They must be delicate, slight, and visibly
+incapable of severer work than that assigned to them.
+
+Sec. XXXI. LAW II. _Science of inner structure is to be abandoned._ As
+the body of the structure is confessedly of inferior, and comparatively
+incoherent materials, it would be absurd to attempt in it any expression
+of the higher refinements of construction. It will be enough that by its
+mass we are assured of its sufficiency and strength; and there is the
+less reason for endeavoring to diminish the extent of its surface by
+delicacy of adjustment, because on the breadth of that surface we are to
+depend for the better display of the color, which is to be the chief
+source of our pleasure in the building. The main body of the work,
+therefore, will be composed of solid walls and massive piers; and
+whatever expression of finer structural science we may require, will be
+thrown either into subordinate portions of it, or entirely directed to
+the support of the external mail, where in arches or vaults it might
+otherwise appear dangerously independent of the material within.
+
+Sec. XXXII. LAW III. _All shafts are to be solid._ Wherever, by the
+smallness of the parts, we may be driven to abandon the incrusted
+structure at all, it must be abandoned altogether. The eye must never be
+left in the least doubt as to what is solid and what is coated. Whatever
+appears _probably_ solid, must be _assuredly_ so, and therefore it
+becomes an inviolable law that no shaft shall ever be incrusted. Not
+only does the whole virtue of a shaft depend on its consolidation, but
+the labor of cutting and adjusting an incrusted coat to it would be
+greater than the saving of material is worth. Therefore the shaft, of
+whatever size, is always to be solid; and because the incrusted
+character of the rest of the building renders it more difficult for the
+shafts to clear themselves from suspicion, they must not, in this
+incrusted style, be in any place jointed. No shaft must ever be used but
+of one block; and this the more, because the permission given to the
+builder to have his walls and piers as ponderous as he likes, renders it
+quite unnecessary for him to use shafts of any fixed size. In our Norman
+and Gothic, where definite support is required at a definite point, it
+becomes lawful to build up a tower of small stones in the shape of a
+shaft. But the Byzantine is allowed to have as much support as he wants
+from the walls in every direction, and he has no right to ask for
+further license in the structure of his shafts. Let him, by generosity
+in the substance of his pillars, repay us for the permission we have
+given him to be superficial in his walls. The builder in the chalk
+valleys of France and England may be blameless in kneading his clumsy
+pier out of broken flint and calcined lime; but the Venetian, who has
+access to the riches of Asia and the quarries of Egypt, must frame at
+least his shafts out of flawless stone.
+
+Sec. XXXIII. And this for another reason yet. Although, as we have said,
+it is impossible to cover the walls of a large building with color, except
+on the condition of dividing the stone into plates, there is always a
+certain appearance of meanness and niggardliness in the procedure. It is
+necessary that the builder should justify himself from this suspicion;
+and prove that it is not in mere economy or poverty, but in the real
+impossibility of doing otherwise, that he has sheeted his walls so
+thinly with the precious film. Now the shaft is exactly the portion of
+the edifice in which it is fittest to recover his honor in this respect.
+For if blocks of jasper or porphyry be inserted in the walls, the
+spectator cannot tell their thickness, and cannot judge of the
+costliness of the sacrifice. But the shaft he can measure with his eye
+in an instant, and estimate the quantity of treasure both in the mass of
+its existing substance, and in that which has been hewn away to bring it
+into its perfect and symmetrical form. And thus the shafts of all
+buildings of this kind are justly regarded as an expression of their
+wealth, and a form of treasure, just as much as the jewels or gold in
+the sacred vessels; they are, in fact, nothing else than large
+jewels,[31] the block of precious serpentine or jasper being valued
+according to its size and brilliancy of color, like a large emerald or
+ruby; only the bulk required to bestow value on the one is to be
+measured in feet and tons, and on the other in lines and carats. The
+shafts must therefore be, without exception, of one block in all
+buildings of this kind; for the attempt in any place to incrust or joint
+them would be a deception like that of introducing a false stone among
+jewellery (for a number of joints of any precious stone are of course
+not equal in value to a single piece of equal weight), and would put an
+end at once to the spectator's confidence in the expression of wealth in
+any portion of the structure, or of the spirit of sacrifice in those who
+raised it.
+
+Sec. XXXIV. LAW IV. _The shafts may sometimes be independent of the
+construction._ Exactly in proportion to the importance which the shaft
+assumes as a large jewel, is the diminution of its importance as a
+sustaining member; for the delight which we receive in its abstract
+bulk, and beauty of color, is altogether independent of any perception
+of its adaptation to mechanical necessities. Like other beautiful things
+in this world, its end is to _be_ beautiful; and, in proportion to its
+beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame
+emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers.
+Nay, so far from our admiration of the jewel shaft being dependent on
+its doing work for us, it is very possible that a chief part of its
+preciousness may consist in a delicacy, fragility, and tenderness of
+material, which must render it utterly unfit for hard work; and
+therefore that we shall admire it the more, because we perceive that if
+we were to put much weight upon it, it would be crushed. But, at all
+events, it is very clear that the primal object in the placing of such
+shafts must be the display of their beauty to the best advantage, and
+that therefore all imbedding of them in walls, or crowding of them into
+groups, in any position in which either their real size or any portion
+of their surface would be concealed, is either inadmissible altogether,
+or objectionable in proportion to their value; that no symmetrical or
+scientific arrangements of pillars are therefore ever to be expected in
+buildings of this kind, and that all such are even to be looked upon as
+positive errors and misapplications of materials: but that, on the
+contrary, we must be constantly prepared to see, and to see with
+admiration, shafts of great size and importance set in places where
+their real service is little more than nominal, and where the chief end
+of their existence is to catch the sunshine upon their polished sides,
+and lead the eye into delighted wandering among the mazes of their azure
+veins.
+
+Sec. XXXV. LAW V. _The shafts may be of variable size._ Since the value of
+each shaft depends upon its bulk, and diminishes with the diminution of
+its mass, in a greater ratio than the size itself diminishes, as in the
+case of all other jewellery, it is evident that we must not in general
+expect perfect symmetry and equality among the series of shafts, any
+more than definiteness of application; but that, on the contrary, an
+accurately observed symmetry ought to give us a kind of pain, as proving
+that considerable and useless loss has been sustained by some of the
+shafts, in being cut down to match with the rest. It is true that
+symmetry is generally sought for in works of smaller jewellery; but,
+even there, not a perfect symmetry, and obtained under circumstances
+quite different from those which affect the placing of shafts in
+architecture. First: the symmetry is usually imperfect. The stones that
+seem to match each other in a ring or necklace, appear to do so only
+because they are so small that their differences are not easily measured
+by the eye; but there is almost always such difference between them as
+would be strikingly apparent if it existed in the same proportion
+between two shafts nine or ten feet in height. Secondly: the quantity of
+stones which pass through a jeweller's hands, and the facility of
+exchange of such small objects, enable the tradesman to select any
+number of stones of approximate size; a selection, however, often
+requiring so much time, that perfect symmetry in a group of very fine
+stones adds enormously to their value. But the architect has neither the
+time nor the facilities of exchange. He cannot lay aside one column in a
+corner of his church till, in the course of traffic, he obtain another
+that will match it; he has not hundreds of shafts fastened up in
+bundles, out of which he can match sizes at his ease; he cannot send to
+a brother-tradesman and exchange the useless stones for available ones,
+to the convenience of both. His blocks of stone, or his ready hewn
+shafts, have been brought to him in limited number, from immense
+distances; no others are to be had; and for those which he does not
+bring into use, there is no demand elsewhere. His only means of
+obtaining symmetry will therefore be, in cutting down the finer masses
+to equality with the inferior ones; and this we ought not to desire him
+often to do. And therefore, while sometimes in a Baldacchino, or an
+important chapel or shrine, this costly symmetry may be necessary, and
+admirable in proportion to its probable cost, in the general fabric we
+must expect to see shafts introduced of size and proportion continually
+varying, and such symmetry as may be obtained among them never
+altogether perfect, and dependent for its charm frequently on strange
+complexities and unexpected rising and falling of weight and accent in
+its marble syllables; bearing the same relation to a rigidly chiselled
+and proportioned architecture that the wild lyric rhythm of Aeschylus
+or Pindar bears to the finished measures of Pope.
+
+Sec. XXXVI. The application of the principles of jewellery to the smaller
+as well as the larger blocks, will suggest to us another reason for the
+method of incrustation adopted in the walls. It often happens that the
+beauty of the veining in some varieties of alabaster is so great, that
+it becomes desirable to exhibit it by dividing the stone, not merely to
+economize its substance, but to display the changes in the disposition
+of its fantastic lines. By reversing one of two thin plates successively
+taken from the stone, and placing their corresponding edges in contact,
+a perfectly symmetrical figure may be obtained, which will enable the
+eye to comprehend more thoroughly the position of the veins. And this is
+actually the method in which, for the most part, the alabasters of St.
+Mark are employed; thus accomplishing a double good,--directing the
+spectator, in the first place, to close observation of the nature of the
+stone employed, and in the second, giving him a farther proof of the
+honesty of intention in the builder: for wherever similar veining is
+discovered in two pieces, the fact is declared that they have been cut
+from the same stone. It would have been easy to disguise the similarity
+by using them in different parts of the building; but on the contrary
+they are set edge to edge, so that the whole system of the architecture
+may be discovered at a glance by any one acquainted with the nature of
+the stones employed. Nay, but, it is perhaps answered me, not by an
+ordinary observer; a person ignorant of the nature of alabaster might
+perhaps fancy all these symmetrical patterns to have been found in the
+stone itself, and thus be doubly deceived, supposing blocks to be solid
+and symmetrical which were in reality subdivided and irregular. I grant
+it; but be it remembered, that in all things, ignorance is liable to be
+deceived, and has no right to accuse anything but itself as the source
+of the deception. The style and the words are dishonest, not which are
+liable to be misunderstood if subjected to no inquiry, but which are
+deliberately calculated to lead inquiry astray. There are perhaps no
+great or noble truths, from those of religion downwards, which present
+no mistakeable aspect to casual or ignorant contemplation. Both the
+truth and the lie agree in hiding themselves at first, but the lie
+continues to hide itself with effort, as we approach to examine it; and
+leads us, if undiscovered, into deeper lies; the truth reveals itself in
+proportion to our patience and knowledge, discovers itself kindly to our
+pleading, and leads us, as it is discovered, into deeper truths.
+
+Sec. XXXVII. LAW VI. _The decoration must be shallow in cutting._ The
+method of construction being thus systematized, it is evident that a
+certain style of decoration must arise out of it, based on the primal
+condition that over the greater part of the edifice there can be _no
+deep cutting_. The thin sheets of covering stones do not admit of it; we
+must not cut them through to the bricks; and whatever ornaments we
+engrave upon them cannot, therefore, be more than an inch deep at the
+utmost. Consider for an instant the enormous differences which this
+single condition compels between the sculptural decoration of the
+incrusted style, and that of the solid stones of the North, which may be
+hacked and hewn into whatever cavernous hollows and black recesses we
+choose; struck into grim darknesses and grotesque projections, and
+rugged ploughings up of sinuous furrows, in which any form or thought
+may be wrought out on any scale,--mighty statues with robes of rock and
+crowned foreheads burning in the sun, or venomous goblins and stealthy
+dragons shrunk into lurking-places of untraceable shade: think of this,
+and of the play and freedom given to the sculptor's hand and temper, to
+smite out and in, hither and thither, as he will; and then consider what
+must be the different spirit of the design which is to be wrought on
+the smooth surface of a film of marble, where every line and shadow must
+be drawn with the most tender pencilling and cautious reserve of
+resource,--where even the chisel must not strike hard, lest it break
+through the delicate stone, nor the mind be permitted in any impetuosity
+of conception inconsistent with the fine discipline of the hand.
+Consider that whatever animal or human form is to be suggested, must be
+projected on a flat surface; that all the features of the countenance,
+the folds of the drapery, the involutions of the limbs, must be so
+reduced and subdued that the whole work becomes rather a piece of fine
+drawing than of sculpture; and then follow out, until you begin to
+perceive their endlessness, the resulting differences of character which
+will be necessitated in every part of the ornamental designs of these
+incrusted churches, as compared with that of the Northern schools. I
+shall endeavor to trace a few of them only.
+
+Sec. XXXVIII. The first would of course be a diminution of the builder's
+dependence upon human form as a source of ornament: since exactly in
+proportion to the dignity of the form itself is the loss which it must
+sustain in being reduced to a shallow and linear bas-relief, as well as
+the difficulty of expressing it at all under such conditions. Wherever
+sculpture can be solid, the nobler characters of the human form at once
+lead the artist to aim at its representation, rather than at that of
+inferior organisms; but when all is to be reduced to outline, the forms
+of flowers and lower animals are always more intelligible, and are felt
+to approach much more to a satisfactory rendering of the objects
+intended, than the outlines of the human body. This inducement to seek
+for resources of ornament in the lower fields of creation was powerless
+in the minds of the great Pagan nations, Ninevite, Greek, or Egyptian:
+first, because their thoughts were so concentrated on their own
+capacities and fates, that they preferred the rudest suggestion of human
+form to the best of an inferior organism; secondly, because their
+constant practice in solid sculpture, often colossal, enabled them to
+bring a vast amount of science into the treatment of the lines, whether
+of the low relief, the monochrome vase, or shallow hieroglyphic.
+
+Sec. XXXIX. But when various ideas adverse to the representation of
+animal, and especially of human, form, originating with the Arabs and
+iconoclast Greeks, had begun at any rate to direct the builders' minds
+to seek for decorative materials in inferior types, and when diminished
+practice in solid sculpture had rendered it more difficult to find artists
+capable of satisfactorily reducing the high organisms to their elementary
+outlines, the choice of subject for surface sculpture would be more and
+more uninterruptedly directed to floral organisms, and human and animal
+form would become diminished in size, frequency, and general importance.
+So that, while in the Northern solid architecture we constantly find the
+effect of its noblest features dependent on ranges of statues, often
+colossal, and full of abstract interest, independent of their
+architectural service, in the Southern incrusted style we must expect to
+find the human form for the most part subordinate and diminutive, and
+involved among designs of foliage and flowers, in the manner of which
+endless examples had been furnished by the fantastic ornamentation of
+the Romans, from which the incrusted style had been directly derived.
+
+Sec. XL. Farther. In proportion to the degree in which his subject must
+be reduced to abstract outline will be the tendency in the sculptor to
+abandon naturalism of representation, and subordinate every form to
+architectural service. Where the flower or animal can be hewn into bold
+relief, there will always be a temptation to render the representation
+of it more complete than is necessary, or even to introduce details and
+intricacies inconsistent with simplicity of distant effect. Very often a
+worse fault than this is committed; and in the endeavor to give vitality
+to the stone, the original ornamental purpose of the design is
+sacrificed or forgotten. But when nothing of this kind can be attempted,
+and a slight outline is all that the sculptor can command, we may
+anticipate that this outline will be composed with exquisite grace; and
+that the richness of its ornamental arrangement will atone for the
+feebleness of its power of portraiture. On the porch of a Northern
+cathedral we may seek for the images of the flowers that grow in the
+neighboring fields, and as we watch with wonder the grey stones that
+fret themselves into thorns, and soften into blossoms, we may care
+little that these knots of ornament, as we retire from them to
+contemplate the whole building, appear unconsidered or confused. On the
+incrusted building we must expect no such deception of the eye or
+thoughts. It may sometimes be difficult to determine, from the
+involutions of its linear sculpture, what were the natural forms which
+originally suggested them: but we may confidently expect that the grace
+of their arrangement will always be complete; that there will not be a
+line in them which could be taken away without injury, nor one wanting
+which could be added with advantage.
+
+Sec. XLI. Farther. While the sculptures of the incrusted school will thus
+be generally distinguished by care and purity rather than force, and
+will be, for the most part, utterly wanting in depth of shadow, there
+will be one means of obtaining darkness peculiarly simple and obvious,
+and often in the sculptor's power. Wherever he can, without danger,
+leave a hollow behind his covering slabs, or use them, like glass, to
+fill an aperture in the wall, he can, by piercing them with holes,
+obtain points or spaces of intense blackness to contrast with the light
+tracing of the rest of his design. And we may expect to find this
+artifice used the more extensively, because, while it will be an
+effective means of ornamentation on the exterior of the building, it
+will be also the safest way of admitting light to the interior, still
+totally excluding both rain and wind. And it will naturally follow that
+the architect, thus familiarized with the effect of black and sudden
+points of shadow, will often seek to carry the same principle into other
+portions of his ornamentation, and by deep drill-holes, or perhaps
+inlaid portions of black color, to refresh the eye where it may be
+wearied by the lightness of the general handling.
+
+Sec. XLII. Farther. Exactly in proportion to the degree in which the force
+of sculpture is subdued, will be the importance attached to color as a
+means of effect or constituent of beauty. I have above stated that the
+incrusted style was the only one in which perfect or permanent color
+decoration was _possible_. It is also the only one in which a true
+system of color decoration was ever likely to be invented. In order to
+understand this, the reader must permit me to review with some care the
+nature of the principles of coloring adopted by the Northern and
+Southern nations.
+
+Sec. XLIII. I believe that from the beginning of the world there has never
+been a true or fine school of art in which color was despised. It has
+often been imperfectly attained and injudiciously applied, but I believe
+it to be one of the essential signs of life in a school of art, that it
+loves color; and I know it to be one of the first signs of death in the
+Renaissance schools, that they despised color.
+
+Observe, it is not now the question whether our Northern cathedrals are
+better with color or without. Perhaps the great monotone grey of Nature
+and of Time is a better color than any that the human hand can give; but
+that is nothing to our present business. The simple fact is, that the
+builders of those cathedrals laid upon them the brightest colors they
+could obtain, and that there is not, as far as I am aware, in Europe,
+any monument of a truly noble school which has not been either painted
+all over, or vigorously touched with paint, mosaic, and gilding in its
+prominent parts. Thus far Egyptians, Greeks, Goths, Arabs, and mediaeval
+Christians all agree: none of them, when in their right senses, ever
+think of doing without paint; and, therefore, when I said above that the
+Venetians were the only people who had thoroughly sympathized with the
+Arabs in this respect, I referred, first, to their intense love of
+color, which led them to lavish the most expensive decorations on
+ordinary dwelling-houses; and, secondly, to that perfection of the
+color-instinct in them, which enabled them to render whatever they did,
+in this kind, as just in principle as it was gorgeous in appliance. It
+is this principle of theirs, as distinguished from that of the Northern
+builders, which we have finally to examine.
+
+Sec. XLIV. In the second chapter of the first volume, it was noticed that
+the architect of Bourges Cathedral liked hawthorn, and that the porch of
+his cathedral was therefore decorated with a rich wreath of it; but
+another of the predilections of that architect was there unnoticed,
+namely, that he did not at all like _grey_ hawthorn, but preferred it
+green, and he painted it green accordingly, as bright as he could. The
+color is still left in every sheltered interstice of the foliage. He
+had, in fact, hardly the choice of any other color; he might have gilded
+the thorns, by way of allegorizing human life, but if they were to be
+painted at all, they could hardly be painted any tiling but green, and
+green all over. People would have been apt to object to any pursuit of
+abstract harmonies of color, which might have induced him to paint his
+hawthorn blue.
+
+Sec. XLV. In the same way, whenever the subject of the sculpture was
+definite, its color was of necessity definite also; and, in the hands of
+the Northern builders, it often became, in consequence, rather the means
+of explaining and animating the stories of their stone-work, than a
+matter of abstract decorative science. Flowers were painted red, trees
+green, and faces flesh-color; the result of the whole being often far
+more entertaining than beautiful. And also, though in the lines of the
+mouldings and the decorations of shafts or vaults, a richer and more
+abstract method of coloring was adopted (aided by the rapid development
+of the best principles of color in early glass-painting), the vigorous
+depths of shadow in the Northern sculpture confused the architect's eye,
+compelling him to use violent colors in the recesses, if these were to
+be seen as color at all, and thus injured his perception of more
+delicate color harmonies; so that in innumerable instances it becomes
+very disputable whether monuments even of the best times were improved
+by the color bestowed upon them, or the contrary. But, in the South, the
+flatness and comparatively vague forms of the sculpture, while they
+appeared to call for color in order to enhance their interest, presented
+exactly the conditions which would set it off to the greatest advantage;
+breadth of surface displaying even the most delicate tints in the
+lights, and faintness of shadow joining with the most delicate and
+pearly greys of color harmony; while the subject of the design being in
+nearly all cases reduced to mere intricacy of ornamental line, might be
+colored in any way the architect chose without any loss of rationality.
+Where oak-leaves and roses were carved into fresh relief and perfect
+bloom, it was necessary to paint the one green and the other red; but in
+portions of ornamentation where there was nothing which could be
+definitely construed into either an oak-leaf or a rose, but a mere
+labyrinth of beautiful lines, becoming here something like a leaf, and
+there something like a flower, the whole tracery of the sculpture might
+be left white, and grounded with gold or blue, or treated in any other
+manner best harmonizing with the colors around it. And as the
+necessarily feeble character of the sculpture called for and was ready
+to display the best arrangements of color, so the precious marbles in
+the architect's hands give him at once the best examples and the best
+means of color. The best examples, for the tints of all natural stones
+are as exquisite in quality as endless in change; and the best means,
+for they are all permanent.
+
+Sec. XLVI. Every motive thus concurred in urging him to the study of
+chromatic decoration, and every advantage was given him in the pursuit
+of it; and this at the very moment when, as presently to be noticed, the
+_naivete_ of barbaric Christianity could only be forcibly appealed to by
+the help of colored pictures: so that, both externally and internally,
+the architectural construction became partly merged in pictorial effect;
+and the whole edifice is to be regarded less as a temple wherein to
+pray, than as itself a Book of Common Prayer, a vast illuminated missal,
+bound with alabaster instead of parchment, studded with porphyry pillars
+instead of jewels, and written within and without in letters of enamel
+and gold.
+
+Sec. XLVII. LAW VII. _That the impression of the architecture is not to
+be dependent on size._ And now there is but one final consequence to be
+deduced. The reader understands, I trust, by this time, that the claims
+of these several parts of the building upon his attention will depend
+upon their delicacy of design, their perfection of color, their
+preciousness of material, and their legendary interest. All these
+qualities are independent of size, and partly even inconsistent with it.
+Neither delicacy of surface sculpture, nor subtle gradations of color,
+can be appreciated by the eye at a distance; and since we have seen that
+our sculpture is generally to be only an inch or two in depth, and that
+our coloring is in great part to be produced with the soft tints and
+veins of natural stones, it will follow necessarily that none of the
+parts of the building can be removed far from the eye, and therefore
+that the whole mass of it cannot be large. It is not even desirable that
+it should be so; for the temper in which the mind addresses itself to
+contemplate minute and beautiful details is altogether different from
+that in which it submits itself to vague impressions of space and size.
+And therefore we must not be disappointed, but grateful, when we find
+all the best work of the building concentrated within a space
+comparatively small; and that, for the great cliff-like buttresses and
+mighty piers of the North, shooting up into indiscernible height, we
+have here low walls spread before us like the pages of a book, and
+shafts whose capitals we may touch with our hand.
+
+Sec. XLVIII. The due consideration of the principles above stated will
+enable the traveller to judge with more candor and justice of the
+architecture of St. Mark's than usually it would have been possible for
+him to do while under the influence of the prejudices necessitated by
+familiarity with the very different schools of Northern art. I wish it
+were in my power to lay also before the general reader some
+exemplification of the manner in which these strange principles are
+developed in the lovely building. But exactly in proportion to the
+nobility of any work, is the difficulty of conveying a just impression
+of it; and wherever I have occasion to bestow high praise, there it is
+exactly most dangerous for me to endeavor to illustrate my meaning,
+except by reference to the work itself. And, in fact, the principal
+reason why architectural criticism is at this day so far behind all
+other, is the impossibility of illustrating the best architecture
+faithfully. Of the various schools of painting, examples are accessible
+to every one, and reference to the works themselves is found sufficient
+for all purposes of criticism; but there is nothing like St. Mark's or
+the Ducal Palace to be referred to in the National Gallery, and no
+faithful illustration of them is possible on the scale of such a volume
+as this. And it is exceedingly difficult on any scale. Nothing is so
+rare in art, as far as my own experience goes, as a fair illustration of
+architecture; _perfect_ illustration of it does not exist. For all good
+architecture depends upon the adaptation of its chiselling to the effect
+at a certain distance from the eye; and to render the peculiar confusion
+in the midst of order, and uncertainty in the midst of decision, and
+mystery in the midst of trenchant lines, which are the result of
+distance, together with perfect expression of the peculiarities of the
+design, requires the skill of the most admirable artist, devoted to the
+work with the most severe conscientiousness, neither the skill nor the
+determination having as yet been given to the subject. And in the
+illustration of details, every building of any pretensions to high
+architectural rank would require a volume of plates, and those finished
+with extraordinary care. With respect to the two buildings which are the
+principal subjects of the present volume, St. Mark's and the Ducal
+Palace, I have found it quite impossible to do them the slightest
+justice by any kind of portraiture; and I abandoned the endeavor in the
+case of the latter with less regret, because in the new Crystal Palace
+(as the poetical public insist upon calling it, though it is neither a
+palace, nor of crystal) there will be placed, I believe, a noble cast of
+one of its angles. As for St. Mark's, the effort was hopeless from the
+beginning. For its effect depends not only upon the most delicate
+sculpture in every part, but, as we have just stated, eminently on its
+color also, and that the most subtle, variable, inexpressible color in
+the world,--the color of glass, of transparent alabaster, of polished
+marble, and lustrous gold. It would be easier to illustrate a crest of
+Scottish mountain, with its purple heather and pale harebells at their
+fullest and fairest, or a glade of Jura forest, with its floor of
+anemone and moss, than a single portico of St. Mark's. The fragment of
+one of its archivolts, given at the bottom of the opposite Plate, is not
+to illustrate the thing itself, but to illustrate the impossibility of
+illustration.
+
+Sec. XLIX. It is left a fragment, in order to get it on a larger scale;
+and yet even on this scale it is too small to show the sharp folds and
+points of the marble vine-leaves with sufficient clearness. The ground
+of it is gold, the sculpture in the spandrils is not more than an inch
+and a half deep, rarely so much. It is in fact nothing more than an
+exquisite sketching of outlines in marble, to about the same depth as in
+the Elgin frieze; the draperies, however, being filled with close folds,
+in the manner of the Byzantine pictures, folds especially necessary
+here, as large masses could not be expressed in the shallow sculpture
+without becoming insipid; but the disposition of these folds is always
+most beautiful, and often opposed by broad and simple spaces, like that
+obtained by the scroll in the hand of the prophet, seen in the plate.
+
+[Illustration: Plate VI.
+               THE VINE TREE, AND IN SERVICE.]
+
+The balls in the archivolt project considerably, and the interstices
+between their interwoven bands of marble are filled with colors like the
+illuminations of a manuscript; violet, crimson, blue, gold, and green
+alternately: but no green is ever used without an intermixture of blue
+pieces in the mosaic, nor any blue without a little centre of pale
+green; sometimes only a single piece of glass a quarter of an inch
+square, so subtle was the feeling for color which was thus to be
+satisfied.[32] The intermediate circles have golden stars set on an
+azure ground, varied in the same manner; and the small crosses seen in
+the intervals are alternately blue and subdued scarlet, with two small
+circles of white set in the golden ground above and beneath them, each
+only about half an inch across (this work, remember, being on the
+outside of the building, and twenty feet above the eye), while the blue
+crosses have each a pale green centre. Of all this exquisitely
+mingled hue, no plate, however large or expensive, could give any
+adequate conception; but, if the reader will supply in imagination to
+the engraving what he supplies to a common woodcut of a group of
+flowers, the decision of the respective merits of modern and of
+Byzantine architecture may be allowed to rest on this fragment of St.
+Mark's alone.
+
+From the vine-leaves of that archivolt, though there is no direct
+imitation of nature in them, but on the contrary a studious subjection
+to architectural purpose more particularly to be noticed hereafter, we
+may yet receive the same kind of pleasure which we have in seeing true
+vine-leaves and wreathed branches traced upon golden light; its stars
+upon their azure ground ought to make us remember, as its builder
+remembered, the stars that ascend and fall in the great arch of the sky:
+and I believe that stars, and boughs, and leaves, and bright colors are
+everlastingly lovely, and to be by all men beloved; and, moreover, that
+church walls grimly seared with squared lines, are not better nor nobler
+things than these. I believe the man who designed and the men who
+delighted in that archivolt to have been wise, happy, and holy. Let the
+reader look back to the archivolt I have already given out of the
+streets of London (Plate XIII. Vol. I.), and see what there is in it to
+make us any of the three. Let him remember that the men who design such
+work as that call St. Mark's a barbaric monstrosity, and let him judge
+between us.
+
+Sec. L. Some farther details of the St. Mark's architecture, and
+especially a general account of Byzantine capitals, and of the principal
+ones at the angles of the church, will be found in the following
+chapter.[33] Here I must pass on to the second part of our immediate
+subject, namely, the inquiry how far the exquisite and varied ornament of
+St. Mark's fits it, as a Temple, for its sacred purpose, and would be
+applicable in the churches of modern times. We have here evidently two
+questions: the first, that wide and continually agitated one, whether
+richness of ornament be right in churches at all; the second, whether the
+ornament of St. Mark's be of a truly ecclesiastical and Christian
+character.
+
+Sec. LI. In the first chapter of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture" I
+endeavored to lay before the reader some reasons why churches ought to
+be richly adorned, as being the only places in which the desire of
+offering a portion of all precious things to God could be legitimately
+expressed. But I left wholly untouched the question: whether the church,
+as such, stood in need of adornment, or would be better fitted for its
+purposes by possessing it. This question I would now ask the reader to
+deal with briefly and candidly.
+
+The chief difficulty in deciding it has arisen from its being always
+presented to us in an unfair form. It is asked of us, or we ask of
+ourselves, whether the sensation which we now feel in passing from our
+own modern dwelling-house, through a newly built street, into a
+cathedral of the thirteenth century, be safe or desirable as a
+preparation for public worship. But we never ask whether that sensation
+was at all calculated upon by the builders of the cathedral.
+
+Sec. LII. Now I do not say that the contrast of the ancient with the
+modern building, and the strangeness with which the earlier architectural
+forms fall upon the eye, are at this day disadvantageous. But I do say,
+that their effect, whatever it may be, was entirely uncalculated upon by
+the old builder. He endeavored to make his work beautiful, but never
+expected it to be strange. And we incapacitate ourselves altogether from
+fair judgment of its intention, if we forget that, when it was built, it
+rose in the midst of other work fanciful and beautiful as itself; that
+every dwelling-house in the middle ages was rich with the same ornaments
+and quaint with the same grotesques which fretted the porches or
+animated the gargoyles of the cathedral; that what we now regard with
+doubt and wonder, as well as with delight, was then the natural
+continuation, into the principal edifice of the city, of a style which
+was familiar to every eye throughout all its lanes and streets; and that
+the architect had often no more idea of producing a peculiarly
+devotional impression by the richest color and the most elaborate
+carving, than the builder of a modern meeting-house has by his
+whitewashed walls and square-cut casements.[34]
+
+Sec. LIII. Let the reader fix this great fact well in his mind, and then
+follow out its important corollaries. We attach, in modern days, a kind
+of sacredness to the pointed arch and the groined roof, because, while
+we look habitually out of square windows and live under flat ceilings,
+we meet with the more beautiful forms in the ruins of our abbeys. But
+when those abbeys were built, the pointed arch was used for every shop
+door, as well as for that of the cloister, and the feudal baron and
+freebooter feasted, as the monk sang, under vaulted roofs; not because
+the vaulting was thought especially appropriate to either the revel or
+psalm, but because it was then the form in which a strong roof was
+easiest built. We have destroyed the goodly architecture of our cities;
+we have substituted one wholly devoid of beauty or meaning; and then we
+reason respecting the strange effect upon our minds of the fragments
+which, fortunately, we have left in our churches, as if those churches
+had always been designed to stand out in strong relief from all the
+buildings around them, and Gothic architecture had always been, what it
+is now, a religious language, like Monkish Latin. Most readers know, if
+they would arouse their knowledge, that this was not so; but they take
+no pains to reason the matter out: they abandon themselves drowsily to
+the impression that Gothic is a peculiarly ecclesiastical style; and
+sometimes, even, that richness in church ornament is a condition or
+furtherance of the Romish religion. Undoubtedly it has become so in
+modern times: for there being no beauty in our recent architecture, and
+much in the remains of the past, and these remains being almost
+exclusively ecclesiastical, the High Church and Romanist parties have
+not been slow in availing themselves of the natural instincts which were
+deprived of all food except from this source; and have willingly
+promulgated the theory, that because all the good architecture that is
+now left is expressive of High Church or Romanist doctrines, all good
+architecture ever has been and must be so,--a piece of absurdity from
+which, though here and there a country clergyman may innocently believe
+it, I hope the common sense of the nation will soon manfully quit
+itself. It needs but little inquiry into the spirit of the past, to
+ascertain what, once for all, I would desire here clearly and forcibly
+to assert, that wherever Christian church architecture has been good and
+lovely, it has been merely the perfect development of the common
+dwelling-house architecture of the period; that when the pointed arch
+was used in the street, it was used in the church; when the round arch
+was used in the street, it was used in the church; when the pinnacle was
+set over the garret window, it was set over the belfry tower; when the
+flat roof was used for the drawing-room, it was used for the nave. There
+is no sacredness in round arches, nor in pointed; none in pinnacles, nor
+in buttresses; none in pillars, nor in traceries. Churches were larger
+than most other buildings, because they had to hold more people; they
+were more adorned than most other buildings, because they were safer
+from violence, and were the fitting subjects of devotional offering: but
+they were never built in any separate, mystical, and religious style;
+they were built in the manner that was common and familiar to everybody
+at the time. The flamboyant traceries that adorn the facade of Rouen
+Cathedral had once their fellows in every window of every house in the
+market-place; the sculptures that adorn the porches of St. Mark's had
+once their match on the walls of every palace on the Grand Canal; and
+the only difference between the church and the dwelling-house was, that
+there existed a symbolical meaning in the distribution of the parts of
+all buildings meant for worship, and that the painting or sculpture was,
+in the one case, less frequently of profane subject than in the other. A
+more severe distinction cannot be drawn: for secular history was
+constantly introduced into church architecture; and sacred history or
+allusion generally formed at least one half of the ornament of the
+dwelling-house.
+
+Sec. LIV. This fact is so important, and so little considered, that I must
+be pardoned for dwelling upon it at some length, and accurately marking
+the limits of the assertion I have made. I do not mean that every
+dwelling-house of mediaeval cities was as richly adorned and as exquisite
+in composition as the fronts of their cathedrals, but that they
+presented features of the same kind, often in parts quite as beautiful;
+and that the churches were not separated by any change of style from the
+buildings round them, as they are now, but were merely more finished and
+full examples of a universal style, rising out of the confused streets
+of the city as an oak tree does out of an oak copse, not differing in
+leafage, but in size and symmetry. Of course the quainter and smaller
+forms of turret and window necessary for domestic service, the inferior
+materials, often wood instead of stone, and the fancy of the
+inhabitants, which had free play in the design, introduced oddnesses,
+vulgarities, and variations into house architecture, which were
+prevented by the traditions, the wealth, and the skill of the monks and
+freemasons; while, on the other hand, conditions of vaulting,
+buttressing, and arch and tower building, were necessitated by the mere
+size of the cathedral, of which it would be difficult to find examples
+elsewhere. But there was nothing more in these features than the
+adaptation of mechanical skill to vaster requirements; there was nothing
+intended to be, or felt to be, especially ecclesiastical in any of the
+forms so developed; and the inhabitants of every village and city, when
+they furnished funds for the decoration of their church, desired merely
+to adorn the house of God as they adorned their own, only a little more
+richly, and with a somewhat graver temper in the subjects of the
+carving. Even this last difference is not always clearly discernible:
+all manner of ribaldry occurs in the details of the ecclesiastical
+buildings of the North, and at the time when the best of them were
+built, every man's house was a kind of temple; a figure of the Madonna,
+or of Christ, almost always occupied a niche over the principal door,
+and the Old Testament histories were curiously interpolated amidst the
+grotesques of the brackets and the gables.
+
+Sec. LV. And the reader will now perceive that the question respecting
+fitness of church decoration rests in reality on totally different
+grounds from those commonly made foundations of argument. So long as our
+streets are walled with barren brick, and our eyes rest continually, in
+our daily life, on objects utterly ugly, or of inconsistent and
+meaningless design, it may be a doubtful question whether the faculties
+of eye and mind which are capable of perceiving beauty, having been left
+without food during the whole of our active life, should be suddenly
+feasted upon entering a place of worship; and color, and music, and
+sculpture should delight the senses, and stir the curiosity of men
+unaccustomed to such appeal, at the moment when they are required to
+compose themselves for acts of devotion;--this, I say, may be a doubtful
+question: but it cannot be a question at all, that if once familiarized
+with beautiful form and color, and accustomed to see in whatever human
+hands have executed for us, even for the lowest services, evidence of
+noble thought and admirable skill, we shall desire to see this evidence
+also in whatever is built or labored for the house of prayer; that the
+absence of the accustomed loveliness would disturb instead of assisting
+devotion; and that we should feel it as vain to ask whether, with our
+own house full of goodly craftsmanship, we should worship God in a house
+destitute of it, as to ask whether a pilgrim whose day's journey had led
+him through fair woods and by sweet waters, must at evening turn aside
+into some barren place to pray.
+
+Sec. LVI. Then the second question submitted to us, whether the ornament
+of St. Mark's be truly ecclesiastical and Christian, is evidently
+determined together with the first; for, if not only the permission of
+ornament at all, but the beautiful execution of it, be dependent on our
+being familiar with it in daily life, it will follow that no style of
+noble architecture _can_ be exclusively ecclesiastical. It must be
+practised in the dwelling before it be perfected in the church, and it
+is the test of a noble style that it shall be applicable to both; for if
+essentially false and ignoble, it may be made to fit the dwelling-house,
+but never can be made to fit the church: and just as there are many
+principles which will bear the light of the world's opinion, yet will
+not bear the light of God's word, while all principles which will bear
+the test of Scripture will also bear that of practice, so in
+architecture there are many forms which expediency and convenience may
+apparently justify, or at least render endurable, in daily use, which
+will yet be found offensive the moment they are used for church service;
+but there are none good for church service, which cannot bear daily use.
+Thus the Renaissance manner of building is a convenient style for
+dwelling-houses, but the natural sense of all religious men causes them
+to turn from it with pain when it has been used in churches; and this
+has given rise to the popular idea that the Roman style is good for
+houses and the Gothic for churches. This is not so; the Roman style is
+essentially base, and we can bear with it only so long as it gives us
+convenient windows and spacious rooms; the moment the question of
+convenience is set aside, and the expression or beauty of the style is
+tried by its being used in a church, we find it fail. But because the
+Gothic and Byzantine styles are fit for churches they are not therefore
+less fit for dwellings. They are in the highest sense fit and good for
+both, nor were they ever brought to perfection except where they were
+used for both.
+
+Sec. LVII. But there is one character of Byzantine work which, according
+to the time at which it was employed, may be considered as either fitting
+or unfitting it for distinctly ecclesiastical purposes; I mean the
+essentially pictorial character of its decoration. We have already seen
+what large surfaces it leaves void of bold architectural features, to be
+rendered interesting merely by surface ornament or sculpture. In this
+respect Byzantine work differs essentially from pure Gothic styles,
+which are capable of filling every vacant space by features purely
+architectural, and may be rendered, if we please, altogether independent
+of pictorial aid. A Gothic church may be rendered impressive by mere
+successions of arches, accumulations of niches, and entanglements of
+tracery. But a Byzantine church requires expression and interesting
+decoration over vast plane surfaces,--decoration which becomes noble
+only by becoming pictorial; that is to say, by representing natural
+objects,--men, animals, or flowers. And, therefore, the question whether
+the Byzantine style be fit for church service in modern days, becomes
+involved in the inquiry, what effect upon religion has been or may yet
+be produced by pictorial art, and especially by the art of the
+mosaicist?
+
+Sec. LVIII. The more I have examined the subject the more dangerous I
+have found it to dogmatize respecting the character of the art which is
+likely, at a given period, to be most useful to the cause of religion.
+One great fact first meets me. I cannot answer for the experience of
+others, but I never yet met with a Christian whose heart was thoroughly
+set upon the world to come, and, so far as human judgment could
+pronounce, perfect and right before God, who cared about art at all. I
+have known several very noble Christian men who loved it intensely, but
+in them there was always traceable some entanglement of the thoughts
+with the matters of this world, causing them to fall into strange
+distresses and doubts, and often leading them into what they themselves
+would confess to be errors in understanding, or even failures in duty. I
+do not say that these men may not, many of them, be in very deed nobler
+than those whose conduct is more consistent; they may be more tender in
+the tone of all their feelings, and farther-sighted in soul, and for
+that very reason exposed to greater trials and fears, than those whose
+hardier frame and naturally narrower vision enable them with less effort
+to give their hands to God and walk with Him. But still, the general
+fact is indeed so, that I have never known a man who seemed altogether
+right and calm in faith, who seriously cared about art; and when
+casually moved by it, it is quite impossible to say beforehand by what
+class of art this impression will on such men be made. Very often it is
+by a theatrical commonplace, more frequently still by false sentiment. I
+believe that the four painters who have had, and still have, the most
+influence, such as it is, on the ordinary Protestant Christian mind, are
+Carlo Dolci, Guercino, Benjamin West, and John Martin. Raphael, much as
+he is talked about, is, I believe in very fact, rarely looked at by
+religious people; much less his master, or any of the truly great
+religious men of old. But a smooth Magdalen of Carlo Dolci with a tear
+on each cheek, or a Guercino Christ or St. John, or a Scripture
+illustration of West's, or a black cloud with a flash of lightning in it
+of Martin's, rarely fails of being verily, often deeply, felt for the
+time.
+
+Sec. LIX. There are indeed many very evident reasons for this; the chief
+one being that, as all truly great religious painters have been hearty
+Romanists, there are none of their works which do not embody, in some
+portions of them, definitely Romanist doctrines. The Protestant mind is
+instantly struck by these, and offended by them, so as to be incapable
+of entering, or at least rendered indisposed to enter, farther into the
+heart of the work, or to the discovering those deeper characters of it,
+which are not Romanist, but Christian, in the everlasting sense and
+power of Christianity. Thus most Protestants, entering for the first
+time a Paradise of Angelico, would be irrevocably offended by finding
+that the first person the painter wished them to speak to was St.
+Dominic; and would retire from such a heaven as speedily as
+possible,--not giving themselves time to discover, that whether dressed
+in black, or white, or grey, and by whatever name in the calendar they
+might be called, the figures that filled that Angelico heaven were
+indeed more saintly, and pure, and full of love in every feature, than
+any that the human hand ever traced before or since. And thus
+Protestantism, having foolishly sought for the little help it requires
+at the hand of painting from the men who embodied no Catholic doctrine,
+has been reduced to receive it from those who believed neither
+Catholicism nor Protestantism, but who read the Bible in search of the
+picturesque. We thus refuse to regard the painters who passed their
+lives in prayer, but are perfectly ready to be taught by those who spent
+them in debauchery. There is perhaps no more popular Protestant picture
+than Salvator's "Witch of Endor," of which the subject was chosen by the
+painter simply because, under the names of Saul and the Sorceress, he
+could paint a captain of banditti, and a Neapolitan hag.
+
+Sec. LX. The fact seems to be that strength of religious feeling is
+capable of supplying for itself whatever is wanting in the rudest
+suggestions of art, and will either, on the one hand, purify what is
+coarse into inoffensiveness, or, on the other, raise what is feeble into
+impressiveness. Probably all art, as such, is unsatisfactory to it; and
+the effort which it makes to supply the void will be induced rather by
+association and accident than by the real merit of the work submitted to
+it. The likeness to a beloved friend, the correspondence with a habitual
+conception, the freedom from any strange or offensive particularity,
+and, above all, an interesting choice of incident, will win admiration
+for a picture when the noblest efforts of religious imagination would
+otherwise fail of power. How much more, when to the quick capacity of
+emotion is joined a childish trust that the picture does indeed
+represent a fact! it matters little whether the fact be well or ill
+told; the moment we believe the picture to be true, we complain little
+of its being ill-painted. Let it be considered for a moment, whether the
+child, with its colored print, inquiring eagerly and gravely which is
+Joseph, and which is Benjamin, is not more capable of receiving a
+strong, even a sublime, impression from the rude symbol which it invests
+with reality by its own effort, than the connoisseur who admires the
+grouping of the three figures in Raphael's "Telling of the Dreams;" and
+whether also, when the human mind is in right religious tone, it has not
+always this childish power--I speak advisedly, this power--a noble one,
+and possessed more in youth than at any period of after life, but
+always, I think, restored in a measure by religion--of raising into
+sublimity and reality the rudest symbol which is given to it of
+accredited truth.
+
+Sec. LXI. Ever since the period of the Renaissance, however, the truth
+has not been accredited; the painter of religious subject is no longer
+regarded as the narrator of a fact, but as the inventor of an idea.[35]
+We do not severely criticise the manner in which a true history is
+told, but we become harsh investigators of the faults of an invention;
+so that in the modern religious mind, the capacity of emotion, which
+renders judgment uncertain, is joined with an incredulity which renders
+it severe; and this ignorant emotion, joined with ignorant observance of
+faults, is the worst possible temper in which any art can be regarded,
+but more especially sacred art. For as religious faith renders emotion
+facile, so also it generally renders expression simple; that is to say a
+truly religious painter will very often be ruder, quainter, simpler, and
+more faulty in his manner of working, than a great irreligious one. And
+it was in this artless utterance, and simple acceptance, on the part of
+both the workman and the beholder, that all noble schools of art have
+been cradled; it is in them that they _must_ be cradled to the end of
+time. It is impossible to calculate the enormous loss of power in modern
+days, owing to the imperative requirement that art shall be methodical
+and learned: for as long as the constitution of this world remains
+unaltered, there will be more intellect in it than there can be
+education; there will be many men capable of just sensation and vivid
+invention, who never will have time to cultivate or polish their natural
+powers. And all unpolished power is in the present state of society
+lost; in other things as well as in the arts, but in the arts
+especially: nay, in nine cases out of ten, people mistake the polish for
+the power. Until a man has passed through a course of academy
+studentship, and can draw in an approved manner with French chalk, and
+knows foreshortening, and perspective, and something of anatomy, we do
+not think he can possibly be an artist; what is worse, we are very apt
+to think that we can _make_ him an artist by teaching him anatomy, and
+how to draw with French chalk; whereas the real gift in him is utterly
+independent of all such accomplishments: and I believe there are many
+peasants on every estate, and laborers in every town, of Europe, who
+have imaginative powers of a high order, which nevertheless cannot be
+used for our good, because we do not choose to look at anything but what
+is expressed in a legal and scientific way. I believe there is many a
+village mason who, set to carve a series of Scripture or any other
+histories, would find many a strange and noble fancy in his head, and
+set it down, roughly enough indeed, but in a way well worth our having.
+But we are too grand to let him do this, or to set up his clumsy work
+when it is done; and accordingly the poor stone-mason is kept hewing
+stones smooth at the corners, and we build our church of the smooth
+square stones, and consider ourselves wise.
+
+Sec. LXII. I shall pursue this subject farther in another place; but I
+allude to it here in order to meet the objections of those persons who
+suppose the mosaics of St. Mark's, and others of the period, to be
+utterly barbarous as representations of religious history. Let it be
+granted that they are so; we are not for that reason to suppose they
+were ineffective in religious teaching. I have above spoken of the whole
+church as a great Book of Common Prayer; the mosaics were its
+illuminations, and the common people of the time were taught their
+Scripture history by means of them, more impressively perhaps, though
+far less fully, than ours are now by Scripture reading. They had no
+other Bible, and--Protestants do not often enough consider this--_could_
+have no other. We find it somewhat difficult to furnish our poor with
+printed Bibles; consider what the difficulty must have been when they
+could be given only in manuscript. The walls of the church necessarily
+became the poor man's Bible, and a picture was more easily read upon the
+walls than a chapter. Under this view, and considering them merely as
+the Bible pictures of a great nation in its youth, I shall finally
+invite the reader to examine the connexion and subjects of these
+mosaics; but in the meantime I have to deprecate the idea of their
+execution being in any sense barbarous. I have conceded too much to
+modern prejudice, in permitting them to be rated as mere childish
+efforts at colored portraiture: they have characters in them of a very
+noble kind; nor are they by any means devoid of the remains of the
+science of the later Roman empire. The character of the features is
+almost always fine, the expression stern and quiet, and very solemn, the
+attitudes and draperies always majestic in the single figures, and in
+those of the groups which are not in violent action;[36] while the
+bright coloring and disregard of chiaroscuro cannot be regarded as
+imperfections, since they are the only means by which the figures could
+be rendered clearly intelligible in the distance and darkness of the
+vaulting. So far am I from considering them barbarous, that I believe of
+all works of religious art whatsoever, these, and such as these, have
+been the most effective. They stand exactly midway between the debased
+manufacture of wooden and waxen images which is the support of Romanist
+idolatry all over the world, and the great art which leads the mind away
+from the religious subject to the art itself. Respecting neither of
+these branches of human skill is there, nor can there be, any question.
+The manufacture of puppets, however influential on the Romanist mind of
+Europe, is certainly not deserving of consideration as one of the fine
+arts. It matters literally nothing to a Romanist what the image he
+worships is like. Take the vilest doll that is screwed together in a
+cheap toy-shop, trust it to the keeping of a large family of children,
+let it be beaten about the house by them till it is reduced to a
+shapeless block, then dress it in a satin frock and declare it to have
+fallen from heaven, and it will satisfactorily answer all Romanist
+purposes. Idolatry,[37] it cannot be too often repeated, is no
+encourager of the fine arts. But, on the other hand, the highest
+branches of the fine arts are no encouragers either of idolatry or of
+religion. No picture of Leonardo's or Raphael's, no statue of Michael
+Angelo's, has ever been worshipped, except by accident. Carelessly
+regarded, and by ignorant persons, there is less to attract in them than
+in commoner works. Carefully regarded, and by intelligent persons, they
+instantly divert the mind from their subject to their art, so that
+admiration takes the place of devotion. I do not say that the Madonna di
+S. Sisto, the Madonna del Cardellino, and such others, have not had
+considerable religious influence on certain minds, but I say that on the
+mass of the people of Europe they have had none whatever; while by far
+the greater number of the most celebrated statues and pictures are never
+regarded with any other feelings than those of admiration of human
+beauty, or reverence for human skill. Effective religious art,
+therefore, has always lain, and I believe must always lie, between the
+two extremes--of barbarous idol-fashioning on one side, and magnificent
+craftsmanship on the other. It consists partly in missal painting, and
+such book-illustrations as, since the invention of printing, have taken
+its place; partly in glass-painting; partly in rude sculpture on the
+outsides of buildings; partly in mosaics; and partly in the frescoes and
+tempera pictures which, in the fourteenth century, formed the link
+between this powerful, because imperfect, religious art, and the
+impotent perfection which succeeded it.
+
+Sec. LXIII. But of all these branches the most important are the inlaying
+and mosaic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, represented in a
+central manner by these mosaics of St. Mark's. Missal-painting could
+not, from its minuteness, produce the same sublime impressions, and
+frequently merged itself in mere ornamentation of the page. Modern
+book-illustration has been so little skilful as hardly to be worth
+naming. Sculpture, though in some positions it becomes of great
+importance, has always a tendency to lose itself in architectural
+effect; and was probably seldom deciphered, in all its parts, by the
+common people, still less the traditions annealed in the purple burning
+of the painted window. Finally, tempera pictures and frescoes were often
+of limited size or of feeble color. But the great mosaics of the twelfth
+and thirteenth centuries covered the walls and roofs of the churches
+with inevitable lustre; they could not be ignored or escaped from; their
+size rendered them majestic, their distance mysterious, their color
+attractive. They did not pass into confused or inferior decorations;
+neither were they adorned with any evidences of skill or science, such
+as might withdraw the attention from their subjects. They were before
+the eyes of the devotee at every interval of his worship; vast
+shadowings forth of scenes to whose realization he looked forward, or of
+spirits whose presence he invoked. And the man must be little capable of
+receiving a religious impression of any kind, who, to this day, does not
+acknowledge some feeling of awe, as he looks up at the pale countenances
+and ghastly forms which haunt the dark roofs of the Baptisteries of
+Parma and Florence, or remains altogether untouched by the majesty of
+the colossal images of apostles, and of Him who sent apostles, that look
+down from the darkening gold of the domes of Venice and Pisa.
+
+Sec. LXIV. I shall, in a future portion of this work, endeavor to discover
+what probabilities there are of our being able to use this kind of art
+in modern churches; but at present it remains for us to follow out the
+connexion of the subjects represented in St. Mark's so as to fulfil our
+immediate object, and form an adequate conception of the feelings of its
+builders, and of its uses to those for whom it was built.
+
+Now there is one circumstance to which I must, in the outset, direct the
+reader's special attention, as forming a notable distinction between
+ancient and modern days. Our eyes are now familiar and wearied with
+writing; and if an inscription is put upon a building, unless it be
+large and clear, it is ten to one whether we ever trouble ourselves to
+decipher it. But the old architect was sure of readers. He knew that
+every one would be glad to decipher all that he wrote; that they would
+rejoice in possessing the vaulted leaves of his stone manuscript; and
+that the more he gave them, the more grateful would the people be. We
+must take some pains, therefore, when we enter St. Mark's, to read all
+that is inscribed, or we shall not penetrate into the feeling either of
+the builder or of his times.
+
+Sec. LXV. A large atrium or portico is attached to two sides of the
+church, a space which was especially reserved for unbaptized persons and
+new converts. It was thought right that, before their baptism, these
+persons should be led to contemplate the great facts of the Old Testament
+history; the history of the Fall of Man, and of the lives of Patriarchs
+up to the period of the Covenant by Moses: the order of the subjects in
+this series being very nearly the same as in many Northern churches, but
+significantly closing with the Fall of the Manna, in order to mark to
+the catechumen the insufficiency of the Mosaic covenant for
+salvation,--"Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are
+dead,"--and to turn his thoughts to the true Bread of which that manna
+was the type.
+
+Sec. LXVI. Then, when after his baptism he was permitted to enter the
+church, over its main entrance he saw, on looking back, a mosaic of
+Christ enthroned, with the Virgin on one side and St. Mark on the other,
+in attitudes of adoration. Christ is represented as holding a book open
+upon his knee, on which is written: "I AM THE DOOR; BY ME IF ANY MAN
+ENTER IN, HE SHALL BE SAVED." On the red marble moulding which surrounds
+the mosaic is written: "I AM THE GATE OF LIFE; LET THOSE WHO ARE MINE
+ENTER BY ME." Above, on the red marble fillet which forms the cornice of
+the west end of the church, is written, with reference to the figure of
+Christ below: "WHO HE WAS, AND FROM WHOM HE CAME, AND AT WHAT PRICE HE
+REDEEMED THEE, AND WHY HE MADE THEE, AND GAVE THEE ALL THINGS, DO THOU
+CONSIDER."
+
+Now observe, this was not to be seen and read only by the catechumen
+when he first entered the church; every one who at any time entered, was
+supposed to look back and to read this writing; their daily entrance
+into the church was thus made a daily memorial of their first entrance
+into the spiritual Church; and we shall find that the rest of the book
+which was opened for them upon its walls continually led them in the
+same manner to regard the visible temple as in every part a type of the
+invisible Church of God.
+
+Sec. LXVII. Therefore the mosaic of the first dome, which is over the head
+of the spectator as soon as he has entered by the great door (that door
+being the type of baptism), represents the effusion of the Holy Spirit,
+as the first consequence and seal of the entrance into the Church of
+God. In the centre of the cupola is the Dove, enthroned in the Greek
+manner, as the Lamb is enthroned, when the Divinity of the Second and
+Third Persons is to be insisted upon together with their peculiar
+offices. From the central symbol of the Holy Spirit twelve streams of
+fire descend upon the heads of the twelve apostles, who are represented
+standing around the dome; and below them, between the windows which are
+pierced in its walls, are represented, by groups of two figures for each
+separate people, the various nations who heard the apostles speak, at
+Pentecost, every man in his own tongue. Finally, on the vaults, at the
+four angles which support the cupola, are pictured four angels, each
+bearing a tablet upon the end of a rod in his hand: on each of the
+tablets of the three first angels is inscribed the word "Holy;" on that
+of the fourth is written "Lord;" and the beginning of the hymn being
+thus put into the mouths of the four angels, the words of it are
+continued around the border of the dome, uniting praise to God for the
+gift of the Spirit, with welcome to the redeemed soul received into His
+Church:
+
+    "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD OF SABAOTH:
+       HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE FULL OF THY GLORY.
+          HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST:
+  BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD."
+
+And observe in this writing that the convert is required to regard the
+outpouring of the Holy Spirit especially as a work of _sanctification_.
+It is the _holiness_ of God manifested in the giving of His Spirit to
+sanctify those who had become His children, which the four angels
+celebrate in their ceaseless praise; and it is on account of this
+holiness that the heaven and earth are said to be full of His glory.
+
+Sec. LXVIII. After thus hearing praise rendered to God by the angels for
+the salvation of the newly-entered soul, it was thought fittest that the
+worshipper should be led to contemplate, in the most comprehensive forms
+possible, the past evidence and the future hopes of Christianity, as
+summed up in three facts without assurance of which all faith is vain;
+namely that Christ died, that He rose again, and that He ascended into
+heaven, there to prepare a place for His elect. On the vault between the
+first and second cupolas are represented the crucifixion and
+resurrection of Christ, with the usual series of intermediate
+scenes,--the treason of Judas, the judgment of Pilate, the crowning with
+thorns, the descent into Hades, the visit of the women to the sepulchre,
+and the apparition to Mary Magdalene. The second cupola itself, which is
+the central and principal one of the church, is entirely occupied by the
+subject of the Ascension. At the highest point of it Christ is
+represented as rising into the blue heaven, borne up by four angels, and
+throned upon a rainbow, the type of reconciliation. Beneath him, the
+twelve apostles are seen upon the Mount of Olives, with the Madonna,
+and, in the midst of them, the two men in white apparel who appeared at
+the moment of the Ascension, above whom, as uttered by them, are
+inscribed the words, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into
+heaven? This Christ, the Son of God, as He is taken from you, shall so
+come, the arbiter of the earth, trusted to do judgment and justice."
+
+Sec. LXIX. Beneath the circle of the apostles, between the windows of
+the cupola, are represented the Christian virtues, as sequent upon the
+crucifixion of the flesh, and the spiritual ascension together with
+Christ. Beneath them, on the vaults which support the angles of the
+cupola, are placed the four Evangelists, because on their evidence our
+assurance of the fact of the ascension rests; and, finally, beneath
+their feet, as symbols of the sweetness and fulness of the Gospel which
+they declared, are represented the four rivers of Paradise, Pison,
+Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.
+
+Sec. LXX. The third cupola, that over the altar, represents the witness
+of the Old Testament to Christ; showing him enthroned in its centre, and
+surrounded by the patriarchs and prophets. But this dome was little seen
+by the people;[38] their contemplation was intended to be chiefly drawn to
+that of the centre of the church, and thus the mind of the worshipper was
+at once fixed on the main groundwork and hope of Christianity,--"Christ is
+risen," and "Christ shall come." If he had time to explore the minor
+lateral chapels and cupolas, he could find in them the whole series of
+New Testament history, the events of the Life of Christ, and the
+Apostolic miracles in their order, and finally the scenery of the Book
+of Revelation;[39] but if he only entered, as often the common people do
+to this hour, snatching a few moments before beginning the labor of the
+day to offer up an ejaculatory prayer, and advanced but from the main
+entrance as far as the altar screen, all the splendor of the glittering
+nave and variegated dome, if they smote upon his heart, as they might
+often, in strange contrast with his reed cabin among the shallows of the
+lagoon, smote upon it only that they might proclaim the two great
+messages--"Christ is risen," and "Christ shall come." Daily, as the
+white cupolas rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the
+shadowy campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the
+night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph,--"Christ is risen;"
+and daily, as they looked down upon the tumult of the people, deepening
+and eddying in the wide square that opened from their feet to the sea,
+they uttered above them the sentence of warning,--"Christ shall come."
+
+Sec. LXXXI. And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look with
+some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of
+that shrine of St. Mark's. He now perceives that it was in the hearts of
+the old Venetian people far more than a place of worship. It was at once
+a type of the Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the written word
+of God. It was to be to them, both an image of the Bride, all glorious
+within, her clothing of wrought gold; and the actual Table of the Law
+and the Testimony, written within and without. And whether honored as
+the Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the gold nor
+the crystal should be spared in the adornment of it; that, as the symbol
+of the Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper,[40]
+and the foundations of it garnished with all manner of precious stones;
+and that, as the channel of the World, that triumphant utterance of the
+Psalmist should be true of it,--"I have rejoiced in the way of thy
+testimonies, as much as in all riches?" And shall we not look with
+changed temper down the long perspective of St. Mark's Place towards the
+sevenfold gates and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what
+solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pavement of the
+populous square? Men met there from all countries of the earth, for
+traffic or for pleasure; but, above the crowd swaying for ever to and
+fro in the restlessness of avarice or thirst of delight, was seen
+perpetually the glory of the temple, attesting to them, whether they
+would hear or whether they would forbear, that there was one treasure
+which the merchantmen might buy without a price, and one delight better
+than all others, in the word and the statutes of God. Not in the
+wantonness of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the eyes or
+the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into transparent strength,
+and those arches arrayed in the colors of the iris. There is a message
+written in the dyes of them, that once was written in blood; and a sound
+in the echoes of their vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of
+heaven,--"He shall return, to do judgment and justice." The strength of
+Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this: her destruction
+found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her irrevocably,
+because she forgot it without excuse. Never had city a more glorious
+Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture
+filled their temples with confused and hardly legible imagery; but, for
+her, the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter,
+and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like
+the star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of the people were
+often in places withdrawn from religious association, subject to
+violence and to change; and on the grass of the dangerous rampart, and
+in the dust of the troubled street, there were deeds done and counsels
+taken, which, if we cannot justify, we may sometimes forgive. But the
+sins of Venice, whether in her palace or in her piazza, were done with
+the Bible at her right hand. The walls on which its testimony was
+written were separated but by a few inches of marble from those which
+guarded the secrets of her councils, or confined the victims of her
+policy. And when in her last hours she threw off all shame and all
+restraint, and the great square of the city became filled with the
+madness of the whole earth, be it remembered how much her sin was
+greater, because it was done in the face of the House of God, burning
+with the letters of His Law. Mountebank and masquer laughed their laugh,
+and went their way; and a silence has followed them, not unforetold; for
+amidst them all, through century after century of gathering vanity and
+festering guilt, that white dome of St. Mark's had uttered in the dead
+ear of Venice, "Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee
+into judgment."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [19] Acts, xiii. 13; xv. 38, 39.
+
+  [20] The reader who desires to investigate it may consult Galliciolli,
+    "Delle Memorie Venete" (Venice, 1795), tom. ii. p. 332, and the
+    authorities quoted by him.
+
+  [21] Venice, 1761, tom. i. p. 126.
+
+  [22] St. Mark's Place, "partly covered by turf, and planted with a
+    few trees; and on account of its pleasant aspect called Brollo or
+    Broglio, that is to say, Garden." The canal passed through it, over
+    which is built the bridge of the Malpassi, Galliciolli, lib. i. cap.
+    viii.
+
+  [23] My authorities for this statement are given below, in the chapter
+    on the Ducal Palace.
+
+  [24] In the Chronicles, "Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella."
+
+  [25] "To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the
+    Protector St. Mark."--_Corner_, p. 14. It is needless to trouble the
+    reader with the various authorities for the above statements: I have
+    consulted the best. The previous inscription once existing on the
+    church itself:
+
+      "Anno milleno transacto bisque trigeno
+       Desuper undecimo fuit facta primo,"
+
+    is no longer to be seen, and is conjectured by Corner, with much
+    probability, to have perished "in qualche ristauro."
+
+  [26] Signed Bartolomeus Bozza, 1634, 1647, 1656, &c.
+
+  [27] Guida di Venezia, p. 6.
+
+  [28] The mere warmth of St. Mark's in winter, which is much greater
+    than that of the other two churches above named, must, however, be
+    taken into consideration, as one of the most efficient causes of its
+    being then more frequented.
+
+  [29] I said above that the larger number of the devotees entered by
+    the "Arabian" porch; the porch, that is to say, on the north side of
+    the church, remarkable for its rich Arabian archivolt, and through
+    which access is gained immediately to the northern transept. The
+    reason is, that in that transept is the chapel of the Madonna, which
+    has a greater attraction for the Venetians than all the rest of the
+    church besides. The old builders kept their images of the Virgin
+    subordinate to those of Christ; but modern Romanism has retrograded
+    from theirs, and the most glittering portions of the whole church
+    are the two recesses behind this lateral altar, covered with silver
+    hearts dedicated to the Virgin.
+
+  [30] Vide "Builder," for October, 1851.
+
+  [31] "Quivi presso si vedi una colonna di tanta bellezza e finezza
+    che e riputato _piutosto gioia che pietra_."--_Sansovino_, of the
+    verd-antique pillar in San Jacomo dell' Orio. A remarkable piece of
+    natural history and moral philosophy, connected with this subject,
+    will be found in the second chapter of our third volume, quoted from
+    the work of a Florentine architect of the fifteenth century.
+
+  [32] The fact is, that no two tesserae of the glass are exactly of
+    the same tint, the greens being all varied with blues, the blues of
+    different depths, the reds of different clearness, so that the
+    effect of each mass of color is full of variety, like the stippled
+    color of a fruit piece.
+
+  [33] Some illustration, also, of what was said in Sec. XXXIII. above,
+    respecting the value of the shafts of St. Mark's as large jewels,
+    will be found in Appendix 9, "Shafts of St. Mark's."
+
+  [34] See the farther notice of this subject in Vol. III. Chap. IV.
+
+  [35] I do not mean that modern Christians believe less in the
+    _facts_ than ancient Christians, but they do not believe in the
+    representation of the facts as true. We look upon the picture as
+    this or that painter's conception; the elder Christians looked upon
+    it as this or that painter's description of what had actually taken
+    place. And in the Greek Church all painting is, to this day,
+    strictly a branch of tradition. See M. Dideron's admirably written
+    introduction to his Iconographie Chretienne, p. 7:--"Un de mes
+    compagnons s'etonnait de retrouver a la Panagia de St. Luc, le saint
+    Jean Chrysostome qu'il avait dessine dans le baptistere de St. Marc,
+    a Venise. Le costume des personnages est partout et en tout temps le
+    meme, non-seulement pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour
+    le dessin, mais jusque pour le nombre et l'epaisseur des plis."
+
+  [36] All the effects of Byzantine art to represent violent action
+    are inadequate, most of them ludicrously so, even when the
+    sculptural art is in other respects far advanced. The early Gothic
+    sculptors, on the other hand, fail in all points of refinement, but
+    hardly ever in expression of action. This distinction is of course
+    one of the necessary consequences of the difference in all respects
+    between the repose of the Eastern, and activity of the Western,
+    mind, which we shall have to trace out completely in the inquiry
+    into the nature of Gothic.
+
+  [37] Appendix 10, "Proper Sense of the word Idolatry."
+
+  [38] It is also of inferior workmanship, and perhaps later than the
+    rest. Vide Lord Lindsay, vol. i. p. 124, note.
+
+  [39] The old mosaics from the Revelation have perished, and have been
+    replaced by miserable work of the seventeenth century.
+
+  [40] Rev. xxi. 18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BYZANTINE PALACES.
+
+
+Sec. I. The account of the architecture of St. Mark's given in the
+previous chapter has, I trust, acquainted the reader sufficiently with the
+spirit of the Byzantine style: but he has probably, as yet, no clear idea
+of its generic forms. Nor would it be safe to define these after an
+examination of St. Mark's alone, built as it was upon various models,
+and at various periods. But if we pass through the city, looking for
+buildings which resemble St. Mark's--first, in the most important
+feature of incrustation; secondly, in the character of the
+mouldings,--we shall find a considerable number, not indeed very
+attractive in their first address to the eye, but agreeing perfectly,
+both with each other, and with the earliest portions of St. Mark's, in
+every important detail; and to be regarded, therefore, with profound
+interest, as indeed the remains of an ancient city of Venice, altogether
+different in aspect from that which now exists. From these remains we
+may with safety deduce general conclusions touching the forms of
+Byzantine architecture, as practised in Eastern Italy, during the
+eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.
+
+Sec. II. They agree in another respect, as well as in style. All are
+either ruins, or fragments disguised by restoration. Not one of them is
+uninjured or unaltered; and the impossibility of finding so much as an
+angle or a single story in perfect condition is a proof, hardly less
+convincing than the method of their architecture, that they were indeed
+raised during the earliest phases of the Venetian power. The mere
+fragments, dispersed in narrow streets, and recognizable by a single
+capital, or the segment of an arch, I shall not enumerate: but, of
+important remains, there are six in the immediate neighborhood of the
+Rialto, one in the Rio di Ca' Foscari, and one conspicuously placed
+opposite the great Renaissance Palace known as the Vendramin Calerghi,
+one of the few palaces still inhabited[41] and well maintained; and
+noticeable, moreover, as having a garden beside it, rich with
+evergreens, and decorated by gilded railings and white statues that cast
+long streams of snowy reflection down into the deep water. The vista of
+canal beyond is terminated by the Church of St. Geremia, another but
+less attractive work of the Renaissance; a mass of barren brickwork,
+with a dull leaden dome above, like those of our National Gallery. So
+that the spectator has the richest and meanest of the late architecture
+of Venice before him at once: the richest, let him observe, a piece of
+private luxury; the poorest, that which was given to God. Then, looking
+to the left, he will see the fragment of the work of earlier ages,
+testifying against both, not less by its utter desolation than by the
+nobleness of the traces that are still left of it.
+
+Sec. III. It is a ghastly ruin; whatever is venerable or sad in its wreck
+being disguised by attempts to put it to present uses of the basest
+kind. It has been composed of arcades borne by marble shafts, and walls
+of brick faced with marble: but the covering stones have been torn away
+from it like the shroud from a corpse; and its walls, rent into a
+thousand chasms, are filled and refilled with fresh brickwork, and the
+seams and hollows are choked with clay and whitewash, oozing and
+trickling over the marble,--itself blanched into dusty decay by the
+frosts of centuries. Soft grass and wandering leafage have rooted
+themselves in the rents, but they are not suffered to grow in their own
+wild and gentle way, for the place is in a sort inhabited; rotten
+partitions are nailed across its corridors, and miserable rooms
+contrived in its western wing; and here and there the weeds are
+indolently torn down, leaving their haggard fibres to struggle again
+into unwholesome growth when the spring next stirs them: and thus, in
+contest between death and life, the unsightly heap is festering to its
+fall.
+
+Of its history little is recorded, and that little futile. That it once
+belonged to the dukes of Ferrara, and was bought from them in the
+sixteenth century, to be made a general receptacle for the goods of the
+Turkish merchants, whence it is now generally known as the Fondaco, or
+Fontico, de' Turchi, are facts just as important to the antiquary, as
+that, in the year 1852, the municipality of Venice allowed its lower
+story to be used for a "deposito di Tabacchi." Neither of this, nor of
+any other remains of the period, can we know anything but what their own
+stones will tell us.
+
+Sec. IV. The reader will find in Appendix 11, written chiefly for the
+traveller's benefit, an account of the situation and present state of
+the other seven Byzantine palaces. Here I shall only give a general
+account of the most interesting points in their architecture.
+
+They all agree in being round-arched and incrusted with marble, but
+there are only six in which the original disposition of the parts is
+anywise traceable; namely, those distinguished in the Appendix as the
+Fondaco de' Turchi, Casa Loredan, Caso Farsetti, Rio-Foscari House,
+Terraced House, and Madonnetta House:[42] and these six agree farther in
+having continuous arcades along their entire fronts from one angle to
+the other, and in having their arcades divided, in each case, into a
+centre and wings; both by greater size in the midmost arches, and by the
+alternation of shafts in the centre, with pilasters, or with small
+shafts, at the flanks.
+
+Sec. V. So far as their structure can be traced, they agree also in
+having tall and few arches in their lower stories, and shorter and more
+numerous arches above: but it happens most unfortunately that in the
+only two cases in which the second stories are left the ground floors
+are modernized, and in the others where the sea stories are left the
+second stories are modernized; so that we never have more than two
+tiers of the Byzantine arches, one above the other. These, however, are
+quite enough to show the first main point on which I wish to insist,
+namely, the subtlety of the feeling for proportion in the Greek
+architects; and I hope that even the general reader will not allow
+himself to be frightened by the look of a few measurements, for, if he
+will only take the little pains necessary to compare them, he will, I am
+almost certain, find the result not devoid of interest.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. IV.]
+
+Sec. VI. I had intended originally to give elevations of all these
+palaces; but have not had time to prepare plates requiring so much labor
+and care. I must, therefore, explain the position of their parts in the
+simplest way in my power.
+
+The Fondaco de' Turchi has sixteen arches in its sea story, and
+twenty-six above them in its first story, the whole based on a
+magnificent foundation, built of blocks of red marble, some of them
+seven feet long by a foot and a half thick, and raised to a height of
+about five feet above high-water mark. At this level, the elevation of
+one half of the building, from its flank to the central pillars of its
+arcades, is rudely given in Fig. IV., in the previous page. It is only
+drawn to show the arrangement of the parts, as the sculptures which are
+indicated by the circles and upright oblongs between the arches are too
+delicate to be shown in a sketch three times the size of this. The
+building once was crowned with an Arabian parapet; but it was taken down
+some years since, and I am aware of no authentic representation of its
+details. The greater part of the sculptures between the arches,
+indicated in the woodcut only by blank circles, have also fallen, or
+been removed, but enough remain on the two flanks to justify the
+representation given in the diagram of their original arrangement.
+
+And now observe the dimensions. The small arches of the wings in the
+ground story, _a_, _a_, _a_, measure, in breadth, from
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  shaft to shaft                   4    5
+  interval _b_                     7    6-1/2
+  interval _c_                     7   11
+  intervals _d_, _e_, _f_, &c.     8    1
+
+The difference between the width of the arches _b_ and _c_ is
+necessitated by the small recess of the cornice on the left hand as
+compared with that of the great capitals; but this sudden difference of
+half a foot between the two extreme arches of the centre offended the
+builder's eye, so he diminished the next one, _unnecessarily_, two
+inches, and thus obtained the gradual cadence to the flanks, from eight
+feet down to four and a half, in a series of continually increasing
+steps. Of course the effect cannot be shown in the diagram, as the first
+difference is less than the thickness of its lines. In the upper story
+the capitals are all nearly of the same height, and there was no
+occasion for the difference between the extreme arches. Its twenty-six
+arches are placed, four small ones above each lateral three of the lower
+arcade, and eighteen larger above the central ten; thus throwing the
+shafts into all manner of relative positions, and completely confusing
+the eye in any effort to count them: but there is an exquisite symmetry
+running through their apparent confusion; for it will be seen that the
+four arches in each flank are arranged in two groups, of which one has a
+large single shaft in the centre, and the other a pilaster and two small
+shafts. The way in which the large shaft is used as an echo of those in
+the central arcade, dovetailing them, as it were, into the system of the
+pilasters,--just as a great painter, passing from one tone of color to
+another, repeats, over a small space, that which he has left,--is highly
+characteristic of the Byzantine care in composition. There are other
+evidences of it in the arrangement of the capitals, which will be
+noticed below in the seventh chapter. The lateral arches of this upper
+arcade measure 3 ft. 2 in. across, and the central 3 ft. 11 in., so that
+the arches in the building are altogether of six magnitudes.
+
+Sec. VII. Next let us take the Casa Loredan. The mode of arrangement of
+its pillars is precisely like that of the Fondaco de' Turchi, so that I
+shall merely indicate them by vertical lines in order to be able to
+letter the intervals. It has five arches in the centre of the lower
+story, and two in each of its wings.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                                                      Ft.  In.
+  The midmost interval, _a_, of the central five, is   6    1
+  The two on each side, _b_, _b_                       5    2
+  The two extremes, _c_, _c_                           4    9
+  Inner arches of the wings, _d_, _d_                  4    4
+  Outer arches of the wings, _e_, _e_                  4    6
+
+The gradation of these dimensions is visible at a glance; the boldest
+step being here taken nearest the centre, while in the Fondaco it is
+farthest from the centre. The first loss here is of eleven inches, the
+second of five, the third of five, and then there is a most subtle
+increase of two inches in the extreme arches, as if to contradict the
+principle of diminution, and stop the falling away of the building by
+firm resistance at its flanks.
+
+I could not get the measures of the upper story accurately, the palace
+having been closed all the time I was in Venice; but it has seven
+central arches above the five below, and three at the flanks above the
+two below, the groups being separated by double shafts.
+
+Sec. VIII. Again, in the Casa Farsetti, the lower story has a centre of
+five arches, and wings of two. Referring, therefore, to the last figure,
+which will answer for this palace also, the measures of the intervals
+are:
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  _a_                              8    0
+  _b_                              5   10
+  _c_                              5    4
+  _d_ and _e_                      5    3
+
+It is, however, possible that the interval _c_ and the wing arches may
+have been intended to be similar; for one of the wing arches measures 5
+ft. 4 in. We have thus a simpler proportion than any we have hitherto
+met with; only two losses taking place, the first of 2 ft. 2 in., the
+second of 6 inches.
+
+The upper story has a central group of seven arches, whose widths are 4
+ft. 1 in.
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  The next arch on each side       3    5
+  The three arches of each wing    3    6
+
+Here again we have a most curious instance of the subtlety of eye which
+was not satisfied without a third dimension, but _could_ be satisfied
+with a difference of an inch on three feet and a half.
+
+Sec. IX. In the Terraced House, the ground floor is modernized, but the
+first story is composed of a centre of five arches, with wings of two,
+measuring as follows:
+
+                                             Ft.  In.
+  Three midmost arches of the central group   4    0
+  Outermost arch of the central group         4    6
+  Innermost arch of the wing                  4   10
+  Outermost arch of the wing[43]              5    0
+
+Here the greatest step is towards the centre; but the increase, which is
+unusual, is towards the outside, the gain being successively six, four,
+and two inches.
+
+I could not obtain the measures of the second story, in which only the
+central group is left; but the two outermost arches are visibly larger
+than the others, thus beginning a correspondent proportion to the one
+below, of which the lateral quantities have been destroyed by
+restorations.
+
+Sec. X. Finally, in the Rio-Foscari House, the central arch is the
+principal feature, and the four lateral ones form one magnificent wing;
+the dimensions being from the centre to the side:
+
+                                  Ft.  In.
+  Central arch                     9    9
+  Second   "                       3    8
+  Third    "                       3   10
+  Fourth   "                       3   10
+  Fifth    "                       3    8
+
+The difference of two inches on nearly three feet in the two midmost
+arches being all that was necessary to satisfy the builder's eye.
+
+Sec. XI. I need not point out to the reader that these singular and minute
+harmonies of proportion indicate, beyond all dispute, not only that the
+buildings in which they are found are of one school, but (so far as
+these subtle coincidences of measurement can still be traced in them) in
+their original form. No modern builder has any idea of connecting his
+arches in this manner, and restorations in Venice are carried on with
+too violent hands to admit of the supposition that such refinements
+would be even noticed in the progress of demolition, much less imitated
+in heedless reproduction. And as if to direct our attention especially
+to this character, as indicative of Byzantine workmanship, the most
+interesting example of all will be found in the arches of the front of
+St. Mark's itself, whose proportions I have not noticed before, in order
+that they might here be compared with those of the contemporary palaces.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. V.]
+
+Sec. XII. The doors actually employed for entrance in the western facade
+are as usual five, arranged as at _a_ in the annexed woodcut, Fig. V.;
+but the Byzantine builder could not be satisfied with so simple a group,
+and he introduced, therefore, two minor arches at the extremities, as at
+_b_, by adding two small porticos which are of _no use whatever_ except
+to consummate the proportions of the facade, and themselves to exhibit
+the most exquisite proportions in arrangements of shaft and archivolt
+with which I am acquainted in the entire range of European architecture.
+
+Into these minor particulars I cannot here enter; but observe the
+dimensions of the range of arches in the facade, as thus completed by
+the flanking porticos:
+
+                                                Ft.  In.
+  The space of its central archivolt is         31    8
+        "     the two on each side, about[44]   19    8
+        "     the two succeeding, about         20    4
+        "     small arches at flanks, about      6    0
+
+[Illustration: Fig. VI.]
+
+I need not make any comment upon the subtle difference of eight inches
+on twenty feet between the second and third dimensions. If the reader
+will be at the pains to compare the whole evidence now laid before him,
+with that deduced above from the apse of Murano, he cannot but confess
+that it amounts to an irrefragable proof of an intense perception of
+harmony in the relation of quantities, on the part of the Byzantine
+architects; a perception which we have at present lost so utterly as
+hardly to be able even to conceive it. And let it not be said, as it was
+of the late discoveries of subtle curvature in the Parthenon,[45] that
+what is not to be demonstrated without laborious measurement, cannot
+have influence on the beauty of the design. The eye is continually
+influenced by what it cannot detect; nay, it is not going too far to
+say, that it is most influenced by what it detects least. Let the
+painter define, if he can, the variations of lines on which depend the
+changes of expression in the human countenance. The greater he is, the
+more he will feel their subtlety, and the intense difficulty of
+perceiving all their relations, or answering for the consequences of a
+variation of a hair's breadth in a single curve. Indeed, there is
+nothing truly noble either in color or in form, but its power depends on
+circumstances infinitely too intricate to be explained, and almost too
+subtle to be traced. And as for these Byzantine buildings, we only do
+not feel them because we do not _watch_ them; otherwise we should as
+much enjoy the variety of proportion in their arches, as we do at
+present that of the natural architecture of flowers and leaves. Any of
+us can feel in an instant the grace of the leaf group, _b_, in the
+annexed figure; and yet that grace is simply owing to its being
+proportioned like the facade of St. Mark's; each leaflet answering to an
+arch,--the smallest at the root, to those of the porticos. I have tried
+to give the proportion quite accurately in _b_; but as the difference
+between the second and third leaflets is hardly discernible on so small
+a scale, it is somewhat exaggerated in _a_.[46] Nature is often far more
+subtle in her proportions. In looking at some of the nobler species of
+lilies, full in the front of the flower, we may fancy for a moment that
+they form a symmetrical six-petaled star; but on examining them more
+closely, we shall find that they are thrown into a group of three
+magnitudes by the expansion of two of the inner petals above the stamens
+to a breadth greater than any of the four others; while the third inner
+petal, on which the stamens rest, contracts itself into the narrowest of
+the six, and the three under petals remain of one intermediate
+magnitude, as seen in the annexed figure.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. VII.]
+
+Sec. XIII. I must not, however, weary the reader with this subject, which
+has always been a favorite one with me, and is apt to lead too far; we
+will return to the palaces on the Grand Canal. Admitting, then, that
+their fragments are proved, by the minute correspondences of their
+arrangement, to be still in their original positions, they indicate to
+us a form, whether of palace or dwelling-house, in which there were,
+universally, central galleries, or loggias, opening into apartments on
+each wing, the amount of light admitted being immense; and the general
+proportions of the building, slender, light, and graceful in the utmost
+degree, it being in fact little more than an aggregate of shafts and
+arches. Of the interior disposition of these palaces there is in no
+instance the slightest trace left, nor am I well enough acquainted with
+the existing architecture of the East to risk any conjecture on this
+subject. I pursue the statement of the facts which still are
+ascertainable respecting their external forms.
+
+Sec. XIV. In every one of the buildings above mentioned, except the
+Rio-Foscari House (which has only one great entrance between its wings),
+the central arcades are sustained, at least in one story, and generally
+in both, on bold detached cylindrical shafts, with rich capitals, while
+the arches of the wings are carried on smaller shafts assisted by
+portions of wall, which become pilasters of greater or less width.
+
+And now I must remind the reader of what was pointed out above (Vol. I.
+Chap. XXVII. Secs. III. XXXV. XL.), that there are two great orders of
+capitals in the world; that one of these is convex in its contour, the
+other concave; and that richness of ornament, with all freedom of fancy,
+is for the most part found in the one, and severity of ornament, with
+stern discipline of the fancy, in the other.
+
+Of these two families of capitals both occur in the Byzantine period,
+but the concave group is the longest-lived, and extends itself into the
+Gothic times. In the account which I gave of them in the first volume,
+they were illustrated by giving two portions of a simple curve, that of
+a salvia leaf. We must now investigate their characters more in detail;
+and these may be best generally represented by considering both families
+as formed upon the types of flowers,--the one upon that of the
+water-lily, the other upon that of the convolvulus. There was no
+intention in the Byzantine architects to imitate either one or the other
+of these flowers; but, as I have already so often repeated, all
+beautiful works of art must either intentionally imitate or accidentally
+resemble natural forms; and the direct comparison with the natural forms
+which these capitals most resemble, is the likeliest mode of fixing
+their distinctions in the reader's mind.
+
+The one then, the convex family, is modelled according to the commonest
+shapes of that great group of flowers which form rounded cups, like that
+of the water-lily, the leaves springing horizontally from the stalk, and
+closing together upwards. The rose is of this family, but her cup is
+filled with the luxuriance of her leaves; the crocus, campanula,
+ranunculus, anemone, and almost all the loveliest children of the field,
+are formed upon the same type.
+
+The other family resembles the convolvulus, trumpet-flower, and such
+others, in which the lower part of the bell is slender, and the lip
+curves outwards at the top. There are fewer flowers constructed on this
+than on the convex model; but in the organization of trees and of
+clusters of herbage it is seen continually. Of course, both of these
+conditions are modified, when applied to capitals, by the enormously
+greater thickness of the stalk or shaft, but in other respects the
+parallelism is close and accurate; and the reader had better at once fix
+the flower outlines in his mind,[47] and remember them as representing
+the only two orders of capitals that the world has ever seen, or can
+see.
+
+Sec. XV. The examples of the concave family in the Byzantine times are
+found principally either in large capitals founded on the Greek
+Corinthian, used chiefly for the nave pillars of churches, or in the
+small lateral shafts of the palaces. It appears somewhat singular that
+the pure Corinthian form should have been reserved almost exclusively
+for nave pillars, as at Torcello, Murano, and St. Mark's; it occurs,
+indeed, together with almost every other form, on the exterior of St.
+Mark's also, but never so definitely as in the nave and transept shafts.
+Of the conditions assumed by it at Torcello enough has been said; and
+one of the most delicate of the varieties occurring in St. Mark's is
+given in Plate VIII., fig. 15, remarkable for the cutting of the sharp
+thistle-like leaves into open relief, so that the light sometimes shines
+through them from behind, and for the beautiful curling of the
+extremities of the leaves outwards, joining each other at the top, as in
+an undivided flower.
+
+Sec. XVI. The other characteristic examples of the concave groups in the
+Byzantine times are as simple as those resulting from the Corinthian are
+rich. They occur on the _small_ shafts at the flanks of the Fondaco de'
+Turchi, the Casa Farsetti, Casa Loredan, Terraced House, and upper
+story of the Madonnetta House, in forms so exactly similar that the two
+figures 1 and 2 in Plate VIII. may sufficiently represent them all. They
+consist merely of portions cut out of the plinths or string-courses
+which run along all the faces of these palaces, by four truncations in
+the form of arrowy leaves (fig. 1, Fondaco de' Turchi), and the whole
+rounded a little at the bottom so as to fit the shaft. When they occur
+between two arches they assume the form of the group fig. 2 (Terraced
+House). Fig. 3 is from the central arches of the Casa Farsetti, and is
+only given because either it is a later restoration or a form absolutely
+unique in the Byzantine period.
+
+[Illustration: Plate VII.
+               BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONVEX GROUP.]
+
+Sec. XVII. The concave group, however, was not naturally pleasing to the
+Byzantine mind. Its own favorite capital was of the bold convex or
+cushion shape, so conspicuous in all the buildings of the period that I
+have devoted Plate VII., opposite, entirely to its illustration. The
+form in which it is first used is practically obtained from a square
+block laid on the head of the shaft (fig. 1, Plate VII.), by first
+cutting off the lower corners, as in fig. 2, and then rounding the
+edges, as in fig. 3; this gives us the bell stone: on this is laid a
+simple abacus, as seen in fig. 4, which is the actual form used in the
+upper arcade of Murano, and the framework of the capital is complete.
+Fig. 5 shows the general manner and effect of its decoration on the same
+scale; the other figures, 6 and 7, both from the apse of Murano, 8, from
+the Terraced House, and 9, from the Baptistery of St. Mark's, show the
+method of chiselling the surfaces in capitals of average richness, such
+as occur everywhere, for there is no limit to the fantasy and beauty of
+the more elaborate examples.
+
+Sec. XVIII. In consequence of the peculiar affection entertained for
+these massy forms by the Byzantines, they were apt, when they used any
+condition of capital founded on the Corinthian, to modify the concave
+profile by making it bulge out at the bottom. Fig. 1, _a_, Plate X., is
+the profile of a capital of the pure concave family; and observe, it
+needs a fillet or cord round the neck of the capital to show where it
+separates from the shaft. Fig. 4, _a_, on the other hand, is the
+profile of the pure convex group, which not only needs no such
+projecting fillet, but would be encumbered by it; while fig. 2, _a_, is
+the profile of one of the Byzantine capitals (Fondaco de' Turchi, lower
+arcade) founded on Corinthian, of which the main sweep is concave, but
+which bends below into the convex bell-shape, where it joins the shaft.
+And, lastly, fig. 3, _a_, is the profile of the nave shafts of St.
+Mark's, where, though very delicately granted, the concession to the
+Byzantine temper is twofold; first at the spring of the curve from the
+base, and secondly the top, where it again becomes convex, though the
+expression of the Corinthian bell is still given to it by the bold
+concave leaves.
+
+Sec. XIX. These, then, being the general modifications of Byzantine
+profiles, I have thrown together in Plate VIII., opposite, some of the
+most characteristic examples of the decoration of the concave and
+transitional types; their localities are given in the note below,[48]
+and the following are the principal points to be observed respecting
+them.
+
+The purest concave forms, 1 and 2, were never decorated in the earliest
+times, except sometimes by an incision or rib down the centre of their
+truncations on the angles.
+
+[Illustration: Plate VIII.
+               BYZANTINE CAPITALS. CONCAVE GROUP.]
+
+Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 show some of the modes of application of a
+peculiarly broad-lobed acanthus leaf, very characteristic of native
+Venetian work; 4 and 5 are from the same building, two out of a group of
+four, and show the boldness of the variety admitted in the management
+even of the capitals most closely derived from the Corinthian. I never
+saw one of these Venetian capitals in all respects like another. The
+trefoils into which the leaves fall at the extremities are, however, for
+the most part similar, though variously disposed, and generally niche
+themselves one under the other, as very characteristically in fig. 7.
+The form 8 occurs in St. Mark's only, and there very frequently: 9 at
+Venice occurs, I think, in St. Mark's only; but it is a favorite early
+Lombardic form. 10, 11, and 12 are all highly characteristic. 10 occurs
+with more fantastic interweaving upon its sides in the upper stories of
+St. Mark's; 11 is derived, in the Casa Loredan, from the great lily
+capitals of St. Mark's, of which more presently. 13 and 15 are peculiar
+to St. Mark's. 14 is a lovely condition, occurring both there and in the
+Fondaco de' Turchi.
+
+The modes in which the separate portions of the leaves are executed in
+these and other Byzantine capitals, will be noticed more at length
+hereafter. Here I only wish the reader to observe two things, both with
+respect to these and the capitals of the convex family on the former
+Plate: first the Life, secondly, the Breadth, of these capitals, as
+compared with Greek forms.
+
+Sec. XX. I say, first, the Life. Not only is every one of these capitals
+differently fancied, but there are many of them which _have no two sides
+alike_. Fig. 5, for instance, varies on every side in the arrangement of
+the pendent leaf in its centre; fig. 6 has a different plant on each of
+its four upper angles. The birds are each cut with a different play of
+plumage in figs. 9 and 12, and the vine-leaves are every one varied in
+their position in fig. 13. But this is not all. The differences in the
+character of ornamentation between them and the Greek capitals, all show
+a greater love of nature; the leaves are, every one of them, more
+founded on realities, sketched, however rudely, more directly from the
+truth; and are continually treated in a manner which shows the mind of
+the workman to have been among the living herbage, not among Greek
+precedents. The hard outlines in which, for the sake of perfect
+intelligibility, I have left this Plate, have deprived the examples of
+the vitality of their light and shade; but the reader can nevertheless
+observe the _ideas_ of life occurring perpetually: at the top of fig.
+4, for instance, the small leaves turned sideways; in fig. 5, the formal
+volutes of the old Corinthian transformed into a branching tendril; in
+fig. 6, the bunch of grapes thrown carelessly in at the right-hand
+corner, in defiance of all symmetry; in fig. 7, the volutes knitted into
+wreaths of ivy; in fig. 14, the leaves, drifted, as it were, by a
+whirlwind round the capital by which they rise; while figs. 13 and 15
+are as completely living leaves as any of the Gothic time. These designs
+may or may not be graceful; what grace or beauty they have is not to be
+rendered in mere outline,--but they are indisputably more _natural_ than
+any Greek ones, and therefore healthier, and tending to greatness.
+
+Sec. XXI. In the second place, note in all these examples, the excessive
+breadth of the masses, however afterwards they may be filled with
+detail. Whether we examine the contour of the simpler convex bells, or
+those of the leaves which bend outwards from the richer and more
+Corinthian types, we find they are all outlined by grand and simple
+curves, and that the whole of their minute fretwork and thistle-work is
+cast into a gigantic mould which subdues all their multitudinous points
+and foldings to its own inevitable dominion. And the fact is, that in
+the sweeping lines and broad surfaces of these Byzantine sculptures we
+obtain, so far as I know, for the first time in the history of art, the
+germ of that unity of perfect ease in every separate part, with perfect
+subjection to an enclosing form or directing impulse, which was brought
+to its most intense expression in the compositions of the two men in
+whom the art of Italy consummated itself and expired--Tintoret and
+Michael Angelo.
+
+I would not attach too much importance to the mere habit of working on
+the rounded surface of the stone, which is often as much the result of
+haste or rudeness as of the desire for breadth, though the result
+obtained is not the less beautiful. But in the capital from the Fondaco
+de' Turchi, fig. 6, it will be seen that while the sculptor had taken
+the utmost care to make his leaves free, graceful, and sharp in effect,
+he was dissatisfied with their separation, and could not rest until he
+had enclosed them with an unbroken line, like that of a pointed arch;
+and the same thing is done in many different ways in other capitals of
+the same building, and in many of St. Mark's: but one such instance
+would have been enough to prove, if the loveliness of the profiles
+themselves did not do so, that the sculptor understood and loved the
+laws of generalization; and that the feeling which bound his prickly
+leaves, as they waved or drifted round the ridges of his capital, into
+those broad masses of unbroken flow, was indeed one with that which made
+Michael Angelo encompass the principal figure in his Creation of Adam
+with the broad curve of its cloudy drapery. It may seem strange to
+assert any connexion between so great a conception and these rudely hewn
+fragments of ruined marble; but all the highest principles of art are as
+universal as they are majestic, and there is nothing too small to
+receive their influence. They rule at once the waves of the mountain
+outline, and the sinuosities of the minutest lichen that stains its
+shattered stones.
+
+Sec. XXII. We have not yet spoken of the three braided and chequered
+capitals, numbered 10, 11, and 12. They are representations of a group,
+with which many most interesting associations are connected. It was
+noticed in the last chapter, that the method of covering the exterior of
+buildings with thin pieces of marble was likely to lead to a system of
+lighting the interior by minute perforation. In order to obtain both
+light and air, without admitting any unbroken body of sunshine, in warm
+countries, it became a constant habit of the Arabian architects to
+pierce minute and starlike openings in slabs of stone; and to employ the
+stones so pierced where the Gothic architects employ traceries.
+Internally, the form of stars assumed by the light as it entered[49]
+was, in itself, an exquisite decoration; but, externally, it was felt
+necessary to add some slight ornament upon the surface of the perforated
+stone; and it was soon found that, as the small perforations had a
+tendency to look scattered and spotty, the most effective treatment of
+the intermediate surfaces would be one which bound them together, and
+gave unity and repose to the pierced and disturbed stone: universally,
+therefore, those intermediate spaces were carved into the semblance of
+interwoven fillets, which alternately sank beneath and rose above each
+other as they met. This system of braided or woven ornament was not
+confined to the Arabs; it is universally pleasing to the instinct of
+mankind. I believe that nearly all early ornamentation is full of
+it,--more especially, perhaps, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon; and
+illuminated manuscripts depend upon it for their loveliest effects of
+intricate color, up to the close of the thirteenth century. There are
+several very interesting metaphysical reasons for this strange and
+unfailing delight, felt in a thing so simple. It is not often that any
+idea of utility has power to enhance the true impressions of beauty; but
+it is possible that the enormous importance of the art of weaving to
+mankind may give some interest, if not actual attractiveness, to any
+type or image of the invention to which we owe, at once, our comfort and
+our pride. But the more profound reason lies in the innate love of
+mystery and unity; in the joy that the human mind has in contemplating
+any kind of maze or entanglement, so long as it can discern, through its
+confusion, any guiding clue or connecting plan: a pleasure increased and
+solemnized by some dim feeling of the setting forth, by such symbols, of
+the intricacy, and alternate rise and fall, subjection and supremacy, of
+human fortune; the
+
+  "Weave the warp, and weave the woof,"
+
+of Fate and Time.
+
+[Illustration: Plate IX.
+               LILY CAPITAL OF ST. MARKS.]
+
+Sec. XXIII. But be this as it may, the fact is that we are never tired
+of contemplating this woven involution; and that, in some degree, the
+sublime pleasure which we have in watching the branches of trees, the
+intertwining of the grass, and the tracery of the higher clouds, is
+owing to it, not less than that which we receive from the fine meshes of
+the robe, the braiding of the hair, and the various glittering of the
+linked net or wreathed chain. Byzantine ornamentation, like that of
+almost all nations in a state of progress, is full of this kind of work:
+but it occurs most conspicuously, though most simply, in the minute
+traceries which surround their most solid capitals; sometimes merely in
+a reticulated veil, as in the tenth figure in the Plate, sometimes
+resembling a basket, on the edges of which are perched birds and other
+animals. The diamonded ornament in the eleventh figure is substituted
+for it in the Casa Loredan, and marks a somewhat later time and a
+tendency to the ordinary Gothic chequer; but the capitals which show it
+most definitely are those already so often spoken of as the lily
+capitals of St. Mark's, of which the northern one is carefully drawn in
+Plate IX.
+
+[Illustration: Plate X.
+               THE FOUR VENETIAN FLOWER ORDERS.]
+
+Sec. XXIV. These capitals, called barbarous by our architects, are without
+exception the most subtle pieces of composition in broad contour which I
+have ever met with in architecture. Their profile is given in the
+opposite Plate X. fig. 3, _b_; the inner line in the figure being that
+of the stone behind the lily, the outer that of the external network,
+taken through the side of the capital; while fig. 3, _c_ is the outer
+profile at its angle; and the reader will easily understand that the
+passing of the one of these lines into the other is productive of the
+most exquisite and wonderful series of curvatures possible within such
+compass, no two views of the capital giving the same contour. Upon these
+profoundly studied outlines, as remarkable for their grace and
+complexity as the general mass of the capital is for solid strength and
+proportion to its necessary service, the braided work is wrought with
+more than usual care; perhaps, as suggested by the Marchese Selvatico,
+with some idea of imitating those "nets of chequerwork and wreaths of
+chainwork" on the chapiters of Solomon's temple, which are, I suppose,
+the first instances on record of an ornamentation of this kind thus
+applied. The braided work encloses on each of the four sides of the
+capital a flower whose form, derived from that of the lily, though as
+usual modified, in every instance of its occurrence, in some minor
+particulars, is generally seen as represented in fig. 11 of Plate VIII.
+It is never without the two square or oblong objects at the extremity of
+the tendrils issuing from its root, set like vessels to catch the dew
+from the points of its leaves; but I do not understand their meaning.
+The abacus of the capital has already been given at _a_, Plate XVI.,
+Vol. I.; but no amount of illustrations or eulogium would be enough to
+make the reader understand the perfect beauty of the thing itself, as
+the sun steals from interstice to interstice of its marble veil, and
+touches with the white lustre of its rays at mid-day the pointed leaves
+of its thirsty lilies.
+
+In all the capitals hitherto spoken of, the form of the head of the bell
+has been square, and its varieties of outline have been obtained in the
+transition from the square of the abacus to the circular outline of the
+shafts. A far more complex series of forms results from the division of
+the bell by recesses into separate lobes or leaves, like those of a rose
+or tulip, which are each in their turn covered with flower-work or
+hollowed into reticulation. The example (fig. 10, Plate VII.) from St.
+Mark's will give some idea of the simplest of these conditions: perhaps
+the most exquisite in Venice, on the whole, is the central capital of
+the upper arcade of the Fondaco de' Turchi.
+
+Such are the principal generic conditions of the Byzantine capital; but
+the reader must always remember that the examples given are single
+instances, and those not the most beautiful but the most intelligible,
+chosen out of thousands: the designs of the capitals of St. Mark's alone
+would form a volume.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XI.
+               BYZANTINE SCULPTURE.]
+
+Sec. XXV. Of the archivolts which these capitals generally sustain,
+details are given in the Appendix and in the notice of Venetian doors in
+Chapter VII. In the private palaces, the ranges of archivolt are for the
+most part very simple, with dentilled mouldings; and all the ornamental
+effect is entrusted to pieces of sculpture set in the wall above or
+between the arches, in the manner shown in Plate XV., below, Chapter
+VII. These pieces of sculpture are either crosses, upright oblongs, or
+circles: of all the three forms an example is given in Plate XI.
+opposite. The cross was apparently an invariable ornament, placed either
+in the centre of the archivolt of the doorway, or in the centre of the
+first story above the windows; on each side of it the circular and
+oblong ornaments were used in various alternation. In too many instances
+the wall marbles have been torn away from the earliest Byzantine
+palaces, so that the crosses are left on their archivolts only. The best
+examples of the cross set above the windows are found in houses of the
+transitional period: one in the Campo St^a M. Formosa; another, in which
+a cross is placed between every window, is still well preserved in the
+Campo St^a Maria Mater Domini; another, on the Grand Canal, in the
+parish of the Apostoli, has two crosses, one on each side of the first
+story, and a bas-relief of Christ enthroned in the centre; and finally,
+that from which the larger cross in the Plate was taken in the house
+once belonging to Marco Polo, at San Giovanni Grisostomo.
+
+Sec. XXVI. This cross, though graceful and rich, and given because it
+happens to be one of the best preserved, is uncharacteristic in one
+respect; for, instead of the central rose at the meeting of the arms, we
+usually find a hand raised in the attitude of blessing, between the sun
+and moon, as in the two smaller crosses seen in the Plate. In nearly all
+representations of the Crucifixion, over the whole of Europe, at the
+period in question, the sun and the moon are introduced, one on each
+side of the cross,--the sun generally, in paintings, as a red star; but
+I do not think with any purpose of indicating the darkness at the time
+of the agony; especially because, had this been the intention, the moon
+ought not to have been visible, since it could not have been in the
+heavens during the day at the time of passover. I believe rather that
+the two luminaries are set there in order to express the entire
+dependence of the heavens and the earth upon the work of the Redemption:
+and this view is confirmed by our frequently finding the sun and moon
+set in the same manner beside the figure of Christ, as in the centre of
+the great archivolt of St. Mark's, or beside the hand signifying
+benediction, without any cross, in some other early archivolts;[50]
+while, again, not unfrequently they are absent from the symbol of the
+cross itself, and its saving power over the whole of creation is
+indicated only by fresh leaves springing from its foot, or doves feeding
+beside it; and so also, in illuminated Bibles, we find the series of
+pictures representing the Creation terminate in the Crucifixion, as the
+work by which all the families of created beings subsist, no less than
+that in sympathy with which "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth
+in pain together until now."
+
+Sec. XXVII. This habit of placing the symbol of the Christian faith in
+the centres of their palaces was, as I above said, universal in early
+Venice; it does not cease till about the middle of the fourteenth
+century. The other sculptures, which were set above or between the
+arches, consist almost invariably of groups of birds or beasts; either
+standing opposite to each other with a small pillar or spray of leafage
+between them, or else tearing and devouring each other. The multitude of
+these sculptures, especially of the small ones enclosed in circles, as
+figs 5 and 6, Plate XI., which are now scattered through the city of
+Venice, is enormous, but they are seldom to be seen in their original
+positions. When the Byzantine palaces were destroyed, these fragments
+were generally preserved, and inserted again in the walls of the new
+buildings, with more or less attempt at symmetry; fragments of friezes
+and mouldings being often used in the same manner; so that the mode of
+their original employment can only be seen in St. Mark's, the Fondaco
+de' Turchi, Braided House, and one or two others. The most remarkable
+point about them is, that the groups of beasts or birds on each side of
+the small pillars bear the closest possible resemblance to the group of
+Lions over the gate of Mycenae; and the whole of the ornamentation of
+that gate, as far as I can judge of it from drawings, is so like
+Byzantine sculpture, that I cannot help sometimes suspecting the
+original conjecture of the French antiquarians, that it was a work of
+the middle ages, to be not altogether indefensible. By far the best
+among the sculptures at Venice are those consisting of groups thus
+arranged; the first figure in Plate XI. is one of those used on St.
+Mark's, and, with its chain of wreathen work round it, is very
+characteristic of the finest kind, except that the immediate trunk or
+pillar often branches into luxuriant leafage, usually of the vine, so
+that the whole ornament seems almost composed from the words of Ezekiel.
+"A great eagle with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which
+had divers colors, came into Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the
+cedar: He cropped off the top of his young twigs; and _carried it into a
+city of traffic; he set it in a city of merchants_. He took also of the
+seed of the land, ... and it grew, and became a spreading vine of low
+stature, _whose branches turned towards him, and the roots thereof were
+under him_."
+
+Sec. XXVIII. The groups of contending and devouring animals are always
+much ruder in cutting, and take somewhat the place in Byzantine sculpture
+which the lower grotesques do in the Gothic; true, though clumsy,
+grotesques being sometimes mingled among them, as four bodies joined to
+one head in the centre;[51] but never showing any attempt at variety of
+invention, except only in the effective disposition of the light and
+shade, and in the vigor and thoughtfulness of the touches which indicate
+the plumes of the birds or foldings of the leaves. Care, however, is
+always taken to secure variety enough to keep the eye entertained, no
+two sides of these Byzantine ornaments being in all respects the same:
+for instance, in the chainwork round the first figure in Plate XI. there
+are two circles enclosing squares on the left-hand side of the arch at
+the top, but two smaller circles and a diamond on the other, enclosing
+one square, and two small circular spots or bosses; and in the line of
+chain at the bottom there is a circle on the right, and a diamond on the
+left, and so down to the working of the smallest details. I have
+represented this upper sculpture as dark, in order to give some idea of
+the general effect of these ornaments when seen in shadow against light;
+an effect much calculated upon by the designer, and obtained by the use
+of a golden ground formed of glass mosaic inserted in the hollows of the
+marble. Each square of glass has the leaf gold upon its surface
+protected by another thin film of glass above it, so that no time or
+weather can affect its lustre, until the pieces of glass are bodily torn
+from their setting. The smooth glazed surface of the golden ground is
+washed by every shower of rain, but the marble usually darkens into an
+amber color in process of time; and when the whole ornament is cast into
+shadow, the golden surface, being perfectly reflective, refuses the
+darkness, and shows itself in bright and burnished light behind the dark
+traceries of the ornament. Where the marble has retained its perfect
+whiteness, on the other hand, and is seen in sunshine, it is shown as a
+snowy tracery on a golden ground; and the alternations and intermingling
+of these two effects form one of the chief enchantments of Byzantine
+ornamentation.
+
+Sec. XXIX. How far the system of grounding with gold and color, universal
+in St. Mark's, was carried out in the sculptures of the private palaces,
+it is now impossible to say. The wrecks of them which remain, as above
+noticed, show few of their ornamental sculptures in their original
+position; and from those marbles which were employed in succeeding
+buildings, during the Gothic period, the fragments of their mosaic
+grounds would naturally rather have been removed than restored. Mosaic,
+while the most secure of all decorations if carefully watched and
+refastened when it loosens, may, if neglected and exposed to weather, in
+process of time disappear so as to leave no vestige of its existence.
+However this may have been, the assured facts are, that both the shafts
+of the pillars and the facing of the old building were of veined or
+variously colored marble: the capitals and sculptures were either, as
+they now appear, of pure white marble, relieved upon the veined ground;
+or, which is infinitely the more probable, grounded in the richer
+palaces with mosaic of gold, in the inferior ones with blue color; and
+only the leaves and edges of the sculpture gilded. These brighter hues
+were opposed by bands of deeper color, generally alternate russet and
+green, in the archivolts,--bands which still remain in the Casa Loredan
+and Fondaco de' Turchi, and in a house in the Corte del Remer, near the
+Rialto, as well as in St. Mark's; and by circular disks of green
+serpentine and porphyry, which, together with the circular sculptures,
+appear to have been an ornament peculiarly grateful to the Eastern mind,
+derived probably in the first instance from the suspension of shields
+upon the wall, as in the majesty of ancient Tyre. "The men of Arvad with
+thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadins were in
+thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they
+have made thy beauty perfect."[52] The sweet and solemn harmony of
+purple with various green (the same, by the by, to which the hills of
+Scotland owe their best loveliness) remained a favorite chord of color
+with the Venetians, and was constantly used even in the later palaces;
+but never could have been seen in so great perfection as when opposed to
+the pale and delicate sculpture of the Byzantine time.
+
+Sec. XXX. Such, then, was that first and fairest Venice which rose out
+of the barrenness of the lagoon, and the sorrow of her people; a city of
+graceful arcades and gleaming walls, veined with azure and warm with
+gold, and fretted with white sculpture like frost upon forest branches
+turned to marble. And yet, in this beauty of her youth, she was no city
+of thoughtless pleasure. There was still a sadness of heart upon her,
+and a depth of devotion, in which lay all her strength. I do not insist
+upon the probable religious signification of many of the sculptures
+which are now difficult of interpretation; but the temper which made the
+cross the principal ornament of every building is not to be
+misunderstood, nor can we fail to perceive, in many of the minor
+sculptural subjects, meanings perfectly familiar to the mind of early
+Christianity. The peacock, used in preference to every other bird, is
+the well-known symbol of the resurrection; and when drinking from a
+fountain (Plate XI. fig. 1) or from a font (Plate XI. fig. 5), is, I
+doubt not, also a type of the new life received in faithful baptism. The
+vine, used in preference to all other trees, was equally recognized as,
+in all cases, a type either of Christ himself[53] or of those who were
+in a state of visible or professed union with him. The dove, at its
+foot, represents the coming of the Comforter; and even the groups of
+contending animals had, probably, a distinct and universally apprehended
+reference to the powers of evil. But I lay no stress on these more
+occult meanings. The principal circumstance which marks the seriousness
+of the early Venetian mind is perhaps the last in which the reader would
+suppose it was traceable;--that love of bright and pure color which, in
+a modified form, was afterwards the root of all the triumph of the
+Venetian schools of painting, but which, in its utmost simplicity, was
+characteristic of the Byzantine period only; and of which, therefore, in
+the close of our review of that period, it will be well that we should
+truly estimate the significance. The fact is, we none of us enough
+appreciate the nobleness and sacredness of color. Nothing is more common
+than to hear it spoken of as a subordinate beauty,--nay, even as the
+mere source of a sensual pleasure; and we might almost believe that we
+were daily among men who
+
+  "Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
+   To them, their verdure from the fields;
+   And take the radiance from the clouds
+   With which the sun his setting shrouds."
+
+But it is not so. Such expressions are used for the most part in
+thoughtlessness; and if the speakers would only take the pains to
+imagine what the world and their own existence would become, if the blue
+were taken from the sky, and the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure
+from the leaves, and the crimson from the blood which is the life of
+man, the flush from the cheek, the darkness from the eye, the radiance
+from the hair,--if they could but see for an instant, white human
+creatures living in a white world,--they would soon feel what they owe
+to color. The fact is, that, of all God's gifts to the sight of man,
+color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. We speak rashly
+of gay color, and sad color, for color cannot at once be good and gay.
+All good color is in some degree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy,
+and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the
+most.
+
+Sec. XXXI. I know that this will sound strange in many ears, and will be
+especially startling to those who have considered the subject chiefly
+with reference to painting; for the great Venetian schools of color are
+not usually understood to be either pure or pensive, and the idea of its
+pre-eminence is associated in nearly every mind with the coarseness of
+Rubens, and the sensualities of Correggio and Titian. But a more
+comprehensive view of art will soon correct this impression. It will be
+discovered, in the first place, that the more faithful and earnest the
+religion of the painter, the more pure and prevalent is the system of
+his color. It will be found, in the second place, that where color
+becomes a primal intention with a painter otherwise mean or sensual, it
+instantly elevates him, and becomes the one sacred and saving element in
+his work. The very depth of the stoop to which the Venetian painters and
+Rubens sometimes condescend, is a consequence of their feeling
+confidence in the power of their color to keep them from falling. They
+hold on by it, as by a chain let down from heaven, with one hand, though
+they may sometimes seem to gather dust and ashes with the other. And, in
+the last place, it will be found that so surely as a painter is
+irreligious, thoughtless, or obscene in disposition, so surely is his
+coloring cold, gloomy, and valueless. The opposite poles of art in this
+respect are Fra Angelico and Salvator Rosa; of whom the one was a man
+who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed constantly, and never harbored an
+impure thought. His pictures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the
+colors of the draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a
+painted window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon a gold
+ground. Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man who spent
+his life in masquing and revelry. But his pictures are full of horror,
+and their color is for the most part gloomy grey. Truly it would seem as
+if art had so much of eternity in it, that it must take its dye from the
+close rather than the course of life:--"In such laughter the heart of
+man is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness."
+
+Sec. XXXII. These are no singular instances. I know no law more severely
+without exception than this of the connexion of pure color with profound
+and noble thought. The late Flemish pictures, shallow in conception and
+obscene in subject, are always sober in color. But the early religious
+painting of the Flemings is as brilliant in hue as it is holy in
+thought. The Bellinis, Francias, Peruginos painted in crimson, and blue,
+and gold. The Caraccis, Guidos, and Rembrandts in brown and grey. The
+builders of our great cathedrals veiled their casements and wrapped
+their pillars with one robe of purple splendor. The builders of the
+luxurious Renaissance left their palaces filled only with cold white
+light, and in the paleness of their native stone.[54]
+
+Sec. XXXIII. Nor does it seem difficult to discern a noble reason for this
+universal law. In that heavenly circle which binds the statutes of color
+upon the front of the sky, when it became the sign of the covenant of
+peace, the pure hues of divided light were sanctified to the human heart
+for ever; nor this, it would seem, by mere arbitrary appointment, but in
+consequence of the fore-ordained and marvellous constitution of those
+hues into a sevenfold, or, more strictly still, a threefold order,
+typical of the Divine nature itself. Observe also, the name Shem, or
+Splendor, given to that son of Noah in whom this covenant with mankind
+was to be fulfilled, and see how that name was justified by every one of
+the Asiatic races which descended from him. Not without meaning was the
+love of Israel to his chosen son expressed by the coat "of many colors;"
+not without deep sense of the sacredness of that symbol of purity, did
+the lost daughter of David tear it from her breast:--"With such robes
+were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled."[55] We know it
+to have been by Divine command that the Israelite, rescued from
+servitude, veiled the tabernacle with its rain of purple and scarlet,
+while the under sunshine flashed through the fall of the color from its
+tenons of gold: but was it less by Divine guidance that the Mede, as he
+struggled out of anarchy, encompassed his king with the sevenfold
+burning of the battlements of Ecbatana?--of which one circle was golden
+like the sun, and another silver like the moon; and then came the great
+sacred chord of color, blue, purple, and scarlet; and then a circle
+white like the day, and another dark, like night; so that the city rose
+like a great mural rainbow, a sign of peace amidst the contending of
+lawless races, and guarded, with color and shadow, that seemed to
+symbolize the great order which rules over Day, and Night, and Time, the
+first organization of the mighty statutes,--the law of the Medes and
+Persians, that altereth not.
+
+Sec. XXXIV. Let us not dream that it is owing to the accidents of
+tradition or education that those races possess the supremacy over color
+which has always been felt, though but lately acknowledged among men.
+However their dominion might be broken, their virtue extinguished, or
+their religion defiled, they retained alike the instinct and the power:
+the instinct which made even their idolatry more glorious than that of
+others, bursting forth in fire-worship from pyramid, cave, and mountain,
+taking the stars for the rulers of its fortune, and the sun for the God
+of its life; the power which so dazzled and subdued the rough crusader
+into forgetfulness of sorrow and of shame, that Europe put on the
+splendor which she had learnt of the Saracen, as her sackcloth of
+mourning for what she suffered from his sword;--the power which she
+confesses to this day, in the utmost thoughtlessness of her pride, or
+her beauty, as it treads the costly carpet, or veils itself with the
+variegated Cachemire; and in the emulation of the concourse of her
+workmen, who, but a few months back, perceived, or at least admitted,
+for the first time, the pre-eminence which has been determined from the
+birth of mankind, and on whose charter Nature herself has set a
+mysterious seal, granting to the Western races, descended from that son
+of Noah whose name was Extension, the treasures of the sullen rock, and
+stubborn ore, and gnarled forest, which were to accomplish their destiny
+across all distance of earth and depth of sea, while she matured the
+jewel in the sand, and rounded the pearl in the shell, to adorn the
+diadem of him whose name was Splendor.
+
+Sec. XXXV. And observe, farther, how in the Oriental mind a peculiar
+seriousness is associated with this attribute of the love of color; a
+seriousness rising out of repose, and out of the depth and breadth of
+the imagination, as contrasted with the activity, and consequent
+capability of surprise, and of laughter, characteristic of the Western
+mind: as a man on a journey must look to his steps always, and view
+things narrowly and quickly; while one at rest may command a wider view,
+though an unchanging one, from which the pleasure he receives must be
+one of contemplation, rather than of amusement or surprise. Wherever the
+pure Oriental spirit manifests itself definitely, I believe its work is
+serious; and the meeting of the influences of the Eastern and Western
+races is perhaps marked in Europe more by the dying away of the
+grotesque laughter of the Goth than by any other sign. I shall have more
+to say on this head in other places of this volume; but the point I wish
+at present to impress upon the reader is, that the bright hues of the
+early architecture of Venice were no sign of gaiety of heart, and that
+the investiture with the mantle of many colors by which she is known
+above all other cities of Italy and of Europe, was not granted to her in
+the fever of her festivity, but in the solemnity of her early and
+earnest religion. She became in after times the revel of the earth, the
+masque of Italy; and _therefore_ is she now desolate: but her glorious
+robe of gold and purple was given her when first she rose a vestal from
+the sea, not when she became drunk with the wine of her fornication.
+
+Sec. XXXVI. And we have never yet looked with enough reverence upon the
+separate gift which was thus bestowed upon her; we have never enough
+considered what an inheritance she has left us, in the works of those
+mighty painters who were the chief of her children. That inheritance is
+indeed less than it ought to have been, and other than it ought to have
+been; for before Titian and Tintoret arose,--the men in whom her work
+and her glory should have been together consummated,--she had already
+ceased to lead her sons in the way of truth and life, and they erred
+much, and fell short of that which was appointed for them. There is no
+subject of thought more melancholy, more wonderful, than the way in
+which God permits so often His best gifts to be trodden under foot of
+men, His richest treasures to be wasted by the moth, and the mightiest
+influences of His Spirit, given but once in the world's history, to be
+quenched and shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I do not wonder
+at what men Suffer, but I wonder often at what they Lose. We may see how
+good rises out of pain and evil; but the dead, naked, eyeless loss, what
+good comes of that? The fruit struck to the earth before its ripeness;
+the glowing life and goodly purpose dissolved away in sudden death; the
+words, half spoken, choked upon the lips with clay for ever; or,
+stranger than all, the whole majesty of humanity raised to its fulness,
+and every gift and power necessary for a given purpose, at a given
+moment, centred in one man, and all this perfected blessing permitted to
+be refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by those who need it
+most,--the city which is Not set on a hill, the candle that giveth light
+to None that are in the house:--these are the heaviest mysteries of this
+strange world, and, it seems to me, those which mark its curse the most.
+And it is true that the power with which this Venice had been entrusted,
+was perverted, when at its highest, in a thousand miserable ways; still,
+it was possessed by her alone; to her all hearts have turned which could
+be moved by its manifestation, and none without being made stronger and
+nobler by what her hand had wrought. That mighty Landscape, of dark
+mountains that guard the horizon with their purple towers, and solemn
+forests, that gather their weight of leaves, bronzed with sunshine, not
+with age, into those gloomy masses fixed in heaven, which storm and
+frost have power no more to shake, or shed;--that mighty Humanity, so
+perfect and so proud, that hides no weakness beneath the mantle, and
+gains no greatness from the diadem; the majesty of thoughtful form, on
+which the dust of gold and flame of jewels are dashed as the sea-spray
+upon the rock, and still the great Manhood seems to stand bare against
+the blue sky;--that mighty Mythology, which fills the daily walks of men
+with spiritual companionship, and beholds the protecting angels break
+with their burning presence through the arrow-flights of
+battle:--measure the compass of that field of creation, weigh the value
+of the inheritance that Venice thus left to the nations of Europe, and
+then judge if so vast, so beneficent a power could indeed have been
+rooted in dissipation or decay. It was when she wore the ephod of the
+priest, not the motley of the masquer, that the fire fell upon her from
+heaven; and she saw the first rays of it through the rain of her own
+tears, when, as the barbaric deluge ebbed from the hills of Italy, the
+circuit of her palaces, and the orb of her fortunes, rose together, like
+the Iris, painted upon the Cloud.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [41] In the year 1851, by the Duchesse de Berri.
+
+  [42] Of the Braided House and Casa Businello, described in the
+    Appendix, only the great central arcades remain.
+
+  [43] Only one wing of the first story is left. See Appendix 11.
+
+  [44] I am obliged to give these measures approximately, because,
+    this front having been studied by the builder with unusual care, not
+    one of its measures is the same as another; and the symmetries
+    between the correspondent arches are obtained by changes in the
+    depth of their mouldings and variations in their heights, far too
+    complicated for me to enter into here; so that of the two arches
+    stated as 19 ft. 8 in. in span, one is in reality 19 ft. 6-1/2 in.,
+    the other 19 ft. 10 in., and of the two stated as 20 ft. 4 in., one is
+    20 ft. and the other 20 ft. 8 in.
+
+  [45] By Mr. Penrose.
+
+  [46] I am sometimes obliged, unfortunately, to read my woodcuts
+    backwards owing to my having forgotten to reverse them on the wood.
+
+  [47] Vide Plate X. figs. 1 and 4.
+
+  [48]
+    1. Fondaco de' Turehi, lateral        8. St. Mark's.
+         pillars.                         9. St. Mark's.
+    2. Terraced House, lateral pillars.  10. Braided House, upper arcade.
+    3. Casa Farsetti, central pillars,   11. Casa Loredan, upper arcade.
+         upper arcade.                   12. St. Mark's.
+    4. Casa Loredan, lower arcade.       13. St. Mark's.
+    5. Casa Loredan, lower arcade.       14. Fondaco de' Turchi, upper
+    6. Fondaco de' Turchi, upper arcade.       arcade.
+    7. Casa Loredan, upper arcade.       15. St. Mark's.
+
+ [49] Compare "Seven Lamps," chap. ii. Sec. 22.
+
+ [50] Two of these are represented in the second number of my folio work
+   upon Venice.
+
+ [51] The absence of the true grotesque spirit in Byzantine work will be
+   examined in the third chapter of the third volume.
+
+ [52] Ezekiel, xxvii. 11.
+
+ [53] Perhaps this type is in no place of Scripture more touchingly used
+   than in Lamentations, i. 12, where the word "afflicted" is rendered in
+   the Vulgate "vindemiavit," "vintaged."
+
+ [54] Appendix 12, "Modern Painting on Glass."
+
+ [55] 2 Samuel, xiii. 18.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE NATURE OF GOTHIC.
+
+
+Sec. I. If the reader will look back to the division of our subject which
+was made in the first chapter of the first volume, he will find that we
+are now about to enter upon the examination of that school of Venetian
+architecture which forms an intermediate step between the Byzantine and
+Gothic forms; but which I find may be conveniently considered in its
+connexion with the latter style. In order that we may discern the
+tendency of each step of this change, it will be wise in the outset to
+endeavor to form some general idea of its final result. We know already
+what the Byzantine architecture is from which the transition was made,
+but we ought to know something of the Gothic architecture into which it
+led. I shall endeavor therefore to give the reader in this chapter an
+idea, at once broad and definite, of the true nature of _Gothic_
+architecture, properly so called; not of that of Venice only, but of
+universal Gothic: for it will be one of the most interesting parts of
+our subsequent inquiry, to find out how far Venetian architecture
+reached the universal or perfect type of Gothic, and how far it either
+fell short of it, or assumed foreign and independent forms.
+
+Sec. II. The principal difficulty in doing this arises from the fact that
+every building of the Gothic period differs in some important respect
+from every other; and many include features which, if they occurred in
+other buildings, would not be considered Gothic at all; so that all we
+have to reason upon is merely, if I may be allowed so to express it, a
+greater or less degree of _Gothicness_ in each building we examine. And
+it is this Gothicness,--the character which, according as it is found
+more or less in a building, makes it more or less Gothic,--of which I
+want to define the nature; and I feel the same kind of difficulty in
+doing so which would be encountered by any one who undertook to explain,
+for instance, the nature of Redness, without any actual red thing to
+point to, but only orange and purple things. Suppose he had only a piece
+of heather and a dead oak-leaf to do it with. He might say, the color
+which is mixed with the yellow in this oak-leaf, and with the blue in
+this heather, would be red, if you had it separate; but it would be
+difficult, nevertheless, to make the abstraction perfectly intelligible:
+and it is so in a far greater degree to make the abstraction of the
+Gothic character intelligible, because that character itself is made up
+of many mingled ideas, and can consist only in their union. That is to
+say, pointed arches do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor
+flying buttresses, nor grotesque sculptures; but all or some of these
+things, and many other things with them, when they come together so as
+to have life.
+
+Sec. III. Observe also, that, in the definition proposed, I shall only
+endeavor to analyze the idea which I suppose already to exist in the
+reader's mind. We all have some notion, most of us a very determined
+one, of the meaning of the term Gothic; but I know that many persons
+have this idea in their minds without being able to define it: that is
+to say, understanding generally that Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and
+St. Paul's is not, that Strasburg Cathedral is Gothic, and St. Peter's
+is not, they have, nevertheless, no clear notion of what it is that they
+recognize in the one or miss in the other, such as would enable them to
+say how far the work at Westminster or Strasburg is good and pure of its
+kind: still less to say of any non-descript building, like St. James's
+Palace or Windsor Castle, how much right Gothic element there is in it,
+and how much wanting, And I believe this inquiry to be a pleasant and
+profitable one; and that there will be found something more than
+usually interesting in tracing out this grey, shadowy, many-pinnacled
+image of the Gothic spirit within us; and discerning what fellowship
+there is between it and our Northern hearts. And if, at any point of the
+inquiry, I should interfere with any of the reader's previously formed
+conceptions, and use the term Gothic in any sense which he would not
+willingly attach to it, I do not ask him to accept, but only to examine
+and understand, my interpretation, as necessary to the intelligibility
+of what follows in the rest of the work.
+
+Sec. IV. We have, then, the Gothic character submitted to our analysis,
+just as the rough mineral is submitted to that of the chemist, entangled
+with many other foreign substances, itself perhaps in no place pure, or
+ever to be obtained or seen in purity for more than an instant; but
+nevertheless a thing of definite and separate nature, however
+inextricable or confused in appearance. Now observe: the chemist defines
+his mineral by two separate kinds of character; one external, its
+crystalline form, hardness, lustre, &c.; the other internal, the
+proportions and nature of its constituent atoms. Exactly in the same
+manner, we shall find that Gothic architecture has external forms, and
+internal elements. Its elements are certain mental tendencies of the
+builders, legibly expressed in it; as fancifulness, love of variety,
+love of richness, and such others. Its external forms are pointed
+arches, vaulted roofs, &c. And unless both the elements and the forms
+are there, we have no right to call the style Gothic. It is not enough
+that it has the Form, if it have not also the power and life. It is not
+enough that it has the Power, if it have not the form. We must therefore
+inquire into each of these characters successively; and determine first,
+what is the Mental Expression, and secondly, what the Material Form, of
+Gothic architecture, properly so called.
+
+1st. Mental Power or Expression. What characters, we have to discover,
+did the Gothic builders love, or instinctively express in their work, as
+distinguished from all other builders?
+
+Sec. V. Let us go back for a moment to our chemistry, and note that, in
+defining a mineral by its constituent parts, it is not one nor another
+of them, that can make up the mineral, but the union of all: for
+instance, it is neither in charcoal, nor in oxygen, nor in lime, that
+there is the making of chalk, but in the combination of all three in
+certain measures; they are all found in very different things from
+chalk, and there is nothing like chalk either in charcoal or in oxygen,
+but they are nevertheless necessary to its existence.
+
+So in the various mental characters which make up the soul of Gothic. It
+is not one nor another that produces it; but their union in certain
+measures. Each one of them is found in many other architectures besides
+Gothic; but Gothic cannot exist where they are not found, or, at least,
+where their place is not in some way supplied. Only there is this great
+difference between the composition of the mineral, and of the
+architectural style, that if we withdraw one of its elements from the
+stone, its form is utterly changed, and its existence as such and such a
+mineral is destroyed; but if we withdraw one of its mental elements from
+the Gothic style, it is only a little less Gothic than it was before,
+and the union of two or three of its elements is enough already to
+bestow a certain Gothicness of character, which gains in intensity as we
+add the others, and loses as we again withdraw them.
+
+Sec. VI. I believe, then, that the characteristic or moral elements of
+Gothic are the following, placed in the order of their importance:
+
+  1. Savageness.
+  2. Changefulness.
+  3. Naturalism.
+  4. Grotesqueness.
+  5. Rigidity.
+  6. Redundance.
+
+These characters are here expressed as belonging to the building; as
+belonging to the builder, they would be expressed thus:--1. Savageness,
+or Rudeness. 2. Love of Change. 3. Love of Nature. 4. Disturbed
+Imagination. 5, Obstinacy. 6. Generosity. And I repeat, that the
+withdrawal of any one, or any two, will not at once destroy the Gothic
+character of a building, but the removal of a majority of them will. I
+shall proceed to examine them in their order.
+
+Sec. VII. 1. SAVAGENESS. I am not sure when the word "Gothic" was first
+generically applied to the architecture of the North; but I presume
+that, whatever the date of its original usage, it was intended to imply
+reproach, and express the barbaric character of the nations among whom
+that architecture arose. It never implied that they were literally of
+Gothic lineage, far less that their architecture had been originally
+invented by the Goths themselves; but it did imply that they and their
+buildings together exhibited a degree of sternness and rudeness, which,
+in contradistinction to the character of Southern and Eastern nations,
+appeared like a perpetual reflection of the contrast between the Goth
+and the Roman in their first encounter. And when that fallen Roman, in
+the utmost impotence of his luxury, and insolence of his guilt, became
+the model for the imitation of civilized Europe, at the close of the
+so-called Dark ages, the word Gothic became a term of unmitigated
+contempt, not unmixed with aversion. From that contempt, by the exertion
+of the antiquaries and architects of this century, Gothic architecture
+has been sufficiently vindicated; and perhaps some among us, in our
+admiration of the magnificent science of its structure, and sacredness
+of its expression, might desire that the term of ancient reproach should
+be withdrawn, and some other, of more apparent honorableness, adopted in
+its place. There is no chance, as there is no need, of such a
+substitution. As far as the epithet was used scornfully, it was used
+falsely; but there is no reproach in the word, rightly understood; on
+the contrary, there is a profound truth, which the instinct of mankind
+almost unconsciously recognizes. It is true, greatly and deeply true,
+that the architecture of the North is rude and wild; but it is not true,
+that, for this reason, we are to condemn it, or despise. Far otherwise:
+I believe it is in this very character that it deserves our profoundest
+reverence.
+
+Sec. VIII. The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern
+science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount
+of knowledge, but I have never yet seen any one pictorial enough to
+enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical
+character which exists between Northern and Southern countries. We know
+the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp
+which would enable us to feel them in their fulness. We know that
+gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not
+enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's
+surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the
+district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow
+see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment,
+try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine
+the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its
+ancient promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an angry spot
+of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and
+here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its
+circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light,
+Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement
+into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten
+work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and
+flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and
+orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the
+burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under
+lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see
+the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green,
+where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and
+dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of
+the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of
+rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low
+along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth
+heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with
+a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and
+splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas,
+beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious
+pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from
+among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their
+peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron,
+sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.
+And, having once traversed in thought its gradation of the zoned iris of
+the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and
+watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life: the multitudes of
+swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread
+the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards,
+glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us
+contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of
+motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky
+plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the
+Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope
+with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then,
+submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all
+that it bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but
+rejoice at the expression by man of his own rest in the statutes of the
+lands that gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he sets
+side by side the burning gems, and smoothes with soft sculpture the
+jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise into
+a cloudless sky: but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when,
+with rough strength and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth animation
+out of the rocks which he has torn from among the moss of the moorland,
+and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged
+wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the
+northern sea; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of
+wolfish life; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds
+that shade them.
+
+There is, I repeat, no degradation, no reproach in this, but all dignity
+and honorableness; and we should err grievously in refusing either to
+recognise as an essential character of the existing architecture of the
+North, or to admit as a desirable character in that which it yet may be,
+this wildness of thought, and roughness of work; this look of mountain
+brotherhood between the cathedral and the Alp; this magnificence of
+sturdy power, put forth only the more energetically because the fine
+finger-touch was chilled away by the frosty wind, and the eye dimmed by
+the moor-mist, or blinded by the hail; this outspeaking of the strong
+spirit of men who may not gather redundant fruitage from the earth, nor
+bask in dreamy benignity of sunshine, but must break the rock for bread,
+and cleave the forest for fire, and show, even in what they did for
+their delight, some of the hard habits of the arm and heart that grew on
+them as they swung the axe or pressed the plough.
+
+Sec. IX. If, however, the savageness of Gothic architecture, merely as an
+expression of its origin among Northern nations, may be considered, in
+some sort, a noble character, it possesses a higher nobility still, when
+considered as an index, not of climate, but of religious principle.
+
+In the 13th and 14th paragraphs of Chapter XXI. of the first volume of
+this work, it was noticed that the systems of architectural ornament,
+properly so called, might be divided into three:--1. Servile ornament,
+in which the execution or power of the inferior workman is entirely
+subjected to the intellect of the higher:--2. Constitutional ornament,
+in which the executive inferior power is, to a certain point,
+emancipated and independent, having a will of its own, yet confessing
+its inferiority and rendering obedience to higher powers;--and 3.
+Revolutionary ornament, in which no executive inferiority is admitted at
+all. I must here explain the nature of these divisions at somewhat
+greater length.
+
+Of Servile ornament, the principal schools are the Greek, Ninevite, and
+Egyptian; but their servility is of different kinds. The Greek
+master-workman was far advanced in knowledge and power above the
+Assyrian or Egyptian. Neither he nor those for whom he worked could
+endure the appearance of imperfection in anything; and, therefore, what
+ornament he appointed to be done by those beneath him was composed of
+mere geometrical forms,--balls, ridges, and perfectly symmetrical
+foliage,--which could be executed with absolute precision by line and
+rule, and were as perfect in their way when completed, as his own figure
+sculpture. The Assyrian and Egyptian, on the contrary, less cognizant of
+accurate form in anything, were content to allow their figure sculpture
+to be executed by inferior workmen, but lowered the method of its
+treatment to a standard which every workman could reach, and then
+trained him by discipline so rigid, that there was no chance of his
+falling beneath the standard appointed. The Greek gave to the lower
+workman no subject which he could not perfectly execute. The Assyrian
+gave him subjects which he could only execute imperfectly, but fixed a
+legal standard for his imperfection. The workman was, in both systems, a
+slave.[56]
+
+Sec. X. But in the mediaeval, or especially Christian, system of ornament,
+this slavery is done away with altogether; Christianity having
+recognized, in small things as well as great, the individual value of
+every soul. But it not only recognizes its value; it confesses its
+imperfection, in only bestowing dignity upon the acknowledgment of
+unworthiness. That admission of lost power and fallen nature, which the
+Greek or Ninevite felt to be intensely painful, and, as far as might be,
+altogether refused, the Christian makes daily and hourly, contemplating
+the fact of it without fear, as tending, in the end, to God's greater
+glory. Therefore, to every spirit which Christianity summons to her
+service, her exhortation is: Do what you can, and confess frankly what
+you are unable to do; neither let your effort be shortened for fear of
+failure, nor your confession silenced for fear of shame. And it is,
+perhaps, the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of
+architecture, that they thus receive the results of the labor of
+inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfection, and betraying
+that imperfection in every touch, indulgently raise up a stately and
+unaccusable whole.
+
+Sec. XI. But the modern English mind has this much in common with that of
+the Greek, that it intensely desires, in all things, the utmost
+completion or perfection compatible with their nature. This is a noble
+character in the abstract, but becomes ignoble when it causes us to
+forget the relative dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer the
+perfectness of the lower nature to the imperfection of the higher; not
+considering that as, judged by such a rule, all the brute animals would
+be preferable to man, because more perfect in their functions and kind,
+and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the works of man,
+those which are more perfect in their kind are always inferior to those
+which are, in their nature, liable to more faults and shortcomings. For
+the finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness
+of it; and it is a law of this universe, that the best things shall be
+seldomest seen in their best form. The wild grass grows well and
+strongly, one year with another; but the wheat is, according to the
+greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer blight. And
+therefore, while in all things that we see, or do, we are to desire
+perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the meaner
+thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in its
+mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered
+majesty; not to prefer mean victory to honorable defeat; not to lower
+the level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency
+of success. But, above all, in our dealings with the souls of other men,
+we are to take care how we check, by severe requirement or narrow
+caution, efforts which might otherwise lead to a noble issue; and, still
+more, how we withhold our admiration from great excellences, because
+they are mingled with rough faults. Now, in the make and nature of every
+man, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual labor, there are
+some powers for better things: some tardy imagination, torpid capacity
+of emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the worst;
+and in most cases it is all our own fault that they _are_ tardy or
+torpid. But they cannot be strengthened, unless we are content to take
+them in their feebleness, and unless we prize and honor them in their
+imperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill. And this is
+what we have to do with all our laborers; to look for the _thoughtful_
+part of them, and get that out of them, whatever we lose for it,
+whatever faults and errors we are obliged to take with it. For the best
+that is in them cannot manifest itself, but in company with much error.
+Understand this clearly: You can teach a man to draw a straight line,
+and to cut one; to strike a curved line, and to carve it; and to copy
+and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and
+perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you
+ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find
+any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating;
+he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake
+in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you
+have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an
+animated tool.
+
+Sec. XII. And observe, you are put to stern choice in this matter. You
+must either made a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make
+both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be
+precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that
+precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like
+cog-wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must
+unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make
+cogs and compasses of themselves. All their attention and strength must
+go to the accomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the soul must be
+bent upon the finger-point, and the soul's force must fill all the
+invisible nerves that guide it, ten hours a day, that it may not err
+from its steely precision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the
+whole human being be lost at last--a heap of sawdust, so far as its
+intellectual work in this world is concerned; saved only by its Heart,
+which cannot go into the form of cogs and compasses, but expands, after
+the ten hours are over, into fireside humanity. On the other hand, if
+you will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let
+him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing;
+and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his
+roughness, all his dulness, all his incapability; shame upon shame,
+failure upon failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty
+of him also; and we know the height of it only, when we see the clouds
+settling upon him. And, whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will
+be transfiguration behind and within them.
+
+Sec. XIII. And now, reader, look round this English room of yours, about
+which you have been proud so often, because the work of it was so good
+and strong, and the ornaments of it so finished. Examine again all those
+accurate mouldings, and perfect polishings, and unerring adjustments of
+the seasoned wood and tempered steel. Many a time you have exulted over
+them, and thought how great England was, because her slightest work was
+done so thoroughly. Alas! if read rightly, these perfectnesses are signs
+of a slavery in our England a thousand times more bitter and more
+degrading than that of the scourged African, or helot Greek. Men may be
+beaten, chained, tormented, yoked like cattle, slaughtered like summer
+flies, and yet remain in one sense, and the best sense, free. But to
+smother their souls within them, to blight and hew into rotting pollards
+the suckling branches of their human intelligence, to make the flesh and
+skin which, after the worm's work on it, is to see God, into leathern
+thongs to yoke machinery with,--this it is to be slave-masters indeed;
+and there might be more freedom in England, though her feudal lords'
+lightest words were worth men's lives, and though the blood of the vexed
+husbandman dropped in the furrows of her fields, than there is while
+the animation of her multitudes is sent like fuel to feed the factory
+smoke, and the strength of them is given daily to be wasted into the
+fineness of a web, or racked into the exactness of a line.
+
+Sec. XIV. And, on the other hand, go forth again to gaze upon the old
+cathedral front, where you have smiled so often at the fantastic
+ignorance of the old sculptors: examine once more those ugly goblins,
+and formless monsters, and stern statues, anatomiless and rigid; but do
+not mock at them, for they are signs of the life and liberty of every
+workman who struck the stone; a freedom of thought, and rank in scale of
+being, such as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure; but which
+it must be the first aim of all Europe at this day to regain for her
+children.
+
+Sec. XV. Let me not be thought to speak wildly or extravagantly. It is
+verily this degradation of the operative into a machine, which, more
+than any other evil of the times, is leading the mass of the nations
+everywhere into vain, incoherent, destructive struggling for a freedom
+of which they cannot explain the nature to themselves. Their universal
+outcry against wealth, and against nobility, is not forced from them
+either by the pressure of famine, or the sting of mortified pride. These
+do much, and have done much in all ages; but the foundations of society
+were never yet shaken as they are at this day. It is not that men are
+ill fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make
+their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure.
+It is not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, but
+they cannot endure their own; for they feel that the kind of labor to
+which they are condemned is verily a degrading one, and makes them less
+than men. Never had the upper classes so much sympathy with the lower,
+or charity for them, as they have at this day, and yet never were they
+so much hated by them: for, of old, the separation between the noble and
+the poor was merely a wall built by law; now it is a veritable
+difference in level of standing, a precipice between upper and lower
+grounds in the field of humanity and there is pestilential air at the
+bottom of it. I know not if a day is ever to come when the nature of
+right freedom will be understood, and when men will see that to obey
+another man, to labor for him, yield reverence to him or to his place,
+is not slavery. It is often the best kind of liberty,--liberty from
+care. The man who says to one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come,
+and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and
+difficulty than the man who obeys him. The movements of the one are
+hindered by the burden on his shoulder; of the other, by the bridle on
+his lips: there is no way by which the burden may be lightened; but we
+need not suffer from the bridle if we do not champ at it. To yield
+reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal,
+is not slavery; often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live
+in this world. There is, indeed, a reverence which is servile, that is
+to say, irrational or selfish: but there is also noble reverence, that
+is to say, reasonable and loving; and a man is never so noble as when he
+is reverent in this kind; nay, even if the feeling pass the bounds of
+mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised by it. Which had, in
+reality, most of the serf nature in him,--the Irish peasant who was
+lying in wait yesterday for his landlord, with his musket muzzle thrust
+through the ragged hedge; or that old mountain servant, who, 200 years
+ago, at Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and the lives of his seven
+sons for his chief?[57]--and as each fell, calling forth his brother to
+the death, "Another for Hector!" And therefore, in all ages and all
+countries, reverence has been paid and sacrifice made by men to each
+other, not only without complaint, but rejoicingly; and famine, and
+peril, and sword, and all evil, and all shame, have been borne willingly
+in the causes of masters and kings; for all these gifts of the heart
+ennobled the men who gave, not less than the men who received them, and
+nature prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel their souls
+withering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an
+unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism,
+numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes;--this
+nature bade not,--this God blesses not,--this humanity for no long time
+is able to endure.
+
+Sec. XVI. We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great
+civilized invention of the division of labor; only we give it a false
+name. It is not, truly speaking, the labor that is divided; but the
+men:--Divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments and
+crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is
+left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts
+itself in making the point of a pin, or the head of a nail. Now it is a
+good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we
+could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,--sand
+of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what
+it is,--we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the
+great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than
+their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this,--that we manufacture
+everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and
+refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to
+refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our
+estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our
+myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for
+to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach to them,
+if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can be met only
+by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of
+labor are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a
+determined sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness as is
+to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally
+determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling
+labor.
+
+Sec. XVII. And how, it will be asked, are these products to be recognized,
+and this demand to be regulated? Easily: by the observance of three
+broad and simple rules:
+
+1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely
+necessary, in the production of which _Invention_ has no share.
+
+2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some
+practical or noble end.
+
+3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except for the sake
+of preserving record of great works.
+
+The second of these principles is the only one which directly rises out
+of the consideration of our immediate subject; but I shall briefly
+explain the meaning and extent of the first also, reserving the
+enforcement of the third for another place.
+
+1. Never encourage the manufacture of anything not necessary, in the
+production of which invention has no share.
+
+For instance. Glass beads are utterly unnecessary, and there is no
+design or thought employed in their manufacture. They are formed by
+first drawing out the glass into rods; these rods are chopped up into
+fragments of the size of beads by the human hand, and the fragments are
+then rounded in the furnace. The men who chop up the rods sit at their
+work all day, their hands vibrating with a perpetual and exquisitely
+timed palsy, and the beads dropping beneath their vibration like hail.
+Neither they, nor the men who draw out the rods, or fuse the fragments,
+have the smallest occasion for the use of any single human faculty; and
+every young lady, therefore, who buys glass beads is engaged in the
+slave-trade, and in a much more cruel one than that which we have so
+long been endeavoring to put down.
+
+But glass cups and vessels may become the subjects of exquisite
+invention; and if in buying these we pay for the invention, that is to
+say for the beautiful form, or color, or engraving, and not for mere
+finish of execution, we are doing good to humanity.
+
+Sec. XVIII. So, again, the cutting of precious stones, in all ordinary
+cases, requires little exertion of any mental faculty; some tact and
+judgment in avoiding flaws, and so on, but nothing to bring out the
+whole mind. Every person who wears cut jewels merely for the sake of
+their value is, therefore, a slave-driver.
+
+But the working of the goldsmith, and the various designing of grouped
+jewellery and enamel-work, may become the subject of the most noble
+human intelligence. Therefore, money spent in the purchase of
+well-designed plate, of precious engraved vases, cameos, or enamels,
+does good to humanity; and, in work of this kind, jewels may be employed
+to heighten its splendor; and their cutting is then a price paid for the
+attainment of a noble end, and thus perfectly allowable.
+
+Sec. XIX. I shall perhaps press this law farther elsewhere, but our
+immediate concern is chiefly with the second, namely, never to demand an
+exact finish, when it does not lead to a noble end. For observe, I have
+only dwelt upon the rudeness of Gothic, or any other kind of
+imperfectness, as admirable, where it was impossible to get design or
+thought without it. If you are to have the thought of a rough and
+untaught man, you must have it in a rough and untaught way; but from an
+educated man, who can without effort express his thoughts in an educated
+way, take the graceful expression, and be thankful. Only _get_ the
+thought, and do not silence the peasant because he cannot speak good
+grammar, or until you have taught him his grammar. Grammar and
+refinement are good things, both, only be sure of the better thing
+first. And thus in art, delicate finish is desirable from the greatest
+masters, and is always given by them. In some places Michael Angelo,
+Leonardo, Phidias, Perugino, Turner, all finished with the most
+exquisite care; and the finish they give always leads to the fuller
+accomplishment of their noble purposes. But lower men than these cannot
+finish, for it requires consummate knowledge to finish consummately, and
+then we must take their thoughts as they are able to give them. So the
+rule is simple: Always look for invention first, and after that, for
+such execution as will help the invention, and as the inventor is
+capable of without painful effort, and _no more_. Above all, demand no
+refinement of execution where there is no thought, for that is slaves'
+work, unredeemed. Rather choose rough work than smooth work, so only
+that the practical purpose be answered, and never imagine there is
+reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished by patience and
+sandpaper.
+
+Sec. XX. I shall only give one example, which however will show the reader
+what I mean, from the manufacture already alluded to, that of glass. Our
+modern glass is exquisitely clear in its substance, true in its form,
+accurate in its cutting. We are proud of this. We ought to be ashamed of
+it. The old Venice glass was muddy, inaccurate in all its forms, and
+clumsily cut, if at all. And the old Venetian was justly proud of it.
+For there is this difference between the English and Venetian workman,
+that the former thinks only of accurately matching his patterns, and
+getting his curves perfectly true and his edges perfectly sharp, and
+becomes a mere machine for rounding curves and sharpening edges, while
+the old Venetian cared not a whit whether his edges were sharp or not,
+but he invented a new design for every glass that he made, and never
+moulded a handle or a lip without a new fancy in it. And therefore,
+though some Venetian glass is ugly and clumsy enough, when made by
+clumsy and uninventive workmen, other Venetian glass is so lovely in its
+forms that no price is too great for it; and we never see the same form
+in it twice. Now you cannot have the finish and the varied form too. If
+the workman is thinking about his edges, he cannot be thinking of his
+design; if of his design, he cannot think of his edges. Choose whether
+you will pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose at
+the same moment whether you will make the worker a man or a grindstone.
+
+Sec. XXI. Nay, but the reader interrupts me,--"If the workman can design
+beautifully, I would not have him kept at the furnace. Let him be taken
+away and made a gentleman, and have a studio, and design his glass
+there, and I will have it blown and cut for him by common workmen, and
+so I will have my design and my finish too."
+
+All ideas of this kind are founded upon two mistaken suppositions: the
+first, that one man's thoughts can be, or ought to be, executed by
+another man's hands; the second, that manual labor is a degradation,
+when it is governed by intellect.
+
+On a large scale, and in work determinable by line and rule, it is
+indeed both possible and necessary that the thoughts of one man should
+be carried out by the labor of others; in this sense I have already
+defined the best architecture to be the expression of the mind of
+manhood by the hands of childhood. But on a smaller scale, and in a
+design which cannot be mathematically defined, one man's thoughts can
+never be expressed by another: and the difference between the spirit of
+touch of the man who is inventing, and of the man who is obeying
+directions, is often all the difference between a great and a common
+work of art. How wide the separation is between original and second-hand
+execution, I shall endeavor to show elsewhere; it is not so much to our
+purpose here as to mark the other and more fatal error of despising
+manual labor when governed by intellect; for it is no less fatal an
+error to despise it when thus regulated by intellect, than to value it
+for its own sake. We are always in these days endeavoring to separate
+the two; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always
+working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative;
+whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to
+be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is,
+we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other despising, his
+brother; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers, and
+miserable workers. Now it is only by labor that thought can be made
+healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy, and the two
+cannot be separated with impunity. It would be well if all of us were
+good handicraftsmen in some kind, and the dishonor of manual labor done
+away with altogether; so that though there should still be a trenchant
+distinction of race between nobles and commoners, there should not,
+among the latter, be a trenchant distinction of employment, as between
+idle and working men, or between men of liberal and illiberal
+professions. All professions should be liberal, and there should be less
+pride felt in peculiarity of employment, and more in excellence of
+achievement. And yet more, in each several profession, no master should
+be too proud to do its hardest work. The painter should grind his own
+colors; the architect work in the mason's yard with his men; the
+master-manufacturer be himself a more skilful operative than any man in
+his mills; and the distinction between one man and another be only in
+experience and skill, and the authority and wealth which these must
+naturally and justly obtain.
+
+Sec. XXII. I should be led far from the matter in hand, if I were to
+pursue this interesting subject. Enough, I trust, has been said to show
+the reader that the rudeness or imperfection which at first rendered the
+term "Gothic" one of reproach is indeed, when rightly understood, one of
+the most noble characters of Christian architecture, and not only a
+noble but an _essential_ one. It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is
+nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly
+noble which is _not_ imperfect. And this is easily demonstrable. For
+since the architect, whom we will suppose capable of doing all in
+perfection, cannot execute the whole with his own hands, he must either
+make slaves of his workmen in the old Greek, and present English
+fashion, and level his work to a slave's capacities, which is to degrade
+it; or else he must take his workmen as he finds them, and let them show
+their weaknesses together with their strength, which will involve the
+Gothic imperfection, but render the whole work as noble as the intellect
+of the age can make it.
+
+Sec. XXIII. But the principle may be stated more broadly still. I have
+confined the illustration of it to architecture, but I must not leave it
+as if true of architecture only. Hitherto I have used the words
+imperfect and perfect merely to distinguish between work grossly
+unskilful, and work executed with average precision and science; and I
+have been pleading that any degree of unskilfulness should be admitted,
+so only that the laborer's mind had room for expression. But, accurately
+speaking, no good work whatever can be perfect, and _the demand for
+perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art_.
+
+Sec. XXIV. This for two reasons, both based on everlasting laws. The
+first, that no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point
+of failure; that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his
+powers of execution, and the latter will now and then give way in trying
+to follow it; besides that he will always give to the inferior portions
+of his work only such inferior attention as they require; and according
+to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feeling of
+dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of lassitude or
+anger with himself he will not care though the beholder be dissatisfied
+also. I believe there has only been one man who would not acknowledge
+this necessity, and strove always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end
+of his vain effort being merely that he would take ten years to a
+picture, and leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have great
+men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be
+imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be
+perfect, in its own bad way.[58]
+
+Sec. XXV. The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort
+essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal
+body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that
+lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part
+nascent. The foxglove blossom,--a third part bud, a third part past, a
+third part in full bloom,--is a type of the life of this world. And in all
+things that live there are certain, irregularities and deficiencies which
+are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is
+exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes,
+no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change;
+and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion,
+to paralyse vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more
+beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that
+the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment,
+Mercy.
+
+Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any
+other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect; and let us
+be prepared for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern
+clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first
+cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of
+perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for
+greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity.
+
+Thus far then of the Rudeness or Savageness, which is the first mental
+element of Gothic architecture. It is an element in many other healthy
+architectures also, as in Byzantine and Romanesque; but true Gothic
+cannot exist without it.
+
+Sec. XXVI. The second mental element above named was CHANGEFULNESS, or
+Variety.
+
+I have already enforced the allowing independent operation to the
+inferior workman, simply as a duty _to him_, and as ennobling the
+architecture by rendering it more Christian. We have now to consider
+what reward we obtain for the performance of this duty, namely, the
+perpetual variety of every feature of the building.
+
+Wherever the workman is utterly enslaved, the parts of the building must
+of course be absolutely like each other; for the perfection of his
+execution can only be reached by exercising him in doing one thing, and
+giving him nothing else to do. The degree in which the workman is
+degraded may be thus known at a glance, by observing whether the several
+parts of the building are similar or not; and if, as in Greek work, all
+the capitals are alike, and all the mouldings unvaried, then the
+degradation is complete; if, as in Egyptian or Ninevite work, though the
+manner of executing certain figures is always the same, the order of
+design is perpetually varied, the degradation is less total; if, as in
+Gothic work, there is perpetual change both in design and execution, the
+workman must have been altogether set free.
+
+Sec. XXVII. How much the beholder gains from the liberty of the laborer
+may perhaps be questioned in England, where one of the strongest instincts
+in nearly every mind is that Love of Order which makes us desire that
+our house windows should pair like our carriage horses, and allows us
+to yield our faith unhesitatingly to architectural theories which fix a
+form for everything and forbid variation from it. I would not impeach
+love of order: it is one of the most useful elements of the English
+mind; it helps us in our commerce and in all purely practical matters;
+and it is in many cases one of the foundation stones of morality. Only
+do not let us suppose that love of order is love of art. It is true that
+order, in its highest sense, is one of the necessities of art, just as
+time is a necessity of music; but love of order has no more to do with
+our right enjoyment of architecture or painting, than love of
+punctuality with the appreciation of an opera. Experience, I fear,
+teaches us that accurate and methodical habits in daily life are seldom
+characteristic of those who either quickly perceive, or richly possess,
+the creative powers of art; there is, however, nothing inconsistent
+between the two instincts, and nothing to hinder us from retaining our
+business habits, and yet fully allowing and enjoying the noblest gifts
+of Invention. We already do so, in every other branch of art except
+architecture, and we only do _not_ so there because we have been taught
+that it would be wrong. Our architects gravely inform us that, as there
+are four rules of arithmetic, there are five orders of architecture; we,
+in our simplicity, think that this sounds consistent, and believe them.
+They inform us also that there is one proper form for Corinthian
+capitals, another for Doric, and another for Ionic. We, considering that
+there is also a proper form for the letters A, B, and C, think that this
+also sounds consistent, and accept the proposition. Understanding,
+therefore, that one form of the said capitals is proper, and no other,
+and having a conscientious horror of all impropriety, we allow the
+architect to provide us with the said capitals, of the proper form, in
+such and such a quantity, and in all other points to take care that the
+legal forms are observed; which having done, we rest in forced
+confidence that we are well housed.
+
+Sec. XXVIII. But our higher instincts are not deceived. We take no
+pleasure in the building provided for us, resembling that which we take in
+a new book or a new picture. We may be proud of its size, complacent in
+its correctness, and happy in its convenience. We may take the same
+pleasure in its symmetry and workmanship as in a well-ordered room, or a
+skilful piece of manufacture. And this we suppose to be all the pleasure
+that architecture was ever intended to give us. The idea of reading a
+building as we would read Milton or Dante, and getting the same kind of
+delight out of the stones as out of the stanzas, never enters our minds
+for a moment. And for good reason:--There is indeed rhythm in the
+verses, quite as strict as the symmetries or rhythm of the architecture,
+and a thousand times more beautiful, but there is something else than
+rhythm. The verses were neither made to order, nor to match, as the
+capitals were; and we have therefore a kind of pleasure in them other
+than a sense of propriety. But it requires a strong effort of common
+sense to shake ourselves quit of all that we have been taught for the
+last two centuries, and wake to the perception of a truth just as simple
+and certain as it is new: that great art, whether expressing itself in
+words, colors, or stones, does _not_ say the same thing over and over
+again; that the merit of architectural, as of every other art, consists
+in its saying new and different things; that to repeat itself is no more
+a characteristic of genius in marble than it is of genius in print; and
+that we may, without offending any laws of good taste, require of an
+architect, as we do of a novelist, that he should be not only correct,
+but entertaining.
+
+Yet all this is true, and self-evident; only hidden from us, as many
+other self-evident things are, by false teaching. Nothing is a great
+work of art, for the production of which either rules or models can be
+given. Exactly so far as architecture works on known rules, and from
+given models, it is not an art, but a manufacture; and it is, of the two
+procedures, rather less rational (because more easy) to copy capitals or
+mouldings from Phidias, and call ourselves architects, than to copy
+heads and hands from Titian, and call ourselves painters.
+
+Sec. XXIX. Let us then understand at once, that change or variety is as
+much a necessity to the human heart and brain in buildings as in books;
+that there is no merit, though there is some occasional use, in
+monotony; and that we must no more expect to derive either pleasure or
+profit from an architecture whose ornaments are of one pattern, and
+whose pillars are of one proportion, than we should out of a universe in
+which the clouds were all of one shape, and the trees all of one size.
+
+Sec. XXX. And this we confess in deeds, though not in words. All the
+pleasure which the people of the nineteenth century take in art, is in
+pictures, sculpture, minor objects of virtu, or mediaeval architecture,
+which we enjoy under the term picturesque: no pleasure is taken anywhere
+in modern buildings, and we find all men of true feeling delighting to
+escape out of modern cities into natural scenery: hence, as I shall
+hereafter show, that peculiar love of landscape which is characteristic
+of the age. It would be well, if, in all other matters, we were as ready
+to put up with what we dislike, for the sake of compliance with
+established law, as we are in architecture.
+
+Sec. XXXI. How so debased a law ever came to be established, we shall see
+when we come to describe the Renaissance schools: here we have only to
+note, as the second most essential element of the Gothic spirit, that it
+broke through that law wherever it found it in existence; it not only
+dared, but delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle;
+and invented a series of forms of which the merit was, not merely that
+they were new, but that they were _capable of perpetual novelty_. The
+pointed arch was not merely a bold variation from the round, but it
+admitted of millions of variations in itself; for the proportions of a
+pointed arch are changeable to infinity, while a circular arch is always
+the same. The grouped shaft was not merely a bold variation from the
+single one, but it admitted of millions of variations in its grouping,
+and in the proportions resultant from its grouping. The introduction of
+tracery was not only a startling change in the treatment of window
+lights, but admitted endless changes in the interlacement of the tracery
+bars themselves. So that, while in all living Christian architecture the
+love of variety exists, the Gothic schools exhibited that love in
+culminating energy; and their influence, wherever it extended itself,
+may be sooner and farther traced by this character than by any other;
+the tendency to the adoption of Gothic types being always first shown by
+greater irregularity and richer variation in the forms of the
+architecture it is about to supersede, long before the appearance of the
+pointed arch or of any other recognizable _outward_ sign of the Gothic
+mind.
+
+Sec. XXXII. We must, however, herein note carefully what distinction there
+is between a healthy and a diseased love of change; for as it was in
+healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly
+in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed. In
+order to understand this clearly, it will be necessary to consider the
+different ways in which change and monotony are presented to us in
+nature; both having their use, like darkness and light, and the one
+incapable of being enjoyed without the other: change being most
+delightful after some prolongation of monotony, as light appears most
+brilliant after the eyes have been for some time closed.
+
+Sec. XXXIII. I believe that the true relations of monotony and change
+may be most simply understood by observing them in music. We may therein
+notice, first, that there is a sublimity and majesty in monotony which
+there is not in rapid or frequent variation. This is true throughout all
+nature. The greater part of the sublimity of the sea depends on its
+monotony; so also that of desolate moor and mountain scenery; and
+especially the sublimity of motion, as in the quiet, unchanged fall and
+rise of an engine beam. So also there is sublimity in darkness which
+there is not in light.
+
+Sec. XXXIV. Again, monotony after a certain time, or beyond a certain
+degree, becomes either uninteresting or intolerable, and the musician is
+obliged to break it in one or two ways: either while the air or passage
+is perpetually repeated, its notes are variously enriched and
+harmonized; or else, after a certain number of repeated passages, an
+entirely new passage is introduced, which is more or less delightful
+according to the length of the previous monotony. Nature, of course,
+uses both these kinds of variation perpetually. The sea-waves,
+resembling each other in general mass, but none like its brother in
+minor divisions and curves, are a monotony of the first kind; the great
+plain, broken by an emergent rock or clump of trees, is a monotony of
+the second.
+
+Sec. XXXV. Farther: in order to the enjoyment of the change in either
+case, a certain degree of patience is required from the hearer or
+observer. In the first case, he must be satisfied to endure with patience
+the recurrence of the great masses of sound or form, and to seek for
+entertainment in a careful watchfulness of the minor details. In the
+second case, he must bear patiently the infliction of the monotony for
+some moments, in order to feel the full refreshment of the change. This
+is true even of the shortest musical passage in which the element of
+monotony is employed. In cases of more majestic monotony, the patience
+required is so considerable that it becomes a kind of pain,--a price
+paid for the future pleasure.
+
+Sec. XXXVI. Again: the talent of the composer is not in the monotony, but
+in the changes: he may show feeling and taste by his use of monotony in
+certain places or degrees; that is to say, by his _various_ employment
+of it; but it is always in the new arrangement or invention that his
+intellect is shown, and not in the monotony which relieves it.
+
+Lastly: if the pleasure of change be too often repeated, it ceases to be
+delightful, for then change itself becomes monotonous, and we are driven
+to seek delight in extreme and fantastic degrees of it. This is the
+diseased love of change of which we have above spoken.
+
+Sec. XXXVII. From these facts we may gather generally that monotony is,
+and ought to be, in itself painful to us, just as darkness is; that an
+architecture which is altogether monotonous is a dark or dead
+architecture; and, of those who love it, it may be truly said, "they
+love darkness rather than light." But monotony in certain measure, used
+in order to give value to change, and, above all, that _transparent_
+monotony which, like the shadows of a great painter, suffers all manner
+of dimly suggested form to be seen through the body of it, is an
+essential in architectural as in all other composition; and the
+endurance of monotony has about the same place in a healthy mind that
+the endurance of darkness has: that is to say, as a strong intellect
+will have pleasure in the solemnities of storm and twilight, and in the
+broken and mysterious lights that gleam among them, rather than in mere
+brilliancy and glare, while a frivolous mind will dread the shadow and
+the storm; and as a great man will be ready to endure much darkness of
+fortune in order to reach greater eminence of power or felicity, while
+an inferior man will not pay the price; exactly in like manner a great
+mind will accept, or even delight in, monotony which would be wearisome
+to an inferior intellect, because it has more patience and power of
+expectation, and is ready to pay the full price for the great future
+pleasure of change. But in all cases it is not that the noble nature
+loves monotony, any more than it loves darkness or pain. But it can bear
+with it, and receives a high pleasure in the endurance or patience, a
+pleasure necessary to the well-being of this world; while those who will
+not submit to the temporary sameness, but rush from one change to
+another, gradually dull the edge of change itself, and bring a shadow
+and weariness over the whole world from which there is no more escape.
+
+Sec. XXXVIII. From these general uses of variety in the economy of the
+world, we may at once understand its use and abuse in architecture. The
+variety of the Gothic schools is the more healthy and beautiful, because
+in many cases it is entirely unstudied, and results, not from the mere
+love of change, but from practical necessities. For in one point of view
+Gothic is not only the best, but the _only rational_ architecture, as
+being that which can fit itself most easily to all services, vulgar or
+noble. Undefined in its slope of roof, height of shaft, breadth of arch,
+or disposition of ground plan, it can shrink into a turret, expand into
+a hall, coil into a staircase, or spring into a spire, with undegraded
+grace and unexhausted energy; and whenever it finds occasion for change
+in its form or purpose, it submits to it without the slightest sense of
+loss either to its unity or majesty,--subtle and flexible like a fiery
+serpent, but ever attentive to the voice of the charmer. And it is one
+of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they never suffered
+ideas of outside symmetries and consistencies to interfere with the real
+use and value of what they did. If they wanted a window, they opened
+one; a room, they added one; a buttress, they built one; utterly
+regardless of any established conventionalities of external appearance,
+knowing (as indeed it always happened) that such daring interruptions of
+the formal plan would rather give additional interest to its symmetry
+than injure it. So that, in the best times of Gothic, a useless window
+would rather have been opened in an unexpected place for the sake of the
+surprise, than a useful one forbidden for the sake of symmetry. Every
+successive architect, employed upon a great work, built the pieces he
+added in his own way, utterly regardless of the style adopted by his
+predecessors; and if two towers were raised in nominal correspondence at
+the sides of a cathedral front, one was nearly sure to be different from
+the other, and in each the style at the top to be different from the
+style at the bottom.[59]
+
+Sec. XXXIX. These marked variations were, however, only permitted as part
+of the great system of perpetual change which ran through every member
+of Gothic design, and rendered it as endless a field for the beholder's
+inquiry, as for the builder's imagination: change, which in the best
+schools is subtle and delicate, and rendered more delightful by
+intermingling of a noble monotony; in the more barbaric schools is
+somewhat fantastic and redundant; but, in all, a necessary and constant
+condition of the life of the school. Sometimes the variety is in one
+feature, sometimes in another; it may be in the capitals or crockets, in
+the niches or the traceries, or in all together, but in some one or
+other of the features it will be found always. If the mouldings are
+constant, the surface sculpture will change; if the capitals are of a
+fixed design, the traceries will change; if the traceries are
+monotonous, the capitals will change; and if even, as in some fine
+schools, the early English for example, there is the slightest
+approximation to an unvarying type of mouldings, capitals, and floral
+decoration, the variety is found in the disposition of the masses, and
+in the figure sculpture.
+
+Sec. XL. I must now refer for a moment, before we quit the consideration
+of this, the second mental element of Gothic, to the opening of the third
+chapter of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," in which the distinction
+was drawn (Sec. 2) between man gathering and man governing; between his
+acceptance of the sources of delight from nature, and his developement
+of authoritative or imaginative power in their arrangement: for the two
+mental elements, not only of Gothic, but of all good architecture, which
+we have just been examining, belong to it, and are admirable in it,
+chiefly as it is, more than any other subject of art, the work of man,
+and the expression of the average power of man. A picture or poem is
+often little more than a feeble utterance of man's admiration of
+something out of himself; but architecture approaches more to a creation
+of his own, born of his necessities, and expressive of his nature. It is
+also, in some sort, the work of the whole race, while the picture or
+statue are the work of one only, in most cases more highly gifted than
+his fellows. And therefore we may expect that the first two elements of
+good architecture should be expressive of some great truths commonly
+belonging to the whole race, and necessary to be understood or felt by
+them in all their work that they do under the sun. And observe what they
+are: the confession of Imperfection and the confession of Desire of
+Change. The building of the bird and the bee needs not express anything
+like this. It is perfect and unchanging. But just because we are
+something better than birds or bees, our building must confess that we
+have not reached the perfection we can imagine, and cannot rest in the
+condition we have attained. If we pretend to have reached either
+perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work.
+God's work only may express that; but ours may never have that sentence
+written upon it,--"And behold, it was very good." And, observe again,
+it is not merely as it renders the edifice a book of various knowledge,
+or a mine of precious thought, that variety is essential to its
+nobleness. The vital principle is not the love of _Knowledge_, but the
+love of _Change_. It is that strange _disquietude_ of the Gothic spirit
+that is its greatness; that restlessness of the dreaming mind, that
+wanders hither and thither among the niches, and flickers feverishly
+around the pinnacles, and frets and fades in labyrinthine knots and
+shadows along wall and roof, and yet is not satisfied, nor shall be
+satisfied. The Greek could stay in his triglyph furrow, and be at peace;
+but the work of the Gothic heart is fretwork still, and it can neither
+rest in, nor from, its labor, but must pass on, sleeplessly, until its
+love of change shall be pacified for ever in the change that must come
+alike on them that wake and them that sleep.
+
+Sec. XLI. The third constituent element of the Gothic mind was stated to
+be NATURALISM; that is to say, the love of natural objects for their own
+sake, and the effort to represent them frankly, unconstrained by
+artistical laws.
+
+This characteristic of the style partly follows in necessary connexion
+with those named above. For, so soon as the workman is left free to
+represent what subjects he chooses, he must look to the nature that is
+round him for material, and will endeavor to represent it as he sees it,
+with more or less accuracy according to the skill he possesses, and with
+much play of fancy, but with small respect for law. There is, however, a
+marked distinction between the imaginations of the Western and Eastern
+races, even when both are left free; the Western, or Gothic, delighting
+most in the representation of facts, and the Eastern (Arabian, Persian,
+and Chinese) in the harmony of colors and forms. Each of these
+intellectual dispositions has its particular forms of error and abuse,
+which, though I have often before stated, I must here again briefly
+explain; and this the rather, because the word Naturalism is, in one of
+its senses, justly used as a term of reproach, and the questions
+respecting the real relations of art and nature are so many and so
+confused throughout all the schools of Europe at this day, that I
+cannot clearly enunciate any single truth without appearing to admit, in
+fellowship with it, some kind of error, unless the reader will bear with
+me in entering into such an analysis of the subject as will serve us for
+general guidance.
+
+Sec. XLII. We are to remember, in the first place, that the arrangement
+of colors and lines is an art analogous to the composition[60] of music,
+and entirely independent of the representation of facts. Good coloring
+does not necessarily convey the image of anything but itself. It
+consists in certain proportions and arrangements of rays of light, but
+not in likenesses to anything. A few touches of certain greys and
+purples laid by a master's hand on white paper, will be good coloring;
+as more touches are added beside them, we may find out that they were
+intended to represent a dove's neck, and we may praise, as the drawing
+advances, the perfect imitation of the dove's neck. But the good
+coloring does not consist in that imitation, but in the abstract
+qualities and relations of the grey and purple.
+
+In like manner, as soon as a great sculptor begins to shape his work out
+of the block, we shall see that its lines are nobly arranged, and of
+noble character. We may not have the slightest idea for what the forms
+are intended, whether they are of man or beast, of vegetation or
+drapery. Their likeness to anything does not affect their nobleness.
+They are magnificent forms, and that is all we need care to know of
+them, in order to say whether the workman is a good or bad sculptor.
+
+Sec. XLIII. Now the noblest art is an exact unison of the abstract
+value, with the imitative power, of forms and colors. It is the noblest
+composition, used to express the noblest facts. But the human mind
+cannot in general unite the two perfections: it either pursues the fact
+to the neglect of the composition, or pursues the composition to the
+neglect of the fact.
+
+Sec. XLIV. And it is intended by the Deity that it _should_ do this; the
+best art is not always wanted. Facts are often wanted without art, as in
+a geological diagram; and art often without facts, as in a Turkey
+carpet. And most men have been made capable of giving either one or the
+other, but not both; only one or two, the very highest, can give both.
+
+Observe then. Men are universally divided, as respects their artistical
+qualifications, into three great classes; a right, a left, and a centre.
+On the right side are the men of facts, on the left the men of
+design,[61] in the centre the men of both.
+
+The three classes of course pass into each other by imperceptible
+gradations. The men of facts are hardly ever altogether without powers
+of design; the men of design are always in some measure cognizant of
+facts; and as each class possesses more or less of the powers of the
+opposite one, it approaches to the character of the central class. Few
+men, even in that central rank, are so exactly throned on the summit of
+the crest that they cannot be perceived to incline in the least one way
+or the other, embracing both horizons with their glance. Now each of
+these classes has, as I above said, a healthy function in the world, and
+correlative diseases or unhealthy functions; and, when the work of
+either of them is seen in its morbid condition, we are apt to find fault
+with the class of workmen, instead of finding fault only with the
+particular abuse which has perverted their action.
+
+Sec. XLV. Let us first take an instance of the healthy action of the three
+classes on a simple subject, so as fully to understand the distinction
+between them, and then we shall more easily examine the corruptions to
+which they are liable. Fig. 1 in Plate VI. is a spray of vine with a
+bough of cherry-tree, which I have outlined from nature as accurately as
+I could, without in the least endeavoring to compose or arrange the
+form. It is a simple piece of fact-work, healthy and good as such, and
+useful to any one who wanted to know plain truths about tendrils of
+vines, but there is no attempt at design in it. Plate XIX., below,
+represents a branch of vine used to decorate the angle of the Ducal
+Palace. It is faithful as a representation of vine, and yet so designed
+that every leaf serves an architectural purpose, and could not be spared
+from its place without harm. This is central work; fact and design
+together. Fig. 2 in Plate VI. is a spandril from St. Mark's, in which
+the forms of the vine are dimly suggested, the object of the design
+being merely to obtain graceful lines and well proportioned masses upon
+the gold ground. There is not the least attempt to inform the spectator
+of any facts about the growth of the vine; there are no stalks or
+tendrils,--merely running bands with leaves emergent from them, of which
+nothing but the outline is taken from the vine, and even that
+imperfectly. This is design, unregardful of facts.
+
+Now the work is, in all these three cases, perfectly healthy. Fig. 1 is
+not bad work because it has not design, nor Fig. 2 bad work because it
+has not facts. The object of the one is to give pleasure through truth,
+and of the other to give pleasure through composition. And both are
+right.
+
+What, then, are the diseased operations to which the three classes of
+workmen are liable?
+
+Sec. XLVI. Primarily, two; affecting the two inferior classes:
+
+1st, When either of those two classes Despises the other:
+
+2nd, When either of the two classes Envies the other; producing,
+therefore, four forms of dangerous error.
+
+First, when the men of facts despise design. This is the error of the
+common Dutch painters, of merely imitative painters of still life,
+flowers, &c., and other men who, having either the gift of accurate
+imitation or strong sympathies with nature, suppose that all is done
+when the imitation is perfected or sympathy expressed. A large body of
+English landscapists come into this class, including most clever
+sketchers from nature, who fancy that to get a sky of true tone, and a
+gleam of sunshine or sweep of shower faithfully expressed, is all that
+can be required of art. These men are generally themselves answerable
+for much of their deadness of feeling to the higher qualities of
+composition. They probably have not originally the high gifts of design,
+but they lose such powers as they originally possessed by despising, and
+refusing to study, the results of great power of design in others. Their
+knowledge, as far as it goes, being accurate, they are usually
+presumptuous and self-conceited, and gradually become incapable of
+admiring anything but what is like their own works. They see nothing in
+the works of great designers but the faults, and do harm almost
+incalculable in the European society of the present day by sneering at
+the compositions of the greatest men of the earlier ages,[62] because
+they do not absolutely tally with their own ideas of "Nature."
+
+Sec. XLVII. The second form of error is when the men of design despise
+facts. All noble design must deal with facts to a certain extent, for
+there is no food for it but in nature. The best colorist invents best by
+taking hints from natural colors; from birds, skies, or groups of
+figures. And if, in the delight of inventing fantastic color and form
+the truths of nature are wilfully neglected, the intellect becomes
+comparatively decrepit, and that state of art results which we find
+among the Chinese. The Greek designers delighted in the facts of the
+human form, and became great in consequence; but the facts of lower
+nature were disregarded by them, and their inferior ornament became,
+therefore, dead and valueless.
+
+Sec. XLVIII. The third form of error is when the men of facts envy design:
+that is to say, when, having only imitative powers, they refuse to
+employ those powers upon the visible world around them; but, having been
+taught that composition is the end of art, strive to obtain the
+inventive powers which nature has denied them, study nothing but the
+works of reputed designers, and perish in a fungous growth of plagiarism
+and laws of art.
+
+Here was the great error of the beginning of this century; it is the
+error of the meanest kind of men that employ themselves in painting, and
+it is the most fatal of all, rendering those who fall into it utterly
+useless, incapable of helping the world with either truth or fancy,
+while, in all probability, they deceive it by base resemblances of both,
+until it hardly recognizes truth or fancy when they really exist.
+
+Sec. XLIX. The fourth form of error is when the men of design envy facts;
+that is to say, when the temptation of closely imitating nature leads
+them to forget their own proper ornamental function, and when they lose
+the power of the composition for the sake of graphic truth; as, for
+instance, in the hawthorn moulding so often spoken of round the porch of
+Bourges Cathedral, which, though very lovely, might perhaps, as we saw
+above, have been better, if the old builder, in his excessive desire to
+make it look like hawthorn, had not painted it green.
+
+Sec. L. It is, however, carefully to be noted, that the two morbid
+conditions to which the men of facts are liable are much more dangerous
+and harmful than those to which the men of design are liable. The morbid
+state of men of design injures themselves only; that of the men of facts
+injures the whole world. The Chinese porcelain-painter is, indeed, not
+so great a man as he might be, but he does not want to break everything
+that is not porcelain; but the modern English fact-hunter, despising
+design, wants to destroy everything that does not agree with his own
+notions of truth, and becomes the most dangerous and despicable of
+iconoclasts, excited by egotism instead of religion. Again: the Bourges
+sculptor, painting his hawthorns green, did indeed somewhat hurt the
+effect of his own beautiful design, but did not prevent any one from
+loving hawthorn: but Sir George Beaumont, trying to make Constable paint
+grass brown _instead_ of green, was setting himself between Constable
+and nature, blinding the painter, and blaspheming the work of God.
+
+Sec. LI. So much, then, of the diseases of the inferior classes, caused by
+their envying or despising each other. It is evident that the men of the
+central class cannot be liable to any morbid operation of this kind,
+they possessing the powers of both.
+
+But there is another order of diseases which affect all the three
+classes, considered with respect to their pursuit of facts. For observe,
+all the three classes are in some degree pursuers of facts; even the men
+of design not being in any case altogether independent of external
+truth. Now, considering them _all_ as more or less searchers after
+truth, there is another triple division to be made of them. Everything
+presented to them in nature has good and evil mingled in it: and
+artists, considered as searchers after truth, are again to be divided
+into three great classes, a right, a left, and a centre. Those on the
+right perceive, and pursue, the good, and leave the evil: those in the
+centre, the greatest, perceive and pursue the good and evil together,
+the whole thing as it verily is: those on the left perceive and pursue
+the evil, and leave the good.
+
+Sec. LII. The first class, I say, take the good and leave the evil. Out
+of whatever is presented to them, they gather what it has of grace, and
+life, and light, and holiness, and leave all, or at least as much as
+possible, of the rest undrawn. The faces of their figures express no
+evil passions; the skies of their landscapes are without storm; the
+prevalent character of their color is brightness, and of their
+chiaroscuro fulness of light. The early Italian and Flemish painters,
+Angelico and Hemling, Perugino, Francia, Raffaelle in his best time,
+John Bellini, and our own Stothard, belong eminently to this class.
+
+Sec. LIII. The second, or greatest class, render all that they see in
+nature unhesitatingly, with a kind of divine grasp and government of the
+whole, sympathizing with all the good, and yet confessing, permitting,
+and bringing good out of the evil also. Their subject is infinite as
+nature, their color equally balanced between splendor and sadness,
+reaching occasionally the highest degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro
+equally balanced between light and shade.
+
+The principal men of this class are Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Giotto,
+Tintoret, and Turner. Raffaelle in his second time, Titian, and Rubens
+are transitional; the first inclining to the eclectic, and the last two
+to the impure class, Raffaelle rarely giving all the evil, Titian and
+Rubens rarely all the good.
+
+Sec. LIV. The last class perceive and imitate evil only. They cannot draw
+the trunk of a tree without blasting and shattering it, nor a sky except
+covered with stormy clouds: they delight in the beggary and brutality of
+the human race; their color is for the most part subdued or lurid, and
+the greatest spaces of their pictures are occupied by darkness.
+
+Happily the examples of this class are seldom seen in perfection.
+Salvator Rosa and Caravaggio are the most characteristic: the other men
+belonging to it approach towards the central rank by imperceptible
+gradations, as they perceive and represent more and more of good. But
+Murillo, Zurbaran, Camillo Procaccini, Rembrandt, and Teniers, all
+belong naturally to this lower class.
+
+Sec. LV. Now, observe: the three classes into which artists were
+previously divided, of men of fact, men of design, and men of both, are
+all of Divine institution; but of these latter three, the last is in no
+wise of Divine institution. It is entirely human, and the men who belong
+to it have sunk into it by their own faults. They are, so far forth,
+either useless or harmful men. It is indeed good that evil should be
+occasionally represented, even in its worst forms, but never that it
+should be taken delight in: and the mighty men of the central class will
+always give us all that is needful of it; sometimes, as Hogarth did,
+dwelling upon it bitterly as satirists,--but this with the more effect,
+because they will neither exaggerate it, nor represent it mercilessly,
+and without the atoning points that all evil shows to a Divinely guided
+glance, even at its deepest. So then, though the third class will
+always, I fear, in some measure exist, the two necessary classes are
+only the first two; and this is so far acknowledged by the general sense
+of men, that the basest class has been confounded with the second; and
+painters have been divided commonly only into two ranks, now known, I
+believe, throughout Europe by the names which they first received in
+Italy, "Puristi and Naturalisti." Since, however, in the existing state
+of things, the degraded or evil-loving class, though less defined than
+that of the Puristi, is just as vast as it is indistinct, this division
+has done infinite dishonor to the great faithful painters of nature: and
+it has long been one of the objects I have had most at heart to show
+that, in reality, the Purists, in their sanctity, are less separated
+from these natural painters than the Sensualists in their foulness; and
+that the difference, though less discernible, is in reality greater,
+between the man who pursues evil for its own sake, and him who bears
+with it for the sake of truth, than between this latter and the man who
+will not endure it at all.
+
+Sec. LVI. Let us, then, endeavor briefly to mark the real relations of
+these three vast ranks of men, whom I shall call, for convenience in
+speaking of them, Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists; not that these
+terms express their real characters, but I know no word, and cannot coin
+a convenient one, which would accurately express the opposite of Purist;
+and I keep the terms Purist and Naturalist in order to comply, as far as
+possible, with the established usage of language on the Continent. Now,
+observe: in saying that nearly everything presented to us in nature has
+mingling in it of good and evil, I do not mean that nature is
+conceivably improvable, or that anything that God has made could be
+called evil, if we could see far enough into its uses, but that, with
+respect to immediate effects or appearances, it may be so, just as the
+hard rind or bitter kernel of a fruit may be an evil to the eater,
+though in the one is the protection of the fruit, and in the other its
+continuance. The Purist, therefore, does not mend nature, but receives
+from nature and from God that which is good for him; while the
+Sensualist fills himself "with the husks that the swine did eat."
+
+The three classes may, therefore, be likened to men reaping wheat, of
+which the Purists take the fine flour, and the Sensualists the chaff and
+straw, but the Naturalists take all home, and make their cake of the
+one, and their couch of the other.
+
+Sec. LVII. For instance. We know more certainly every day that whatever
+appears to us harmful in the universe has some beneficent or necessary
+operation; that the storm which destroys a harvest brightens the
+sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that the volcano which buries a
+city preserves a thousand from destruction. But the evil is not for the
+time less fearful, because we have learned it to be necessary; and we
+easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which
+would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and create in
+its imagination a world of which the peace should be unbroken, in which
+the sky should not darken nor the sea rage, in which the leaf should not
+change nor the blossom wither. That man is greater, however, who
+contemplates with an equal mind the alternations of terror and of
+beauty; who, not rejoicing less beneath the sunny sky, can bear also to
+watch the bars of twilight narrowing on the horizon; and, not less
+sensible to the blessing of the peace of nature, can rejoice in the
+magnificence of the ordinances by which that peace is protected and
+secured. But separated from both by an immeasurable distance would be
+the man who delighted in convulsion and disease for their own sake; who
+found his daily food in the disorder of nature mingled with the
+suffering of humanity; and watched joyfully at the right hand of the
+Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as well as to accuse, while the
+corners of the House of feasting were struck by the wind from the
+wilderness.
+
+Sec. LVIII. And far more is this true, when the subject of contemplation
+is humanity itself. The passions of mankind are partly protective, partly
+beneficent, like the chaff and grain of the corn; but none without their
+use, none without nobleness when seen in balanced unity with the rest
+of the spirit which they are charged to defend. The passions of which
+the end is the continuance of the race; the indignation which is to arm
+it against injustice, or strengthen it to resist wanton injury; and the
+fear[63] which lies at the root of prudence, reverence, and awe, are all
+honorable and beautiful, so long as man is regarded in his relations to
+the existing world. The religious Purist, striving to conceive him
+withdrawn from those relations, effaces from the countenance the traces
+of all transitory passion, illumines it with holy hope and love, and
+seals it with the serenity of heavenly peace; he conceals the forms of
+the body by the deep-folded garment, or else represents them under
+severely chastened types, and would rather paint them emaciated by the
+fast, or pale from the torture, than strengthened by exertion, or
+flushed by emotion. But the great Naturalist takes the human being in
+its wholeness, in its mortal as well as its spiritual strength. Capable
+of sounding and sympathizing with the whole range of its passions, he
+brings one majestic harmony out of them all; he represents it fearlessly
+in all its acts and thoughts, in its haste, its anger, its sensuality,
+and its pride, as well as in its fortitude or faith, but makes it noble
+in them all; he casts aside the veil from the body, and beholds the
+mysteries of its form like an angel looking down on an inferior
+creature: there is nothing which he is reluctant to behold, nothing that
+he is ashamed to confess; with all that lives, triumphing, falling, or
+suffering, he claims kindred, either in majesty or in mercy, yet
+standing, in a sort, afar off, unmoved even in the deepness of his
+sympathy; for the spirit within him is too thoughtful to be grieved, too
+brave to be appalled, and too pure to be polluted.
+
+Sec. LIX. How far beneath these two ranks of men shall we place, in the
+scale of being, those whose pleasure is only in sin or in suffering; who
+habitually contemplate humanity in poverty or decrepitude, fury or
+sensuality; whose works are either temptations to its weakness, or
+triumphs over its ruin, and recognize no other subjects for thought or
+admiration than the subtlety of the robber, the rage of the soldier, or
+the joy of the Sybarite. It seems strange, when thus definitely stated,
+that such a school should exist. Yet consider a little what gaps and
+blanks would disfigure our gallery and chamber walls, in places that we
+have long approached with reverence, if every picture, every statue,
+were removed from them, of which the subject was either the vice or the
+misery of mankind, portrayed without any moral purpose: consider the
+innumerable groups having reference merely to various forms of passion,
+low or high; drunken revels and brawls among peasants, gambling or
+fighting scenes among soldiers, amours and intrigues among every class,
+brutal battle pieces, banditti subjects, gluts of torture and death in
+famine, wreck, or slaughter, for the sake merely of the
+excitement,--that quickening and suppling of the dull spirit that cannot
+be gained for it but by bathing it in blood, afterward to wither back
+into stained and stiffened apathy; and then that whole vast false heaven
+of sensual passion, full of nymphs, satyrs, graces, goddesses, and I
+know not what, from its high seventh circle in Correggio's Antiope, down
+to the Grecized ballet-dancers and smirking Cupids of the Parisian
+upholsterer. Sweep away all this, remorselessly, and see how much art we
+should have left.
+
+Sec. LX. And yet these are only the grossest manifestations of the
+tendency of the school. There are subtler, yet not less certain, signs of
+it in the works of men who stand high in the world's list of sacred
+painters. I doubt not that the reader was surprised when I named Murillo
+among the men of this third rank. Yet, go into the Dulwich Gallery, and
+meditate for a little over that much celebrated picture of the two beggar
+boys, one eating lying on the ground, the other standing beside him. We
+have among our own painters one who cannot indeed be set beside Murillo as
+a painter of Madonnas, for he is a pure Naturalist, and, never having seen
+a Madonna, does not paint any; but who, as a painter of beggar or
+peasant boys, may be set beside Murillo, or any one else,--W. Hunt. He
+loves peasant boys, because he finds them more roughly and picturesquely
+dressed, and more healthily colored, than others. And he paints all
+that he sees in them fearlessly; all the health and humor, and
+freshness, and vitality, together with such awkwardness and stupidity,
+and what else of negative or positive harm there may be in the creature;
+but yet so that on the whole we love it, and find it perhaps even
+beautiful, or if not, at least we see that there is capability of good
+in it, rather than of evil; and all is lighted up by a sunshine and
+sweet color that makes the smock-frock as precious as cloth of gold. But
+look at those two ragged and vicious vagrants that Murillo has gathered
+out of the street. You smile at first, because they are eating so
+naturally, and their roguery is so complete. But is there anything else
+than roguery there, or was it well for the painter to give his time to
+the painting of those repulsive and wicked children? Do you feel moved
+with any charity towards children as you look at them? Are we the least
+more likely to take any interest in ragged schools, or to help the next
+pauper child that comes in our way, because the painter has shown us a
+cunning beggar feeding greedily? Mark the choice of the act. He might
+have shown hunger in other ways, and given interest to even this act of
+eating, by making the face wasted, or the eye wistful. But he did not
+care to do this. He delighted merely in the disgusting manner of eating,
+the food filling the cheek; the boy is not hungry, else he would not
+turn round to talk and grin as he eats.
+
+Sec. LXI. But observe another point in the lower figure. It lies so that
+the sole of the foot is turned towards the spectator; not because it
+would have lain less easily in another attitude, but that the painter
+may draw, and exhibit, the grey dust engrained in the foot. Do not call
+this the painting of nature: it is mere delight in foulness. The lesson,
+if there be any, in the picture, is not one whit the stronger. We all
+know that a beggar's bare foot cannot be clean; there is no need to
+thrust its degradation into the light, as if no human imagination were
+vigorous enough for its conception.
+
+Sec. LXII. The position of the Sensualists, in treatment of landscape,
+is less distinctly marked than in that of the figure: because even the
+wildest passions of nature are noble: but the inclination is manifested
+by carelessness in marking generic form in trees and flowers: by their
+preferring confused and irregular arrangements of foliage or foreground
+to symmetrical and simple grouping; by their general choice of such
+picturesqueness as results from decay, disorder, and disease, rather
+than of that which is consistent with the perfection of the things in
+which it is found; and by their imperfect rendering of the elements of
+strength and beauty in all things. I propose to work out this subject
+fully in the last volume of "Modern Painters;" but I trust that enough
+has been here said to enable the reader to understand the relations of
+the three great classes of artists, and therefore also the kinds of
+morbid condition into which the two higher (for the last has no other
+than a morbid condition) are liable to fall. For, since the function of
+the Naturalists is to represent, as far as may be, the whole of nature,
+and the Purists to represent what is absolutely good for some special
+purpose or time, it is evident that both are liable to error from
+shortness of sight, and the last also from weakness of judgment. I say,
+in the first place, both may err from shortness of sight, from not
+seeing all that there is in nature; seeing only the outsides of things,
+or those points of them which bear least on the matter in hand. For
+instance, a modern continental Naturalist sees the anatomy of a limb
+thoroughly, but does not see its color against the sky, which latter
+fact is to a painter far the more important of the two. And because it
+is always easier to see the surface than the depth of things, the full
+sight of them requiring the highest powers of penetration, sympathy, and
+imagination, the world is full of vulgar Naturalists: not Sensualists,
+observe, not men who delight in evil; but men who never see the deepest
+good, and who bring discredit on all painting of Nature by the little
+that they discover in her. And the Purist, besides being liable to this
+same shortsightedness, is liable also to fatal errors of judgment; for
+he may think that good which is not so, and that the highest good which
+is the least. And thus the world is full of vulgar Purists,[64] who
+bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and
+this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative
+of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or
+narrowness of understanding of the ends of things: the greatest men
+being, in all times of art, Naturalists, without any exception; and the
+greatest Purists being those who approach nearest to the Naturalists, as
+Benozzo Gozzoli and Perugino. Hence there is a tendency in the
+Naturalists to despise the Purists, and in the Purists to be offended
+with the Naturalists (not understanding them, and confounding them with
+the Sensualists); and this is grievously harmful to both.
+
+Sec. LXIII. Of the various forms of resultant mischief it is not here
+the place to speak: the reader may already be somewhat wearied with a
+statement which has led us apparently so far from our immediate subject.
+But the digression was necessary, in order that I might clearly define
+the sense in which I use the word Naturalism when I state it to be the
+third most essential characteristic of Gothic architecture. I mean that
+the Gothic builders belong to the central or greatest rank in _both_ the
+classifications of artists which we have just made; that, considering
+all artists as either men of design, men of facts, or men of both, the
+Gothic builders were men of both; and that again, considering all
+artists as either Purists, Naturalists, or Sensualists, the Gothic
+builders were Naturalists.
+
+Sec. LXIV. I say first, that the Gothic builders were of that central
+class which unites fact with design; but that the part of the work which
+was more especially their own was the truthfulness. Their power of
+artistical invention or arrangement was not greater than that of
+Romanesque and Byzantine workmen: by those workmen they were taught the
+principles, and from them received their models, of design; but to the
+ornamental feeling and rich fancy of the Byzantine the Gothic builder
+added a love of _fact_ which is never found in the South. Both Greek and
+Roman used conventional foliage in their ornament, passing into
+something that was not foliage at all, knotting itself into strange
+cup-like buds or clusters, and growing out of lifeless rods instead of
+stems; the Gothic sculptor received these types, at first, as things
+that ought to be, just as we have a second time received them; but he
+could not rest in them. He saw there was no veracity in them, no
+knowledge, no vitality. Do what he would, he could not help liking the
+true leaves better; and cautiously, a little at a time, he put more of
+nature into his work, until at last it was all true, retaining,
+nevertheless, every valuable character of the original well-disciplined
+and designed arrangement.[65]
+
+Sec. LXV. Nor is it only in external and visible subject that the Gothic
+workman wrought for truth: he is as firm in his rendering of imaginative
+as of actual truth; that is to say, when an idea would have been by a
+Roman, or Byzantine, symbolically represented, the Gothic mind realizes
+it to the utmost. For instance, the purgatorial fire is represented in
+the mosaic of Torcello (Romanesque) as a red stream, longitudinally
+striped like a riband, descending out of the throne of Christ, and
+gradually extending itself to envelope the wicked. When we are once
+informed what this means, it is enough for its purpose; but the Gothic
+inventor does not leave the sign in need of interpretation. He makes the
+fire as like real fire as he can; and in the porch of St. Maclou at
+Rouen the sculptured flames burst out of the Hades gate, and flicker up,
+in writhing tongues of stone, through the interstices of the niches, as
+if the church itself were on fire. This is an extreme instance, but it
+is all the more illustrative of the entire difference in temper and
+thought between the two schools of art, and of the intense love of
+veracity which influenced the Gothic design.
+
+Sec. LXVI. I do not say that this love of veracity is always healthy in
+its operation. I have above noticed the errors into which it falls from
+despising design; and there is another kind of error noticeable in the
+instance just given, in which the love of truth is too hasty, and seizes
+on a surface truth instead of an inner one. For in representing the
+Hades fire, it is not the mere _form_ of the flame which needs most to
+be told, but its unquenchableness, its Divine ordainment and limitation,
+and its inner fierceness, not physical and material, but in being the
+expression of the wrath of God. And these things are not to be told by
+imitating the fire that flashes out of a bundle of sticks. If we think
+over his symbol a little, we shall perhaps find that the Romanesque
+builder told more truth in that likeness of a blood-red stream, flowing
+between definite shores and out of God's throne, and expanding, as if
+fed by a perpetual current, into the lake wherein the wicked are cast,
+than the Gothic builder in those torch-flickerings about his niches. But
+this is not to our immediate purpose; I am not at present to insist upon
+the faults into which the love of truth was led in the later Gothic
+times, but on the feeling itself, as a glorious and peculiar
+characteristic of the Northern builders. For, observe, it is not, even
+in the above instance, love of truth, but want of thought, which
+_causes_ the fault. The love of truth, as such, is good, but when it is
+misdirected by thoughtlessness or over-excited by vanity, and either
+seizes on facts of small value, or gathers them chiefly that it may
+boast of its grasp and apprehension, its work may well become dull or
+offensive. Yet let us not, therefore, blame the inherent love of facts,
+but the incautiousness of their selection, and impertinence of their
+statement.
+
+Sec. LXVII. I said, in the second place, that Gothic work, when referred
+to the arrangement of all art, as purist, naturalist, or sensualist, was
+naturalist. This character follows necessarily on its extreme love of
+truth, prevailing over the sense of beauty, and causing it to take
+delight in portraiture of every kind, and to express the various
+characters of the human countenance and form, as it did the varieties of
+leaves and the ruggedness of branches. And this tendency is both
+increased and ennobled by the same Christian humility which we saw
+expressed in the first character of Gothic work, its rudeness. For as
+that resulted from a humility which confessed the imperfection of the
+_workman_, so this naturalist portraiture is rendered more faithful by
+the humility which confesses the imperfection of the _subject_. The
+Greek sculptor could neither bear to confess his own feebleness, nor to
+tell the faults of the forms that he portrayed. But the Christian
+workman, believing that all is finally to work together for good, freely
+confesses both, and neither seeks to disguise his own roughness of work,
+nor his subject's roughness of make. Yet this frankness being joined,
+for the most part, with depth of religious feeling in other directions,
+and especially with charity, there is sometimes a tendency to Purism in
+the best Gothic sculpture; so that it frequently reaches great dignity
+of form and tenderness of expression, yet never so as to lose the
+veracity of portraiture, wherever portraiture is possible: not exalting
+its kings into demi-gods, nor its saints into archangels, but giving
+what kingliness and sanctity was in them, to the full, mixed with due
+record of their faults; and this in the most part with a great
+indifference like that of Scripture history, which sets down, with
+unmoved and unexcusing resoluteness, the virtues and errors of all men
+of whom it speaks, often leaving the reader to form his own estimate of
+them, without an indication of the judgment of the historian. And this
+veracity is carried out by the Gothic sculptors in the minuteness and
+generality, as well as the equity, of their delineation: for they do not
+limit their art to the portraiture of saints and kings, but introduce
+the most familiar scenes and most simple subjects; filling up the
+backgrounds of Scripture histories with vivid and curious
+representations of the commonest incidents of daily life, and availing
+themselves of every occasion in which, either as a symbol, or an
+explanation of a scene or time, the things familiar to the eye of the
+workman could be introduced and made of account. Hence Gothic sculpture
+and painting are not only full of valuable portraiture of the greatest
+men, but copious records of all the domestic customs and inferior arts
+of the ages in which it flourished.[66]
+
+Sec. LXVIII. There is, however, one direction in which the Naturalism of
+the Gothic workmen is peculiarly manifested; and this direction is even
+more characteristic of the school than the Naturalism itself; I mean
+their peculiar fondness for the forms of Vegetation. In rendering the
+various circumstances of daily life, Egyptian and Ninevite sculpture is
+as frank and as diffuse as the Gothic. From the highest pomps of state
+or triumphs of battle, to the most trivial domestic arts and amusements,
+all is taken advantage of to fill the field of granite with the
+perpetual interest of a crowded drama; and the early Lombardic and
+Romanesque sculpture is equally copious in its description of the
+familiar circumstances of war and the chase. But in all the scenes
+portrayed by the workmen of these nations, vegetation occurs only as an
+explanatory accessory; the reed is introduced to mark the course of the
+river, or the tree to mark the covert of the wild beast, or the ambush
+of the enemy, but there is no especial interest in the forms of the
+vegetation strong enough to induce them to make it a subject of separate
+and accurate study. Again, among the nations who followed the arts of
+design exclusively, the forms of foliage introduced were meagre and
+general, and their real intricacy and life were neither admired nor
+expressed. But to the Gothic workman the living foliage became a subject
+of intense affection, and he struggled to render all its characters with
+as much accuracy as was compatible with the laws of his design and the
+nature of his material, not unfrequently tempted in his enthusiasm to
+transgress the one and disguise the other.
+
+Sec. LXIX. There is a peculiar significancy in this, indicative both of
+higher civilization and gentler temperament, than had before been
+manifested in architecture. Rudeness, and the love of change, which we
+have insisted upon as the first elements of Gothic, are also elements
+common to all healthy schools. But here is a softer element mingled with
+them, peculiar to the Gothic itself. The rudeness or ignorance which
+would have been painfully exposed in the treatment of the human form,
+are still not so great as to prevent the successful rendering of the
+wayside herbage; and the love of change, which becomes morbid and
+feverish in following the haste of the hunter, and the rage of the
+combatant, is at once soothed and satisfied as it watches the wandering
+of the tendril, and the budding of the flower. Nor is this all: the new
+direction of mental interest marks an infinite change in the means and
+the habits of life. The nations whose chief support was in the chase,
+whose chief interest was in the battle, whose chief pleasure was in the
+banquet, would take small care respecting the shapes of leaves and
+flowers; and notice little in the forms of the forest trees which
+sheltered them, except the signs indicative of the wood which would make
+the toughest lance, the closest roof, or the clearest fire. The
+affectionate observation of the grace and outward character of
+vegetation is the sure sign of a more tranquil and gentle existence,
+sustained by the gifts, and gladdened by the splendor, of the earth. In
+that careful distinction of species, and richness of delicate and
+undisturbed organization, which characterize the Gothic design, there is
+the history of rural and thoughtful life, influenced by habitual
+tenderness, and devoted to subtle inquiry; and every discriminating and
+delicate touch of the chisel, as it rounds the petal or guides the
+branch, is a prophecy of the developement of the entire body of the
+natural sciences, beginning with that of medicine, of the recovery of
+literature, and the establishment of the most necessary principles of
+domestic wisdom and national peace.
+
+Sec. LXX. I have before alluded to the strange and vain supposition, that
+the original conception of Gothic architecture had been derived from
+vegetation,--from the symmetry of avenues, and the interlacing of
+branches. It is a supposition which never could have existed for a
+moment in the mind of any person acquainted with early Gothic; but,
+however idle as a theory, it is most valuable as a testimony to the
+character of the perfected style. It is precisely because the reverse of
+this theory is the fact, because the Gothic did not arise out of, but
+develope itself into, a resemblance to vegetation, that this resemblance
+is so instructive as an indication of the temper of the builders. It was
+no chance suggestion of the form of an arch from the bending of a bough,
+but a gradual and continual discovery of a beauty in natural forms which
+could be more and more perfectly transferred into those of stone, that
+influenced at once the heart of the people, and the form of the edifice.
+The Gothic architecture arose in massy and mountainous strength,
+axe-hewn, and iron-bound, block heaved upon block by the monk's
+enthusiasm and the soldier's force; and cramped and stanchioned into
+such weight of grisly wall, as might bury the anchoret in darkness, and
+beat back the utmost storm of battle, suffering but by the same narrow
+crosslet the passing of the sunbeam, or of the arrow. Gradually, as that
+monkish enthusiasm became more thoughtful, and as the sound of war
+became more and more intermittent beyond the gates of the convent or the
+keep, the stony pillar grew slender and the vaulted roof grew light,
+till they had wreathed themselves into the semblance of the summer woods
+at their fairest, and of the dead field-flowers, long trodden down in
+blood, sweet monumental statues were set to bloom for ever, beneath the
+porch of the temple, or the canopy of the tomb.
+
+Sec. LXXI. Nor is it only as a sign of greater gentleness or refinement of
+mind, but as a proof of the best possible direction of this refinement,
+that the tendency of the Gothic to the expression of vegetative life is
+to be admired. That sentence of Genesis, "I have given thee every green
+herb for meat," like all the rest of the book, has a profound symbolical
+as well as a literal meaning. It is not merely the nourishment of the
+body, but the food of the soul, that is intended. The green herb is, of
+all nature, that which is most essential to the healthy spiritual life
+of man. Most of us do not need fine scenery; the precipice and the
+mountain peak are not intended to be seen by all men,--perhaps their
+power is greatest over those who are unaccustomed to them. But trees,
+and fields, and flowers were made for all, and are necessary for all.
+God has connected the labor which is essential to the bodily sustenance,
+with the pleasures which are healthiest for the heart; and while He made
+the ground stubborn, He made its herbage fragrant, and its blossoms
+fair. The proudest architecture that man can build has no higher honor
+than to bear the image and recall the memory of that grass of the field
+which is, at once, the type and the support of his existence; the goodly
+building is then most glorious when it is sculptured into the likeness
+of the leaves of Paradise; and the great Gothic spirit, as we showed it
+to be noble in its disquietude, is also noble in its hold of nature; it
+is, indeed, like the dove of Noah, in that she found no rest upon the
+face of the waters,--but like her in this also, "LO, IN HER MOUTH WAS AN
+OLIVE BRANCH, PLUCKED OFF."
+
+Sec. LXXII. The fourth essential element of the Gothic mind was above
+stated to be the sense of the GROTESQUE; but I shall defer the endeavor
+to define this most curious and subtle character until we have occasion
+to examine one of the divisions of the Renaissance schools, which was
+morbidly influenced by it (Vol. III. Chap. III.). It is the less
+necessary to insist upon it here, because every reader familiar with
+Gothic architecture must understand what I mean, and will, I believe,
+have no hesitation in admitting that the tendency to delight in
+fantastic and ludicrous, as well as in sublime, images, is a universal
+instinct of the Gothic imagination.
+
+Sec. LXXIII. The fifth element above named was RIGIDITY; and this
+character I must endeavor carefully to define, for neither the word I
+have used, nor any other that I can think of, will express it accurately.
+For I mean, not merely stable, but _active_ rigidity; the peculiar energy
+which gives tension to movement, and stiffness to resistance, which
+makes the fiercest lightning forked rather than curved, and the stoutest
+oak-branch angular rather than bending, and is as much seen in the
+quivering of the lance as in the glittering of the icicle.
+
+Sec. LXXIV. I have before had occasion (Vol. I. Chap. XIII. Sec. VII.)
+to note some manifestations of this energy or fixedness; but it must be
+still more attentively considered here, as it shows itself throughout
+the whole structure and decoration of Gothic work. Egyptian and Greek
+buildings stand, for the most part, by their own weight and mass, one
+stone passively incumbent on another: but in the Gothic vaults and
+traceries there is a stiffness analogous to that of the bones of a limb,
+or fibres of a tree; an elastic tension and communication of force from
+part to part, and also a studious expression of this throughout every
+visible line of the building. And, in like manner, the Greek and
+Egyptian ornament is either mere surface engraving, as if the face of
+the wall had been stamped with a seal, or its lines are flowing, lithe,
+and luxuriant; in either case, there is no expression of energy in
+framework of the ornament itself. But the Gothic ornament stands out in
+prickly independence, and frosty fortitude, jutting into crockets, and
+freezing into pinnacles; here starting up into a monster, there
+germinating into a blossom; anon knitting itself into a branch,
+alternately thorny, bossy, and bristly, or writhed into every form of
+nervous entanglement; but, even when most graceful, never for an instant
+languid, always quickset; erring, if at all, ever on the side of
+brusquerie.
+
+Sec. LXXV. The feelings or habits in the workman which give rise to this
+character in the work, are more complicated and various than those
+indicated by any other sculptural expression hitherto named. There is,
+first, the habit of hard and rapid working; the industry of the tribes
+of the North, quickened by the coldness of the climate, and giving an
+expression of sharp energy to all they do (as above noted, Vol. I. Chap.
+XIII. Sec. VII.), as opposed to the languor of the Southern tribes,
+however much of fire there may be in the heart of that languor, for lava
+itself may flow languidly. There is also the habit of finding enjoyment in
+the signs of cold, which is never found, I believe, in the inhabitants of
+countries south of the Alps. Cold is to them an unredeemed evil, to be
+suffered, and forgotten as soon as may be; but the long winter of the
+North forces the Goth (I mean the Englishman, Frenchman, Dane, or
+German), if he would lead a happy life at all, to find sources of
+happiness in foul weather as well as fair, and to rejoice in the
+leafless as well as in the shady forest. And this we do with all our
+hearts; finding perhaps nearly as much contentment by the Christmas fire
+as in the summer sunshine, and gaining health and strength on the
+ice-fields of winter, as well as among the meadows of spring. So that
+there is nothing adverse or painful to our feelings in the cramped and
+stiffened structure of vegetation checked by cold; and instead of
+seeking, like the Southern sculptor, to express only the softness of
+leafage nourished in all tenderness, and tempted into all luxuriance by
+warm winds and glowing rays, we find pleasure in dwelling upon the
+crabbed, perverse, and morose animation of plants that have known little
+kindness from earth or heaven, but, season after season, have had their
+best efforts palsied by frost, their brightest buds buried under snow,
+and their goodliest limbs lopped by tempest.
+
+Sec. LXXVI. There are many subtle sympathies and affections which join to
+confirm the Gothic mind in this peculiar choice of subject; and when we
+add to the influence of these, the necessities consequent upon the
+employment of a rougher material, compelling the workman to seek for
+vigor of effect, rather than refinement of texture or accuracy of form,
+we have direct and manifest causes for much of the difference between
+the northern and southern cast of conception: but there are indirect
+causes holding a far more important place in the Gothic heart, though
+less immediate in their influence on design. Strength of will,
+independence of character, resoluteness of purpose, impatience of undue
+control, and that general tendency to set the individual reason against
+authority, and the individual deed against destiny, which, in the
+Northern tribes, has opposed itself throughout all ages to the languid
+submission, in the Southern, of thought to tradition, and purpose to
+fatality, are all more or less traceable in the rigid lines, vigorous
+and various masses, and daringly projecting and independent structure of
+the Northern Gothic ornament: while the opposite feelings are in like
+manner legible in the graceful and softly guided waves and wreathed
+bands, in which Southern decoration is constantly disposed; in its
+tendency to lose its independence, and fuse itself into the surface of
+the masses upon which it is traced; and in the expression seen so often,
+in the arrangement of those masses themselves, of an abandonment of
+their strength to an inevitable necessity, or a listless repose.
+
+Sec. LXXVII. There is virtue in the measure, and error in the excess, of
+both these characters of mind, and in both of the styles which they have
+created; the best architecture, and the best temper, are those which
+unite them both; and this fifth impulse of the Gothic heart is therefore
+that which needs most caution in its indulgence. It is more definitely
+Gothic than any other, but the best Gothic building is not that which is
+_most_ Gothic: it can hardly be too frank in its confession of rudeness,
+hardly too rich in its changefulness, hardly too faithful in its
+naturalism; but it may go too far in its rigidity, and, like the great
+Puritan spirit in its extreme, lose itself either in frivolity of
+division, or perversity of purpose.[67] It actually did so in its later
+times; but it is gladdening to remember that in its utmost nobleness,
+the very temper which has been thought most adverse to it, the
+Protestant spirit of self-dependence and inquiry, was expressed in its
+every line. Faith and aspiration there were, in every Christian
+ecclesiastical building, from the first century to the fifteenth; but
+the moral habits to which England in this age owes the kind of greatness
+that she has,--the habits of philosophical investigation, of accurate
+thought, of domestic seclusion and independence, of stern self-reliance,
+and sincere upright searching into religious truth,--were only traceable
+in the features which were the distinctive creation of the Gothic
+schools, in the veined foliage, and thorny fretwork, and shadowy niche,
+and buttressed pier, and fearless height of subtle pinnacle and crested
+tower, sent like an "unperplexed question up to Heaven."[68]
+
+Sec. LXXVIII. Last, because the least essential, of the constituent
+elements of this noble school, was placed that of REDUNDANCE,--the
+uncalculating bestowal of the wealth of its labor. There is, indeed,
+much Gothic, and that of the best period, in which this element is
+hardly traceable, and which depends for its effect almost exclusively on
+loveliness of simple design and grace of uninvolved proportion: still,
+in the most characteristic buildings, a certain portion of their effect
+depends upon accumulation of ornament; and many of those which have most
+influence on the minds of men, have attained it by means of this
+attribute alone. And although, by careful study of the school, it is
+possible to arrive at a condition of taste which shall be better
+contented by a few perfect lines than by a whole facade covered with
+fretwork, the building which only satisfies such a taste is not to be
+considered the best. For the very first requirement of Gothic
+architecture being, as we saw above, that it shall both admit the aid,
+and appeal to the admiration, of the rudest as well as the most refined
+minds, the richness of the work is, paradoxical as the statement may
+appear, a part of its humility. No architecture is so haughty as that
+which is simple; which refuses to address the eye, except in a few clear
+and forceful lines; which implies, in offering so little to our regards,
+that all it has offered is perfect; and disdains, either by the
+complexity or the attractiveness of its features, to embarrass our
+investigation, or betray us into delight. That humility, which is the
+very life of the Gothic school, is shown not only in the imperfection,
+but in the accumulation, of ornament. The inferior rank of the workman
+is often shown as much in the richness, as the roughness, of his work;
+and if the co-operation of every hand, and the sympathy of every heart,
+are to be received, we must be content to allow the redundance which
+disguises the failure of the feeble, and wins the regard of the
+inattentive. There are, however, far nobler interests mingling, in the
+Gothic heart, with the rude love of decorative accumulation: a
+magnificent enthusiasm, which feels as if it never could do enough to
+reach the fulness of its ideal; an unselfishness of sacrifice, which
+would rather cast fruitless labor before the altar than stand idle in
+the market; and, finally, a profound sympathy with the fulness and
+wealth of the material universe, rising out of that Naturalism whose
+operation we have already endeavored to define. The sculptor who sought
+for his models among the forest leaves, could not but quickly and deeply
+feel that complexity need not involve the loss of grace, nor richness
+that of repose; and every hour which he spent in the study of the minute
+and various work of Nature, made him feel more forcibly the barrenness
+of what was best in that of man: nor is it to be wondered at, that,
+seeing her perfect and exquisite creations poured forth in a profusion
+which conception could not grasp nor calculation sum, he should think
+that it ill became him to be niggardly of his own rude craftsmanship;
+and where he saw throughout the universe a faultless beauty lavished on
+measureless spaces of broidered field and blooming mountain, to grudge
+his poor and imperfect labor to the few stones that he had raised one
+upon another, for habitation or memorial. The years of his life passed
+away before his task was accomplished; but generation succeeded
+generation with unwearied enthusiasm, and the cathedral front was at
+last lost in the tapestry of its traceries, like a rock among the
+thickets and herbage of spring.
+
+Sec. LXXIX. We have now, I believe, obtained a view approaching to
+completeness of the various moral or imaginative elements which composed
+the inner spirit of Gothic architecture. We have, in the second place,
+to define its outward form.
+
+Now, as the Gothic spirit is made up of several elements, some of which
+may, in particular examples, be wanting, so the Gothic form is made up
+of minor conditions of form, some of which may, in particular examples,
+be imperfectly developed.
+
+We cannot say, therefore, that a building is either Gothic or not Gothic
+in form, any more than we can in spirit. We can only say that it is more
+or less Gothic, in proportion to the number of Gothic forms which it
+unites.
+
+Sec. LXXX. There have been made lately many subtle and ingenious endeavors
+to base the definition of Gothic form entirely upon the roof-vaulting;
+endeavors which are both forced and futile: for many of the best Gothic
+buildings in the world have roofs of timber, which have no more
+connexion with the main structure of the walls of the edifice than a hat
+has with that of the head it protects; and other Gothic buildings are
+merely enclosures of spaces, as ramparts and walls, or enclosures of
+gardens or cloisters, and have no roofs at all, in the sense in which
+the word "roof" is commonly accepted. But every reader who has ever
+taken the slightest interest in architecture must know that there is a
+great popular impression on this matter, which maintains itself stiffly
+in its old form, in spite of all ratiocination and definition; namely,
+that a flat lintel from pillar to pillar is Grecian, a round arch Norman
+or Romanesque, and a pointed arch Gothic.
+
+And the old popular notion, as far as it goes, is perfectly right, and
+can never be bettered. The most striking outward feature in all Gothic
+architecture is, that it is composed of pointed arches, as in Romanesque
+that it is in like manner composed of round; and this distinction would
+be quite as clear, though the roofs were taken off every cathedral in
+Europe. And yet, if we examine carefully into the real force and meaning
+of the term "roof" we shall perhaps be able to retain the old popular
+idea in a definition of Gothic architecture which shall also express
+whatever dependence that architecture has upon true forms of roofing.
+
+Sec. LXXXI. In Chap. XIII. of the first volume, the reader will remember
+that roofs were considered as generally divided into two parts; the roof
+proper, that is to say, the shell, vault, or ceiling, internally
+visible; and the roof-mask, which protects this lower roof from the
+weather. In some buildings these parts are united in one framework; but,
+in most, they are more or less independent of each other, and in nearly
+all Gothic buildings there is considerable interval between them.
+
+Now it will often happen, as above noticed, that owing to the nature of
+the apartments required, or the materials at hand, the roof proper may
+be flat, coved, or domed, in buildings which in their walls employ
+pointed arches, and are, in the straitest sense of the word, Gothic in
+all other respects. Yet so far forth as the roofing alone is concerned,
+they are not Gothic unless the pointed arch be the principal form
+adopted either in the stone vaulting or the timbers of the roof proper.
+
+I shall say then, in the first place, that "Gothic architecture is that
+which uses, if possible, the pointed arch in the roof proper." This is
+the first step in our definition.
+
+Sec. LXXXII. Secondly. Although there may be many advisable or necessary
+forms for the lower roof or ceiling, there is, in cold countries exposed
+to rain and snow, only one advisable form for the roof-mask, and that is
+the gable, for this alone will throw off both rain and snow from all
+parts of its surface as speedily as possible. Snow can lodge on the top
+of a dome, not on the ridge of a gable. And thus, as far as roofing is
+concerned, the gable is a far more essential feature of Northern
+architecture than the pointed vault, for the one is a thorough
+necessity, the other often a graceful conventionality: the gable occurs
+in the timber roof of every dwelling-house and every cottage, but not
+the vault; and the gable built on a polygonal or circular plan, is the
+origin of the turret and spire;[69] and all the so-called aspiration of
+Gothic architecture is, as above noticed (Vol. I. Chap. XII. Sec. VI.),
+nothing more than its developement. So that we must add to our
+definition another clause, which will be, at present, by far the most
+important, and it will stand thus: "Gothic architecture is that which
+uses the pointed arch for the roof proper, and the gable for the
+roof-mask."
+
+Sec. LXXXIII. And here, in passing, let us notice a principle as true in
+architecture as in morals. It is not the _compelled_, but the _wilful_,
+transgression of law which corrupts the character. Sin is not in the
+act, but in the choice. It is a law for Gothic architecture, that it
+shall use the pointed arch for its roof proper; but because, in many
+cases of domestic building, this becomes impossible for want of room
+(the whole height of the apartment being required everywhere), or in
+various other ways inconvenient, flat ceilings may be used, and yet the
+Gothic shall not lose its purity. But in the roof-mask, there can be no
+necessity nor reason for a change of form: the gable is the best; and if
+any other--dome, or bulging crown, or whatsoever else--be employed at
+all, it must be in pure caprice, and wilful transgression of law. And
+wherever, therefore, this is done, the Gothic has lost its character; it
+is pure Gothic no more.
+
+Sec. LXXXIV. And this last clause of the definition is to be more strongly
+insisted upon, because it includes multitudes of buildings, especially
+domestic, which are Gothic in spirit, but which we are not in the habit
+of embracing in our general conception of Gothic architecture;
+multitudes of street dwelling-houses and straggling country farm-houses,
+built with little care for beauty, or observance of Gothic laws in
+vaults or windows, and yet maintaining their character by the sharp and
+quaint gables of the roofs. And, for the reason just given, a house is
+far more Gothic which has square windows, and a boldly gabled roof, than
+the one which has pointed arches for the windows, and a domed or flat
+roof. For it often happened in the best Gothic times, as it must in all
+times, that it was more easy and convenient to make a window square than
+pointed; not but that, as above emphatically stated, the richness of
+church architecture was also found in domestic; and systematically "when
+the pointed arch was used in the church it was used in the street," only
+in all times there were cases in which men could not build as they
+would, and were obliged to construct their doors or windows in the
+readiest way; and this readiest way was then, in small work, as it will
+be to the end of time, to put a flat stone for a lintel and build the
+windows as in Fig. VIII.; and the occurrence of such windows in a
+building or a street will not un-Gothicize them, so long as the bold
+gable roof be retained, and the spirit of the work be visibly Gothic in
+other respects. But if the roof be wilfully and conspicuously of any
+other form than the gable,--if it be domed, or Turkish, or Chinese,--the
+building has positive corruption mingled with its Gothic elements, in
+proportion to the conspicuousness of the roof; and, if not absolutely
+un-Gothicized, can maintain its character only by such vigor of vital
+Gothic energy in other parts as shall cause the roof to be forgotten,
+thrown off like an eschar from the living frame. Nevertheless, we must
+always admit that it _may_ be forgotten, and that if the Gothic seal be
+indeed set firmly on the walls, we are not to cavil at the forms
+reserved for the tiles and leads. For, observe, as our definition at
+present stands, being understood of large roofs only, it will allow a
+conical glass-furnace to be a Gothic building, but will _not_ allow so
+much, either of the Duomo of Florence, or the Baptistery of Pisa. We
+must either mend it, therefore, or understand it in some broader sense.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. VIII.]
+
+Sec. LXXXV. And now, if the reader will look back to the fifth paragraph
+of Chap. III. Vol. I., he will find that I carefully extended my
+definition of a roof so as to include more than is usually understood by
+the term. It was there said to be the covering of a space, _narrow or
+wide_. It does not in the least signify, with respect to the real nature
+of the covering, whether the space protected be two feet wide, or ten;
+though in the one case we call the protection an arch, in the other a
+vault or roof. But the real point to be considered is, the manner in which
+this protection stands, and not whether it is narrow or broad. We call the
+vaulting of a bridge "an arch," because it is narrow with respect to the
+river it crosses; but if it were built above us on the ground, we should
+call it a waggon vault, because then we should feel the breadth of it.
+The real question is the nature of the curve, not the extent of space
+over which it is carried: and this is more the case with respect to
+Gothic than to any other architecture; for, in the greater number of
+instances, the form of the roof is entirely dependent on the ribs; the
+domical shells being constructed in all kinds of inclinations, quite
+undeterminable by the eye, and all that is definite in their character
+being fixed by the curves of the ribs.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. IX.]
+
+Sec. LXXXVI. Let us then consider our definition as including the
+narrowest arch, or tracery bar, as well as the broadest roof, and it will
+be nearly a perfect one. For the fact is, that all good Gothic is nothing
+more than the developement, in various ways, and on every conceivable
+scale, of the group formed by the _pointed arch for the bearing line_
+below, and _the gable for the protecting line_ above; and from the huge,
+gray, shaly slope of the cathedral roof, with its elastic pointed vaults
+beneath, to the slight crown-like points that enrich the smallest niche
+of its doorway, one law and one expression will be found in all. The
+modes of support and of decoration are infinitely various, but the real
+character of the building, in all good Gothic, depends upon the single
+lines of the gable over the pointed arch, Fig. IX., endlessly rearranged
+or repeated. The larger woodcut, Fig. X., represents three
+characteristic conditions of the treatment of the group: _a_, from a
+tomb at Verona (1328); _b_, one of the lateral porches at Abbeville;
+_c_, one of the uppermost points of the great western facade of Rouen
+Cathedral; both these last being, I believe, early work of the fifteenth
+century. The forms of the pure early English and French Gothic are too
+well known to need any notice; my reason will appear presently for
+choosing, by way of example, these somewhat rare conditions.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. X.]
+
+Sec. LXXXVII. But, first, let us try whether we cannot get the forms of
+the other great architectures of the world broadly expressed by relations
+of the same lines into which we have compressed the Gothic. We may easily
+do this if the reader will first allow me to remind him of the true
+nature of the pointed arch, as it was expressed in Sec. X. Chap. X. of
+the first volume. It was said there, that it ought to be called a "curved
+gable," for, strictly speaking, an "arch" cannot be "pointed." The
+so-called pointed arch ought always to be considered as a gable, with
+its sides curved in order to enable them to bear pressure from without.
+Thus considering it, there are but three ways in which an interval
+between piers can be bridged,--the three ways represented by A, B, and
+C, Fig. XI.,[70] on page 213,--A, the lintel; B, the round arch; C, the
+gable. All the architects in the world will never discover any other
+ways of bridging a space than these three; they may vary the curve of
+the arch, or curve the sides of the gable, or break them; but in doing
+this they are merely modifying or subdividing, not adding to the generic
+forms.
+
+Sec. LXXXVIII. Now there are three good architectures in the world, and
+there never can be more, correspondent to each of these three simple
+ways of covering in a space, which is the original function of all
+architectures. And those three architectures are _pure_ exactly in
+proportion to the simplicity and directness with which they express the
+condition of roofing on which they are founded. They have many
+interesting varieties, according to their scale, manner of decoration,
+and character of the nations by whom they are practised, but all their
+varieties are finally referable to the three great heads:--
+
+  A, Greek: Architecture of the Lintel.
+  B, Romanesque: Architecture of the Round Arch.
+  C, Gothic: Architecture of the Gable.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XI.]
+
+The three names, Greek, Romanesque, and Gothic, are indeed inaccurate
+when used in this vast sense, because they imply national limitations;
+but the three architectures may nevertheless not unfitly receive their
+names from those nations by whom they were carried to the highest
+perfections. We may thus briefly state their existing varieties.
+
+Sec. LXXXIX. A. GREEK: Lintel Architecture. The worst of the three; and,
+considered with reference to stone construction, always in some measure
+barbarous. Its simplest type is Stonehenge; its most refined, the
+Parthenon; its noblest, the Temple of Karnak.
+
+In the hands of the Egyptian, it is sublime; in those of the Greek,
+pure; in those of the Roman, rich; and in those of the Renaissance
+builder, effeminate.
+
+B. ROMANESQUE: Round-arch Architecture. Never thoroughly developed until
+Christian times. It falls into two great branches, Eastern and Western,
+or Byzantine and Lombardic; changing respectively in process of time,
+with certain helps from each other, into Arabian Gothic and Teutonic
+Gothic. Its most perfect Lombardic type is the Duomo of Pisa; its most
+perfect Byzantine type (I believe), St. Mark's at Venice. Its highest
+glory is, that it has no corruption. It perishes in giving birth to
+another architecture as noble as itself.
+
+C. GOTHIC: Architecture of the Gable. The daughter of the Romanesque;
+and, like the Romanesque, divided into two great branches, Western and
+Eastern, or pure Gothic and Arabian Gothic; of which the latter is
+called Gothic, only because it has many Gothic forms, pointed arches,
+vaults, &c., but its spirit remains Byzantine, more especially in the
+form of the roof-mask, of which, with respect to these three great
+families, we have next to determine the typical form.
+
+Sec. XC. For, observe, the distinctions we have hitherto been stating,
+depend on the form of the stones first laid from pier to pier; that is
+to say, of the simplest condition of roofs proper. Adding the relations
+of the roof-mask to these lines, we shall have the perfect type of form
+for each school.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XII.]
+
+In the Greek, the Western Romanesque, and Western Gothic, the roof-mask
+is the gable: in the Eastern Romanesque, and Eastern Gothic, it is the
+dome: but I have not studied the roofing of either of these last two
+groups, and shall not venture to generalize them in a diagram. But the
+three groups, in the hands of the Western builders, may be thus simply
+represented: _a_, Fig. XII., Greek;[71] _b_, Western Romanesque; _c_,
+Western, or true, Gothic.
+
+Now, observe, first, that the relation of the roof-mask to the roof
+proper, in the Greek type, forms that pediment which gives its most
+striking character to the temple, and is the principal recipient of its
+sculptural decoration. The relation of these lines, therefore, is just
+as important in the Greek as in the Gothic schools.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XIII.]
+
+Sec. XCI. Secondly, the reader must observe the difference of steepness
+in the Romanesque and Gothic gables. This is not an unimportant
+distinction, nor an undecided one. The Romanesque gable does not pass
+gradually into the more elevated form; there is a great gulf between the
+two; the whole effect of all Southern architecture being dependent upon
+the use of the flat gable, and of all Northern upon that of the acute. I
+need not here dwell upon the difference between the lines of an Italian
+village, or the flat tops of most Italian towers, and the peaked gables
+and spires of the North, attaining their most fantastic developement, I
+believe, in Belgium: but it may be well to state the law of separation,
+namely, that a Gothic gable _must_ have all its angles acute, and a
+Romanesque one _must_ have the upper one obtuse: or, to give the reader
+a simple practical rule, take any gable, _a_ or _b_, Fig. XIII., and
+strike a semicircle on its base; if its top rises above the semicircle,
+as at _b_, it is a Gothic gable; if it falls beneath it, a Romanesque
+one; but the best forms in each group are those which are distinctly
+steep, or distinctly low. In the figure _f_ is, perhaps, the average of
+Romanesque slope, and _g_ of Gothic.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XIV.]
+
+Sec. XCII. But although we do not find a transition from one school into
+the other in the slope of the gables, there is often a confusion between
+the two schools in the association of the gable with the arch below it.
+It has just been stated that the pure Romanesque condition is the round
+arch under the low gable, _a_, Fig. XIV., and the pure Gothic condition
+is the pointed arch under the high gable, _b_. But in the passage from
+one style to the other, we sometimes find the two conditions reversed;
+the pointed arch under a low gable, as _d_, or the round arch under a
+high gable, as _c_. The form _d_ occurs in the tombs of Verona, and _c_
+in the doors of Venice.
+
+Sec. XCIII. We have thus determined the relation of Gothic to the other
+architectures of the world, as far as regards the main lines of its
+construction; but there is still one word which needs to be added to our
+definition of its form, with respect to a part of its decoration, which
+rises out of that construction. We have seen that the first condition of
+its form is, that it shall have pointed arches. When Gothic is perfect,
+therefore, it will follow that the pointed arches must be built in the
+strongest possible manner.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XV.]
+
+Now, if the reader will look back to Chapter XI. of Vol. I., he will
+find the subject of the masonry of the pointed arch discussed at length,
+and the conclusion deduced, that of all possible forms of the pointed
+arch (a certain weight of material being given), that generically
+represented at _e_, Fig. XV., is the strongest. In fact, the reader can
+see in a moment that the weakness of the pointed arch is in its flanks,
+and that by merely thickening them gradually at this point all chance of
+fracture is removed. Or, perhaps, more simply still:--Suppose a gable
+built of stone, as at _a_, and pressed upon from without by a weight in
+the direction of the arrow, clearly it would be liable to fall in, as at
+_b_. To prevent this, we make a pointed arch of it, as at _c_; and now
+it cannot fall inwards, but if pressed upon from above may give way
+outwards, as at _d_. But at last we build as at _e_, and now it can
+neither fall out nor in.
+
+Sec. XCIV. The forms of arch thus obtained, with a pointed projection
+called a cusp on each side, must for ever be delightful to the human
+mind, as being expressive of the utmost strength and permanency
+obtainable with a given mass of material. But it was not by any such
+process of reasoning, nor with any reference to laws of construction,
+that the cusp was originally invented. It is merely the special
+application to the arch of the great ornamental system of FOLIATION; or
+the adaptation of the forms of leafage which has been above insisted
+upon as the principal characteristic of Gothic Naturalism. This love of
+foliage was exactly proportioned, in its intensity, to the increase of
+strength in the Gothic spirit: in the Southern Gothic it is _soft_
+leafage that is most loved; in the Northern _thorny_ leafage. And if we
+take up any Northern illuminated manuscript of the great Gothic time, we
+shall find every one of its leaf ornaments surrounded by a thorny
+structure laid round it in gold or in color; sometimes apparently copied
+faithfully from the prickly developement of the root of the leaf in the
+thistle, running along the stems and branches exactly as the thistle
+leaf does along its own stem, and with sharp spines proceeding from the
+points, as in Fig. XVI. At other times, and for the most part in work in
+the thirteenth century, the golden ground takes the form of pure and
+severe cusps, sometimes enclosing the leaves, sometimes filling up the
+forks of the branches (as in the example fig. 1, Plate I. Vol. III.),
+passing imperceptibly from the distinctly vegetable condition (in which
+it is just as certainly representative of the thorn, as other parts of
+the design are of the bud, leaf, and fruit) into the crests on the
+necks, or the membranous sails of the wings, of serpents, dragons, and
+other grotesques, as in Fig. XVII., and into rich and vague fantasies of
+curvature; among which, however, the pure cusped system of the pointed
+arch is continually discernible, not accidentally, but designedly
+indicated, and connecting itself with the literally architectural
+portions of the design.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XVI.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XVII.]
+
+Sec. XCV. The system, then, of what is called Foliation, whether simple,
+as in the cusped arch, or complicated, as in tracery, rose out of this
+love of leafage; not that the form of the arch is intended to _imitate_
+a leaf, but _to be invested with the same characters of beauty which the
+designer had discovered in the leaf_. Observe, there is a wide
+difference between these two intentions. The idea that large Gothic
+structure, in arches and roofs, was intended to imitate vegetation is,
+as above noticed, untenable for an instant in the front of facts. But
+the Gothic builder perceived that, in the leaves which he copied for his
+minor decorations, there was a peculiar beauty, arising from certain
+characters of curvature in outline, and certain methods of subdivision
+and of radiation in structure. On a small scale, in his sculptures and
+his missal-painting, he copied the leaf or thorn itself; on a large
+scale he adopted from it its abstract sources of beauty, and gave the
+same kinds of curvatures and the same species of subdivision to the
+outline of his arches, so far as was consistent with their strength,
+never, in any single instance, suggesting the resemblance to leafage by
+_irregularity_ of outline, but keeping the structure perfectly simple,
+and, as we have seen, so consistent with the best principles of masonry,
+that in the finest Gothic designs of arches, which are always _single_
+cusped (the cinquefoiled arch being licentious, though in early work
+often very lovely), it is literally impossible, without consulting the
+context of the building, to say whether the cusps have been added for
+the sake of beauty or of strength; nor, though in mediaeval architecture
+they were, I believe, assuredly first employed in mere love of their
+picturesque form, am I absolutely certain that their earliest invention
+was not a structural effort. For the earliest cusps with which I am
+acquainted are those used in the vaults of the great galleries of the
+Serapeum, discovered in 1850 by M. Maniette at Memphis, and described by
+Colonel Hamilton in a paper read in February last before the Royal
+Society of Literature.[72] The roofs of its galleries were admirably
+shown in Colonel Hamilton's drawings made to scale upon the spot, and
+their profile is a cusped round arch, perfectly pure and simple; but
+whether thrown into this form for the sake of strength or of grace, I am
+unable to say.
+
+Sec. XCVI. It is evident, however, that the structural advantage of the
+cusp is available only in the case of arches on a comparatively small
+scale. If the arch becomes very large, the projections under the flanks
+must become too ponderous to be secure; the suspended weight of stone
+would be liable to break off, and such arches are therefore never
+constructed with heavy cusps, but rendered secure by general mass of
+masonry; and what additional _appearance_ of support may be thought
+necessary (sometimes a considerable degree of _actual_ support) is given
+by means of tracery.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XVIII.]
+
+Sec. XCVII. Of what I stated in the second chapter of the "Seven Lamps"
+respecting the nature of tracery, I need repeat here only this much,
+that it began in the use of penetrations through the stone-work of
+windows or walls, cut into forms which looked like stars when seen from
+within, and like leaves when seen from without: the name foil or feuille
+being universally applied to the separate lobes of their extremities,
+and the pleasure received from them being the same as that which we feel
+in the triple, quadruple, or other radiated leaves of vegetation, joined
+with the perception of a severely geometrical order and symmetry. A few
+of the most common forms are represented, unconfused by exterior
+mouldings, in Fig. XVIII., and the best traceries are nothing more than
+close clusters of such forms, with mouldings following their outlines.
+
+Sec. XCVIII. The term "foliated," therefore, is equally descriptive of the
+most perfect conditions both of the simple arch and of the traceries by
+which, in later Gothic, it is filled; and this foliation is an essential
+character of the style. No Gothic is either good or characteristic which
+is not foliated either in its arches or apertures. Sometimes the bearing
+arches are foliated, and the ornamentation above composed of figure
+sculpture; sometimes the bearing arches are plain, and the ornamentation
+above them is composed of foliated apertures. But the element of
+foliation _must_ enter somewhere, or the style is imperfect. And our
+final definition of Gothic will, therefore, stand thus:--
+
+"_Foliated_ Architecture, which uses the pointed arch for the roof
+proper, and the gable for the roof-mask."
+
+Sec. XCIX. And now there is but one point more to be examined, and we have
+done.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XIX.]
+
+Foliation, while it is the most distinctive and peculiar, is also the
+easiest method of decoration which Gothic architecture possesses; and,
+although in the disposition of the proportions and forms of foils, the
+most noble imagination may be shown, yet a builder without imagination
+at all, or any other faculty of design, can produce some effect upon the
+mass of his work by merely covering it with foolish foliation. Throw any
+number of crossing lines together at random, as in Fig. XIX., and fill
+their squares and oblong openings with quatrefoils and cinquefoils, and
+you will immediately have what will stand, with most people, for very
+satisfactory Gothic. The slightest possible acquaintance with existing
+forms will enable any architect to vary his patterns of foliation with
+as much ease as he would those of a kaleidoscope, and to produce a
+building which the present European public will think magnificent,
+though there may not be, from foundation to coping, one ray of
+invention, or any other intellectual merit, in the whole mass of it. But
+floral decoration, and the disposition of mouldings, require some skill
+and thought; and, if they are to be agreeable at all, must be verily
+invented, or accurately copied. They cannot be drawn altogether at
+random, without becoming so commonplace as to involve detection: and
+although, as I have just said, the noblest imagination may be shown in
+the dispositions of traceries, there is far more room for its play and
+power when those traceries are associated with floral or animal
+ornament; and it is probable, _a priori_, that, wherever true invention
+exists, such ornament will be employed in profusion.
+
+Sec. C. Now, all Gothic may be divided into two vast schools, one early,
+the other late;[73] of which the former, noble, inventive, and
+progressive, uses the element of foliation moderately, that of floral
+and figure sculpture decoration profusely; the latter, ignoble,
+uninventive, and declining, uses foliation immoderately, floral and
+figure sculpture subordinately. The two schools touch each other at that
+instant of momentous change, dwelt upon in the "Seven Lamps," chap, ii.,
+a period later or earlier in different districts, but which may be
+broadly stated as the middle of the fourteenth century; both styles
+being, of course, in their highest excellence at the moment when they
+meet, the one ascending to the point of junction, the one declining from
+it, but, at first, not in any marked degree, and only showing the
+characters which justify its being above called, generically, ignoble,
+as its declension reaches steeper slope.
+
+Sec. CI. Of these two great schools, the first uses foliation only in
+large and simple masses, and covers the minor members, cusps, &c., of that
+foliation, with various sculpture. The latter decorates foliation itself
+with minor foliation, and breaks its traceries into endless and
+lace-like subdivision of tracery.
+
+A few instances will explain the difference clearly. Fig. 2, Plate XII.,
+represents half of an eight-foiled aperture from Salisbury; where the
+element of foliation is employed in the larger disposition of the starry
+form; but in the decoration of the cusp it has entirely disappeared, and
+the ornament is floral.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XII.
+               LINEAR AND SURFACE GOTHIC.]
+
+But in fig. 1, which is part of a fringe round one of the later windows
+in Rouen Cathedral, the foliation is first carried boldly round the
+arch, and then each cusp of it divided into other forms of foliation.
+The two larger canopies of niches below, figs. 5 and 6, are respectively
+those seen at the flanks of the two uppermost examples of gabled Gothic
+in Fig. X., p. 213. Those examples were there chosen in order also to
+illustrate the distinction in the character of ornamentation which we
+are at present examining; and if the reader will look back to them, and
+compare their methods of treatment, he will at once be enabled to fix
+that distinction clearly in his mind. He will observe that in the
+uppermost the element of foliation is scrupulously confined to the
+bearing arches of the gable, and of the lateral niches, so that, on any
+given side of the monument, only three foliated arches are discernible.
+All the rest of the ornamentation is "bossy sculpture," set on the broad
+marble surface. On the point of the gable are set the shield and
+dog-crest of the Scalas, with its bronze wings, as of a dragon, thrown
+out from it on either side; below, an admirably sculptured oak-tree
+fills the centre of the field; beneath it is the death of Abel, Abel
+lying dead upon his face on one side, Cain opposite, looking up to
+heaven in terror: the border of the arch is formed of various leafage,
+alternating with the scala shield; and the cusps are each filled by one
+flower, and two broad flowing leaves. The whole is exquisitely relieved
+by color; the ground being of pale red Verona marble, and the statues
+and foliage of white Carrara marble, inlaid.
+
+Sec. CII. The figure below it, _b_, represents the southern lateral
+door of the principal church in Abbeville: the smallness of the scale
+compelled me to make it somewhat heavier in the lines of its traceries
+than it is in reality, but the door itself is one of the most exquisite
+pieces of flamboyant Gothic in the world; and it is interesting to see
+the shield introduced here, at the point of the gable, in exactly the
+same manner as in the upper example, and with precisely the same
+purpose,--to stay the eye in its ascent, and to keep it from being
+offended by the sharp point of the gable, the reversed angle of the
+shield being so energetic as completely to balance the upward tendency
+of the great convergent lines. It will be seen, however, as this example
+is studied, that its other decorations are altogether different from
+those of the Veronese tomb; that, here, the whole effect is dependent on
+mere multiplications of similar lines of tracery, sculpture being hardly
+introduced except in the seated statue under the central niche, and,
+formerly, in groups filling the shadowy hollows under the small niches
+in the archivolt, but broken away in the Revolution. And if now we turn
+to Plate XII., just passed, and examine the heads of the two lateral
+niches there given from each of these monuments on a larger scale, the
+contrast will be yet more apparent. The one from Abbeville (fig. 5),
+though it contains much floral work of the crisp Northern kind in its
+finial and crockets, yet depends for all its effect on the various
+patterns of foliation with which its spaces are filled; and it is so cut
+through and through that it is hardly stronger than a piece of lace:
+whereas the pinnacle from Verona depends for its effect on one broad
+mass of shadow, boldly shaped into the trefoil in its bearing arch; and
+there is no other trefoil on that side of the niche. All the rest of its
+decoration is floral, or by almonds and bosses; and its surface of stone
+is unpierced, and kept in broad light, and the mass of it thick and
+strong enough to stand for as many more centuries as it has already
+stood, scatheless, in the open street of Verona. The figures 3 and 4,
+above each niche, show how the same principles are carried out into the
+smallest details of the two edifices, 3 being the moulding which
+borders the gable at Abbeville, and 4, that in the same position at
+Verona; and as thus in all cases the distinction in their treatment
+remains the same, the one attracting the eye to broad sculptured
+_surfaces_, the other to involutions of intricate _lines_, I shall
+hereafter characterize the two schools, whenever I have occasion to
+refer to them, the one as Surface-Gothic, the other as Linear-Gothic.
+
+Sec. CIII. Now observe: it is not, at present, the question, whether the
+form of the Veronese niche, and the design of its flower-work, be as
+good as they might have been; but simply, which of the two architectural
+principles is the greater and better. And this we cannot hesitate for an
+instant in deciding. The Veronese Gothic is strong in its masonry,
+simple in its masses, but perpetual in its variety. The late French
+Gothic is weak in masonry, broken in mass, and repeats the same idea
+continually. It is very beautiful, but the Italian Gothic is the nobler
+style.
+
+Sec. CIV. Yet, in saying that the French Gothic repeats one idea, I mean
+merely that it depends too much upon the foliation of its traceries. The
+disposition of the traceries themselves is endlessly varied and
+inventive; and indeed, the mind of the French workman was, perhaps, even
+richer in fancy than that of the Italian, only he had been taught a less
+noble style. This is especially to be remembered with respect to the
+subordination of figure sculpture above noticed as characteristic of the
+later Gothic.
+
+It is not that such sculpture is wanting; on the contrary, it is often
+worked into richer groups, and carried out with a perfection of
+execution, far greater than those which adorn the earlier buildings:
+but, in the early work, it is vigorous, prominent, and essential to the
+beauty of the whole; in the late work it is enfeebled, and shrouded in
+the veil of tracery, from which it may often be removed with little harm
+to the general effect.[74]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XX.]
+
+Sec. CV. Now the reader may rest assured that no principle of art is more
+absolute than this,--that a composition from which anything can be
+removed without doing mischief is always so far forth inferior. On this
+ground, therefore, if on no other, there can be no question, for a
+moment, which of the two schools is the greater; although there are many
+most noble works in the French traceried Gothic, having a sublimity of
+their own dependent on their extreme richness and grace of line, and for
+which we may be most grateful to their builders. And, indeed, the
+superiority of the Surface-Gothic cannot be completely felt, until we
+compare it with the more degraded Linear schools, as, for instance, with
+our own English Perpendicular. The ornaments of the Veronese niche,
+which we have used for our example, are by no means among the best of
+their school, yet they will serve our purpose for such a comparison.
+That of its pinnacle is composed of a single upright flowering plant, of
+which the stem shoots up through the centres of the leaves, and bears a
+pendent blossom, somewhat like that of the imperial lily. The leaves are
+thrown back from the stem with singular grace and freedom, and
+foreshortened, as if by a skilful painter, in the shallow marble relief.
+Their arrangement is roughly shown in the little woodcut at the side
+(Fig. XX.); and if the reader will simply try the experiment for
+himself,--first, of covering a piece of paper with crossed lines, as if
+for accounts, and filling all the interstices with any foliation that
+comes into his head, as in Figure XIX. above; and then, of trying to
+fill the point of a gable with a piece of leafage like that in Figure
+XX. above, putting the figure itself aside,--he will presently find that
+more thought and invention are required to design this single minute
+pinnacle, than to cover acres of ground with English perpendicular.
+
+Sec. CVI. We have now, I believe, obtained a sufficiently accurate
+knowledge both of the spirit and form of Gothic architecture; but it
+may, perhaps, be useful to the general reader, if, in conclusion, I set
+down a few plain and practical rules for determining, in every instance,
+whether a given building be good Gothic or not, and, if not Gothic,
+whether its architecture is of a kind which will probably reward the
+pains of careful examination.
+
+Sec. CVII. First. Look if the roof rises in a steep gable, high above the
+walls. If it does not do this, there is something wrong; the building is
+not quite pure Gothic, or has been altered.
+
+Sec. CVIII. Secondly. Look if the principal windows and doors have pointed
+arches with gables over them. If not pointed arches, the building is not
+Gothic; if they have not any gables over them, it is either not pure, or
+not first-rate.
+
+If, however, it has the steep roof, the pointed arch, and gable all
+united, it is nearly certain to be a Gothic building of a very fine
+time.
+
+Sec. CIX. Thirdly. Look if the arches are cusped, or apertures foliated.
+If the building has met the first two conditions, it is sure to be
+foliated somewhere; but, if not everywhere, the parts which are unfoliated
+are imperfect, unless they are large bearing arches, or small and sharp
+arches in groups, forming a kind of foliation by their own multiplicity,
+and relieved by sculpture and rich mouldings. The upper windows, for
+instance, in the east end of Westminster Abbey are imperfect for want of
+foliation. If there be no foliation anywhere, the building is assuredly
+imperfect Gothic.
+
+Sec. CX. Fourthly. If the building meets all the first three conditions,
+look if its arches in general, whether of windows and doors, or of minor
+ornamentation, are carried on _true shafts with bases and capitals_. If
+they are, then the building is assuredly of the finest Gothic style. It
+may still, perhaps, be an imitation, a feeble copy, or a bad example of
+a noble style; but the manner of it, having met all these four
+conditions, is assuredly first-rate.
+
+If its apertures have not shafts and capitals, look if they are plain
+openings in the walls, studiously simple, and unmoulded at the sides;
+as, for instance, the arch in Plate XIX. Vol. I. If so, the building may
+still be of the finest Gothic, adapted to some domestic or military
+service. But if the sides of the window be moulded, and yet there are no
+capitals at the spring of the arch, it is assuredly of an inferior
+school.
+
+This is all that is necessary to determine whether the building be of a
+fine Gothic style. The next tests to be applied are in order to discover
+whether it be good architecture or not: for it may be very impure
+Gothic, and yet very noble architecture; or it may be very pure Gothic,
+and yet, if a copy, or originally raised by an ungifted builder, very
+bad architecture.
+
+If it belong to any of the great schools of color, its criticism becomes
+as complicated, and needs as much care, as that of a piece of music, and
+no general rules for it can be given; but if not--
+
+Sec. CXI. First. See if it looks as if it had been built by strong men;
+if it has the sort of roughness, and largeness, and nonchalance, mixed in
+places with the exquisite tenderness which seems always to be the
+sign-manual of the broad vision, and massy power of men who can see
+_past_ the work they are doing, and betray here and there something like
+disdain for it. If the building has this character, it is much already
+in its favor; it will go hard but it proves a noble one. If it has not
+this, but is altogether accurate, minute, and scrupulous in its
+workmanship, it must belong to either the very best or the very worst of
+schools: the very best, in which exquisite design is wrought out with
+untiring and conscientious care, as in the Giottesque Gothic; or the
+very worst, in which mechanism has taken the place of design. It is more
+likely, in general, that it should belong to the worst than the best: so
+that, on the whole, very accurate workmanship is to be esteemed a bad
+sign; and if there is nothing remarkable about the building but its
+precision, it may be passed at once with contempt.
+
+Sec. CXII. Secondly. Observe if it be irregular, its different parts
+fitting themselves to different purposes, no one caring what becomes of
+them, so that they do their work. If one part always answers accurately
+to another part, it is sure to be a bad building; and the greater and
+more conspicuous the irregularities, the greater the chances are that it
+is a good one. For instance, in the Ducal Palace, of which a rough
+woodcut is given in Chap. VIII., the general idea is sternly
+symmetrical; but two windows are lower than the rest of the six; and if
+the reader will count the arches of the small arcade as far as to the
+great balcony, he will find it is not in the centre, but set to the
+right-hand side by the whole width of one of those arches. We may be
+pretty sure that the building is a good one; none but a master of his
+craft would have ventured to do this.
+
+Sec. CXIII. Thirdly. Observe if all the traceries, capitals, and other
+ornaments are of perpetually varied design. If not, the work is
+assuredly bad.
+
+Sec. CXIV. Lastly. _Read_ the sculpture. Preparatory to reading it, you
+will have to discover whether it is legible (and, if legible, it is
+nearly certain to be worth reading). On a good building, the sculpture
+is _always_ so set, and on such a scale, that at the ordinary distance
+from which the edifice is seen, the sculpture shall be thoroughly
+intelligible and interesting. In order to accomplish this, the uppermost
+statues will be ten or twelve feet high, and the upper ornamentation
+will be colossal, increasing in fineness as it descends, till on the
+foundation it will often be wrought as if for a precious cabinet in a
+king's chamber; but the spectator will not notice that the upper
+sculptures are colossal. He will merely feel that he can see them
+plainly, and make them all out at his ease.
+
+And, having ascertained this, let him set himself to read them.
+Thenceforward the criticism of the building is to be conducted precisely
+on the same principles as that of a book; and it must depend on the
+knowledge, feeling, and not a little on the industry and perseverance of
+the reader, whether, even in the case of the best works, he either
+perceive them to be great, or feel them to be entertaining.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [56] The third kind of ornament, the Renaissance, is that in which
+    the inferior detail becomes principal, the executor of every minor
+    portion being required to exhibit skill and possess knowledge as
+    great as that which is possessed by the master of the design; and in
+    the endeavor to endow him with this skill and knowledge, his own
+    original power is overwhelmed, and the whole building becomes a
+    wearisome exhibition of well-educated imbecility. We must fully
+    inquire into the nature of this form of error, when we arrive at the
+    examination of the Renaissance schools.
+
+  [57] Vide Preface to "Fair Maid of Perth."
+
+  [58] The Elgin marbles are supposed by many persons to be "perfect."
+    In the most important portions they indeed approach perfection, but
+    only there. The draperies are unfinished, the hair and wool of the
+    animals are unfinished, and the entire bas-reliefs of the frieze are
+    roughly cut.
+
+  [59] In the eighth chapter we shall see a remarkable instance of
+    this sacrifice of symmetry to convenience in the arrangement of the
+    windows of the Ducal Palace.
+
+  [60] I am always afraid to use this word "Composition;" it is so
+    utterly misused in the general parlance respecting art. Nothing is
+    more common than to hear divisions of art into "form, composition,
+    and color," or "light and shade and composition," or "sentiment and
+    composition," or it matters not what else and composition; the
+    speakers in each case attaching a perfectly different meaning to the
+    word, generally an indistinct one, and always a wrong one.
+    Composition is, in plain English, "putting together," and it means
+    the putting together of lines, of forms, of colors, of shades, or of
+    ideas. Painters compose in color, compose in thought, compose in
+    form, and compose in effect: the word being of use merely in order
+    to express a scientific, disciplined, and inventive arrangement of
+    any of these, instead of a merely natural or accidental one.
+
+  [61] Design is used in this place as expressive of the power to
+    arrange lines and colors nobly. By facts, I mean facts perceived by
+    the eye and mind, not facts accumulated by knowledge. See the
+    chapter on Roman Renaissance (Vol. III. Chap. II.) for this
+    distinction.
+
+  [62] "Earlier," that is to say, pre-Raphaelite ages. Men of this
+    stamp will praise Claude, and such other comparatively debased
+    artists; but they cannot taste the work of the thirteenth century.
+
+  [63] Not selfish fear, caused by want of trust in God, or of
+    resolution in the soul.
+
+  [64] I reserve for another place the full discussion of this
+    interesting subject, which here would have led me too far; but it
+    must be noted, in passing, that this vulgar Purism, which rejects
+    truth, not because it is vicious, but because it is humble, and
+    consists not in choosing what is good, but in disguising what is
+    rough, extends itself into every species of art. The most definite
+    instance of it is the dressing of characters of peasantry in an
+    opera or ballet scene; and the walls of our exhibitions are full of
+    works of art which "exalt nature" in the same way, not by revealing
+    what is great in the heart, but by smoothing what is coarse in the
+    complexion. There is nothing, I believe, so vulgar, so hopeless, so
+    indicative of an irretrievably base mind, as this species of Purism.
+    Of healthy Purism carried to the utmost endurable length in this
+    direction, exalting the heart first, and the features with it,
+    perhaps the most characteristic instance I can give is Stothard's
+    vignette to "Jorasse," in Rogers's Italy; at least it would be so if
+    it could be seen beside a real group of Swiss girls. The poems of
+    Rogers, compared with those of Crabbe, are admirable instances of
+    the healthiest Purism and healthiest Naturalism in poetry. The first
+    great Naturalists of Christian art were Orcagna and Giotto.
+
+  [65] The reader will understand this in a moment by glancing at Plate
+    XX., the last in this volume, where the series 1 to 12 represents
+    the change in one kind of leaf, from the Byzantine to the perfect
+    Gothic.
+
+  [66] The best art either represents the facts of its own day, or, if
+    facts of the past, expresses them with accessories of the time in
+    which the work was done. All good art, representing past events, is
+    therefore full of the most frank anachronism, and always _ought_ to
+    be. No painter has any business to be an antiquarian. We do not want
+    his impressions or suppositions respecting things that are past. We
+    want his clear assertions respecting things present.
+
+  [67] See the account of the meeting at Talla Linns, in 1682, given
+    in the fourth chapter of the "Heart of Midlothian." At length they
+    arrived at the conclusion that "they who owned (or allowed) such
+    names as Monday, Tuesday, January, February, and so forth, served
+    themselves heirs to the same if not greater punishment than had been
+    denounced against the idolaters of old."
+
+  [68] See the beautiful description of Florence in Elizabeth Browning's
+    "Casa Guidi Windows," which is not only a noble poem, but the only
+    book I have seen which, favoring the Liberal cause in Italy, gives a
+    just account of the incapacities of the modern Italian.
+
+  [69] Salisbury spire is only a tower with a polygonal gabled roof of
+    stone, and so also the celebrated spires of Caen and Coutances.
+
+  [70] Or by the shaded portions of Fig. XXIX. Vol. I.
+
+  [71] The reader is not to suppose that Greek architecture had always,
+    or often, flat ceilings, because I call its lintel the roof proper.
+    He must remember I always use these terms of the first simple
+    arrangements of materials that bridge a space; bringing in the real
+    roof afterwards, if I can. In the case of Greek temples it would be
+    vain to refer their structure to the real roof, for many were
+    hypaethral, and without a roof at all. I am unfortunately more
+    ignorant of Egyptian roofing than even of Arabian, so that I cannot
+    bring this school into the diagram; but the gable appears to have
+    been magnificently used for a bearing roof. Vide Mr. Fergusson's
+    section of the Pyramid of Geezeh, "Principles of Beauty in Art,"
+    Plate I., and his expressions of admiration of Egyptian roof
+    masonry, page 201.
+
+  [72] See 'Athenaeum,' March 5th, 1853.
+
+  [73] Late, and chiefly confined to Northern countries, so that the
+    two schools may be opposed either as Early and Late Gothic, or (in
+    the fourteenth century) as Southern and Northern Gothic.
+
+  [74] In many of the best French Gothic churches, the groups of figures
+    have been all broken away at the Revolution, without much harm to
+    the picturesqueness, though with grievous loss to the historical
+    value of the architecture: whereas, if from the niche at Verona we
+    were to remove its floral ornaments, and the statue beneath it,
+    nothing would remain but a rude square trefoiled shell, utterly
+    valueless, or even ugly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GOTHIC PALACES.
+
+
+Sec. I. The buildings out of the remnants of which we have endeavored to
+recover some conception of the appearance of Venice during the Byzantine
+period, contribute hardly anything at this day to the effect of the
+streets of the city. They are too few and too much defaced to attract
+the eye or influence the feelings. The charm which Venice still
+possesses, and which for the last fifty years has rendered it the
+favorite haunt of all the painters of picturesque subject, is owing to
+the effect of the palaces belonging to the period we have now to
+examine, mingled with those of the Renaissance.
+
+This effect is produced in two different ways. The Renaissance palaces
+are not more picturesque in themselves than the club-houses of Pall
+Mall; but they become delightful by the contrast of their severity and
+refinement with the rich and rude confusion of the sea life beneath
+them, and of their white and solid masonry with the green waves. Remove
+from beneath them the orange sails of the fishing boats, the black
+gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough crews of the
+barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green water along their
+foundations, and the Renaissance palaces possess no more interest than
+those of London or Paris. But the Gothic palaces are picturesque in
+themselves, and wield over us an independent power. Sea and sky, and
+every other accessory might be taken away from them, and still they
+would be beautiful and strange. They are not less striking in the
+loneliest streets of Padua and Vicenza (where many were built during the
+period of the Venetian authority in those cities) than in the most
+crowded thoroughfares of Venice itself; and if they could be
+transported into the midst of London, they would still not altogether
+lose their power over the feelings.
+
+Sec. II. The best proof of this is in the perpetual attractiveness of all
+pictures, however poor in skill, which have taken for their subject the
+principal of these Gothic buildings, the Ducal Palace. In spite of all
+architectural theories and teachings, the paintings of this building are
+always felt to be delightful; we cannot be wearied by them, though often
+sorely tried; but we are not put to the same trial in the case of the
+palaces of the Renaissance. They are never drawn singly, or as the
+principal subject, nor can they be. The building which faces the Ducal
+Palace on the opposite side of the Piazzetta is celebrated among
+architects, but it is not familiar to our eyes; it is painted only
+incidentally, for the completion, not the subject, of a Venetian scene;
+and even the Renaissance arcades of St. Mark's Place, though frequently
+painted, are always treated as a mere avenue to its Byzantine church and
+colossal tower. And the Ducal Palace itself owes the peculiar charm
+which we have hitherto felt, not so much to its greater size as compared
+with other Gothic buildings, or nobler design (for it never yet has been
+rightly drawn), as to its comparative isolation. The other Gothic
+structures are as much injured by the continual juxtaposition of the
+Renaissance palaces, as the latter are aided by it; they exhaust their
+own life by breathing it into the Renaissance coldness: but the Ducal
+Palace stands comparatively alone, and fully expresses the Gothic power.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXI.]
+
+Sec. III. And it is just that it should be so seen, for it is the original
+of nearly all the rest. It is not the elaborate and more studied
+developement of a national style, but the great and sudden invention of
+one man, instantly forming a national style, and becoming the model for
+the imitation of every architect in Venice for upwards of a century. It
+was the determination of this one fact which occupied me the greater
+part of the time I spent in Venice. It had always appeared to me most
+strange that there should be in no part of the city any incipient or
+imperfect types of the form of the Ducal Palace; it was difficult to
+believe that so mighty a building had been the conception of one man,
+not only in disposition and detail, but in style; and yet impossible,
+had it been otherwise, but that some early examples of approximate
+Gothic form must exist. There is not one. The palaces built between the
+final cessation of the Byzantine style, about 1300, and the date of the
+Ducal Palace (1320-1350), are all completely distinct in character, so
+distinct that I at first intended the account of them to form a separate
+section of this volume; and there is literally _no_ transitional form
+between them and the perfection of the Ducal Palace. Every Gothic
+building in Venice which resembles the latter is a copy of it. I do not
+mean that there was no Gothic in Venice before the Ducal Palace, but
+that the mode of its application to domestic architecture had not been
+determined. The real root of the Ducal Palace is the apse of the church
+of the Frari. The traceries of that apse, though earlier and ruder in
+workmanship, are nearly the same in mouldings, and precisely the same in
+treatment (especially in the placing of the lions' heads), as those of
+the great Ducal Arcade; and the originality of thought in the architect
+of the Ducal Palace consists in his having adapted those traceries, in a
+more highly developed and finished form, to civil uses. In the apse of
+the church they form narrow and tall window lights, somewhat more
+massive than those of Northern Gothic, but similar in application: the
+thing to be done was to adapt these traceries to the forms of domestic
+building necessitated by national usage. The early palaces consisted, as
+we have seen, of arcades sustaining walls faced with marble, rather
+broad and long than elevated. This form was kept for the Ducal Palace;
+but instead of round arches from shaft to shaft, the Frari traceries
+were substituted, with two essential modifications. Besides being
+enormously increased in scale and thickness, that they might better bear
+the superincumbent weight, the quatrefoil, which in the Frari windows is
+above the arch, as at _a_, Fig. XXI., on previous page, was, in the
+Ducal Palace, put between the arches, as at _b_; the main reason for
+this alteration being that the bearing power of the arches, which was
+now to be trusted with the weight of a wall forty feet high,[75] was
+thus thrown _between_ the quatrefoils, instead of under them, and
+thereby applied at far better advantage. And, in the second place, the
+joints of the masonry were changed. In the Frari (as often also in St.
+John and St. Paul's) the tracery is formed of two simple cross bars or
+slabs of stone, pierced into the requisite forms, and separated by a
+horizontal joint, just on a level with the lowest cusp of the
+quatrefoils, as seen in Fig. XXI., _a_. But at the Ducal Palace the
+horizontal joint is in the centre of the quatrefoils, and two others are
+introduced beneath it at right angles to the run of the mouldings, as
+seen in Fig. XXI., _b_.[76] The Ducal Palace builder was sternly
+resolute in carrying out this rule of masonry. In the traceries of the
+large upper windows, where the cusps are cut through as in the
+quatrefoil Fig. XXII., the lower cusp is left partly solid, as at _a_,
+merely that the joint _a b_ may have its right place and direction.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXII.]
+
+Sec. IV. The ascertaining the formation of the Ducal Palace traceries
+from those of the Frari, and its priority to all other buildings which
+resemble it in Venice, rewarded me for a great deal of uninteresting
+labor in the examination of mouldings and other minor features of the
+Gothic palaces, in which alone the internal evidence of their date was
+to be discovered, there being no historical records whatever respecting
+them. But the accumulation of details on which the complete proof of the
+fact depends, could not either be brought within the compass of this
+volume, or be made in anywise interesting to the general reader. I shall
+therefore, without involving myself in any discussion, give a brief
+account of the developement of Gothic design in Venice, as I believe it
+to have taken place. I shall possibly be able at some future period so
+to compress the evidence on which my conviction rests, as to render it
+intelligible to the public, while, in the meantime, some of the more
+essential points of it are thrown together in the Appendix, and in the
+history of the Ducal Palace given in the next chapter.
+
+Sec. V. According, then, to the statement just made, the Gothic
+architecture of Venice is divided into two great periods: one, in which,
+while various irregular Gothic tendencies are exhibited, no consistent
+type of domestic building was developed; the other, in which a formed
+and consistent school of domestic architecture resulted from the direct
+imitation of the great design of the Ducal Palace. We must deal with
+these two periods separately; the first of them being that which has
+been often above alluded to, under the name of the transitional period.
+
+We shall consider in succession the general form, the windows, doors,
+balconies, and parapets, of the Gothic palaces belonging to each of
+these periods.
+
+Sec. VI. First. General Form.
+
+We have seen that the wrecks of the Byzantine palaces consisted merely
+of upper and lower arcades surrounding cortiles; the disposition of the
+interiors being now entirely changed, and their original condition
+untraceable. The entrances to these early buildings are, for the most
+part, merely large circular arches, the central features of their
+continuous arcades: they do not present us with definitely separated
+windows and doors.
+
+But a great change takes place in the Gothic period. These long arcades
+break, as it were, into pieces, and coagulate into central and lateral
+windows, and small arched doors, pierced in great surfaces of brick
+wall. The sea story of a Byzantine palace consists of seven, nine, or
+more arches in a continuous line; but the sea story of a Gothic palace
+consists of a door and one or two windows on each side, as in a modern
+house. The first story of a Byzantine palace consists of, perhaps,
+eighteen or twenty arches, reaching from one side of the house to the
+other; the first story of a Gothic palace consists of a window of four
+or five lights in the centre, and one or two single windows on each
+side. The germ, however, of the Gothic arrangement is already found in
+the Byzantine, where, as we have seen, the arcades, though continuous,
+are always composed of a central mass and two wings of smaller arches.
+The central group becomes the door or the middle light of the Gothic
+palace, and the wings break into its lateral windows.
+
+Sec. VII. But the most essential difference in the entire arrangement,
+is the loss of the unity of conception which, regulated Byzantine
+composition. How subtle the sense of gradation which disposed the
+magnitudes of the early palaces we have seen already, but I have not
+hitherto noticed that the Byzantine work was centralized in its
+ornamentation as much as in its proportions. Not only were the lateral
+capitals and archivolts kept comparatively plain, while the central ones
+were sculptured, but the midmost piece of sculpture, whatever it might
+be,--capital, inlaid circle, or architrave,--was always made superior to
+the rest. In the Fondaco de' Turchi, for instance, the midmost capital
+of the upper arcade is the key to the whole group, larger and more
+studied than all the rest; and the lateral ones are so disposed as to
+answer each other on the opposite sides, thus, A being put for the
+central one,
+
+  F E B C +A+ C B E F,
+
+a sudden break of the system being admitted in one unique capital at the
+extremity of the series.
+
+Sec. VIII. Now, long after the Byzantine arcades had been contracted into
+windows, this system of centralization was more or less maintained; and
+in all the early groups of windows of five lights the midmost capital is
+different from the two on each side of it, which always correspond. So
+strictly is this the case, that whenever the capitals of any group of
+windows are not centralized in this manner, but are either entirely like
+each other, or all different, so as to show no correspondence, it is a
+certain proof, even if no other should exist, of the comparative
+lateness of the building.
+
+In every group of windows in Venice which I was able to examine, and
+which were centralized in this manner, I found evidence in their
+mouldings of their being _anterior_ to the Ducal Palace. That palace did
+away with the subtle proportion and centralization of the Byzantine. Its
+arches are of equal width, and its capitals are all different and
+ungrouped; some, indeed, are larger than the rest, but this is not for
+the sake of proportion, only for particular service when more weight is
+to be borne. But, among other evidences of the early date of the sea
+facade of that building, is one subtle and delicate concession to the
+system of centralization which is finally closed. The capitals of the
+upper arcade are, as I said, all different, and show no arranged
+correspondence with each other; but _the central one is of pure Parian
+marble_, while all the others are of Istrian stone.
+
+The bold decoration of the central window and balcony above, in the
+Ducal Palace, is only a peculiar expression of the principality of the
+central window, which was characteristic of the Gothic period not less
+than of the Byzantine. In the private palaces the central windows become
+of importance by their number of lights; in the Ducal Palace such an
+arrangement was, for various reasons, inconvenient, and the central
+window, which, so far from being more important than the others, is
+every way inferior in design to the two at the eastern extremity of the
+facade, was nevertheless made the leading feature by its noble canopy
+and balcony.
+
+Sec. IX. Such being the principal differences in the general conception
+of the Byzantine and Gothic palaces, the particulars in the treatment of
+the latter are easily stated. The marble facings are gradually removed
+from the walls; and the bare brick either stands forth confessed boldly,
+contrasted with the marble shafts and archivolts of the windows, or it
+is covered with stucco painted in fresco, of which more hereafter. The
+Ducal Palace, as in all other respects, is an exact expression of the
+middle point in the change. It still retains marble facing; but instead
+of being disposed in slabs as in the Byzantine times, it is applied in
+solid bricks or blocks of marble, 11-1/2 inches long, by 6 inches high.
+
+The stories of the Gothic palaces are divided by string courses,
+considerably bolder in projection than those of the Byzantines, and more
+highly decorated; and while the angles of the Byzantine palaces are
+quite sharp and pure, those of the Gothic palaces are wrought into a
+chamfer, filled by small twisted shafts which have capitals under the
+cornice of each story.
+
+Sec. X. These capitals are little observed in the general effect, but the
+shafts are of essential importance in giving an aspect of firmness to
+the angle; a point of peculiar necessity in Venice, where, owning to the
+various convolutions of the canals, the angles of the palaces are not
+only frequent, but often necessarily _acute_, every inch of ground being
+valuable. In other cities, the appearance as well as the assurance of
+stability can always be secured by the use of massy stones, as in the
+fortress palaces of Florence; but it must have been always desirable at
+Venice to build as lightly as possible, in consequence of the
+comparative insecurity of the foundations. The early palaces were, as we
+have seen, perfect models of grace and lightness, and the Gothic, which
+followed, though much more massive in the style of its details, never
+admitted more weight into its structure than was absolutely necessary
+for its strength, Hence, every Gothic palace has the appearance of
+enclosing as many rooms, and attaining as much strength, as is possible,
+with a minimum quantity of brick and stone. The traceries of the
+windows, which in Northern Gothic only support the _glass_, at Venice
+support the _building_; and thus the greater ponderousness of the
+_traceries_ is only an indication of the greater lightness of the
+_structure_. Hence, when the Renaissance architects give their opinions
+as to the stability of the Ducal Palace when injured by fire, one of
+them, Christofore Sorte, says, that he thinks it by no means laudable
+that the "Serenissimo Dominio" of the Venetian senate "should live in a
+palace built in the air."[77] And again, Andrea della Valle says,
+that[78] "the wall of the saloon is thicker by fifteen inches than the
+shafts below it, projecting nine inches within, and six without,
+_standing as if in the air_, above the piazza;"[79] and yet this wall is
+so nobly and strongly knit together, that Rusconi, though himself
+altogether devoted to the Renaissance school, declares that the fire
+which had destroyed the whole interior of the palace had done this wall
+no more harm than the bite of a fly to an elephant. "Troveremo che el
+danno che ha patito queste muraglie sara conforme alla beccatura d' una
+mosca fatta ad un elefante."[80]
+
+Sec. XI. And so in all the other palaces built at the time, consummate
+strength was joined with a lightness of form and sparingness of material
+which rendered it eminently desirable that the eye should be convinced,
+by every possible expedient, of the stability of the building; and these
+twisted pillars at the angles are not among the least important means
+adopted for this purpose, for they seem to bind the walls together as a
+cable binds a chest. In the Ducal Palace, where they are carried up the
+angle of an unbroken wall forty feet high, they are divided into
+portions, gradually diminishing in length towards the top, by circular
+bands or rings, set with the nail-head or dog-tooth ornament, vigorously
+projecting, and giving the column nearly the aspect of the stalk of a
+reed; its diminishing proportions being exactly arranged as they are by
+Nature in all jointed plants. At the top of the palace, like the
+wheat-stalk branching into the ear of corn, it expands into a small
+niche with a pointed canopy, which joins with the fantastic parapet in
+at once relieving, and yet making more notable by its contrast, the
+weight of massy wall below. The arrangement is seen in the woodcut,
+Chap. VIII.; the angle shafts being slightly exaggerated in thickness,
+together with their joints, as otherwise they would hardly have been
+intelligible on so small a scale.
+
+The Ducal Palace is peculiar in these niches at the angles, which
+throughout the rest of the city appear on churches only; but some may
+perhaps have been removed by restorations, together with the parapets
+with which they were associated.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXIII.]
+
+Sec. XII. Of these roof parapets of Venice, it has been already noticed
+that the examples which remain differ from those of all other cities of
+Italy in their purely ornamental character. (Chap. I. Sec. XII.) They are
+not battlements, properly so-called; still less machicolated cornices,
+such as crown the fortress palaces of the great mainland nobles; but
+merely adaptations of the light and crown-like ornaments which crest the
+walls of the Arabian mosque. Nor are even these generally used on the
+main walls of the palaces themselves. They occur on the Ducal Palace,
+on the Casa d' Oro, and, some years back, were still standing on the
+Fondaco de' Turchi; but the majority of the Gothic Palaces have the
+plain dog-tooth cornice under the tiled projecting roof (Vol. I. Chap.
+XIV. Sec. IV.); and the highly decorated parapet is employed only on the
+tops of walls which surround courts or gardens, and which, without such
+decoration, would have been utterly devoid of interest. Fig. XXIII.
+represents, at _b_, part of a parapet of this kind which surrounds the
+courtyard of a palace in the Calle del Bagatin, between San G.
+Grisostomo, and San Canzian: the whole is of brick, and the mouldings
+peculiarly sharp and varied; the height of each separate pinnacle being
+about four feet, crowning a wall twelve or fifteen feet high: a piece of
+the moulding which surrounds the quatrefoil is given larger in the
+figure at _a_, together with the top of the small arch below, having the
+common Venetian dentil round it, and a delicate little moulding with
+dog-tooth ornament to carry the flanks of the arch. The moulding of the
+brick is throughout sharp and beautiful in the highest degree. One of
+the most curious points about it is the careless way in which the curved
+outlines of the pinnacles are cut into the plain brickwork, with no
+regard whatever to the places of its joints. The weather of course wears
+the bricks at the exposed joints, and jags the outline a little; but the
+work has stood, evidently from the fourteenth century, without
+sustaining much harm.
+
+Sec. XIII. This parapet may be taken as a general type of the
+_wall_-parapet of Venice in the Gothic period; some being much less
+decorated, and others much more richly: the most beautiful in Venice is
+in the little Calle, opening on the Campo and Traghetto San Samuele; it
+has delicately carved devices in stone let into each pinnacle.
+
+The parapets of the palaces themselves were lighter and more fantastic,
+consisting of narrow lance-like spires of marble, set between the
+broader pinnacles, which were in such cases generally carved into the
+form of a fleur-de-lis: the French word gives the reader the best idea
+of the form, though he must remember that this use of the lily for the
+parapets has nothing to do with France, but is the carrying out of the
+Byzantine system of floral ornamentation, which introduced the outline
+of the lily everywhere; so that I have found it convenient to call its
+most beautiful capitals, the _lily_ capitals of St. Mark's. But the
+occurrence of this flower, more distinctly than usual, on the
+battlements of the Ducal Palace, was the cause of some curious political
+speculation in the year 1511, when a piece of one of these battlements
+was shaken down by the great earthquake of that year. Sanuto notes in
+his diary that "the piece that fell was just that which bore the lily,"
+and records sundry sinister anticipations, founded on this important
+omen, of impending danger to the adverse French power. As there happens,
+in the Ducal Palace, to be a joint in the pinnacles which exactly
+separates the "part which bears the lily" from that which is fastened to
+the cornice, it is no wonder that the omen proved fallacious.
+
+Sec. XIV. The decorations of the parapet were completed by attaching
+gilded balls of metal to the extremities of the leaves of the lilies, and
+of the intermediate spires, so as literally to form for the wall a diadem
+of silver touched upon the points with gold; the image being rendered
+still more distinct in the Casa d' Oro, by variation in the height of
+the pinnacles, the highest being in the centre of the front.
+
+Very few of these light roof parapets now remain; they are, of course,
+the part of the building which dilapidation first renders it necessary
+to remove. That of the Ducal Palace, however, though often, I doubt not,
+restored, retains much of the ancient form, and is exceedingly
+beautiful, though it has no appearance from below of being intended for
+protection, but serves only, by its extreme lightness, to relieve the
+eye when wearied by the breadth of wall beneath; it is nevertheless a
+most serviceable defence for any person walking along the edge of the
+roof. It has some appearance of insecurity, owing to the entire
+independence of the pieces of stone composing it, which, though of
+course fastened by iron, look as if they stood balanced on the cornice
+like the pillars of Stonehenge; but I have never heard of its having
+been disturbed by anything short of an earthquake; and, as we have
+seen, even the great earthquake of 1511, though it much injured the
+Gorne, or battlements at the Casa d' Oro, and threw down several statues
+at St. Mark's,[81] only shook one lily from the brow of the Ducal
+Palace.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXIV.]
+
+Sec. XV. Although, however, these light and fantastic forms appear to have
+been universal in the battlements meant primarily for decoration, there
+was another condition of parapet altogether constructed for the
+protection of persons walking on the roofs or in the galleries of the
+churches, and from these more substantial and simple defences, the
+BALCONIES, to which the Gothic palaces owe half of their picturesque
+effect, were immediately derived; the balcony being, in fact, nothing
+more than a portion of such roof parapets arranged round a projecting
+window-sill sustained on brackets, as in the central example of the
+annexed figure. We must, therefore, examine these defensive balustrades
+and the derivative balconies consecutively.
+
+Sec. XVI. Obviously, a parapet with an unbroken edge, upon which the arm
+may rest (a condition above noticed, Vol. I. p. 157., as essential to
+the proper performance of its duty), can be constructed only in one of
+three ways. It must either be (1) of solid stone, decorated, if at all,
+by mere surface sculpture, as in the uppermost example in Fig. XXIV.,
+above; or (2) pierced into some kind of tracery, as in the second; or
+(3) composed of small pillars carrying a level bar of stone, as in the
+third; this last condition being, in a diseased and swollen form,
+familiar to us in the balustrades of our bridges.[82]
+
+Sec. XVII. (1.) Of these three kinds, the first, which is employed for the
+pulpit at Torcello and in the nave of St. Mark's, whence the uppermost
+example is taken, is beautiful when sculpture so rich can be employed
+upon it; but it is liable to objection, first, because it is heavy and
+unlike a parapet when seen from below; and, secondly, because it is
+inconvenient in use. The position of leaning over a balcony becomes
+cramped and painful if long continued, unless the foot can be sometimes
+advanced _beneath_ the ledge on which the arm leans, i. e. between the
+balusters or traceries, which of course cannot be done in the solid
+parapet: it is also more agreeable to be able to see partially down
+through the penetrations, than to be obliged to lean far over the edge.
+The solid parapet was rarely used in Venice after the earlier ages.
+
+Sec. XVIII. (2.) The Traceried Parapet is chiefly used in the Gothic of
+the North, from which the above example, in the Casa Contarini Fasan, is
+directly derived. It is, when well designed, the richest and most
+beautiful of all forms, and many of the best buildings of France and
+Germany are dependent for half their effect upon it; its only fault
+being a slight tendency to fantasticism. It was never frankly received
+in Venice, where the architects had unfortunately returned to the
+Renaissance forms before the flamboyant parapets were fully developed in
+the North; but, in the early stage of the Renaissance, a kind of pierced
+parapet was employed, founded on the old Byzantine interwoven
+traceries; that is to say, the slab of stone was pierced here and there
+with holes, and then an interwoven pattern traced on the surface round
+them. The difference in system will be understood in a moment by
+comparing the uppermost example in the figure at the side, which is a
+Northern parapet from the Cathedral of Abbeville, with the lowest, from
+a secret chamber in the Casa Foscari. It will be seen that the Venetian
+one is far more simple and severe, yet singularly piquant, the black
+penetrations telling sharply on the plain broad surface. Far inferior in
+beauty, it has yet one point of superiority to that of Abbeville, that
+it proclaims itself more definitely to be stone. The other has rather
+the look of lace.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXV.]
+
+The intermediate figure is a panel of the main balcony of the Ducal
+Palace, and is introduced here as being an exactly transitional
+condition between the Northern and Venetian types. It was built when the
+German Gothic workmen were exercising considerable influence over those
+in Venice, and there was some chance of the Northern parapet introducing
+itself. It actually did so, as above shown, in the Casa Contarini Fasan,
+but was for the most part stoutly resisted and kept at bay by the
+Byzantine form, the lowest in the last figure, until that form itself
+was displaced by the common, vulgar, Renaissance baluster; a grievous
+loss, for the severe pierced type was capable of a variety as endless as
+the fantasticism of our own Anglo-Saxon manuscript ornamentation.
+
+Sec. XIX. (3.) The Baluster Parapet. Long before the idea of tracery
+had suggested itself to the minds either of Venetian or any other
+architects, it had, of course, been necessary to provide protection for
+galleries, edges of roofs, &c.; and the most natural form in which such
+protection could be obtained was that of a horizontal bar or hand-rail,
+sustained upon short shafts or balusters, as in Fig. XXIV. p. 243. This
+form was, above all others, likely to be adopted where variations of
+Greek or Roman pillared architecture were universal in the larger masses
+of the building; the parapet became itself a small series of columns,
+with capitals and architraves; and whether the cross-bar laid upon them
+should be simply horizontal, and in contact with their capitals, or
+sustained by mimic arches, round or pointed, depended entirely on the
+system adopted in the rest of the work. Where the large arches were
+round, the small balustrade arches would be so likewise; where those
+were pointed, these would become so in sympathy with them.
+
+Sec. XX. Unfortunately, wherever a balcony or parapet is used in an
+inhabited house, it is, of course, the part of the structure which first
+suffers from dilapidation, as well as that of which the security is most
+anxiously cared for. The main pillars of a casement may stand for
+centuries unshaken under the steady weight of the superincumbent wall,
+but the cement and various insetting of the balconies are sure to be
+disturbed by the irregular pressures and impulses of the persons leaning
+on them; while, whatever extremity of decay may be allowed in other
+parts of the building, the balcony, as soon as it seems dangerous, will
+assuredly be removed or restored. The reader will not, if he considers
+this, be surprised to hear that, among all the remnants of the Venetian
+domestic architecture of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
+centuries, there is not a single instance of the original balconies
+being preserved. The palace mentioned below (Sec. XXXII.), in the piazza
+of the Rialto, has, indeed, solid slabs of stone between its shafts, but I
+cannot be certain that they are of the same period; if they are, this is
+the only existing example of the form of protection employed for
+casements during this transitional period, and it cannot be reasoned
+from as being the general one.
+
+Sec. XXI. It is only, therefore, in the churches of Torcello, Murano, and
+St. Mark's, that the ancient forms of gallery defence may still be seen.
+At Murano, between the pillars of the apse, a beautiful balustrade is
+employed, of which a single arch is given in the Plate opposite, fig. 4,
+with its section, fig. 5.; and at St. Mark's, a noble round-arched
+parapet, with small pillars of precisely the same form as those of
+Murano, but shorter, and bound at the angles into groups of four by the
+serpentine knot so often occurring in Lombardic work, runs round the
+whole exterior of the lower story of the church, and round great part of
+its interior galleries, alternating with the more fantastic form, fig.
+6. In domestic architecture, the remains of the original balconies begin
+to occur first in the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the
+round arch had entirely disappeared; and the parapet consists, almost
+without exception, of a series of small trefoiled arches, cut boldly
+through a bar of stone which rests upon the shafts, at first very
+simple, and generally adorned with a cross at the point of each arch, as
+in fig. 7 in the last Plate, which gives the angle of such a balcony on
+a large scale; but soon enriched into the beautiful conditions, figs. 2
+and 3, and sustained on brackets formed of lions' heads, as seen in the
+central example of their entire effect, fig. 1.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XIII.
+               BALCONIES.]
+
+Sec. XXII. In later periods, the round arches return; then the interwoven
+Byzantine form; and finally, as above noticed, the common English or
+classical balustrade; of which, however, exquisite examples, for grace
+and variety of outline, are found designed in the backgrounds of Paul
+Veronese. I could willingly follow out this subject fully, but it is
+impossible to do so without leaving Venice; for the chief city of Italy,
+as far as regards the strict effect of the balcony, is Verona; and if we
+were once to lose ourselves among the sweet shadows of its lonely
+streets, where the falling branches of the flowers stream like fountains
+through the pierced traceries of the marble, there is no saying whether
+we might soon be able to return to our immediate work. Yet before
+leaving the subject of the balcony[83] altogether, I must allude, for a
+moment, to the peculiar treatment of the iron-work out of which it is
+frequently wrought on the mainland of Italy--never in Venice. The iron
+is always wrought, not cast, beaten first into thin leaves, and then cut
+either into strips or bands, two or three inches broad, which are bent
+into various curves to form the sides of the balcony, or else into
+actual leafage, sweeping and free, like the leaves of nature, with which
+it is richly decorated. There is no end to the variety of design, no
+limit to the lightness and flow of the forms, which the workman can
+produce out of iron treated in this manner; and it is very nearly as
+impossible for any metal-work, so handled, to be poor, or ignoble in
+effect, as it is for cast metal-work to be otherwise.
+
+Sec. XXIII. We have next to examine those features of the Gothic palaces
+in which the transitions of their architecture are most distinctly
+traceable; namely, the arches of the windows and doors.
+
+It has already been repeatedly stated, that the Gothic style had formed
+itself completely on the mainland, while the Byzantines still retained
+their influence at Venice; and that the history of early Venetian Gothic
+is therefore not that of a school taking new forms independently of
+external influence, but the history of the struggle of the Byzantine
+manner with a contemporary style quite as perfectly organized as itself,
+and far more energetic. And this struggle is exhibited partly in the
+gradual change of the Byzantine architecture into other forms, and
+partly by isolated examples of genuine Gothic taken prisoner, as it
+were, in the contest; or rather entangled among the enemy's forces, and
+maintaining their ground till their friends came up to sustain them. Let
+us first follow the steps of the gradual change, and then give some
+brief account of the various advanced guards and forlorn hopes of the
+Gothic attacking force.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XIV.
+               THE ORDERS OF VENETIAN ARCHES.]
+
+Sec. XXIV. The uppermost shaded series of six forms of windows in Plate
+XIV., opposite, represents, at a glance, the modifications of this
+feature in Venetian palaces, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century.
+Fig. 1 is Byzantine, of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; figs. 2
+and 3 transitional, of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries;
+figs. 4 and 5 pure Gothic, of the thirteenth, fourteenth and early
+fifteenth; and fig. 6. late Gothic, of the fifteenth century,
+distinguished by its added finial. Fig. 4 is the longest-lived of all
+these forms: it occurs first in the thirteenth century; and, sustaining
+modifications only in its mouldings, is found also in the middle of the
+fifteenth.
+
+I shall call these the six orders[84] of Venetian windows, and when I
+speak of a window of the fourth, second, or sixth order, the reader will
+only have to refer to the numerals at the top of Plate XIV.
+
+Then the series below shows the principal forms found in each period,
+belonging to each several order; except 1 _b_ to 1 _c_, and the two
+lower series, numbered 7 to 16, which are types of Venetian doors.
+
+Sec. XXV. We shall now be able, without any difficulty, to follow the
+course of transition, beginning with the first order, 1 and 1 _a_, in
+the second row. The horse-shoe arch, 1 _b_, is the door-head commonly
+associated with it, and the other three in the same row occur in St.
+Mark's exclusively; 1 _c_ being used in the nave, in order to give a
+greater appearance of lightness to its great lateral arcades, which at
+first the spectator supposes to be round-arched, but he is struck by a
+peculiar grace and elasticity in the curves for which he is unable to
+account, until he ascends into the galleries whence the true form of the
+arch is discernible. The other two--1 _d_, from the door of the
+southern transept, and 1 _c_, from that of the treasury,--sufficiently
+represent a group of fantastic forms derived from the Arabs, and of
+which the exquisite decoration is one of the most important features in
+St. Mark's. Their form is indeed permitted merely to obtain more fantasy
+in the curves of this decoration.[85] The reader can see in a moment,
+that, as pieces of masonry, or bearing arches, they are infirm or
+useless, and therefore never could be employed in any building in which
+dignity of structure was the primal object. It is just because structure
+is _not_ the primal object in St. Mark's, because it has no severe
+weights to bear, and much loveliness of marble and sculpture to exhibit,
+that they are therein allowable. They are of course, like the rest of
+the building, built of brick and faced with marble, and their inner
+masonry, which must be very ingenious, is therefore not discernible.
+They have settled a little, as might have been expected, and the
+consequence is, that there is in every one of them, except the upright
+arch of the treasury, a small fissure across the marble of the flanks.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXVI.]
+
+Sec. XXVI. Though, however, the Venetian builders adopted these Arabian
+forms of arch where grace of ornamentation was their only purpose, they
+saw that such arrangements were unfit for ordinary work; and there is no
+instance, I believe, in Venice, of their having used any of them for a
+dwelling-house in the truly Byzantine period. But so soon as the Gothic
+influence began to be felt, and the pointed arch forced itself upon
+them, their first concession to its attack was the adoption, in
+preference to the round arch, of the form 3 _a_ (Plate XIV., above); the
+point of the Gothic arch forcing itself up, as it were, through the top
+of the semicircle which it was soon to supersede.
+
+Sec. XXVII. The woodcut above, Fig. XXVI., represents the door and two of
+the lateral windows of a house in the Corte del Remer, facing the Grand
+Canal, in the parish of the Apostoli. It is remarkable as having its
+great entrance on the first floor, attained by a bold flight of steps,
+sustained on pure _pointed_ arches wrought in brick. I cannot tell if
+these arches are contemporary with the building, though it must always
+have had an access of the kind. The rest of its aspect is Byzantine,
+except only that the rich sculptures of its archivolt show in combats of
+animals, beneath the soffit, a beginning of the Gothic fire and energy.
+The moulding of its plinth is of a Gothic profile,[86] and the windows
+are pointed, not with a reversed curve, but in a pure straight gable,
+very curiously contrasted with the delicate bending of the pieces of
+marble armor cut for the shoulders of each arch. There is a two-lighted
+window, such as that seen in the vignette, on each side of the door,
+sustained in the centre by a basket-worked Byzantine capital: the mode
+of covering the brick archivolt with marble, both in the windows and
+doorway, is precisely like that of the true Byzantine palaces.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXVII.]
+
+Sec. XXVIII. But as, even on a small scale, these arches are weak, if
+executed in brickwork, the appearance of this sharp point in the outline
+was rapidly accompanied by a parallel change in the method of building;
+and instead of constructing the arch of brick and coating it with
+marble, the builders formed it of three pieces of hewn stone inserted
+in the wall, as in Fig. XXVII. Not, however, at first in this perfect
+form. The endeavor to reconcile the grace of the reversed arch with the
+strength of the round one, and still to build in brick, ended at first
+in conditions such as that represented at _a_, Fig. XXVIII., which is a
+window in the Calle del Pistor, close to the church of the Apostoli, a
+very interesting and perfect example. Here, observe, the poor round arch
+is still kept to do all the hard work, and the fantastic ogee takes its
+pleasure above, in the form of a moulding merely, a chain of bricks cast
+to the required curve. And this condition, translated into stone-work,
+becomes a window of the second order (_b_5, Fig. XXVIII., or 2, in Plate
+XIV.); a form perfectly strong and serviceable, and of immense
+importance in the transitional architecture of Venice.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXVIII.]
+
+Sec. XXIX. At _b_, Fig. XXVIII., as above, is given one of the earliest
+and simplest occurrences of the second order window (in a double group,
+exactly like the brick transitional form _a_), from a most important
+fragment of a defaced house in the Salizzada San Lio, close to the
+Merceria. It is associated with a fine _pointed_ brick arch,
+indisputably of contemporary work, towards the close of the thirteenth
+century, and it is shown to be later than the previous example, _a_, by
+the greater developement of its mouldings. The archivolt profile,
+indeed, is the simpler of the two, not having the sub-arch; as in the
+brick example; but the other mouldings are far more developed. Fig.
+XXIX. shows at 1 the arch profiles, at 2 the capital profiles, at 3 the
+basic-plinth profiles, of each window, _a_ and _b_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXIX.]
+
+Sec. XXX. But the second order window soon attained nobler developement.
+At once simple, graceful, and strong, it was received into all the
+architecture of the period, and there is hardly a street in Venice which
+does not exhibit some important remains of palaces built with this form
+of window in many stories, and in numerous groups. The most extensive
+and perfect is one upon the Grand Canal in the parish of the Apostoli,
+near the Rialto, covered with rich decoration, in the Byzantine manner,
+between the windows of its first story; but not completely
+characteristic of the transitional period, because still retaining the
+dentil in the arch mouldings, while the transitional houses all have the
+simple roll. Of the fully established type, one of the most extensive
+and perfect examples is in a court in the Calle di Rimedio, close to the
+Ponte dell' Angelo, near St. Mark's Place. Another looks out upon a
+small square garden, one of the few visible in the centre of Venice,
+close by the Corte Salviati (the latter being known to every cicerone as
+that from which Bianca Capello fled). But, on the whole, the most
+interesting to the traveller is that of which I have given a vignette
+opposite.
+
+But for this range of windows, the little piazza SS. Apostoli would be
+one of the least picturesque in Venice; to those, however, who seek it
+on foot, it becomes geographically interesting from the extraordinary
+involution of the alleys leading to it from the Rialto. In Venice, the
+straight road is usually by water, and the long road by land; but the
+difference of distance appears, in this case, altogether inexplicable.
+Twenty or thirty strokes of the oar will bring a gondola from the foot
+of the Rialto to that of the Ponte SS. Apostoli; but the unwise
+pedestrian, who has not noticed the white clue beneath his feet,[87] may
+think himself fortunate, if, after a quarter of an hour's wandering
+among the houses behind the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, he finds himself
+anywhere in the neighborhood of the point he seeks. With much patience,
+however, and modest following of the guidance of the marble thread, he
+will at last emerge over a steep bridge into the open space of the
+Piazza, rendered cheerful in autumn by a perpetual market of
+pomegranates, and purple gourds, like enormous black figs; while the
+canal, at its extremity, is half-blocked up by barges laden with vast
+baskets of grapes as black as charcoal, thatched over with their own
+leaves.
+
+Looking back, on the other side of this canal, he will see the windows
+represented in Plate XV., which, with the arcade of pointed arches
+beneath them, are the remains of the palace once belonging to the
+unhappy doge, Marino Faliero.
+
+The balcony is, of course, modern, and the series of windows has been of
+greater extent, once terminated by a pilaster on the left hand, as well
+as on the right; but the terminal arches have been walled up. What
+remains, however, is enough, with its sculptured birds and dragons, to
+give the reader a very distinct idea of the second order window in its
+perfect form. The details of the capitals, and other minor portions, if
+these interest him, he will find given in the final Appendix.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XV.
+               WINDOWS OF THE SECOND ORDER.
+               CASA FALIER.]
+
+Sec. XXXI. The advance of the Gothic spirit was, for a few years, checked
+by this compromise between the round and pointed arch. The truce,
+however, was at last broken, in consequence of the discovery that the
+keystone would do duty quite as well in the form _b_ as in the form _a_,
+Fig. XXX., and the substitution of _b_, at the head of the arch, gives
+us the window of the third order, 3 _b_, 3 _d_, and 3 _e_, in Plate XIV.
+The forms 3 _a_ and 3 _c_ are exceptional; the first occurring, as we
+have seen, in the Corte del Remer, and in one other palace on the Grand
+Canal, close to the Church of St. Eustachio; the second only, as far as
+I know, in one house on the Canna-Reggio, belonging to the true Gothic
+period. The other three examples, 3 _b_, 3 _d_, 3 _e_, are generally
+characteristic of the third order; and it will be observed that they
+differ not merely in mouldings, but in slope of sides, and this latter
+difference is by far the most material. For in the example 3 _b_ there
+is hardly any true Gothic expression; it is still the pure Byzantine
+arch, with a point thrust up through it: but the moment the flanks
+slope, as in 3 _d_, the Gothic expression is definite, and the entire
+school of the architecture is changed.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXX.]
+
+This slope of the flanks occurs, first, in so slight a degree as to be
+hardly perceptible, and gradually increases until, reaching the form 3
+_e_ at the close of the thirteenth century, the window is perfectly
+prepared for a transition into the fifth order.
+
+Sec. XXXII. The most perfect examples of the third order in Venice are
+the windows of the ruined palace of Marco Querini, the father-in-law of
+Bajamonte Tiepolo, in consequence of whose conspiracy against the
+government this palace was ordered to be razed in 1310; but it was only
+partially ruined, and was afterwards used as the common shambles. The
+Venetians have now made a poultry market of the lower story (the
+shambles being removed to a suburb), and a prison of the upper, though
+it is one of the most important and interesting monuments in the city,
+and especially valuable as giving us a secure date for the central form
+of these very rare transitional windows. For, as it was the palace of
+the father-in-law of Bajamonte, and the latter was old enough to assume
+the leadership of a political faction in 1280,[88] the date of the
+accession to the throne of the Doge Pietro Gradenigo, we are secure of
+this palace having been built not later than the middle of the
+thirteenth century. Another example, less refined in workmanship, but,
+if possible, still more interesting, owing to the variety of its
+capitals, remains in the little piazza opening to the Rialto, on the St.
+Mark's side of the Grand Canal. The house faces the bridge, and its
+second story has been built in the thirteenth century, above a still
+earlier Byzantine cornice remaining, or perhaps introduced from some
+other ruined edifice, in the walls of the first floor. The windows of
+the second story are of pure third order; four of them are represented
+above, with their flanking pilaster, and capitals varying constantly in
+the form of the flower or leaf introduced between their volutes.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXI.]
+
+Sec. XXXIII. Another most important example exists in the lower story of
+the Casa Sagredo, on the Grand Canal, remarkable as having the early
+upright form (3 _b_, Plate XIV.) with a somewhat late moulding. Many
+others occur in the fragmentary ruins in the streets: but the two
+boldest conditions which I found in Venice are those of the
+Chapter-House of the Frari, in which the Doge Francesco Dandolo was
+buried circa 1339; and those of the flank of the Ducal Palace itself
+absolutely corresponding with those of the Frari, and therefore of
+inestimable value in determining the date of the palace. Of these more
+hereafter.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XVI.
+               WINDOWS OF THE FOURTH ORDER.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXII.]
+
+Sec. XXXIV. Contemporarily with these windows of the second and third
+orders, those of the fourth (4 _a_ and 4 _b_, in Plate XIV.) occur, at
+first in pairs, and with simple mouldings, precisely similar to those of
+the second order, but much more rare, as in the example at the side,
+Fig. XXXII., from the Salizada San Lio; and then, enriching their
+mouldings as shown in the continuous series 4 _c_, 4 _d_, of Plate XIV.,
+associate themselves with the fifth order windows of the perfect Gothic
+period. There is hardly a palace in Venice without some example, either
+early or late, of these fourth order windows; but the Plate opposite
+(XVI.) represents one of their purest groups at the close of the
+thirteenth century, from a house on the Grand Canal, nearly opposite the
+Church of the Scalzi. I have drawn it from the side, in order that the
+great depth of the arches may be seen, and the clear detaching of the
+shafts from the sheets of glass behind. The latter, as well as the
+balcony, are comparatively modern; but there is no doubt that if glass
+were used in the old window, it was set behind the shafts, at the same
+depth. The entire modification of the interiors of all the Venetian
+houses by recent work has however prevented me from entering into any
+inquiry as to the manner in which the ancient glazing was attached to
+the interiors of the windows.
+
+The fourth order window is found in great richness and beauty at Verona,
+down to the latest Gothic times, as well as in the earliest, being then
+more frequent than any other form. It occurs, on a grand scale, in the
+old palace of the Scaligers, and profusely throughout the streets of the
+city. The series 4 _a_ to 4 _e_, Plate XIV., shows its most ordinary
+conditions and changes of arch-line: 4 _a_ and 4 _b_ are the early
+Venetian forms; 4 _c_, later, is general at Venice; 4 _d_, the best and
+most piquant condition, owing to its fantastic and bold projection of
+cusp, is common to Venice and Verona; 4 _e_ is early Veronese.
+
+Sec. XXXV. The reader will see at once, in descending to the fifth row in
+Plate XIV., representing the windows of the fifth order, that they are
+nothing more than a combination of the third and fourth. By this union
+they become the nearest approximation to a perfect Gothic form which
+occurs characteristically at Venice; and we shall therefore pause on the
+threshold of this final change, to glance back upon, and gather
+together, those fragments of purer pointed architecture which were above
+noticed as the forlorn hopes of the Gothic assault.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXIII.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXIV.]
+
+The little Campiello San Rocco is entered by a sotto-portico behind the
+church of the Frari. Looking back, the upper traceries of the
+magnificent apse are seen towering above the irregular roofs and
+chimneys of the little square; and our lost Prout was enabled to bring
+the whole subject into an exquisitely picturesque composition, by the
+fortunate occurrence of four quaint trefoiled windows in one of the
+houses on the right. Those trefoils are among the most ancient efforts
+of Gothic art in Venice. I have given a rude sketch of them in Fig.
+XXXIII. They are built entirely of brick, except the central shaft
+and capital, which are of Istrian stone. Their structure is the simplest
+possible; the trefoils being cut out of the radiating bricks which form
+the pointed arch, and the edge or upper limit of that pointed arch
+indicated by a roll moulding formed of cast bricks, in length of about a
+foot, and ground at the bottom so as to meet in one, as in Fig. XXXIV.
+The capital of the shaft is one of the earliest transitional forms;[89]
+and observe the curious following out, even in this minor instance, of
+the great law of centralization above explained with respect to the
+Byzantine palaces. There is a central shaft, a pilaster on each side,
+and then the wall. The pilaster has, by way of capital, a square flat
+brick, projecting a little, and cast, at the edge, into the form of the
+first type of all cornices (_a_, p. 63, Vol. I.; the reader ought to
+glance back at this passage, if he has forgotten it); and the shafts and
+pilasters all stand, without any added bases, on a projecting plinth of
+the same simple profile. These windows have been much defaced; but I
+have not the least doubt that their plinths are the original ones: and
+the whole group is one of the most valuable in Venice, as showing the
+way in which the humblest houses, in the noble times, followed out the
+system of the larger palaces, as far as they could, in their rude
+materials. It is not often that the dwellings of the lower orders are
+preserved to us from the thirteenth century.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XVII.
+               WINDOWS OF THE EARLY GOTHIC PALACES.]
+
+Sec. XXXVI. In the two upper lines of the opposite Plate (XVII.), I have
+arranged some of the more delicate and finished examples of Gothic work
+of this period. Of these, fig. 4 is taken from the outer arcade of San
+Fermo of Verona, to show the condition of mainland architecture, from
+which all these Venetian types were borrowed. This arch, together with
+the rest of the arcade, is wrought in fine stone, with a band of inlaid
+red brick, the whole chiselled and fitted with exquisite precision, all
+Venetian work being coarse in comparison. Throughout the streets of
+Verona, arches and windows of the thirteenth century are of continual
+occurrence, wrought, in this manner, with brick and stone; sometimes
+the brick alternating with the stones of the arch, as in the finished
+example given in Plate XIX. of the first volume, and there selected in
+preference to other examples of archivolt decoration, because furnishing
+a complete type of the master school from which the Venetian Gothic is
+derived.
+
+Sec. XXXVII. The arch from St. Fermo, however, fig. 4, Plate XVII.,
+corresponds more closely, in its entire simplicity, with the little
+windows from the Campiello San Rocco; and with the type 5 set beside it
+in Plate XVII., from a very ancient house in the Corte del Forno at
+Santa Marina (all in brick); while the upper examples, 1 and 2, show the
+use of the flat but highly enriched architrave, for the connection of
+which with Byzantine work see the final Appendix, Vol. III., under the
+head "Archivolt." These windows (figs. 1 and 2, Plate XVII.) are from a
+narrow alley in a part of Venice now exclusively inhabited by the lower
+orders, close to the arsenal;[90] they are entirely wrought in brick,
+with exquisite mouldings, not cast, but _moulded in the clay by the
+hand_, so that there is not one piece of the arch like another; the
+pilasters and shafts being, as usual, of stone.
+
+Sec. XXXVIII. And here let me pause for a moment, to note what one should
+have thought was well enough known in England,--yet I could not perhaps
+touch upon anything less considered,--the real use of brick. Our fields
+of good clay were never given us to be made into oblong morsels of one
+size. They were given us that we might play with them, and that men who
+could not handle a chisel, might knead out of them some expression of
+human thought. In the ancient architecture of the clay districts of
+Italy, every possible adaptation of the material is found exemplified:
+from the coarsest and most brittle kinds, used in the mass of the
+structure, to bricks for arches and plinths, cast in the most perfect
+curves, and of almost every size, strength, and hardness; and moulded
+bricks, wrought into flower-work and tracery as fine as raised patterns
+upon china. And, just as many of the finest works of the Italian
+sculptors were executed in porcelain, many of the best thoughts of their
+architects are expressed in brick, or in the softer material of terra
+cotta; and if this were so in Italy, where there is not one city from
+whose towers we may not descry the blue outline of Alp or Apennine,
+everlasting quarries of granite or marble, how much more ought it to be
+so among the fields of England! I believe that the best academy for her
+architects, for some half century to come, would be the brick-field; for
+of this they may rest assured, that till they know how to use clay, they
+will never know how to use marble.
+
+Sec. XXXIX. And now observe, as we pass from fig. 2 to fig. 3, and from
+fig. 5 to fig. 6, in Plate XVII., a most interesting step of transition.
+As we saw above, Sec. XIV., the round arch yielding to the Gothic, by
+allowing a point to emerge at its summit, so here we have the Gothic
+conceding something to the form which had been assumed by the round; and
+itself slightly altering its outline so as to meet the condescension of
+the round arch half way. At page 137 of the first volume, I have drawn
+to scale one of these minute concessions of the pointed arch, granted at
+Verona out of pure courtesy to the Venetian forms, by one of the purest
+Gothic ornaments in the world; and the small window here, fig. 6, is a
+similar example at Venice itself, from the Campo Santa Maria Mater
+Domini, where the reversed curve at the head of the pointed arch is just
+perceptible and no more. The other examples, figs. 3 and 7, the first
+from a small but very noble house in the Merceria, the second from an
+isolated palace at Murano, show more advanced conditions of the reversed
+curve, which, though still employing the broad decorated architrave of
+the earlier examples, are in all other respects prepared for the
+transition to the simple window of the fifth order.
+
+Sec. XL. The next example, the uppermost of the three lower series in
+Plate XVII., shows this order in its early purity; associated with
+intermediate decorations like those of the Byzantines, from a palace
+once belonging to the Erizzo family, near the Arsenal. The ornaments
+appear to be actually of Greek workmanship (except, perhaps, the two
+birds over the central arch, which are bolder, and more free in
+treatment), and built into the Gothic fronts; showing, however, the
+early date of the whole by the manner of their insertion, corresponding
+exactly with that employed in the Byzantine palaces, and by the covering
+of the intermediate spaces with sheets of marble, which, however,
+instead of being laid over the entire wall, are now confined to the
+immediate spaces between and above the windows, and are bounded by a
+dentil moulding.
+
+In the example below this the Byzantine ornamentation has vanished, and
+the fifth order window is seen in its generic form, as commonly employed
+throughout the early Gothic period. Such arcades are of perpetual
+occurrence; the one in the Plate was taken from a small palace on the
+Grand Canal, nearly opposite the Casa Foscari. One point in it deserves
+especial notice, the increased size of the lateral window as compared
+with the rest: a circumstance which occurs in a great number of the
+groups of windows belonging to this period, and for which I have never
+been able to account.
+
+Sec. XLI. Both these figures have been most carefully engraved; and the
+uppermost will give the reader a perfectly faithful idea of the general
+effect of the Byzantine sculptures, and of the varied alabaster among
+which they are inlaid, as well as of the manner in which these pieces
+are set together, every joint having been drawn on the spot: and the
+transition from the embroidered and silvery richness of this
+architecture, in which the Byzantine ornamentation was associated with
+the Gothic form of arch, to the simplicity of the pure Gothic arcade as
+seen in the lower figure, is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the
+history of Venetian art. If it had occurred suddenly, and at an earlier
+period, it might have been traced partly to the hatred of the Greeks,
+consequent upon the treachery of Manuel Comnenus,[91] and the fatal war
+to which it led; but the change takes place gradually, and not till a
+much later period. I hoped to have been able to make some careful
+inquiries into the habits of domestic life of the Venetians before and
+after the dissolution of their friendly relations with Constantinople;
+but the labor necessary for the execution of my more immediate task has
+entirely prevented this: and I must be content to lay the succession of
+the architectural styles plainly before the reader, and leave the
+collateral questions to the investigation of others; merely noting this
+one assured fact, that _the root of all that is greatest in Christian
+art is struck in the thirteenth century_; that the temper of that
+century is the life-blood of all manly work thenceforward in Europe; and
+I suppose that one of its peculiar characteristics was elsewhere, as
+assuredly in Florence, a singular simplicity in domestic life:
+
+  "I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad
+   In leathern girdle, and a clasp of bone;
+   And, with no artful coloring on her cheeks,
+   His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw
+   Of Verli and of Vecchio, well content
+   With unrobed jerkin, and their good dames handling
+   The spindle and the flax....
+   One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it
+   With sounds that lulled the parents' infancy;
+   Another, with her maidens, drawing off
+   The tresses from the distaff, lectured them
+   Old tales of Troy, and Fesole, and Rome."[92]
+
+Sec. XLII. Such, then, is the simple fact at Venice, that from the
+beginning of the thirteenth century there is found a singular increase
+of simplicity in all architectural ornamentation; the rich Byzantine
+capitals giving place to a pure and severe type hereafter to be
+described,[93] and the rich sculptures vanishing from the walls, nothing
+but the marble facing remaining. One of the most interesting examples of
+this transitional state is a palace at San Severo, just behind the Casa
+Zorzi. This latter is a Renaissance building, utterly worthless in every
+respect, but known to the Venetian Ciceroni; and by inquiring for it,
+and passing a little beyond it down the Fondamenta San Severo, the
+traveller will see, on the other side of the canal, a palace which the
+Ciceroni never notice, but which is unique in Venice for the
+magnificence of the veined purple alabasters with which it has been
+decorated, and for the manly simplicity of the foliage of its capitals.
+Except in these, it has no sculpture whatever, and its effect is
+dependent entirely on color. Disks of green serpentine are inlaid on the
+field of purple alabaster; and the pillars are alternately of red marble
+with white capitals, and of white marble with red capitals. Its windows
+appear of the third order; and the back of the palace, in a small and
+most picturesque court, shows a group of windows which are, perhaps, the
+most superb examples of that order in Venice. But the windows to the
+front have, I think, been of the fifth order, and their cusps have been
+cut away.
+
+Sec. XLIII. When the Gothic feeling began more decidedly to establish
+itself, it evidently became a question with the Venetian builders, how
+the intervals between the arches, now left blank by the abandonment of
+the Byzantine sculptures, should be enriched in accordance with the
+principles of the new school. Two most important examples are left of
+the experiments made at this period: one at the Ponte del Forner, at San
+Cassano, a noble house in which the spandrils of the windows are filled
+by the emblems of the four Evangelists, sculptured in deep relief, and
+touching the edges of the arches with their expanded wings; the other
+now known as the Palazzo Cicogna, near the church of San Sebastiano, in
+the quarter called "of the Archangel Raphael," in which a large space of
+wall above the windows is occupied by an intricate but rude tracery of
+involved quatrefoils. Of both these palaces I purposed to give drawings
+in my folio work; but I shall probably be saved the trouble by the
+publication of the beautiful calotypes lately made at Venice of both;
+and it is unnecessary to represent them here, as they are unique in
+Venetian architecture, with the single exception of an unimportant
+imitation of the first of them in a little by-street close to the Campo
+Sta. Maria Formosa. For the question as to the mode of decorating the
+interval between the arches was suddenly and irrevocably determined by
+the builder of the Ducal Palace, who, as we have seen, taking his first
+idea from the traceries of the Frari, and arranging those traceries as
+best fitted his own purpose, designed the great arcade (the lowest of
+the three in Plate XVII.), which thenceforward became the established
+model for every work of importance in Venice. The palaces built on this
+model, however, most of them not till the beginning of the fifteenth
+century, belong properly to the time of the Renaissance; and what little
+we have to note respecting them may be more clearly stated in connexion
+with other facts characteristic of that period.
+
+Sec. XLIV. As the examples in Plate XVII. are necessarily confined to
+the upper parts of the windows, I have given in the Plate opposite
+(XVIII[94]) examples of the fifth order window, both in its earliest and
+in its fully developed form, completed from base to keystone. The upper
+example is a beautiful group from a small house, never of any size or
+pretension, and now inhabited only by the poor, in the Campiello della
+Strope, close to the Church of San Giacomo de Lorio. It is remarkable
+for its excessive purity of curve, and is of very early date, its
+mouldings being simpler than usual.[95] The lower example is from the
+second story of a palace belonging to the Priuli family, near San
+Lorenzo, and shows one feature to which our attention has not hitherto
+been directed, namely, the penetration of the cusp, leaving only a
+silver thread of stone traced on the darkness of the window. I need not
+say that, in this condition, the cusp ceases to have any constructive
+use, and is merely decorative, but often exceedingly beautiful. The
+steps of transition from the early solid cusp to this slender thread are
+noticed in the final Appendix, under the head "Tracery Bars;" the
+commencement of the change being in the thinning of the stone, which is
+not cut through until it is thoroughly emaciated. Generally speaking,
+the condition in which the cusp is found is a useful test of age, when
+compared with other points; the more solid it is, the more ancient: but
+the massive form is often found associated with the perforated, as late
+as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In the Ducal Palace, the
+lower or bearing traceries have the solid cusp, and the upper traceries
+of the windows, which are merely decorative., have the perforated cusp,
+both with exquisite effect.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XVIII.
+               WINDOWS OF THE FIFTH ORDER.]
+
+Sec. XLV. The smaller balconies between the great shafts in the lower
+example in Plate XVIII. are original and characteristic: not so the
+lateral one of the detached window, which has been restored; but by
+imagining it to be like that represented in fig. 1, Plate XIII., above,
+which is a perfect window of the finest time of the fifth order, the
+reader will be enabled to form a complete idea of the external
+appearance of the principal apartments in the house of a noble of
+Venice, at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
+
+Sec. XLVI. Whether noble, or merchant, or, as frequently happened, both,
+every Venetian appears, at this time, to have raised his palace or
+dwelling-house upon one type. Under every condition of importance,
+through every variation of size, the forms and mode of decoration of all
+the features were universally alike; not servilely alike, but
+fraternally; not with the sameness of coins cast from one mould, but
+with the likeness of the members of one family. No fragment of the
+period is preserved, in which the windows, be they few or many, a group
+of three or an arcade of thirty, have not the noble cusped arch of the
+fifth order. And they are especially to be noted by us at this day,
+because these refined and richly ornamented forms were used in the
+habitations of a nation as laborious, as practical, as brave, and as
+prudent as ourselves; and they were built at a time when that nation was
+struggling with calamities and changes threatening its existence almost
+every hour. And, farther, they are interesting because perfectly
+applicable to modern habitation. The refinement of domestic life appears
+to have been far advanced in Venice from her earliest days; and the
+remains of her Gothic palaces are, at this day, the most delightful
+residences in the city, having undergone no change in external form, and
+probably having been rather injured than rendered more convenient by the
+modifications which poverty and Renaissance taste, contending with the
+ravages of time, have introduced in the interiors. So that, in Venice,
+and the cities grouped around it, Vicenza, Padua, and Verona, the
+traveller may ascertain, by actual experience, the effect which would be
+produced upon the comfort or luxury of daily life by the revival of the
+Gothic school of architecture. He can still stand upon the marble
+balcony in the soft summer air, and feel its smooth surface warm from
+the noontide as he leans on it in the twilight; he can still see the
+strong sweep of the unruined traceries drawn on the deep serenity of the
+starry sky, and watch the fantastic shadows of the clustered arches
+shorten in the moonlight on the chequered floor; or he may close the
+casements fitted to their unshaken shafts against such wintry winds as
+would have made an English house vibrate to its foundation, and, in
+either case, compare their influence on his daily home feeling with that
+of the square openings in his English wall.
+
+Sec. XLVII. And let him be assured, if he find there is more to be enjoyed
+in the Gothic window, there is also more to be trusted. It is the best
+and strongest building, as it is the most beautiful. I am not now
+speaking of the particular form of Venetian Gothic, but of the general
+strength of the pointed arch as opposed to that of the level lintel of
+the square window; and I plead for the introduction of the Gothic form
+into our domestic architecture, not merely because it is lovely, but
+because it is the only form of faithful, strong, enduring, and honorable
+building, in such materials as come daily to our hands. By increase of
+scale and cost, it is possible to build, in any style, what will last
+for ages; but only in the Gothic is it possible to give security and
+dignity to work wrought with imperfect means and materials. And I trust
+that there will come a time when the English people may see the folly of
+building basely and insecurely. It is common with those architects
+against whose practice my writings have hitherto been directed, to call
+them merely theoretical and imaginative. I answer, that there is not a
+single principle asserted either in the "Seven Lamps" or here, but is of
+the simplest, sternest veracity, and the easiest practicability; that
+buildings, raised as I would have them, would stand unshaken for a
+thousand years; and the buildings raised by the architects who oppose
+them will not stand for one hundred and fifty, they sometimes do not
+stand for an hour. There is hardly a week passes without some
+catastrophe brought about by the base principles of modern building;
+some vaultless floor that drops the staggering crowd through the jagged
+rents of its rotten timbers; some baseless bridge that is washed away by
+the first wave of a summer flood; some fungous wall of nascent
+rottenness that a thunder-shower soaks down with its workmen into a heap
+of slime and death.[96] These we hear of, day by day: yet these indicate
+but the thousandth part of the evil. The portion of the national income
+sacrificed in mere bad building, in the perpetual repairs, and swift
+condemnation and pulling down of ill-built shells of houses, passes all
+calculation. And the weight of the penalty is not yet felt; it will tell
+upon our children some fifty years hence, when the cheap work, and
+contract work, and stucco and plaster work, and bad iron work, and all
+the other expedients of modern rivalry, vanity, and dishonesty, begin to
+show themselves for what they are.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXV.]
+
+Sec. XLVIII. Indeed, dishonesty and false economy will no more build
+safely in Gothic than in any other style: but of all forms which we could
+possibly employ, to be framed hastily and out of bad materials, the
+common square window is the worst; and its level head of brickwork (_a_,
+Fig. XXXV.) is the weakest way of covering a space. Indeed, in the
+hastily heaped shells of modern houses, there may be seen often even a
+worse manner of placing the bricks, as at _b_, supporting them by a bit
+of lath till the mortar dries; but even when worked with the utmost
+care, and having every brick tapered into the form of a voussoir and
+accurately fitted, I have seen such a window-head give way, and a wide
+fissure torn through all the brickwork above it, two years after it was
+built; while the pointed arch of the Veronese Gothic, wrought in brick
+also, occurs at every corner of the streets of the city, untouched since
+the thirteenth century, and without a single flaw.
+
+Sec. XLIX. Neither can the objection, so often raised against the pointed
+arch, that it will not admit the convenient adjustment of modern sashes
+and glass, hold for an instant. There is not the smallest necessity,
+because the arch is pointed, that the aperture should be so. The work of
+the arch is to sustain the building above; when this is once done
+securely, the pointed head of it may be filled in any way we choose. In
+the best cathedral doors it is always filled by a shield of solid stone;
+in many early windows of the best Gothic it is filled in the same
+manner, the introduced slab of stone becoming a field for rich
+decoration; and there is not the smallest reason why lancet windows,
+used in bold groups, with each pointed arch filled by a sculptured
+tympanum, should not allow as much light to enter, and in as convenient
+a way, as the most luxuriously glazed square windows of our brick
+houses. Give the groups of associated lights bold gabled canopies;
+charge the gables with sculpture and color; and instead of the base and
+almost useless Greek portico, letting the rain and wind enter it at
+will, build the steeply vaulted and completely sheltered Gothic porch;
+and on all these fields for rich decoration let the common workman carve
+what he pleases, to the best of his power, and we may have a school of
+domestic architecture in the nineteenth century, which will make our
+children grateful to us, and proud of us, till the thirtieth.
+
+Sec. L. There remains only one important feature to be examined, the
+entrance gate or door. We have already observed that the one seems to
+pass into the other, a sign of increased love of privacy rather than of
+increased humility, as the Gothic palaces assume their perfect form. In
+the Byzantine palaces the entrances appear always to have been rather
+great gates than doors, magnificent semicircular arches opening to the
+water, and surrounded by rich sculpture in the archivolts. One of these
+entrances is seen in the small woodcut above, Fig. XXV., and another has
+been given carefully in my folio work: their sculpture is generally of
+grotesque animals scattered among leafage, without any definite meaning;
+but the great outer entrance of St. Mark's, which appears to have been
+completed some time after the rest of the fabric, differs from all
+others in presenting a series of subjects altogether Gothic in feeling,
+selection, and vitality of execution, and which show the occult entrance
+of the Gothic spirit before it had yet succeeded in effecting any
+modification of the Byzantine forms. These sculptures represent the
+months of the year employed in the avocations usually attributed to them
+throughout the whole compass of the middle ages, in Northern
+architecture and manuscript calendars, and at last exquisitely versified
+by Spenser. For the sake of the traveller in Venice, who should examine
+this archivolt carefully, I shall enumerate these sculptures in their
+order, noting such parallel representations as I remember in other work.
+
+Sec. LI. There are four successive archivolts, one within the other,
+forming the great central entrance of St. Mark's. The first is a
+magnificent external arch, formed of obscure figures mingled among
+masses of leafage, as in ordinary Byzantine work; within this there is a
+hemispherical dome, covered with modern mosaic; and at the back of this
+recess the other three archivolts follow consecutively, two sculptured,
+one plain; the one with which we are concerned is the outermost.
+
+It is carved both on its front and under-surface or soffit; on the front
+are seventeen female figures bearing scrolls, from which the legends are
+unfortunately effaced. These figures were once gilded on a dark blue
+ground, as may still be seen in Gentile Bellini's picture of St. Mark's
+in the Accademia delle Belle Arti. The sculptures of the months are on
+the under-surface, beginning at the bottom on the left hand of the
+spectator as he enters, and following in succession round the archivolt;
+separated, however, into two groups, at its centre, by a beautiful
+figure of the youthful Christ, sitting in the midst of a slightly
+hollowed sphere covered with stars to represent the firmament, and with
+the attendant sun and moon, set one on each side to rule over the day
+and over the night.
+
+Sec. LII. The months are personified as follows:--
+
+1. JANUARY, _Carrying home a noble tree on his shoulders, the leafage of
+which nods forwards, and falls nearly to his feet._ Superbly cut. This
+is a rare representation of him. More frequently he is represented as
+the two-headed Janus, sitting at a table, drinking at one mouth and
+eating at the other. Sometimes as an old man, warming his feet at a
+fire, and drinking from a bowl; though this type is generally reserved
+for February. Spenser, however, gives the same symbol as that on St.
+Mark's:
+
+     "Numbd with holding all the day
+  An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood."
+
+His sign, Aquarius, is obscurely indicated in the archivolt by some wavy
+lines representing water, unless the figure has been broken away.
+
+2. FEBRUARY. _Sitting in a carved chair, warming his bare feet at a
+blazing fire._ Generally, when he is thus represented, there is a pot
+hung over the fire, from the top of the chimney. Sometimes he is pruning
+trees, as in Spenser:
+
+               "Yet had he by his side
+  His plough and harnesse fit to till the ground,
+  And tooles to prune the trees."
+
+Not unfrequently, in the calendars, this month is represented by a
+female figure carrying candles, in honor of the Purification of the
+Virgin.
+
+His sign, Pisces, is prominently carved above him.
+
+3. MARCH. Here, as almost always in Italy, _a warrior_: the Mars of the
+Latins being of course, in mediaeval work, made representative of the
+military power of the place and period; and thus, at Venice, having the
+winged Lion painted upon his shield. In Northern work, however, I think
+March is commonly employed in pruning trees; or, at least, he is so
+when that occupation is left free for him by February's being engaged
+with the ceremonies of Candlemas. Sometimes, also, he is reaping a low
+and scattered kind of grain; and by Spenser, who exactly marks the
+junction of mediaeval and classical feeling, his military and
+agricultural functions are united, while also, in the Latin manner, he
+is made the first of the months.
+
+  "First sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent,
+   And armed strongly, rode upon a Ram,
+   The same which over Hellespontus swam;
+   Yet in his hand a spade he also bent,
+   And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame,[97]
+   Which on the earth he strowed as he went."
+
+His sign, the Ram, is very superbly carved above him in the archivolt.
+
+4. APRIL. Here, _carrying a sheep upon his shoulder_. A rare
+representation of him. In Northern work he is almost universally
+gathering flowers, or holding them triumphantly in each hand. The
+Spenserian mingling of this mediaeval image with that of his being wet
+with showers, and wanton with love, by turning his zodiacal sign,
+Taurus, into the bull of Europa, is altogether exquisite.
+
+  "Upon a Bull he rode, the same which led
+   Europa floting through the Argolick fluds:
+   His horns were gilden all with golden studs,
+   And garnished with garlonds goodly dight
+   Of all the fairest flowres and freshest buds
+   Which th' earth brings forth; and _wet he seemed in sight
+   With waves, through which he waded for his love's delight_."
+
+5. MAY _is seated, while two young maidens crown him with flowers._ A
+very unusual representation, even in Italy; where, as in the North, he
+is almost always riding out hunting or hawking, sometimes playing on a
+musical instrument. In Spenser, this month is personified as "the
+fayrest mayd on ground," borne on the shoulders of the Twins.
+
+In this archivolt there are only two heads to represent the zodiacal
+sign.
+
+The summer and autumnal months are always represented in a series of
+agricultural occupations, which, of course, vary with the locality in
+which they occur; but generally in their order only. Thus, if June is
+mowing, July is reaping; if July is mowing, August is reaping; and so
+on. I shall give a parallel view of some of these varieties presently;
+but, meantime, we had better follow the St Mark's series, as it is
+peculiar in some respects.
+
+6. JUNE. _Reaping._ The corn and sickle sculptured with singular care
+and precision, in bold relief, and the zodiacal sign, the Crab, above,
+also worked with great spirit. Spenser puts plough irons into his hand.
+Sometimes he is sheep-shearing; and, in English and northern French
+manuscripts, carrying a kind of fagot or barrel, of the meaning of which
+I am not certain.
+
+7. JULY. _Mowing._ A very interesting piece of sculpture, owing to the
+care with which the flowers are wrought out among the long grass. I do
+not remember ever finding July but either reaping or mowing. Spenser
+works him hard, and puts him to both labors:
+
+  "Behinde his backe a sithe, and by his side
+   Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide."
+
+8. AUGUST. Peculiarly represented in this archivolt, _sitting in a
+chair, with his head upon his hand, as if asleep; the Virgin_ (the
+zodiacal sign) _above him, lifting up her hand_. This appears to be a
+peculiarly Italian version of the proper employment of August. In
+Northern countries he is generally threshing, or gathering grapes.
+Spenser merely clothes him with gold, and makes him lead forth
+
+             "the righteous Virgin, which of old
+  Lived here on earth, and plenty made abound."
+
+9. SEPTEMBER. _Bearing home grapes in a basket._ Almost always sowing,
+in Northern work. By Spenser, with his usual exquisite ingenuity,
+employed in gathering in the general harvest, and _portioning it out
+with the Scales_, his zodiacal sign.
+
+10. OCTOBER. _Wearing a conical hat, and digging busily with a long
+spade._ In Northern work he is sometimes a vintager, sometimes beating
+the acorns out of an oak to feed swine. When September is vintaging,
+October is generally sowing. Spenser employs him in the harvest both of
+vine and olive.
+
+11. NOVEMBER. _Seems to be catching small birds in a net._ I do not
+remember him so employed elsewhere. He is nearly always killing pigs;
+sometimes beating the oak for them; with Spenser, fatting them.
+
+12. DECEMBER. _Killing swine._ It is hardly ever that this employment is
+not given to one or other of the terminal months of the year. If not so
+engaged, December is usually putting new loaves into the oven; sometimes
+killing oxen. Spenser properly makes him feasting and drinking instead
+of January.
+
+Sec. LIII. On the next page I have given a parallel view of the employment
+of the months from some Northern manuscripts, in order that they may be
+more conveniently compared with the sculptures of St. Mark's, in their
+expression of the varieties of climate and agricultural system. Observe
+that the letter (f.) in some of the columns, opposite the month of May,
+means that he has a falcon on his fist; being, in those cases,
+represented as riding out, in high exultation, on a caparisoned white
+horse. A series nearly similar to that of St. Mark's occurs on the door
+of the Cathedral of Lucca, and on that of the Baptistery of Pisa; in
+which, however, if I recollect rightly, February is fishing, and May has
+something resembling an umbrella in his hand, instead of a hawk. But, in
+all cases, the figures are treated with the peculiar spirit of the
+Gothic sculptors; and this archivolt is the first expression of that
+spirit which is to be found in Venice.
+
+   SECOND PERIOD
+
+ +---------+--------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+ |         |              |   MS. French. |   MS. French. |   MS. French. |
+ |         | St. Mark's.  |   Late 13th   |   Late 13th   |   Late 13th   |
+ |         |              |    Century    |    Century    |    Century    |
+ |---------+--------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |January  |Carrying wood.|Janus feasting.|Janus feasting.|Drinking and   |
+ |         |              |               |               | stirring fire.|
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |February |Warming feet. |Warming feet.  |Warming feet.  |Pruning.       |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |March    |Going to war. |Pruning.       |Pruning.       |Striking       |
+ |         |              |               |               | with axe.     |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |April    |Carrying      |Gathering      |Gathering      |Gathering      |
+ |         | sheep.       | flowers.      | flowers.      | flowers.      |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |May      |Crowned with  |Riding (f.).   |Riding (f.).   |Playing        |
+ |         | flowers.     |               |               | violin.       |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |June     |Reaping.      |Mowing.        |Mowing.        |Gathering large|
+ |         |              |               |               | red flowers.  |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |July     |Mowing.       |Reaping.       |Reaping.       |Mowing.        |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |August   |Asleep.       |Threshing.     |Gathering      |Reaping.       |
+ |         |              |               | grapes.       |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |September|Carrying      |Sowing.        |Sowing.        |Drinking wine. |
+ |         | grapes.      |               |               |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |October  |Digging.      |Gathering      |Beating oak.   |Sowing.        |
+ |         |              | grapes.       |               |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |November |Catching      |Beating oak.   |Killing swine. |Killing swine. |
+ |         | birds.       |               |               |               |
+ |         |              |               |               |               |
+ |December |Killing swine.|Killing swine. |Baking.        |Killing oxen.  |
+ +---------+--------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+
+ +---------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+ |         |    MS. French.    |   MS. English.    |   MS. Flemish.   |
+ |         |Early 14th Century.|Early 15th Century.|  15th Century.   |
+ |---------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------|
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |January  |Warming feet.      | Janus feasting.   |Feasting          |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |February |Bearing candles.   | Warming feet.     |Warming hands.    |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |March    |Pruning.           | Carrying candles. |Reaping.          |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |April    |Gathering flowers. | Pruning.          |Gathering flowers.|
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |May      |Riding (f.).       | Riding (f.).      |Riding with lady  |
+ |         |                   |                   | on pillion.      |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |June     |Carrying (fagots?) | Carrying fagots.  |Sheep-shearing.   |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |July     |Mowing.            | Mowing.           |Mowing.           |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |August   |Reaping.           | Reaping.          |Reaping.          |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |September|Threshing.         | Threshing.        |Sowing.           |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |October  |Sowing.            | Sowing.           |Beating oak.      |
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |November |Killing swine.     | Killing swine.    |Pressing (grapes?)|
+ |         |                   |                   |                  |
+ |December |Baking.            | Baking.           |Killing swine.    |
+ +---------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+
+Sec. LIV. In the private palaces, the entrances soon admitted some
+concession to the Gothic form also. They pass through nearly the same
+conditions of change as the windows, with these three differences:
+first, that no arches of the fantastic fourth order occur in any
+doorways; secondly, that the pure pointed arch occurs earlier, and much
+oftener, in doorways than in window-heads; lastly, that the entrance
+itself, if small, is nearly always square-headed in the earliest
+examples, without any arch above, but afterwards the arch is thrown
+across above the lintel. The interval between the two, or tympanum, is
+filled with sculpture, or closed by iron bars, with sometimes a
+projecting gable, to form a porch, thrown over the whole, as in the
+perfect example, 7 _a_, Plate XIV., above. The other examples in the two
+lower lines, 6 and 7, of that Plate are each characteristic of an
+enormous number of doors, variously decorated, from the thirteenth to
+the close of the fifteenth century. The particulars of their mouldings
+are given in the final Appendix.
+
+Sec. LV. It was useless, on the small scale of this Plate, to attempt any
+delineation of the richer sculptures with which the arches are filled;
+so that I have chosen for it the simplest examples I could find of the
+forms to be illustrated: but, in all the more important instances, the
+door-head is charged either with delicate ornaments and inlaid patterns
+in variously colored brick, or with sculptures, consisting always of the
+shield or crest of the family, protected by an angel. Of these more
+perfect doorways I have given three examples carefully, in my folio
+work; but I must repeat here one part of the account of their subjects
+given in its text, for the convenience of those to whom the larger work
+may not be accessible.
+
+Sec. LVI. "In the earlier ages, all agree thus far, that the name of the
+family is told, and together with it there is always an intimation that
+they have placed their defence and their prosperity in God's hands;
+frequently accompanied with some general expression of benediction to
+the person passing over the threshold. This is the general theory of an
+old Venetian doorway;--the theory of modern doorways remains to be
+explained: it may be studied to advantage in our rows of new-built
+houses, or rather of new-built house, changeless for miles together,
+from which, to each inhabitant, we allot his proper quantity of windows,
+and a Doric portico. The Venetian carried out his theory very simply. In
+the centre of the archivolt we find almost invariably, in the older
+work, the hand between the sun and moon in the attitude of blessing,
+expressing the general power and presence of God, the source of light.
+On the tympanum is the shield of the family. Venetian heraldry requires
+no beasts for supporters, but usually prefers angels, neither the
+supporters nor crests forming any necessary part of Venetian bearings.
+Sometimes, however, human figures, or grotesques, are substituted; but,
+in that case, an angel is almost always introduced above the shield,
+bearing a globe in his left hand, and therefore clearly intended for the
+'Angel of the Lord,' or, as it is expressed elsewhere, the 'Angel of His
+Presence.' Where elaborate sculpture of this kind is inadmissible, the
+shield is merely represented as suspended by a leather thong; and a
+cross is introduced above the archivolt. The Renaissance architects
+perceived the irrationality of all this, cut away both crosses and
+angels, and substituted heads of satyrs, which were the proper presiding
+deities of Venice in the Renaissance periods, and which in our own
+domestic institutions, we have ever since, with much piety and sagacity,
+retained."
+
+Sec. LVII. The habit of employing some religious symbol, or writing some
+religious legend, over the door of the house, does not entirely
+disappear until far into the period of the Renaissance. The words "Peace
+be to this house" occur on one side of a Veronese gateway, with the
+appropriate and veracious inscription S.P.Q.R., on a Roman standard, on
+the other; and "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," is
+written on one of the doorways of a building added at the flank of the
+Casa Barbarigo, in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. It seems to be
+only modern Protestantism which is entirely ashamed of _all_ symbols and
+words that appear in anywise like a confession of faith.
+
+Sec. LVIII. This peculiar feeling is well worthy of attentive analysis.
+It indeed, in most cases, hardly deserves the name of a feeling; for the
+meaningless doorway is merely an ignorant copy of heathen models: but
+yet, if it were at this moment proposed to any of us, by our architects,
+to remove the grinning head of a satyr, or other classical or Palladian
+ornament, from the keystone of the door, and to substitute for it a
+cross, and an inscription testifying our faith, I believe that most
+persons would shrink from the proposal with an obscure and yet
+overwhelming sense that things would be sometimes done, and thought,
+within the house which would make the inscription on its gate a base
+hypocrisy. And if so, let us look to it, whether that strong reluctance
+to utter a definite religious profession, which so many of us feel, and
+which, not very carefully examining into its dim nature, we conclude to
+be modesty, or fear of hypocrisy, or other such form of amiableness, be
+not, in very deed, neither less nor more than Infidelity; whether
+Peter's "I know not the man" be not the sum and substance of all these
+misgivings and hesitations; and whether the shamefacedness which we
+attribute to sincerity and reverence, be not such shamefacedness as may
+at last put us among those of whom the Son of Man shall be ashamed.
+
+Sec. LIX. Such are the principal circumstances to be noted in the external
+form and details of the Gothic palaces; of their interior arrangements
+there is little left unaltered. The gateways which we have been
+examining almost universally lead, in the earlier palaces, into a long
+interior court, round which the mass of the palace is built; and in
+which its first story is reached by a superb external staircase,
+sustained on four or five pointed arches gradually increasing as they
+ascend, both in height and span,--this change in their size being, so
+far as I remember, peculiar to Venice, and visibly a consequence of the
+habitual admission of arches of different sizes in the Byzantine
+facades. These staircases are protected by exquisitely carved parapets,
+like those of the outer balconies, with lions or grotesque heads set on
+the angles, and with true projecting balconies on their landing-places.
+In the centre of the court there is always a marble well; and these
+wells furnish some of the most superb examples of Venetian sculpture. I
+am aware only of one remaining from the Byzantine period; it is
+octagonal, and treated like the richest of our Norman fonts: but the
+Gothic wells of every date, from the thirteenth century downwards, are
+innumerable, and full of beauty, though their form is little varied;
+they being, in almost every case, treated like colossal capitals of
+pillars, with foliage at the angles, and the shield of the family upon
+their sides.
+
+Sec. LX. The interior apartments always consist of one noble hall on the
+first story, often on the second also, extending across the entire depth
+of the house, and lighted in front by the principal groups of its
+windows, while smaller apartments open from it on either side. The
+ceilings, where they remain untouched, are of bold horizontal beams,
+richly carved and gilded; but few of these are left from the true Gothic
+times, the Venetian interiors having, in almost every case, been
+remodelled by the Renaissance architects. This change, _however_, for
+once, we cannot regret, as the walls and ceilings, when so altered, were
+covered with the noblest works of Veronese, Titian, and Tintoret; nor
+the interior walls only, but, as before noticed, often the exteriors
+also. Of the color decorations of the Gothic exteriors I have,
+therefore, at present taken no notice, as it will be more convenient to
+embrace this subject in one general view of the systems of coloring of
+the Venetian palaces, when we arrive at the period of its richest
+developement.[98] The details, also, of most interest, respecting the
+forms and transitional decoration of their capitals, will be given in
+the final Appendix to the next volume, where we shall be able to include
+in our inquiry the whole extent of the Gothic period; and it remains for
+us, therefore, at present, only to review the history, fix the date, and
+note the most important particulars in the structure of the building
+which at once consummates and embodies the entire system of the Gothic
+architecture of Venice,--the DUCAL PALACE.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [75] 38 ft. 2 in., without its cornice, which is 10 inches deep, and
+    sustains pinnacles of stone 7 feet high. I was enabled to get the
+    measures by a scaffolding erected in 1851 to repair the front.
+
+  [76] I believe the necessary upper joint is vertical, through the
+    uppermost lobe of the quatrefoil, as in the figure; but I have lost
+    my memorandum of this joint.
+
+  [77] "Dice, che non lauda per alcun modo di metter questo Serenissimo
+    Dominio in tanto pericolo d' habitar un palazzo fabricato in
+    aria."--_Pareri di XV. Architetti, con illustrazioni dell' Abbate
+    Giuseppe Cadorin_ (Venice, 1838), p. 104.
+
+  [78] "Il muro della sala e piu grosso delle colonne sott' esso piedi
+    uno e onze tre, et posto in modo che onze sei sta come in aere sopra
+    la piazza, et onze nove dentro."--_Pareri di XV. Architetti_, p. 47.
+
+  [79] Compare "Seven Lamps," chap. iii. Sec. 7.
+
+  [80] Pareri, above quoted, p. 21.
+
+  [81] It is a curious proof how completely, even so early as the
+    beginning of the sixteenth century, the Venetians had lost the habit
+    of _reading_ the religious art of their ancient churches, that
+    Sanuto, describing this injury, says, that "four of the _Kings_ in
+    marble fell from their pinnacles above the front, at St. Mark's
+    church;" and presently afterwards corrects his mistake, and
+    apologises for it thus: "These were four saints, St. Constantine,
+    St. Demetrius, St. George, and St. Theodore, all Greek saints. _They
+    look like Kings_." Observe the perfect, because unintentional,
+    praise given to the old sculptor.
+
+    I quote the passage from the translation of these precious diaries
+    of Sanuto, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, a translation which I hope
+    will some day become a standard book in English libraries.
+
+  [82] I am not speaking here of iron balconies. See below, Sec. XXII.
+
+  [83] A Some details respecting the mechanical structure of the
+    Venetian balcony are given in the final Appendix.
+
+  [84] I found it convenient in my own memoranda to express them
+    simply as fourths, seconds, &c. But "order" is an excellent word for
+    any known group of forms, whether of windows, capitals, bases,
+    mouldings, or any other architectural feature, provided always that
+    it be not understood in any wise to imply preeminence or isolation
+    in these groups. Thus I may rationally speak of the six orders of
+    Venetian windows, provided I am ready to allow a French architect to
+    speak of the six or seven, or eight, or seventy or eighty, orders of
+    Norman windows, if so many are distinguishable; and so also we may
+    rationally speak, for the sake of intelligibility, of the five
+    orders of Greek pillars, provided only we understand that there may
+    be five millions of orders as good or better, of pillars _not_
+    Greek.
+
+  [85] Or in their own curves; as, on a small scale, in the balustrade
+    fig. 6, Plate XIII., above.
+
+  [86] For all details of this kind, the reader is referred to the
+    final Appendix in Vol. III.
+
+  [87] Two threads of white marble, each about an inch wide, inlaid in
+    the dark grey pavement, indicate the road to the Rialto from the
+    farthest extremity of the north quarter of Venice. The peasant or
+    traveller, lost in the intricacy of the pathway in this portion of
+    the city, cannot fail, after a few experimental traverses, to cross
+    these white lines, which thenceforward he has nothing to do but to
+    follow, though their capricious sinuosities will try his patience
+    not a little.
+
+  [88] An account of the conspiracy of Bajamonte may be found in
+    almost any Venetian history; the reader may consult Mutinelli,
+    Annali Urbani, lib. iii.
+
+  [89] See account of series of capitals in final Appendix.
+
+  [90] If the traveller desire to find them (and they are worth
+    seeking), let him row from the Fondamenta S. Biagio down the Rio
+    della Tana, and look, on his right, for a low house with windows in
+    it like those in the woodcut No. XXXI. above, p. 256. Let him go in
+    at the door of the portico in the middle of this house, and he will
+    find himself in a small alley, with the windows in question on each
+    side of him.
+
+  [91] The bitterness of feeling with which the Venetians must have
+    remembered this, was probably the cause of their magnificent heroism
+    in the final siege of the city under Dandolo, and, partly, of the
+    excesses which disgraced their victory. The conduct of the allied
+    army of the Crusaders on this occasion cannot, however, be brought
+    in evidence of general barbarism in the thirteenth century: first,
+    because the masses of the crusading armies were in great part
+    composed of the refuse of the nations of Europe; and secondly,
+    because such a mode of argument might lead us to inconvenient
+    conclusions respecting ourselves, so long as the horses of the
+    Austrian cavalry are stabled in the cloister of the convent which
+    contains the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci. See Appendix 3, Vol.
+    III.: "Austrian Government in Italy."
+
+  [92] It is generally better to read ten lines of any poet in the
+    original language, however painfully, than ten cantos of a
+    translation. But an exception may be made in favor of Cary's Dante.
+    If no poet ever was liable to lose more in translation, none was
+    ever so carefully translated; and I hardly know whether most to
+    admire the rigid fidelity, or the sweet and solemn harmony, of
+    Cary's verse. There is hardly a fault in the fragment quoted above,
+    except the word "lectured," for Dante's beautiful "favoleggiava;"
+    and even in this case, joining the first words of the following
+    line, the translation is strictly literal. It is true that the
+    conciseness and the rivulet-like melody of Dante must continually be
+    lost; but if I could only read English, and had to choose, for a
+    library narrowed by poverty, between Cary's Dante and our own
+    original Milton, I should choose Cary without an instant's pause.
+
+  [93] See final Appendix, Vol. III., under head "Capitals."
+
+  [94] This Plate is not from a drawing of mine. It has been engraved
+    by Mr. Armytage, with great skill, from two daguerreotypes.
+
+  [95] Vide final Appendix, under head "Archivolt."
+
+  [96] "On Thursday, the 20th, the front walls of two of the new
+    houses now building in Victoria Street, Westminster, fell to the
+    ground.... The roof was on, _and a massive compo cornice_ was put up
+    at top, as well as dressings to the upper windows. The roof is
+    formed by girders and 4-1/2-brick arches in cement, covered with
+    asphalt to form a flat. The failure is attributed _to the quantity
+    of rain which has fallen_. Others suppose that some of the girders
+    were defective, and gave way, carrying the walls with
+    them."--_Builder_, for January 29th, 1853. The rest of this volume
+    might be filled with such notices, if we sought for them.
+
+  [97] "Ysame," collected together.
+
+  [98] Vol. III. Chap. I. I have had considerable difficulty in the
+    arrangement of these volumes, so as to get the points bearing upon
+    each other grouped in consecutive and intelligible order.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE DUCAL PALACE.
+
+
+Sec. I. It was stated in the commencement of the preceding chapter that
+the Gothic art of Venice was separated by the building of the Ducal Palace
+into two distinct periods; and that in all the domestic edifices which
+were raised for half a century after its completion, their
+characteristic and chiefly effective portions were more or less directly
+copied from it. The fact is, that the Ducal Palace was the great work of
+Venice at this period, itself the principal effort of her imagination,
+employing her best architects in its masonry, and her best painters in
+its decoration, for a long series of years; and we must receive it as a
+remarkable testimony to the influence which it possessed over the minds
+of those who saw it in its progress, that, while in the other cities of
+Italy every palace and church was rising in some original and daily more
+daring form, the majesty of this single building was able to give pause
+to the Gothic imagination in its full career; stayed the restlessness of
+innovation in an instant, and forbade the powers which had created it
+thenceforth to exert themselves in new directions, or endeavor to summon
+an image more attractive.
+
+Sec. II. The reader will hardly believe that while the architectural
+invention of the Venetians was thus lost, Narcissus-like, in
+self-contemplation, the various accounts of the progress of the building
+thus admired and beloved are so confused as frequently to leave it
+doubtful to what portion of the palace they refer; and that there is
+actually, at the time being, a dispute between the best Venetian
+antiquaries, whether the main facade of the palace be of the fourteenth
+or fifteenth century. The determination of this question is of course
+necessary before we proceed to draw any conclusions from the style of
+the work; and it cannot be determined without a careful review of the
+entire history of the palace, and of all the documents relating to it. I
+trust that this review may not be found tedious,--assuredly it will not
+be fruitless,--bringing many facts before us, singularly illustrative of
+the Venetian character.
+
+Sec. III. Before, however, the reader can enter upon any inquiry into the
+history of this building, it is necessary that he should be thoroughly
+familiar with the arrangement and names of its principal parts, as it at
+present stands; otherwise he cannot comprehend so much as a single
+sentence of any of the documents referring to it. I must do what I can,
+by the help of a rough plan and bird's-eye view, to give him the
+necessary topographical knowledge:
+
+Fig. XXXVI. opposite is a rude ground plan of the buildings round St.
+Mark's Place; and the following references will clearly explain their
+relative positions:
+
+  A. St. Mark's Place.
+  B. Piazzetta.
+  P. V. Procuratie Vecchie.
+  P. N. (opposite) Procuratie Nuove.
+  P. L. Libreria Vecchia.
+  I. Piazzetta de' Leoni.
+  T. Tower of St. Mark.
+  F F. Great Facade of St. Mark's Church.
+  M. St. Mark's. (It is so united with the Ducal Palace, that the
+       separation cannot be indicated in the plan, unless all the walls
+       had been marked, which would have confused the whole.)
+  D D D. Ducal Palace.                          g s. Giant's stair.
+  C. Court of Ducal Palace.                     J. Judgment angle.
+  c. Porta della Carta.                         a. Fig-tree angle.
+  p p. Ponte della Paglia (Bridge of Straw).
+  S. Ponte de' Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs).
+  R R. Riva de' Schiavoni.
+
+The reader will observe that the Ducal Palace is arranged somewhat in
+the form of a hollow square, of which one side faces the Piazzetta, B,
+and another the quay called the Riva de' Schiavoni, R R; the third is on
+the dark canal called the "Rio del Palazzo," and the fourth joins the
+Church of St. Mark.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXVI.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXVII.]
+
+Of this fourth side, therefore, nothing can be seen. Of the other three
+sides we shall have to speak constantly; and they will be respectively
+called, that towards the Piazzetta, the "Piazzetta Facade;" that towards
+the Riva de' Schiavoni, the "Sea Facade;" and that towards the Rio del
+Palazzo, the "Rio Facade." This Rio, or canal, is usually looked upon by
+the traveller with great respect, or even horror, because it passes
+under the Bridge of Sighs. It is, however, one of the principal
+thoroughfares of the city; and the bridge and its canal together occupy,
+in the mind of a Venetian, very much the position of Fleet Street and
+Temple Bar in that of a Londoner,--at least, at the time when Temple Bar
+was occasionally decorated with human heads. The two buildings closely
+resemble each other in form.
+
+Sec. IV. We must now proceed to obtain some rough idea of the appearance
+and distribution of the palace itself; but its arrangement will be
+better understood by supposing ourselves raised some hundred and fifty
+feet above the point in the lagoon in front of it, so as to get a
+general view of the Sea Facade and Rio Facade (the latter in very steep
+perspective), and to look down into its interior court. Fig. XXXVII.
+roughly represents such a view, omitting all details on the roofs, in
+order to avoid confusion. In this drawing we have merely to notice that,
+of the two bridges seen on the right, the uppermost, above the black
+canal, is the Bridge of Sighs; the lower one is the Ponte della Paglia,
+the regular thoroughfare from quay to quay, and, I believe, called the
+Bridge of Straw, because the boats which brought straw from the mainland
+used to sell it at this place. The corner of the palace, rising above
+this bridge, and formed by the meeting of the Sea Facade and Rio Facade,
+will always be called the Vine angle, because it is decorated by a
+sculpture of the drunkenness of Noah. The angle opposite will be called
+the Fig-tree angle, because it is decorated by a sculpture of the Fall
+of Man. The long and narrow range of building, of which the roof is seen
+in perspective behind this angle, is the part of the palace fronting the
+Piazzetta; and the angle under the pinnacle most to the left of the two
+which terminate it will be called, for a reason presently to be stated,
+the Judgment angle. Within the square formed by the building is seen its
+interior court (with one of its wells), terminated by small and
+fantastic buildings of the Renaissance period, which face the Giant's
+Stair, of which the extremity is seen sloping down on the left.
+
+Sec. V. The great facade which fronts the spectator looks southward. Hence
+the two traceried windows lower than the rest, and to the right of the
+spectator, may be conveniently distinguished as the "Eastern Windows."
+There are two others like them, filled with tracery, and at the same
+level, which look upon the narrow canal between the Ponte della Paglia
+and the Bridge of Sighs: these we may conveniently call the "Canal
+Windows." The reader will observe a vertical line in this dark side of
+the palace, separating its nearer and plainer wall from a long
+four-storied range of rich architecture. This more distant range is
+entirely Renaissance: its extremity is not indicated, because I have no
+accurate sketch of the small buildings and bridges beyond it, and we
+shall have nothing whatever to do with this part of the palace in our
+present inquiry. The nearer and undecorated wall is part of the older
+palace, though much defaced by modern opening of common windows,
+refittings of the brickwork, &c.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. XXXVIII.]
+
+Sec. VI. It will be observed that the facade is composed of a smooth mass
+of wall, sustained on two tiers of pillars, one above the other. The
+manner in which these support the whole fabric will be understood at
+once by the rough section, fig. XXXVIII., which is supposed to be taken
+right through the palace to the interior court, from near the middle of
+the Sea Facade. Here _a_ and _d_ are the rows of shafts, both in the
+inner court and on the Facade, which carry the main walls; _b_, _c_ are
+solid walls variously strengthened with pilasters. A, B, C are the three
+stories of the interior of the palace.
+
+The reader sees that it is impossible for any plan to be more simple,
+and that if the inner floors and walls of the stories A, B were
+removed, there could be left merely the form of a basilica,--two high
+walls, carried on ranges of shafts, and roofed by a low gable.
+
+The stories A, B are entirely modernized, and divided into confused
+ranges of small apartments, among which what vestiges remain of ancient
+masonry are entirely undecipherable, except by investigations such as I
+have had neither the time nor, as in most cases they would involve the
+removal of modern plastering, the opportunity, to make. With the
+subdivisions of this story, therefore, I shall not trouble the reader;
+but those of the great upper story, C, are highly important.
+
+Sec. VII. In the bird's-eye view above, fig. XXXVII., it will be noticed
+that the two windows on the right are lower than the other four of the
+facade. In this arrangement there is one of the most remarkable
+instances I know of the daring sacrifice of symmetry to convenience,
+which was noticed in Chap. VII. as one of the chief noblenesses of the
+Gothic schools.
+
+The part of the palace in which the two lower windows occur, we shall
+find, was first built, and arranged in four stories in order to obtain
+the necessary number of apartments. Owing to circumstances, of which we
+shall presently give an account, it became necessary, in the beginning
+of the fourteenth century, to provide another large and magnificent
+chamber for the meeting of the senate. That chamber was added at the
+side of the older building; but, as only one room was wanted, there was
+no need to divide the added portion into two stories. The entire height
+was given to the single chamber, being indeed not too great for just
+harmony with its enormous length and breadth. And then came the question
+how to place the windows, whether on a line with the two others, or
+above them.
+
+The ceiling of the new room was to be adorned by the paintings of the
+best masters in Venice, and it became of great importance to raise the
+light near that gorgeous roof, as well as to keep the tone of
+illumination in the Council Chamber serene; and therefore to introduce
+light rather in simple masses than in many broken streams. A modern
+architect, terrified at the idea of violating external symmetry, would
+have sacrificed both the pictures and the peace of the council. He would
+have placed the larger windows at the same level with the other two, and
+have introduced above them smaller windows, like those of the upper
+story in the older building, as if that upper story had been continued
+along the facade. But the old Venetian thought of the honor of the
+paintings, and the comfort of the senate, before his own reputation. He
+unhesitatingly raised the large windows to their proper position with
+reference to the interior of the chamber, and suffered the external
+appearance to take care of itself. And I believe the whole pile rather
+gains than loses in effect by the variation thus obtained in the spaces
+of wall above and below the windows.
+
+Sec. VIII. On the party wall, between the second and third windows, which
+faces the eastern extremity of the Great Council Chamber, is painted the
+Paradise of Tintoret; and this wall will therefore be hereafter called
+the "Wall of the Paradise."
+
+In nearly the centre of the Sea Facade, and between the first and second
+windows of the Great Council Chamber, is a large window to the ground,
+opening on a balcony, which is one of the chief ornaments of the palace,
+and will be called in future the "Sea Balcony."
+
+The facade which looks on the Piazetta is very nearly like this to the
+Sea, but the greater part of it was built in the fifteenth century, when
+people had become studious of their symmetries. Its side windows are all
+on the same level. Two light the west end of the Great Council Chamber,
+one lights a small room anciently called the Quarantia Civil Nuova; the
+other three, and the central one, with a balcony like that to the Sea,
+light another large chamber, called Sala del Scrutinio, or "Hall of
+Enquiry," which extends to the extremity of the palace above the Porta
+della Carta.
+
+Sec. IX. The reader is now well enough acquainted with the topography of
+the existing building, to be able to follow the accounts of its history.
+
+
+We have seen above, that there were three principal styles of Venetian
+architecture; Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance.
+
+The Ducal Palace, which was the great work of Venice, was built
+successively in the three styles. There was a Byzantine Ducal Palace, a
+Gothic Ducal Palace, and a Renaissance Ducal Palace. The second
+superseded the first totally; a few stones of it (if indeed so much) are
+all that is left. But the third superseded the second in part only, and
+the existing building is formed by the union of the two.
+
+We shall review the history of each in succession.[99]
+
+1st. The BYZANTINE PALACE.
+
+In the year of the death of Charlemagne, 813,[100] the Venetians
+determined to make the island of Rialto the seat of the government and
+capital of their state. Their Doge, Angelo or Agnello Participazio,
+instantly took vigorous means for the enlargement of the small group of
+buildings which were to be the nucleus of the future Venice. He
+appointed persons to superintend the raising of the banks of sand, so as
+to form more secure foundations, and to build wooden bridges over the
+canals. For the offices of religion, he built the Church of St. Mark;
+and on, or near, the spot where the Ducal Palace now stands, he built a
+palace for the administration of the government.[101]
+
+The history of the Ducal Palace therefore begins with the birth of
+Venice, and to what remains of it, at this day, is entrusted the last
+representation of her power.
+
+Sec. X. Of the exact position and form of this palace of Participazio
+little is ascertained. Sansovino says that it was "built near the Ponte
+della Paglia, and answeringly on the Grand Canal,"[102] towards San
+Giorgio; that is to say, in the place now occupied by the Sea Facade;
+but this was merely the popular report of his day. We know, however,
+positively, that it was somewhere upon the site of the existing palace;
+and that it had an important front towards the Piazzetta, with which, as
+we shall see hereafter, the present palace at one period was
+incorporated. We know, also, that it was a pile of some magnificence,
+from the account given by Sagornino of the visit paid by the Emperor
+Otho the Great, to the Doge Pietro Orseolo II. The chronicler says that
+the Emperor "beheld carefully all the beauty of the palace;"[103] and
+the Venetian historians express pride in the building's being worthy of
+an emperor's examination. This was after the palace had been much
+injured by fire in the revolt against Candiano IV.,[104] and just
+repaired, and richly adorned by Orseolo himself, who is spoken of by
+Sagornino as having also "adorned the chapel of the Ducal Palace" (St.
+Mark's) with ornaments of marble and gold.[105] There can be no doubt
+whatever that the palace at this period resembled and impressed the
+other Byzantine edifices of the city, such as the Fondaco de Turchi,
+&c., whose remains have been already described; and that, like them, it
+was covered with sculpture, and richly adorned with gold and color.
+
+Sec. XI. In the year 1106, it was for the second time injured by
+fire,[106] but repaired before 1116, when it received another emperor,
+Henry V. (of Germany), and was again honored by imperial praise.[107]
+Between 1173 and the close of the century, it seems to have been again
+repaired and much enlarged by the Doge Sebastian Ziani. Sansovino says
+that this Doge not only repaired it, but "enlarged it in every
+direction;"[108] and, after this enlargement, the palace seems to have
+remained untouched for a hundred years, until, in the commencement of the
+fourteenth century, the works of the Gothic Palace were begun. As,
+therefore, the old Byzantine building was, at the time when those works
+first interfered with it, in the form given to it by Ziani, I shall
+hereafter always speak of it as the _Ziani_ Palace; and this the rather,
+because the only chronicler whose words are perfectly clear respecting
+the existence of part of this palace so late as the year 1422, speaks of
+it as built by Ziani. The old "palace, of which half remains to this day,
+was built, as we now see it, by Sebastian Ziani."[109]
+
+So far, then, of the Byzantine Palace.
+
+Sec. XII. 2nd. The GOTHIC PALACE. The reader, doubtless, recollects that
+the important change in the Venetian government which gave stability to
+the aristocratic power took place about the year 1297,[110] under the
+Doge Pietro Gradenigo, a man thus characterized by Sansovino:--"A prompt
+and prudent man, of unconquerable determination and great eloquence, who
+laid, so to speak, the foundations of the eternity of this republic, by
+the admirable regulations which he introduced into the government."
+
+We may now, with some reason, doubt of their admirableness; but their
+importance, and the vigorous will and intellect of the Doge, are not to
+be disputed. Venice was in the zenith of her strength, and the heroism
+of her citizens was displaying itself in every quarter of the
+world.[111] The acquiescence in the secure establishment of the
+aristocratic power was an expression, by the people, of respect for the
+families which had been chiefly instrumental in raising the commonwealth
+to such a height of prosperity.
+
+The Serrar del Consiglio fixed the numbers of the Senate within certain
+limits, and it conferred upon them a dignity greater than they had ever
+before possessed. It was natural that the alteration in the character of
+the assembly should be attended by some change in the size, arrangement,
+or decoration of the chamber in which they sat.
+
+We accordingly find it recorded by Sansovino, that "in 1301 another
+saloon was begun on the Rio del Palazzo, _under the Doge Gradenigo_, and
+finished in 1309, _in which year the Grand Council first sat in
+it_."[112] In the first year, therefore, of the fourteenth century, the
+Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was begun; and as the Byzantine Palace
+was, in its foundation, coeval with that of the state, so the Gothic
+Palace was, in its foundation, coeval with that of the aristocratic
+power. Considered as the principal representation of the Venetian school
+of architecture, the Ducal Palace is the Parthenon of Venice, and
+Gradenigo its Pericles.
+
+Sec. XIII. Sansovino, with a caution very frequent among Venetian
+historians, when alluding to events connected with the Serrar del
+Consiglio, does not specially mention the cause for the requirement of
+the new chamber; but the Sivos Chronicle is a little more distinct in
+expression. "In 1301, it was determined to build a great saloon _for the
+assembling_ of the Great Council, and the room was built which is _now_
+called the Sala del Scrutinio."[113] _Now_, that is to say, at the time
+when the Sivos Chronicle was written; the room has long ago been
+destroyed, and its name given to another chamber on the opposite side of
+the palace: but I wish the reader to remember the date 1301, as marking
+the commencement of a great architectural epoch, in which took place the
+first appliance of the energy of the aristocratic power, and of the
+Gothic style, to the works of the Ducal Palace. The operations then
+begun were continued, with hardly an interruption, during the whole
+period of the prosperity of Venice. We shall see the new buildings
+consume, and take the place of, the Ziani Palace, piece by piece: and
+when the Ziani Palace was destroyed, they fed upon themselves; being
+continued round the square, until, in the sixteenth century, they
+reached the point where they had been begun in the fourteenth, and
+pursued the track they had then followed some distance beyond the
+junction; destroying or hiding their own commencement, as the serpent,
+which is the type of eternity, conceals its tail in its jaws.
+
+Sec. XIV. We cannot, therefore, _see_ the extremity, wherein lay the sting
+and force of the whole creature,--the chamber, namely, built by the Doge
+Gradenigo; but the reader must keep that commencement and the date of it
+carefully in his mind. The body of the Palace Serpent will soon become
+visible to us.
+
+The Gradenigo Chamber was somewhere on the Rio Facade, behind the
+present position of the Bridge of Sighs; i.e. about the point marked on
+the roof by the dotted lines in the woodcut; it is not known whether low
+or high, but probably on a first story. The great facade of the Ziani
+Palace being, as above mentioned, on the Piazzetta, this chamber was as
+far back and out of the way as possible; secrecy and security being
+obviously the points first considered.
+
+Sec. XV. But the newly constituted Senate had need of other additions to
+the ancient palace besides the Council Chamber. A short, but most
+significant, sentence is added to Sansovino's account of the
+construction of that room. "There were, _near_ _it_," he says, "the
+Cancellaria, and the _Gheba_ or _Gabbia_, afterwards called the Little
+Tower."[114]
+
+Gabbia means a "cage;" and there can be no question that certain
+apartments were at this time added at the top of the palace and on the
+Rio Facade, which were to be used as prisons. Whether any portion of the
+old Torresella still remains is a doubtful question; but the apartments
+at the top of the palace, in its fourth story, were still used for
+prisons as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century.[115] I wish
+the reader especially to notice that a separate tower or range of
+apartments was built for this purpose, in order to clear the government
+of the accusations so constantly made against them, by ignorant or
+partial historians, of wanton cruelty to prisoners. The stories commonly
+told respecting the "piombi" of the Ducal Palace are utterly false.
+Instead of being, as usually reported, small furnaces under the leads of
+the palace, they were comfortable rooms, with good flat roofs of larch,
+and carefully ventilated.[116] The new chamber, then, and the prisons,
+being built, the Great Council first sat in their retired chamber on the
+Rio in the year 1309.
+
+Sec. XVI. Now, observe the significant progress of events. They had no
+sooner thus established themselves in power than they were disturbed by
+the conspiracy of the Tiepolos, in the year 1310. In consequence of that
+conspiracy the Council of Ten was created, still under the Doge
+Gradenigo; who, having finished his work and left the aristocracy of
+Venice armed with this terrible power, died in the year 1312, some say
+by poison. He was succeeded by the Doge Marino Giorgio, who reigned
+only one year; and then followed the prosperous government of John
+Soranzo. There is no mention of any additions to the Ducal Palace during
+his reign, but he was succeeded by that Francesco Dandolo, the
+sculptures on whose tomb, still existing in the cloisters of the Salute,
+may be compared by any traveller with those of the Ducal Palace. Of him
+it is recorded in the Savina Chronicle: "This Doge also had the great
+gate built which is at the entry of the palace, above which is his
+statue kneeling, with the gonfalon in hand, before the feet of the Lion
+of St. Mark's."[117]
+
+Sec. XVII. It appears, then, that after the Senate had completed their
+Council Chamber and the prisons, they required a nobler door than that
+of the old Ziani Palace for their Magnificences to enter by. This door
+is twice spoken of in the government accounts of expenses, which are
+fortunately preserved,[118] in the following terms:--
+
+"1335, June 1. We, Andrew Dandolo and Mark Loredano, procurators of
+   St. Mark's, have paid to Martin the stone-cutter and his
+   associates[119] ... for a stone of which the lion is made which is
+   put over the gate of the palace."
+
+"1344, November 4. We have paid thirty-five golden ducats for making
+   gold leaf, to gild the lion which is over the door of the palace
+   stairs."
+
+The position of this door is disputed, and is of no consequence to the
+reader, the door itself having long ago disappeared, and been replaced
+by the Porta della Carta.
+
+Sec. XVIII. But before it was finished, occasion had been discovered
+for farther improvements. The Senate found their new Council Chamber
+inconveniently small, and, about thirty years after its completion,
+began to consider where a larger and more magnificent one might be
+built. The government was now thoroughly established, and it was
+probably felt that there was some meanness in the retired position, as
+well as insufficiency in the size, of the Council Chamber on the Rio.
+The first definite account which I find of their proceedings, under
+these circumstances, is in the Caroldo Chronicle:[120]
+
+"1340. On the 28th of December, in the preceding year, Master Marco
+Erizzo, Nicolo Soranzo, and Thomas Gradenigo, were chosen to examine
+where a new saloon might be built in order to assemble therein the
+Greater Council.... On the 3rd of June, 1341, the Great Council elected
+two procurators of the work of this saloon, with a salary of eighty
+ducats a year."
+
+It appears from the entry still preserved in the Archivio, and quoted by
+Cadorin, that it was on the 28th of December, 1340, that the
+commissioners appointed to decide on this important matter gave in their
+report to the Grand Council, and that the decree passed thereupon for
+the commencement of a new Council Chamber on the Grand Canal.[121]
+
+_The room then begun is the one now in existence_, and its building
+involved the building of all that is best and most beautiful in the
+present Ducal Palace, the rich arcades of the lower stories being all
+prepared for sustaining this Sala del Gran Consiglio.
+
+Sec. XIX. In saying that it is the same now in existence, I do not mean
+that it has undergone no alterations; as we shall see hereafter, it has
+been refitted again and again, and some portions of its walls rebuilt;
+but in the place and form in which it first stood, it still stands; and
+by a glance at the position which its windows occupy, as shown in fig.
+XXXVII. above, the reader will see at once that whatever can be known
+respecting the design of the Sea Facade, must be gleaned out of the
+entries which refer to the building of this Great Council Chamber.
+
+Cadorin quotes two of great importance, to which we shall return in due
+time, made during the progress of the work in 1342 and 1344; then one of
+1349, resolving that the works at the Ducal Palace, which had been
+discontinued during the plague, should be resumed; and finally one in
+1362, which speaks of the Great Council Chamber as having been neglected
+and suffered to fall into "great desolation," and resolves that it shall
+be forthwith completed.[122]
+
+The interruption had not been caused by the plague only, but by the
+conspiracy of Faliero, and the violent death of the master builder.[123]
+The work was resumed in 1362, and completed within the next three years,
+at least so far as that Guariento was enabled to paint his Paradise on
+the walls;[124] so that the building must, at any rate, have been roofed
+by this time. Its decorations and fittings, however, were long in
+completion; the paintings on the roof being only executed in 1400.[125]
+They represented the heavens covered with stars,[126] this being, says
+Sansovino, the bearings of the Doge Steno. Almost all ceilings and
+vaults were at this time in Venice covered with stars, without any
+reference to armorial bearings; but Steno claims, under his noble title
+of Stellifer, an important share in completing the chamber, in an
+inscription upon two square tablets, now inlaid in the walls on each
+side of the great window towards the sea:
+
+  "MILLE QUADRINGENTI CURREBANT QUATUOR ANNI
+   HOC OPUS ILLUSTRIS MICHAEL DUX STELLIFER AUXIT."
+
+And in fact it is to this Doge that we owe the beautiful balcony of that
+window, though the work above it is partly of more recent date; and I
+think the tablets bearing this important inscription have been taken out
+and reinserted in the newer masonry. The labor of these final
+decorations occupied a total period of sixty years. The Grand Council
+sat in the finished chamber for the first time in 1423. In that year the
+Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was completed. It had taken, to build it,
+the energies of the entire period which I have above described as the
+central one of her life.
+
+Sec. XX. 3rd. The RENAISSANCE PALACE. I must go back a step or two, in
+order to be certain that the reader understands clearly the state of the
+palace in 1423. The works of addition or renovation had now been
+proceeding, at intervals, during a space of a hundred and twenty-three
+years. Three generations at least had been accustomed to witness the
+gradual advancement of the form of the Ducal Palace into more stately
+symmetry, and to contrast the works of sculpture and painting with which
+it was decorated,--full of the life, knowledge, and hope of the
+fourteenth century,--with the rude Byzantine chiselling of the palace of
+the Doge Ziani. The magnificent fabric just completed, of which the new
+Council Chamber was the nucleus, was now habitually known in Venice as
+the "Palazzo Nuovo;" and the old Byzantine edifice, now ruinous, and
+more manifest in its decay by its contrast with the goodly stones of the
+building which had been raised at its side, was of course known as the
+"Palazzo Vecchio."[127] That fabric, however, still occupied the
+principal position in Venice. The new Council Chamber had been erected
+by the side of it towards the Sea; but there was not then the wide quay
+in front, the Riva dei Schiavoni, which now renders the Sea Facade as
+important as that to the Piazzetta. There was only a narrow walk
+between the pillars and the water; and the _old_ palace of Ziani still
+faced the Piazzetta, and interrupted, by its decrepitude, the
+magnificence of the square where the nobles daily met. Every increase of
+the beauty of the new palace rendered the discrepancy between it and the
+companion building more painful; and then began to arise in the minds of
+all men a vague idea of the necessity of destroying the old palace, and
+completing the front of the Piazzetta with the same splendor as the Sea
+Facade. But no such sweeping measure of renovation had been contemplated
+by the Senate when they first formed the plan of their new Council
+Chamber. First a single additional room, then a gateway, then a larger
+room; but all considered merely as necessary additions to the palace,
+not as involving the entire reconstruction of the ancient edifice. The
+exhaustion of the treasury, and the shadows upon the political horizon,
+rendered it more than imprudent to incur the vast additional expense
+which such a project involved; and the Senate, fearful of itself, and
+desirous to guard against the weakness of its own enthusiasm, passed a
+decree, like the effort of a man fearful of some strong temptation to
+keep his thoughts averted from the point of danger. It was a decree, not
+merely that the old palace should not be rebuilt, but that no one should
+_propose_ rebuilding it. The feeling of the desirableness of doing so
+was too strong to permit fair discussion, and the Senate knew that to
+bring forward such a motion was to carry it.
+
+Sec. XXI. The decree, thus passed in order to guard against their own
+weakness, forbade any one to speak of rebuilding the old palace under
+the penalty of a thousand ducats. But they had rated their own
+enthusiasm too low: there was a man among them whom the loss of a
+thousand ducats could not deter from proposing what he believed to be
+for the good of the state.
+
+Some excuse was given him for bringing forward the motion, by a fire
+which occurred in 1419, and which injured both the church of St. Mark's,
+and part of the old palace fronting the Piazzetta. What followed, I
+shall relate in the words of Sanuto.[128]
+
+Sec. XXII. "Therefore they set themselves with all diligence and care to
+repair and adorn sumptuously, first God's house; but in the Prince's
+house things went on more slowly, _for it did not please the Doge[129]
+to restore it in the form in which it was before_; and they could not
+rebuild it altogether in a better manner, so great was the parsimony of
+these old fathers; because it was forbidden by laws, which condemned in
+a penalty of a thousand ducats any one who should propose to throw down
+the _old_ palace, and to rebuild it more richly and with greater
+expense. But the Doge, who was magnanimous, and who desired above all
+things what was honorable to the city, had the thousand ducats carried
+into the Senate Chamber, and then proposed that the palace should be
+rebuilt; saying: that, 'since the late fire had ruined in great part the
+Ducal habitation (not only his own private palace, but all the places
+used for public business) this occasion was to be taken for an
+admonishment sent from God, that they ought to rebuild the palace more
+nobly, and in a way more befitting the greatness to which, by God's
+grace, their dominions had reached; and that his motive in proposing
+this was neither ambition, nor selfish interest: that, as for ambition,
+they might have seen in the whole course of his life, through so many
+years, that he had never done anything for ambition, either in the city,
+or in foreign business; but in all his actions had kept justice first in
+his thoughts, and then the advantage of the state, and the honor of the
+Venetian name: and that, as far as regarded his private interest, if it
+had not been for this accident of the fire, he would never have thought
+of changing anything in the palace into either a more sumptuous or a
+more honorable form; and that during the many years in which he had
+lived in it, he had never endeavored to make any change, but had always
+been content with it, as his predecessors had left it; and that he knew
+well that, if they took in hand to build it as he exhorted and besought
+them, being now very old, and broken down with many toils, God would
+call him to another life before the walls were raised a pace from the
+ground. And that therefore they might perceive that he did not advise
+them to raise this building for his own convenience, but only for the
+honor of the city and its Dukedom; and that the good of it would never
+be felt by him, but by his successors.' Then he said, that 'in order, as
+he had always done, to observe the laws,... he had brought with him the
+thousand ducats which had been appointed as the penalty for proposing
+such a measure, so that he might prove openly to all men that it was not
+his own advantage that he sought, but the dignity of the state.'" There
+was no one (Sanuto goes on to tell us) who ventured, or desired, to
+oppose the wishes of the Doge; and the thousand ducats were unanimously
+devoted to the expenses of the work. "And they set themselves with much
+diligence to the work; and the palace was begun in the form and manner
+in which it is at present seen; but, as Mocenigo had prophesied, not
+long after, he ended his life, and not only did not see the work brought
+to a close, but hardly even begun."
+
+Sec. XXIII. There are one or two expressions in the above extracts which,
+if they stood alone, might lead the reader to suppose that the whole
+palace had been thrown down and rebuilt. We must however remember, that,
+at this time, the new Council Chamber, which had been one hundred years
+in building, was actually unfinished, the council had not yet sat in it;
+and it was just as likely that the Doge should then propose to destroy
+and rebuild it, as in this year, 1853, it is that any one should propose
+in our House of Commons to throw down the new Houses of Parliament,
+under the title of the "old palace," and rebuild _them_.
+
+Sec. XXIV. The manner in which Sanuto expresses himself will at once be
+seen to be perfectly natural, when it is remembered that although we now
+speak of the whole building as the "Ducal Palace," it consisted, in the
+minds of the old Venetians, of four distinct buildings. There were in it
+the palace, the state prisons, the senate-house, and the offices of
+public business; in other words, it was Buckingham Palace, the Tower of
+olden days, the Houses of Parliament, and Downing Street, all in one;
+and any of these four portions might be spoken of, without involving an
+allusion to any other. "Il Palazzo" was the Ducal residence, which, with
+most of the public offices, Mocenigo _did_ propose to pull down and
+rebuild, and which was actually pulled down and rebuilt. But the new
+Council Chamber, of which the whole facade to the Sea consisted, never
+entered into either his or Sanuto's mind for an instant, as necessarily
+connected with the Ducal residence.
+
+I said that the new Council Chamber, at the time when Mocenigo brought
+forward his measure, had never yet been used. It was in the year
+1422[130] that the decree passed to rebuild the palace: Mocenigo died in
+the following year,[131] and Francesco Foscari was elected in his room.
+The Great Council Chamber was used for the first time on the day when
+Foscari entered the Senate as Doge,--the 3rd of April, 1423, according
+to the Caroldo Chronicle;[132] the 23rd, which is probably correct, by
+an anonymous MS., No. 60, in the Correr Museum;[133]--and, the following
+year, on the 27th of March, the first hammer was lifted up against the
+old palace of Ziani.[134]
+
+Sec. XXV. That hammer stroke was the first act of the period properly
+called the "Renaissance." It was the knell of the architecture of
+Venice,--and of Venice herself.
+
+The central epoch of her life was past; the decay had already begun: I
+dated its commencement above (Ch. I. Vol. 1.) from the death of
+Mocenigo. A year had not yet elapsed since that great Doge had been
+called to his account: his patriotism, always sincere, had been in this
+instance mistaken; in his zeal for the honor of future Venice, he had
+forgotten what was due to the Venice of long ago. A thousand palaces
+might be built upon her burdened islands, but none of them could take
+the place, or recall the memory, of that which was first built upon her
+unfrequented shore. It fell; and, as if it had been the talisman of her
+fortunes, the city never flourished again.
+
+Sec. XXVI. I have no intention of following out, in their intricate
+details, the operations which were begun under Foscari and continued
+under succeeding Doges till the palace assumed its present form, for I
+am not in this work concerned, except by occasional reference, with the
+architecture of the fifteenth century: but the main facts are the
+following. The palace of Ziani was destroyed; the existing facade to the
+Piazzetta built, so as both to continue and to resemble, in most
+particulars, the work of the Great Council Chamber. It was carried back
+from the Sea as far as the Judgment angle; beyond which is the Porta
+della Carta, begun in 1439, and finished in two years, under the Doge
+Foscari;[135] the interior buildings connected with it were added by the
+Doge Christopher Moro (the Othello of Shakspeare)[136] in 1462.
+
+Sec. XXVII. By reference to the figure the reader will see that we have
+now gone the round of the palace, and that the new work of 1462 was close
+upon the first piece of the Gothic palace, the _new_ Council Chamber of
+1301. Some remnants of the Ziani Palace were perhaps still left between
+the two extremities of the Gothic Palace; or, as is more probable, the
+last stones of it may have been swept away after the fire of 1419, and
+replaced by new apartments for the Doge. But whatever buildings, old or
+new, stood on this spot at the time of the completion of the Porta della
+Carta were destroyed by another great fire in 1479, together with so
+much of the palace on the Rio that, though the saloon of Gradenigo, then
+known as the Sala de' Pregadi, was not destroyed, it became necessary to
+reconstruct the entire facades of the portion of the palace behind the
+Bridge of Sighs, both towards the court and canal. This work was
+entrusted to the best Renaissance architects of the close of the
+fifteenth and opening of the sixteenth centuries; Antonio Ricci
+executing the Giant's staircase, and on his absconding with a large sum
+of the public money, Pietro Lombardo taking his place. The whole work
+must have been completed towards the middle of the sixteenth century.
+The architects of the palace, advancing round the square and led by
+fire, had more than reached the point from which they had set out; and
+the work of 1560 was joined to the work of 1301-1340, at the point
+marked by the conspicuous vertical line in Figure XXXVII. on the Rio
+Facade.
+
+Sec. XXVIII. But the palace was not long permitted to remain in this
+finished form. Another terrific fire, commonly called the great fire,
+burst out in 1574, and destroyed the inner fittings and all the precious
+pictures of the Great Council Chamber, and of all the upper rooms on the
+Sea Facade, and most of those on the Rio Facade, leaving the building a
+mere shell, shaken and blasted by the flames. It was debated in the
+Great Council whether the ruin should not be thrown down, and an
+entirely new palace built in its stead. The opinions of all the leading
+architects of Venice were taken, respecting the safety of the walls, or
+the possibility of repairing them as they stood. These opinions, given
+in writing, have been preserved, and published by the Abbe Cadorin, in
+the work already so often referred to; and they form one of the most
+important series of documents connected with the Ducal Palace.
+
+I cannot help feeling some childish pleasure in the accidental
+resemblance to my own name in that of the architect whose opinion was
+first given in favor of the ancient fabric, Giovanni Rusconi. Others,
+especially Palladio, wanted to pull down the old palace, and execute
+designs of their own; but the best architects in Venice, and to his
+immortal honor, chiefly Francesco Sansovino, energetically pleaded for
+the Gothic pile, and prevailed. It was successfully repaired, and
+Tintoret painted his noblest picture on the wall from which the Paradise
+of Guariento had withered before the flames.
+
+Sec. XXIX. The repairs necessarily undertaken at this time were however
+extensive, and interfere in many directions with the earlier work of the
+palace: still the only serious alteration in its form was the
+transposition of the prisons, formerly at the top of the palace, to the
+other side of the Rio del Palazzo; and the building of the Bridge of
+Sighs, to connect them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The
+completion of this work brought the whole edifice into its present form;
+with the exception of alterations in doors, partitions, and staircases
+among the inner apartments, not worth noticing, and such barbarisms and
+defacements as have been suffered within the last fifty years, by, I
+suppose, nearly every building of importance in Italy.
+
+Sec. XXX. Now, therefore, we are liberty to examine some of the details
+of the Ducal Palace, without any doubt about their dates. I shall not,
+however, give any elaborate illustrations of them here, because I could
+not do them justice on the scale of the page of this volume, or by means
+of line engraving. I believe a new era is opening to us in the art of
+illustration,[137] and that I shall be able to give large figures of the
+details of the Ducal Palace at a price which will enable every person
+who is interested in the subject to possess them; so that the cost and
+labor of multiplying illustrations here would be altogether wasted. I
+shall therefore direct the reader's attention only to points of interest
+as can be explained in the text.
+
+Sec. XXXI. First, then, looking back to the woodcut at the beginning of
+this chapter, the reader will observe that, as the building was very
+nearly square on the ground plan, a peculiar prominence and importance
+were given to its angles, which rendered it necessary that they should
+be enriched and softened by sculpture. I do not suppose that the fitness
+of this arrangement will be questioned; but if the reader will take the
+pains to glance over any series of engravings of church towers or other
+four-square buildings in which great refinement of form has been
+attained, he will at once observe how their effect depends on some
+modification of the sharpness of the angle, either by groups of
+buttresses, or by turrets and niches rich in sculpture. It is to be
+noted also that this principle of breaking the angle is peculiarly
+Gothic, arising partly out of the necessity of strengthening the flanks
+of enormous buildings, where composed of imperfect materials, by
+buttresses or pinnacles; partly out of the conditions of Gothic warfare,
+which generally required a tower at the angle; partly out of the natural
+dislike of the meagreness of effect in buildings which admitted large
+surfaces of wall, if the angle were entirely unrelieved. The Ducal
+Palace, in its acknowledgment of this principle, makes a more definite
+concession to the Gothic spirit than any of the previous architecture of
+Venice. No angle, up to the time of its erection, had been otherwise
+decorated than by a narrow fluted pilaster of red marble, and the
+sculpture was reserved always, as in Greek and Roman work, for the plane
+surfaces of the building, with, as far as I recollect, two exceptions
+only, both in St. Mark's; namely, the bold and grotesque gargoyle on its
+north-west angle, and the angels which project from the four inner
+angles under the main cupola; both of these arrangements being plainly
+made under Lombardic influence. And if any other instances occur, which
+I may have at present forgotten, I am very sure the Northern influence
+will always be distinctly traceable in them.
+
+Sec. XXXII. The Ducal Palace, however, accepts the principle in its
+completeness, and throws the main decoration upon its angles. The
+central window, which looks rich and important in the woodcut, was
+entirely restored in the Renaissance time, as we have seen, under the
+Doge Steno; so that we have no traces of its early treatment; and the
+principal interest of the older palace is concentrated in the angle
+sculpture, which is arranged in the following manner. The pillars of the
+two bearing arcades are much enlarged in thickness at the angles, and
+their capitals increased in depth, breadth, and fulness of subject;
+above each capital, on the angle of the wall, a sculptural subject is
+introduced, consisting, in the great lower arcade, of two or more
+figures of the size of life; in the upper arcade, of a single angel
+holding a scroll: above these angels rise the twisted pillars with their
+crowning niches, already noticed in the account of parapets in the
+seventh chapter; thus forming an unbroken line of decoration from the
+ground to the top of the angle.
+
+Sec. XXXIII. It was before noticed that one of the corners of the palace
+joins the irregular outer buildings connected with St. Mark's, and is
+not generally seen. There remain, therefore, to be decorated, only the
+three angles, above distinguished as the Vine angle, the Fig-tree angle,
+and the Judgment angle; and at these we have, according to the
+arrangement just explained,--
+
+First, Three great bearing capitals (lower arcade).
+
+Secondly, Three figure subjects of sculpture above them (lower arcade).
+
+Thirdly, Three smaller bearing capitals (upper arcade).
+
+Fourthly, Three angels above them (upper arcade).
+
+Fifthly, Three spiral shafts with niches.
+
+Sec. XXXIV. I shall describe the bearing capitals hereafter, in their
+order, with the others of the arcade; for the first point to which the
+reader's attention ought to be directed is the choice of subject in the
+great figure sculptures above them. These, observe, are the very corner
+stones of the edifice, and in them we may expect to find the most
+important evidences of the feeling, as well as of the skill, of the
+builder. If he has anything to say to us of the purpose with which he
+built the palace, it is sure to be said here; if there was any lesson
+which he wished principally to teach to those for whom he built, here
+it is sure to be inculcated; if there was any sentiment which they
+themselves desired to have expressed in the principal edifice of their
+city, this is the place in which we may be secure of finding it legibly
+inscribed.
+
+Sec. XXXV. Now the first two angles, of the Vine and Fig-tree, belong
+to the old, or true Gothic, Palace; the third angle belongs to the
+Renaissance imitation of it: therefore, at the first two angles, it is
+the Gothic spirit which is going to speak to us; and, at the third, the
+Renaissance spirit.
+
+The reader remembers, I trust, that the most characteristic sentiment of
+all that we traced in the working of the Gothic heart, was the frank
+confession of its own weakness; and I must anticipate, for a moment, the
+results of our inquiry in subsequent chapters, so far as to state that
+the principal element in the Renaissance spirit, is its firm confidence
+in its own wisdom.
+
+Hear, then, the two spirits speak for themselves.
+
+The first main sculpture of the Gothic Palace is on what I have called
+the angle of the Fig-tree:
+
+Its subject is the FALL OF MAN.
+
+The second sculpture is on the angle of the Vine:
+
+Its subject is the DRUNKENNESS OF NOAH.
+
+The Renaissance sculpture is on the Judgment angle:
+
+Its subject is the JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.
+
+It is impossible to overstate, or to regard with too much admiration,
+the significance of this single fact. It is as if the palace had been
+built at various epochs, and preserved uninjured to this day, for the
+sole purpose of teaching us the difference in the temper of the two
+schools.
+
+Sec. XXXVI. I have called the sculpture on the Fig-tree angle the
+principal one; because it is at the central bend of the palace, where it
+turns to the Piazzetta (the facade upon the Piazzetta being, as we saw
+above, the more important one in ancient times). The great capital, which
+sustains this Fig-tree angle, is also by far more elaborate than the head
+of the pilaster under the Vine angle, marking the preeminence of the
+former in the architect's mind. It is impossible to say which was first
+executed, but that of the Fig-tree angle is somewhat rougher in execution,
+and more stiff in the design of the figures, so that I rather suppose it
+to have been the earliest completed.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XIX.
+               LEAFAGE OF THE VINE ANGLE.]
+
+Sec. XXXVII. In both the subjects, of the Fall and the Drunkenness, the
+tree, which forms the chiefly decorative portion of the sculpture,--fig
+in the one case, vine in the other,--was a necessary adjunct. Its trunk,
+in both sculptures, forms the true outer angle of the palace; boldly cut
+separate from the stone-work behind, and branching out above the figures
+so as to enwrap each side of the angle, for several feet, with its deep
+foliage. Nothing can be more masterly or superb than the sweep of this
+foliage on the Fig-tree angle; the broad leaves lapping round the
+budding fruit, and sheltering from sight, beneath their shadows, birds
+of the most graceful form and delicate plumage. The branches are,
+however, so strong, and the masses of stone hewn into leafage so large,
+that, notwithstanding the depth of the undercutting, the work remains
+nearly uninjured; not so at the Vine angle, where the natural delicacy
+of the vine-leaf and tendril having tempted the sculptor to greater
+effort, he has passed the proper limits of his art, and cut the upper
+stems so delicately that half of them have been broken away by the
+casualties to which the situation of the sculpture necessarily exposes
+it. What remains is, however, so interesting in its extreme refinement,
+that I have chosen it for the subject of the opposite illustration
+rather than the nobler masses of the fig-tree, which ought to be
+rendered on a larger scale. Although half of the beauty of the
+composition is destroyed by the breaking away of its central masses,
+there is still enough in the distribution of the variously bending
+leaves, and in the placing of the birds on the lighter branches, to
+prove to us the power of the designer. I have already referred to this
+Plate as a remarkable instance of the Gothic Naturalism; and, indeed, it
+is almost impossible for the copying of nature to be carried farther
+than in the fibres of the marble branches, and the careful finishing of
+the tendrils: note especially the peculiar expression of the knotty
+joints of the vine in the light branch which rises highest. Yet only
+half the finish of the work can be seen in the Plate: for, in several
+cases, the sculptor has shown the under sides of the leaves turned
+boldly to the light, and has literally _carved every rib and vein upon
+them, in relief_; not merely the main ribs which sustain the lobes of
+the leaf, and actually project in nature, but the irregular and sinuous
+veins which chequer the membranous tissues between them, and which the
+sculptor has represented conventionally as relieved like the others, in
+order to give the vine leaf its peculiar tessellated effect upon the
+eye.
+
+Sec. XXXVIII. As must always be the case in early sculpture, the figures
+are much inferior to the leafage; yet so skilful in many respects, that
+it was a long time before I could persuade myself that they had indeed
+been wrought in the first half of the fourteenth century. Fortunately,
+the date is inscribed upon a monument in the Church of San Simeon
+Grande, bearing a recumbent statue of the saint, of far finer
+workmanship, in every respect, than those figures of the Ducal Palace,
+yet so like them, that I think there can be no question that the head of
+Noah was wrought by the sculptor of the palace in emulation of that of
+the statue of St. Simeon. In this latter sculpture, the face is
+represented in death; the mouth partly open, the lips thin and sharp,
+the teeth carefully sculptured beneath; the face full of quietness and
+majesty, though very ghastly; the hair and beard flowing in luxuriant
+wreaths, disposed with the most masterly freedom, yet severity, of
+design, far down upon the shoulders; the hands crossed upon the body,
+carefully studied, and the veins and sinews perfectly and easily
+expressed, yet without any attempt at extreme finish or display of
+technical skill. This monument bears date 1317,[138] and its sculptor
+was justly proud of it; thus recording his name:
+
+  "CELAVIT MARCUS OPUS HOC INSIGNE ROMANIS,
+     LAUDIBUS NON PARCUS EST SUA DIGNA MANUS."
+
+Sec. XXXIX. The head of the Noah on the Ducal Palace, evidently worked
+in emulation of this statue, has the same profusion of flowing hair and
+beard, but wrought in smaller and harder curls; and the veins on the
+arms and breast are more sharply drawn, the sculptor being evidently
+more practised in keen and fine lines of vegetation than in those of the
+figure; so that, which is most remarkable in a workman of this early
+period, he has failed in telling his story plainly, regret and wonder
+being so equally marked on the features of all the three brothers that
+it is impossible to say which is intended for Ham. Two of the heads of
+the brothers are seen in the Plate; the third figure is not with the
+rest of the group, but set at a distance of about twelve feet, on the
+other side of the arch which springs from the angle capital.
+
+Sec. XL. It may be observed, as a farther evidence of the date of the
+group, that, in the figures of all the three youths, the feet are
+protected simply by a bandage arranged in crossed folds round the ankle
+and lower part of the limb; a feature of dress which will be found in
+nearly every piece of figure sculpture in Venice, from the year 1300 to
+1380, and of which the traveller may see an example within three hundred
+yards of this very group, in the bas-reliefs on the tomb of the Doge
+Andrea Dandolo (in St. Mark's), who died in 1354.
+
+Sec. XLI. The figures of Adam and Eve, sculptured on each side of the
+Fig-tree angle, are more stiff than those of Noah and his sons, but are
+better fitted for their architectural service; and the trunk of the
+tree, with the angular body of the serpent writhed around it, is more
+nobly treated as a terminal group of lines than that of the vine.
+
+The Renaissance sculptor of the figures of the Judgment of Solomon has
+very nearly copied the fig-tree from this angle, placing its trunk
+between the executioner and the mother, who leans forward to stay his
+hand. But, though the whole group is much more free in design than those
+of the earlier palace, and in many ways excellent in itself, so that it
+always strikes the eye of a careless observer more than the others, it
+is of immeasurably inferior spirit in the workmanship; the leaves of the
+tree, though far more studiously varied in flow than those of the
+fig-tree from which they are partially copied, have none of its truth to
+nature; they are ill set on the stems, bluntly defined on the edges, and
+their curves are not those of growing leaves, but of wrinkled drapery.
+
+Sec. XLII. Above these three sculptures are set, in the upper arcade, the
+statues of the archangels Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel: their positions
+will be understood by reference to the lowest figure in Plate XVII.,
+where that of Raphael above the Vine angle is seen on the right. A
+diminutive figure of Tobit follows at his feet, and he bears in his hand
+a scroll with this inscription:
+
+  EFICE Q
+  SOFRE
+  TUR AFA
+  EL REVE
+  RENDE
+  QUIETU
+
+i.e. Effice (quaeso?) fretum, Raphael reverende, quietum.[139] I could
+not decipher the inscription on the scroll borne by the angel Michael;
+and the figure of Gabriel, which is by much the most beautiful feature
+of the Renaissance portion of the palace, has only in its hand the
+Annunciation lily.
+
+Sec. XLIII. Such are the subjects of the main sculptures decorating the
+angles of the palace; notable, observe, for their simple expression of
+two feelings, the consciousness of human frailty, and the dependence
+upon Divine guidance and protection: this being, of course, the general
+purpose of the introduction of the figures of the angels; and, I
+imagine, intended to be more particularly conveyed by the manner in
+which the small figure of Tobit follows the steps of Raphael, just
+touching the hem of his garment. We have next to examine the course of
+divinity and of natural history embodied by the old sculpture in the
+great series of capitals which support the lower arcade of the palace;
+and which, being at a height of little more than eight feet above the
+eye, might be read, like the pages of a book, by those (the noblest men
+in Venice) who habitually walked beneath the shadow of this great arcade
+at the time of their first meeting each other for morning converse.
+
+Sec. XLIV. The principal sculptures of the capitals consist of
+personifications of the Virtues and Vices, the favorite subjects of
+decorative art, at this period, in all the cities of Italy; and there is
+so much that is significant in the various modes of their distinction
+and general representation, more especially with reference to their
+occurrence as expressions of praise to the dead in sepulchral
+architecture, hereafter to be examined, that I believe the reader may
+both happily and profitably rest for a little while beneath the first
+vault of the arcade, to review the manner in which these symbols of the
+virtues were first invented by the Christian imagination, and the
+evidence they generally furnish of the state of religious feeling in
+those by whom they were recognised.
+
+Sec. XLV. In the early ages of Christianity, there was little care taken
+to analyze character. One momentous question was heard over the whole
+world,--Dost thou believe in the Lord with all thine heart? There was
+but one division among men,--the great unatoneable division between the
+disciple and adversary. The love of Christ was all, and in all; and in
+proportion to the nearness of their memory of His person and teaching,
+men understood the infinity of the requirements of the moral law, and
+the manner in which it alone could be fulfilled. The early Christians
+felt that virtue, like sin, was a subtle universal thing, entering into
+every act and thought, appearing outwardly in ten thousand diverse
+ways, diverse according to the separate framework of every heart in
+which it dwelt; but one and the same always in its proceeding from the
+love of God, as sin is one and the same in proceeding from hatred of
+God. And in their pure, early, and practical piety, they saw there was
+no need for codes of morality, or systems of metaphysics. Their virtue
+comprehended everything, entered into everything; it was too vast and
+too spiritual to be defined; but there was no need of its definition.
+For through faith, working by love, they knew that all human excellence
+would be developed in due order; but that, without faith, neither reason
+could define, nor effort reach, the lowest phase of Christian virtue.
+And therefore, when any of the Apostles have occasion to describe or
+enumerate any forms of vice or virtue by name, there is no attempt at
+system in their words. They use them hurriedly and energetically,
+heaping the thoughts one upon another, in order as far as possible to
+fill the reader's mind with a sense of the infinity both of crime and of
+righteousness. Hear St. Paul describe sin: "Being filled with all
+unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness;
+full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters,
+haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things,
+disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers,
+without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." There is evidently
+here an intense feeling of the universality of sin; and in order to
+express it, the Apostle hurries his words confusedly together, little
+caring about their order, as knowing all the vices to be indissolubly
+connected one with another. It would be utterly vain to endeavor to
+arrange his expressions as if they had been intended for the ground of
+any system, or to give any philosophical definition of the vices.[140]
+So also hear him speaking of virtue: "Rejoice in the Lord. Let your
+moderation be known unto all men. Be careful for nothing, but in
+everything let your requests be made known unto God; and whatsoever
+things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are
+pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
+report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on
+these things." Observe, he gives up all attempt at definition; he leaves
+the definition to every man's heart, though he writes so as to mark the
+overflowing fulness of his own vision of virtue. And so it is in all
+writings of the Apostles; their manner of exhortation, and the kind of
+conduct they press, vary according to the persons they address, and the
+feeling of the moment at which they write, and never show any attempt at
+logical precision. And, although the words of their Master are not thus
+irregularly uttered, but are weighed like fine gold, yet, even in His
+teaching, there is no detailed or organized system of morality; but the
+command only of that faith and love which were to embrace the whole
+being of man: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the
+prophets." Here and there an incidental warning against this or that
+more dangerous form of vice or error, "Take heed and beware of
+covetousness," "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees;" here and there a
+plain example of the meaning of Christian love, as in the parables of
+the Samaritan and the Prodigal, and His own perpetual example: these
+were the elements of Christ's constant teaching; for the Beatitudes,
+which are the only approximation to anything like a systematic
+statement, belong to different conditions and characters of individual
+men, not to abstract virtues. And all early Christians taught in the
+same manner. They never cared to expound the nature of this or that
+virtue; for they knew that the believer who had Christ, had all. Did he
+need fortitude? Christ was his rock: Equity? Christ was his
+righteousness: Holiness? Christ was his sanctification: Liberty? Christ
+was his redemption: Temperance? Christ was his ruler: Wisdom? Christ was
+his light: Truthfulness? Christ was the truth: Charity? Christ was love.
+
+Sec. XLVI. Now, exactly in proportion as the Christian religion became
+less vital, and as the various corruptions which time and Satan brought
+into it were able to manifest themselves, the person and offices of Christ
+were less dwelt upon, and the virtues of Christians more. The Life of
+the Believer became in some degree separated from the Life of Christ;
+and his virtue, instead of being a stream flowing forth from the throne
+of God, and descending upon the earth, began to be regarded by him as a
+pyramid upon earth, which he had to build up, step by step, that from
+the top of it he might reach the Heavens. It was not possible to measure
+the waves of the water of life, but it was perfectly possible to measure
+the bricks of the Tower of Babel; and gradually, as the thoughts of men
+were withdrawn from their Redeemer, and fixed upon themselves, the
+virtues began to be squared, and counted, and classified, and put into
+separate heaps of firsts and seconds; some things being virtuous
+cardinally, and other things virtuous only north-north-west. It is very
+curious to put in close juxtaposition the words of the Apostles and of
+some of the writers of the fifteenth century touching sanctification.
+For instance, hear first St. Paul to the Thessalonians: "The very God of
+peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and
+body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
+Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it." And then the
+following part of a prayer which I translate from a MS. of the fifteenth
+century: "May He (the Holy Spirit) govern the five Senses of my body;
+may He cause me to embrace the Seven Works of Mercy, and firmly to
+believe and observe the Twelve Articles of the Faith and the Ten
+Commandments of the Law, and defend me from the Seven Mortal Sins, even
+to the end."
+
+Sec. XLVII. I do not mean that this quaint passage is generally
+characteristic of the devotion of the fifteenth century: the very prayer
+out of which it is taken is in other parts exceedingly beautiful:[141]
+but the passage is strikingly illustrative of the tendency of the later
+Romish Church, more especially in its most corrupt condition, just
+before the Reformation, to throw all religion into forms and ciphers;
+which tendency, as it affected Christian ethics, was confirmed by the
+Renaissance enthusiasm for the works of Aristotle and Cicero, from whom
+the code of the fifteenth century virtues was borrowed, and whose
+authority was then infinitely more revered by all the Doctors of the
+Church than that either of St. Paul or St. Peter.
+
+Sec. XLVIII. Although, however, this change in the tone of the Christian
+mind was most distinctly manifested when the revival of literature
+rendered the works of the heathen philosophers the leading study of all
+the greatest scholars of the period, it had been, as I said before,
+taking place gradually from the earliest ages. It is, as far as I know,
+that root of the Renaissance poison-tree, which, of all others, is
+deepest struck; showing itself in various measures through the writings
+of all the Fathers, of course exactly in proportion to the respect which
+they paid to classical authors, especially to Plato, Aristotle, and
+Cicero. The mode in which the pestilent study of that literature
+affected them may be well illustrated by the examination of a single
+passage from the works of one of the best of them, St. Ambrose, and of
+the mode in which that passage was then amplified and formulized by
+later writers.
+
+Sec. XLIX. Plato, indeed, studied alone, would have done no one any harm.
+He is profoundly spiritual and capacious in all his views, and embraces
+the small systems of Aristotle and Cicero, as the solar system does the
+Earth. He seems to me especially remarkable for the sense of the great
+Christian virtue of Holiness, or sanctification; and for the sense of
+the presence of the Deity in all things, great or small, which always
+runs in a solemn undercurrent beneath his exquisite playfulness and
+irony; while all the merely moral virtues may be found in his writings
+defined in the most noble manner, as a great painter defines his
+figures, _without outlines_. But the imperfect scholarship of later ages
+seems to have gone to Plato, only to find in him the system of Cicero;
+which indeed was very definitely expressed by him. For it having been
+quickly felt by all men who strove, unhelped by Christian faith, to
+enter at the strait gate into the paths of virtue, that there were four
+characters of mind which were protective or preservative of all that was
+best in man, namely, Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance,[142]
+these were afterwards, with most illogical inaccuracy, called cardinal
+_virtues_, Prudence being evidently no virtue, but an intellectual gift:
+but this inaccuracy arose partly from the ambiguous sense of the Latin
+word "virtutes," which sometimes, in mediaeval language, signifies
+virtues, sometimes powers (being occasionally used in the Vulgate for
+the word "hosts," as in Psalm ciii. 21, cxlviii. 2, &c., while
+"fortitudines" and "exercitus" are used for the same word in other
+places), so that Prudence might properly be styled a power, though not
+properly a virtue; and partly from the confusion of Prudence with
+Heavenly Wisdom. The real rank of these four virtues, if so they are to
+be called, is however properly expressed by the term "cardinal." They
+are virtues of the compass, those by which all others are directed and
+strengthened; they are not the greatest virtues, but the restraining or
+modifying virtues, thus Prudence restrains zeal, Justice restrains
+mercy, Fortitude and Temperance guide the entire system of the passions;
+and, thus understood, these virtues properly assumed their peculiar
+leading or guiding position in the system of Christian ethics. But in
+Pagan ethics, they were not only guiding, but comprehensive. They meant
+a great deal more on the lips of the ancients, than they now express to
+the Christian mind. Cicero's Justice includes charity, beneficence, and
+benignity, truth, and faith in the sense of trustworthiness. His
+Fortitude includes courage, self-command, the scorn of fortune and of
+all temporary felicities. His Temperance includes courtesy and modesty.
+So also, in Plato, these four virtues constitute the sum of education. I
+do not remember any more simple or perfect expression of the idea, than
+in the account given by Socrates, in the "Alcibiades I.," of the
+education of the Persian kings, for whom, in their youth, there are
+chosen, he says, four tutors from among the Persian nobles; namely, the
+Wisest, the most Just, the most Temperate, and the most Brave of them.
+Then each has a distinct duty: "The Wisest teaches the young king the
+worship of the gods, and the duties of a king (something more here,
+observe, than our 'Prudence!'); the most Just teaches him to speak all
+truth, and to act out all truth, through the whole course of his life;
+the most Temperate teaches him to allow no pleasure to have the mastery
+of him, so that he may be truly free, and indeed a king; and the most
+Brave makes him fearless of all things, showing him that the moment he
+fears anything, he becomes a slave."
+
+Sec. L. All this is exceedingly beautiful, so far as it reaches; but
+the Christian divines were grievously led astray by their endeavors to
+reconcile this system with the nobler law of love. At first, as in the
+passage I am just going to quote from St. Ambrose, they tried to graft
+the Christian system on the four branches of the Pagan one; but finding
+that the tree would not grow, they planted the Pagan and Christian
+branches side by side; adding, to the four cardinal virtues, the three
+called by the schoolmen theological, namely, Faith, Hope, and Charity:
+the one series considered as attainable by the Heathen, but the other by
+the Christian only. Thus Virgil to Sordello:
+
+  "Loco e laggiu, non tristo da martiri
+    Ma di tenebre solo, ove i lamenti
+    Non suonan come guai, ma son sospiri:
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Quivi sto io, con quei che le tre sante
+    Virtu non si vestiro, e senza vizio
+    Conobbei l' altre, e seguir, tutte quante."
+
+  . . . . . "There I with those abide
+  Who the Three Holy Virtues put not on,
+  But understood the rest, and without blame
+  Followed them all."
+
+                                         CARY.
+
+Sec. LI. This arrangement of the virtues was, however, productive of
+infinite confusion and error: in the first place, because Faith is
+classed with its own fruits,--the gift of God, which is the root of the
+virtues, classed simply as one of them; in the second, because the words
+used by the ancients to express the several virtues had always a
+different meaning from the same expressions in the Bible, sometimes a
+more extended, sometimes a more limited one. Imagine, for instance, the
+confusion which must have been introduced into the ideas of a student
+who read St. Paul and Aristotle alternately; considering that the word
+which the Greek writer uses for Justice, means, with St. Paul,
+Righteousness. And lastly, it is impossible to overrate the mischief
+produced in former days, as well as in our own, by the mere habit of
+reading Aristotle, whose system is so false, so forced, and so
+confused, that the study of it at our universities is quite enough to
+occasion the utter want of accurate habits of thought which so often
+disgraces men otherwise well-educated. In a word, Aristotle mistakes the
+Prudence or Temperance which must regulate the operation of the virtues,
+for the essence of the virtues themselves; and, striving to show that
+all virtues are means between two opposite vices, torments his wit to
+discover and distinguish as many pairs of vices as are necessary to the
+completion of his system, not disdaining to employ sophistry where
+invention fails him.
+
+And, indeed, the study of classical literature, in general, not only
+fostered in the Christian writers the unfortunate love of systematizing,
+which gradually degenerated into every species of contemptible
+formulism, but it accustomed them to work out their systems by the help
+of any logical quibble, or verbal subtlety, which could be made
+available for their purpose, and this not with any dishonest intention,
+but in a sincere desire to arrange their ideas in systematical groups,
+while yet their powers of thought were not accurate enough, nor their
+common sense stern enough, to detect the fallacy, or disdain the
+finesse, by which these arrangements were frequently accomplished.
+
+Sec. LII. Thus St. Ambrose, in his commentary on Luke vi. 20, is resolved
+to transform the four Beatitudes there described into rewards of the
+four cardinal Virtues, and sets himself thus ingeniously to the task:
+
+"'Blessed be ye poor.' Here you have Temperance. 'Blessed are ye that
+hunger now.' He who hungers, pities those who are an-hungered; in
+pitying, he gives to them, and in giving he becomes just (largiendo fit
+Justus). 'Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.' Here you
+have Prudence, whose part it is to weep, so far as present things are
+concerned, and to seek things which are eternal. 'Blessed are ye when
+men shall hate you.' Here you have Fortitude."
+
+Sec. LIII. As a preparation for this profitable exercise of wit, we have
+also a reconciliation of the Beatitudes as stated by St. Matthew, with
+those of St. Luke, on the ground that "in those eight are these four,
+and in these four are those eight;" with sundry remarks on the mystical
+value of the number eight, with which I need not trouble the reader.
+With St. Ambrose, however, this puerile systematization is quite
+subordinate to a very forcible and truthful exposition of the real
+nature of the Christian life. But the classification he employs
+furnishes ground for farther subtleties to future divines; and in a MS.
+of the thirteenth century I find some expressions in this commentary on
+St. Luke, and in the treatise on the duties of bishops, amplified into a
+treatise on the "Steps of the Virtues: by which every one who perseveres
+may, by a straight path, attain to the heavenly country of the Angels."
+("Liber de Gradibus Virtutum: quibus ad patriam angelorum supernam
+itinere recto ascenditur ab omni perseverante.") These Steps are thirty
+in number (one expressly for each day of the month), and the curious
+mode of their association renders the list well worth quoting:--
+
+Sec. LIV.
+       Primus gradus est  Fides Recta.          Unerring faith.
+       Secundus "         Spes firma.           Firm hope.
+       Tertius  "         Caritas perfecta.     Perfect charity.
+          4.    "         Patientia vera.       True patience.
+          5.    "         Humilitas sancta.     Holy humility.
+          6.    "         Mansuetudo.           Meekness.
+          7.    "         Intelligentia.        Understanding.
+          8.    "         Compunctio cordis.    Contrition of heart.
+          9.    "         Oratio.               Prayer.
+         10.    "         Confessio pura.       Pure confession.
+         11.    "         Penitentia digna.     Fitting penance.[143]
+         12.    "         Abstinentia.          Abstinence (fasting).
+         13.    "         Timor Dei.            Fear of God.
+         14.    "         Virginitas.           Virginity.
+         15.    "         Justicia.             Justice.
+         16.    "         Misericordia.         Mercy.
+         17.    "         Elemosina.            Almsgiving.
+         18.    "         Hospitalitas.         Hospitality.
+         19.    "         Honor parentum.       Honoring of parents.
+         20.    "         Silencium.            Silence.
+         21.    "         Consilium bonum.      Good counsel.
+         22.    "         Judicium rectum.      Right judgment.
+         23.    "         Exemplum bonum.       Good example.
+         24.    "         Visitatio infirmorum. Visitation of the sick.
+         25.    "         Frequentatio          Companying with saints.
+                             sanctorum.
+         26.    "         Oblatio justa.        Just oblations.
+         27.    "         Decimas Deo solvere.  Paying tithes to God.
+         28.    "         Sapientia.            Wisdom.
+         29.    "         Voluntas bona.        Goodwill.
+         30.    "         Perseverantia.        Perseverance.
+
+Sec. LV. The reader will note that the general idea of Christian virtue
+embodied in this list is true, exalted, and beautiful; the points of
+weakness being the confusion of duties with virtues, and the vain
+endeavor to enumerate the various offices of charity as so many separate
+virtues; more frequently arranged as seven distinct works of mercy. This
+general tendency to a morbid accuracy of classification was associated,
+in later times, with another very important element of the Renaissance
+mind, the love of personification; which appears to have reached its
+greatest vigor in the course of the sixteenth century, and is expressed
+to all future ages, in a consummate manner, in the poem of Spenser. It
+is to be noted that personification is, in some sort, the reverse of
+symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of a
+great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign (as, for instance, of the
+hope of the resurrection by the form of the phoenix); and it is almost
+always employed by men in their most serious moods of faith, rarely in
+recreation. Men who use symbolism forcibly are almost always true
+believers in what they symbolize. But Personification is the bestowing
+of a human or living form upon an abstract idea: it is, in most cases, a
+mere recreation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb the belief in the
+reality of the thing personified. Thus symbolism constituted the entire
+system of the Mosaic dispensation: it occurs in every word of Christ's
+teaching; it attaches perpetual mystery to the last and most solemn act
+of His life. But I do not recollect a single instance of personification
+in any of His words. And as we watch, thenceforward, the history of the
+Church, we shall find the declension of its faith exactly marked by the
+abandonment of symbolism,[144] and the profuse employment of
+personification,--even to such an extent that the virtues came, at last,
+to be confused with the saints; and we find in the later Litanies, St.
+Faith, St. Hope, St. Charity, and St. Chastity, invoked immediately
+after St. Clara and St. Bridget.
+
+Sec. LVI. Nevertheless, in the hands of its early and earnest masters, in
+whom fancy could not overthrow the foundations of faith, personification
+is, often thoroughly noble and lovely; the earlier conditions of it
+being just as much more spiritual and vital than the later ones, as the
+still earlier symbolism was more spiritual than they. Compare, for
+instance, Dante's burning Charity, running and returning at the wheels
+of the chariot of God,--
+
+            "So ruddy, that her form had scarce
+  Been known within a furnace of clear flame,"
+
+with Reynolds's Charity, a nurse in a white dress, climbed upon by three
+children.[145] And not only so, but the number and nature of the virtues
+differ considerably in the statements of different poets and painters,
+according to their own views of religion, or to the manner of life they
+had it in mind to illustrate. Giotto, for instance, arranges his system
+altogether differently at Assisi, where he is setting forth the monkish
+life, and in the Arena Chapel, where he treats of that of mankind in
+general, and where, therefore, he gives only the so-called theological
+and cardinal virtues; while, at Assisi, the three principal virtues are
+those which are reported to have appeared in vision to St. Francis,
+Chastity, Obedience, and Poverty: Chastity being attended by Fortitude,
+Purity, and Penance; Obedience by Prudence and Humility; Poverty by Hope
+and Charity. The systems vary with almost every writer, and in almost
+every important work of art which embodies them, being more or less
+spiritual according to the power of intellect by which they were
+conceived. The most noble in literature are, I suppose, those of Dante
+and Spenser: and with these we may compare five of the most interesting
+series in the early art of Italy; namely, those of Orcagna, Giotto, and
+Simon Memmi, at Florence and Padua, and those of St. Mark's and the
+Ducal Palace at Venice. Of course, in the richest of these series, the
+vices are personified together with the virtues, as in the Ducal Palace;
+and by the form or name of opposed vice, we may often ascertain, with
+much greater accuracy than would otherwise be possible, the particular
+idea of the contrary virtue in the mind of the writer or painter. Thus,
+when opposed to Prudence, or Prudentia, on the one side, we find Folly,
+or Stultitia, on the other, it shows that the virtue understood by
+Prudence, is not the mere guiding or cardinal virtue, but the Heavenly
+Wisdom,[146] opposed to that folly which "hath said in its heart, there
+is no God;" and of which it is said, "the thought of foolishness is
+sin;" and again, "Such as be foolish shall not stand in thy sight." This
+folly is personified, in early painting and illumination, by a
+half-naked man, greedily eating an apple or other fruit, and brandishing
+a club; showing that sensuality and violence are the two principal
+characteristics of Foolishness, and lead into atheism. The figure, in
+early Psalters, always forms the letter D, which commences the
+fifty-third Psalm, "_Dixit insipiens_."
+
+Sec. LVII. In reading Dante, this mode of reasoning from contraries is a
+great help, for his philosophy of the vices is the only one which admits
+of classification; his descriptions of virtue, while they include the
+ordinary formal divisions, are far too profound and extended to be
+brought under definition. Every line of the "Paradise" is full of the
+most exquisite and spiritual expressions of Christian truth; and that
+poem is only less read than the "Inferno" because it requires far
+greater attention, and, perhaps, for its full enjoyment, a holier heart.
+
+
+Sec. LVIII. His system in the "Inferno" is briefly this. The whole nether
+world is divided into seven circles, deep within deep, in each of which,
+according to its depth, severer punishment is inflicted. These seven
+circles, reckoning them downwards, are thus allotted:
+
+  1. To those who have lived virtuously, but knew not Christ.
+  2. To Lust.
+  3. To Gluttony.
+  4. To Avarice and Extravagance.
+  5. To Anger and _Sorrow_.
+  6. To Heresy.
+  7. To Violence and Fraud.
+
+This seventh circle is divided into two parts; of which the first,
+reserved for those who have been guilty of Violence, is again divided
+into three, apportioned severally to those who have committed, or
+desired to commit, violence against their neighbors, against themselves,
+or against God.
+
+The lowest hell, reserved for the punishment of Fraud, is itself divided
+into ten circles, wherein are severally punished the sins of,--
+
+   1. Betraying women.
+   2. Flattery.
+   3. Simony.
+   4. False prophecy.
+   5. Peculation.
+   6. Hypocrisy.
+   7. Theft.
+   8. False counsel.
+   9. Schism and Imposture.
+  10. Treachery to those who repose entire trust in the traitor.
+
+Sec. LIX. There is, perhaps, nothing more notable in this most interesting
+system than the profound truth couched under the attachment of so
+terrible a penalty to sadness or sorrow. It is true that Idleness does
+not elsewhere appear in the scheme, and is evidently intended to be
+included in the guilt of sadness by the word "accidioso;" but the main
+meaning of the poet is to mark the duty of rejoicing in God, according
+both to St. Paul's command, and Isaiah's promise, "Thou meetest him that
+rejoiceth and worketh righteousness."[147] I do not know words that
+might with more benefit be borne with us, and set in our hearts
+momentarily against the minor regrets and rebelliousnesses of life, than
+these simple ones:
+
+                       "Tristi fummo
+  Nel aer dolce, che del sol s' allegra,
+  Or ci attristiam, nella belletta negra."
+
+                "We once were sad,
+  In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun,
+  Now in these murky settlings are we sad."[148]          CARY.
+
+The virtue usually opposed to this vice of sullenness is Alacritas,
+uniting the sense of activity and cheerfulness. Spenser has cheerfulness
+simply, in his description, never enough to be loved or praised, of the
+virtues of Womanhood; first feminineness or womanhood in specialty;
+then,--
+
+    "Next to her sate goodly Shamefastnesse,
+   Ne ever durst, her eyes from ground upreare,
+   Ne ever once did looke up from her desse,[149]
+   As if some blame of evill she did feare
+   That in her cheekes made roses oft appeare:
+   And her against sweet Cherefulnesse was placed,
+   Whose eyes, like twinkling stars in evening cleare,
+   Were deckt with smyles that all sad humours chaced.
+
+  "And next to her sate sober Modestie,
+   Holding her hand upon her gentle hart;
+   And her against, sate comely Curtesie,
+   _That unto every person knew her part_;
+   And her before was seated overthwart
+   Soft Silence, and submisse Obedience,
+   Both linckt together never to dispart."
+
+Sec. LX. Another notable point in Dante's system is the intensity of
+uttermost punishment given to treason, the peculiar sin of Italy, and
+that to which, at this day, she attributes her own misery with her own
+lips. An Italian, questioned as to the causes of the failure of the
+campaign of 1848, always makes one answer, "We were betrayed;" and the
+most melancholy feature of the present state of Italy is principally
+this, that she does not see that, of all causes to which failure might
+be attributed, this is at once the most disgraceful, and the most
+hopeless. In fact, Dante seems to me to have written almost
+prophetically, for the instruction of modern Italy, and chiefly so in
+the sixth canto of the "Purgatorio."
+
+Sec. LXI. Hitherto we have been considering the system of the "Inferno"
+only. That of the "Purgatorio" is much simpler, it being divided into
+seven districts, in which the souls are severally purified from the sins
+of Pride, Envy, Wrath, Indifference, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust; the
+poet thus implying in opposition, and describing in various instances,
+the seven virtues of Humility, Kindness,[150] Patience, Zeal, Poverty,
+Abstinence, and Chastity, as adjuncts of the Christian character, in
+which it may occasionally fail, while the essential group of the three
+theological and four cardinal virtues are represented as in direct
+attendance on the chariot of the Deity; and all the sins of Christians
+are in the seventeenth canto traced to the deficiency or aberration of
+Affection.
+
+Sec. LXII. The system of Spenser is unfinished, and exceedingly
+complicated, the same vices and virtues occurring under different forms
+in different places, in order to show their different relations to each
+other. I shall not therefore give any general sketch of it, but only
+refer to the particular personification of each virtue in order to
+compare it with that of the Ducal Palace.[151] The peculiar superiority
+of his system is in its exquisite setting forth of Chastity under the
+figure of Britomart; not monkish chastity, but that of the purest Love.
+In completeness of personification no one can approach him; not even in
+Dante do I remember anything quite so great as the description of the
+Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh:
+
+  "As pale and wan as ashes was his looke;
+   His body lean and meagre as a rake;
+   And skin all withered like a dryed rooke;
+   Thereto as cold and drery as a snake;
+   That seemed to tremble evermore, and quake:
+   _All in a canvas thin he was bedight,
+   And girded with a belt of twisted brake_:
+   Upon his head he wore an helmet light,
+   Made of a dead man's skull."
+
+He rides upon a tiger, and in his hand is a bow, bent;
+
+  "And many arrows under his right side,
+   Headed with flint, and fethers bloody dide."
+
+The horror and the truth of this are beyond everything that I know, out
+of the pages of Inspiration. Note the heading of the arrows with flint,
+because sharper and more subtle in the edge than steel, and because
+steel might consume away with rust, but flint not; and consider in the
+whole description how the wasting away of body and soul together, and
+the _coldness_ of the heart, which unholy fire has consumed into ashes,
+and the loss of all power, and the kindling of all terrible impatience,
+and the implanting of thorny and inextricable griefs, are set forth by
+the various images, the belt of brake, the tiger steed, and the _light_
+helmet, girding the head with death.
+
+Sec. LXIII. Perhaps the most interesting series of the Virtues expressed
+in Italian art are those above mentioned of Simon Memmi in the Spanish
+chapel at Florence, of Ambrogio di Lorenzo in the Palazzo Publico of
+Pisa, of Orcagna in Or San Michele at Florence, of Giotto at Padua and
+Assisi, in mosaic on the central cupola of St. Mark's, and in sculpture
+on the pillars of the Ducal Palace. The first two series are carefully
+described by Lord Lindsay; both are too complicated for comparison with
+the more simple series of the Ducal Palace; the other four of course
+agree in giving first the cardinal and evangelical virtues; their
+variations in the statement of the rest will be best understood by
+putting them in a parallel arrangement.
+
+  ST. MARK'S.           ORCAGNA.         GIOTTO.         DUCAL PALACE.
+
+  Constancy.          Perseverance.                      Constancy.
+  Modesty.                                               Modesty.
+  Chastity.           Virginity         Chastity.        Chastity.
+  Patience.           Patience.                          Patience.
+  Mercy.
+  Abstinence.                                            Abstinence?
+  Piety.[152]           Devotion.
+  Benignity.
+  Humility.           Humility.         Humility.        Humility.
+                      Obedience.        Obedience.       Obedience.
+                      Docility.
+                      Caution.
+                                        Poverty.         _Honesty._
+                                                         Liberality.
+                                                         _Alacrity_.
+
+Sec. LXIV. It is curious, that in none of these lists do we find either
+_Honesty_ or _Industry_ ranked as a virtue, except in the Venetian one,
+where the latter is implied in Alacritas, and opposed not only by
+"Accidia" or sloth, but by a whole series of eight sculptures on another
+capital, illustrative, as I believe, of the temptations to idleness;
+while various other capitals, as we shall see presently, are devoted to
+the representation of the active trades. Industry, in Northern art and
+Northern morality, assumes a very principal place. I have seen in French
+manuscripts the virtues reduced to these seven, Charity, Chastity,
+Patience, Abstinence, Humility, Liberality, and Industry: and I doubt
+whether, if we were but to add Honesty (or Truth), a wiser or shorter
+list could be made out.
+
+Sec. LXV. We will now take the pillars of the Ducal Palace in their order.
+It has already been mentioned (Vol. I. Chap. I. Sec. XLVI.) that there
+are, in all, thirty-six great pillars supporting the lower story; and that
+these are to be counted from right to left, because then the more
+ancient of them come first: and that, thus arranged, the first, which is
+not a shaft, but a pilaster, will be the support of the Vine angle; the
+eighteenth will be the great shaft of the Fig-tree angle; and the
+thirty-sixth, that of the Judgment angle.
+
+Sec. LXVI. All their capitals, except that of the first, are octagonal,
+and are decorated by sixteen leaves, differently enriched in every
+capital, but arranged in the same way; eight of them rising to the angles,
+and there forming volutes; the eight others set between them, on the
+sides, rising half-way up the bell of the capital; there nodding forward,
+and showing above them, rising out of their luxuriance, the groups or
+single figures which we have to examine.[153] In some instances, the
+intermediate or lower leaves are reduced to eight sprays of foliage; and
+the capital is left dependent for its effect on the bold position of the
+figures. In referring to the figures on the octagonal capitals, I shall
+call the outer side, fronting either the Sea or the Piazzetta, the first
+side; and so count round from left to right; the fourth side being thus,
+of course, the innermost. As, however, the first five arches were walled
+up after the great fire, only three sides of their capitals are left
+visible, which we may describe as the front and the eastern and western
+sides of each.
+
+Sec. LXVII. FIRST CAPITAL: i.e. of the pilaster at the Vine angle.
+
+In front, towards the Sea. A child holding a bird before him, with its
+wings expanded, covering his breast.
+
+On its eastern side. Children's heads among leaves.
+
+On its western side. A child carrying in one hand a comb; in the other,
+a pair of scissors.
+
+It appears curious, that this, the principal pilaster of the facade,
+should have been decorated only by these graceful grotesques, for I can
+hardly suppose them anything more. There may be meaning in them, but I
+will not venture to conjecture any, except the very plain and practical
+meaning conveyed by the last figure to all Venetian children, which it
+would be well if they would act upon. For the rest, I have seen the comb
+introduced in grotesque work as early as the thirteenth century, but
+generally for the purpose of ridiculing too great care in dressing the
+hair, which assuredly is not its purpose here. The children's heads are
+very sweet and full of life, but the eyes sharp and small.
+
+Sec. LXVIII. SECOND CAPITAL. Only three sides of the original work are
+left unburied by the mass of added wall. Each side has a bird, one
+web-footed, with a fish, one clawed, with a serpent, which opens its
+jaws, and darts its tongue at the bird's breast; the third pluming
+itself, with a feather between the mandibles of its bill. It is by far
+the most beautiful of the three capitals decorated with birds.
+
+THIRD CAPITAL. Also has three sides only left. They have three heads,
+large, and very ill cut; one female, and crowned.
+
+FOURTH CAPITAL. Has three children. The eastern one is defaced: the one
+in front holds a small bird, whose plumage is beautifully indicated, in
+its right hand; and with its left holds up half a walnut, showing the
+nut inside: the third holds a fresh fig, cut through, showing the seeds.
+
+The hair of all the three children is differently worked: the first has
+luxuriant flowing hair, and a double chin; the second, light flowing
+hair falling in pointed locks on the forehead; the third, crisp curling
+hair, deep cut with drill holes.
+
+This capital has been copied on the Renaissance side of the palace, only
+with such changes in the ideal of the children as the workman thought
+expedient and natural. It is highly interesting to compare the child of
+the fourteenth with the child of the fifteenth century. The early heads
+are full of youthful life, playful, humane, affectionate, beaming with
+sensation and vivacity, but with much manliness and firmness, also, not
+a little cunning, and some cruelty perhaps, beneath all; the features
+small and hard, and the eyes keen. There is the making of rough and
+great men in them. But the children of the fifteenth century are dull
+smooth-faced dunces, without a single meaning line in the fatness of
+their stolid cheeks; and, although, in the vulgar sense, as handsome as
+the other children are ugly, capable of becoming nothing but perfumed
+coxcombs.
+
+FIFTH CAPITAL. Still three sides only left, bearing three half-length
+statues of kings; this is the first capital which bears any inscription.
+In front, a king with a sword in his right hand points to a handkerchief
+embroidered and fringed, with a head on it, carved on the cavetto of the
+abacus. His name is written above, "TITUS VESPASIAN IMPERATOR"
+(contracted [Illustration: IPAT.]).
+
+On eastern side, "TRAJANUS IMPERATOR." Crowned, a sword in right hand,
+and sceptre in left.
+
+On western, "(OCT)AVIANUS AUGUSTUS IMPERATOR." The "OCT" is broken away.
+He bears a globe in his right hand, with "MUNDUS PACIS" upon it; a
+sceptre in his left, which I think has terminated in a human figure. He
+has a flowing beard, and a singularly high crown; the face is much
+injured, but has once been very noble in expression.
+
+SIXTH CAPITAL. Has large male and female heads, very coarsely cut, hard,
+and bad.
+
+Sec. LXIX. SEVENTH CAPITAL. This is the first of the series which is
+complete; the first open arch of the lower arcade being between it and
+the sixth. It begins the representation of the Virtues.
+
+_First side_. Largitas, or Liberality: always distinguished from the
+higher Charity. A male figure, with his lap full of money, which he
+pours out of his hand. The coins are plain, circular, and smooth; there
+is no attempt to mark device upon them. The inscription above is,
+"LARGITAS ME ONORAT."
+
+In the copy of this design on the twenty-fifth capital, instead of
+showering out the gold from his open hand, the figure holds it in a
+plate or salver, introduced for the sake of disguising the direct
+imitation. The changes thus made in the Renaissance pillars are always
+injuries.
+
+This virtue is the proper opponent of Avarice; though it does not occur
+in the systems of Orcagna or Giotto, being included in Charity. It was a
+leading virtue with Aristotle and the other ancients.
+
+Sec. LXX. _Second side_. Constancy; not very characteristic. An armed man
+with a sword in his hand, inscribed, "CONSTANTIA SUM, NIL TIMENS."
+
+This virtue is one of the forms of fortitude, and Giotto therefore sets
+as the vice opponent to Fortitude, "Inconstantia," represented as a
+woman in loose drapery, falling from a rolling globe. The vision seen in
+the interpreter's house in the Pilgrim's Progress, of the man with a
+very bold countenance, who says to him who has the writer's ink-horn by
+his side, "Set down my name," is the best personification of the
+Venetian "Constantia" of which I am aware in literature. It would be
+well for us all to consider whether we have yet given the order to the
+man with the ink-horn, "Set down my name."
+
+Sec. LXXI. _Third side_. Discord; holding up her finger, but needing the
+inscription above to assure us of her meaning, "DISCORDIA SUM,
+DISCORDANS." In the Renaissance copy she is a meek and nun-like person
+with a veil.
+
+She is the Ate of Spenser; "mother of debate," thus described in the
+fourth book:
+
+  "Her face most fowle and filthy was to see,
+   With squinted eyes contrarie wayes intended;
+   And loathly mouth, unmeete a mouth to bee,
+   That nought but gall and venim comprehended,
+   And wicked wordes that God and man offended:
+   Her lying tongue was in two parts divided,
+   And both the parts did speake, and both contended;
+   And as her tongue, so was her hart discided,
+   That never thoght one thing, but doubly stil was guided."
+
+Note the fine old meaning of "discided," cut in two; it is a great pity
+we have lost this powerful expression. We might keep "determined" for
+the other sense of the word.
+
+Sec. LXXII. _Fourth side._ Patience. A female figure, very expressive and
+lovely, in a hood, with her right hand on her breast, the left extended,
+inscribed "PATIENTIA MANET MECUM."
+
+She is one of the principal virtues in all the Christian systems: a
+masculine virtue in Spenser, and beautifully placed as the _Physician_
+in the House of Holinesse. The opponent vice, Impatience, is one of the
+hags who attend the Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh; the other being
+Impotence. In like manner, in the "Pilgrim's Progress," the opposite of
+Patience is Passion; but Spenser's thought is farther carried. His two
+hags, Impatience and Impotence, as attendant upon the evil spirit of
+Passion, embrace all the phenomena of human conduct, down even to the
+smallest matters, according to the adage, "More haste, worse speed."
+
+Sec. LXXIII. _Fifth side._ Despair. A female figure thrusting a dagger into
+her throat, and tearing her long hair, which flows down among the leaves
+of the capital below her knees. One of the finest figures of the series;
+inscribed "DESPERACIO MOS (mortis?) CRUDELIS." In the Renaissance copy
+she is totally devoid of expression, and appears, instead of tearing her
+hair, to be dividing it into long curls on each side.
+
+This vice is the proper opposite of Hope. By Giotto she is represented
+as a woman hanging herself, a fiend coming for her soul. Spenser's
+vision of Despair is well known, it being indeed currently reported that
+this part of the Faerie Queen was the first which drew to it the
+attention of Sir Philip Sidney.
+
+Sec. LXXIV. _Sixth side._ Obedience: with her arms folded; meek, but rude
+and commonplace, looking at a little dog standing on its hind legs and
+begging, with a collar round its neck. Inscribed "OBEDIENTI * *;" the
+rest of the sentence is much defaced, but looks like [Illustration:
+Graphic signs]. I suppose the note of contraction above the final A has
+disappeared and that the inscription was "Obedientiam domino exhibeo."
+
+This virtue is, of course, a principal one in the monkish systems;
+represented by Giotto at Assisi as "an angel robed in black, placing the
+finger of his left hand on his mouth, and passing the yoke over the head
+of a Franciscan monk kneeling at his feet."[154]
+
+Obedience holds a less principal place in Spenser. We have seen her
+above associated with the other peculiar virtues of womanhood.
+
+Sec. LXXV. _Seventh side._ Infidelity. A man in a turban, with a small
+image in his hand, or the image of a child. Of the inscription nothing
+but "INFIDELITATE * * *" and some fragmentary letters, "ILI, CERO,"
+remain.
+
+By Giotto Infidelity is most nobly symbolized as a woman helmeted, the
+helmet having a broad rim which keeps the light from her eyes. She is
+covered with heavy drapery, stands infirmly as if about to fall, is
+_bound by a cord round her neck to an image_ which she carries in her
+hand, and has flames bursting forth at her feet.
+
+In Spenser, Infidelity is the Saracen knight Sans Foy,--
+
+       "Full large of limbe and every joint
+  He was, and cared not for God or man a point."
+
+For the part which he sustains in the contest with Godly Fear, or the
+Red-cross knight, see Appendix 2, Vol. III.
+
+Sec. LXXVI. _Eighth side_. Modesty; bearing a pitcher. (In the Renaissance
+copy, a vase like a coffee-pot.) Inscribed "MODESTIA [Illustration:
+Graphic signs]."
+
+I do not find this virtue in any of the Italian series, except that of
+Venice. In Spenser she is of course one of those attendant on
+Womanhood, but occurs as one of the tenants of the Heart of Man, thus
+portrayed in the second book:
+
+  "Straunge was her tyre, and all her garment blew,
+   Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight:
+   Upon her fist the bird which shonneth vew.
+
+          *       *       *       *       *
+
+   And ever and anone with rosy red
+   The bashfull blood her snowy cheekes did dye,
+   That her became, as polisht yvory
+   Which cunning craftesman hand hath overlayd
+   With fayre vermilion or pure castory."
+
+Sec. LXXVII. EIGHTH CAPITAL. It has no inscriptions, and its subjects are
+not, by themselves, intelligible; but they appear to be typical of the
+degradation of human instincts.
+
+_First side._ A caricature of Arion on his dolphin; he wears a cap
+ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin with a curious
+twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very graphically expressed, but
+still without anything approaching to the power of Northern grotesque.
+His dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the waves beat over his back.
+
+_Second side._ A human figure, with curly hair and the legs of a bear;
+the paws laid, with great sculptural skill, upon the foliage. It plays a
+violin, shaped like a guitar, with a bent double-stringed bow.
+
+_Third side._ A figure with a serpent's tail and a monstrous head,
+founded on a Negro type, hollow-cheeked, large-lipped, and wearing a cap
+made of a serpent's skin, holding a fir-cone in its hand.
+
+_Fourth side._ A monstrous figure, terminating below in a tortoise. It
+is devouring a gourd, which it grasps greedily with both hands; it wears
+a cap ending in a hoofed leg.
+
+_Fifth side._ A centaur wearing a crested helmet, and holding a curved
+sword.
+
+_Sixth side._ A knight, riding a headless horse, and wearing chain
+armor, with a triangular shield flung behind his back, and a two-edged
+sword.
+
+_Seventh side._ A figure like that on the fifth, wearing a round
+helmet, and with the legs and tail of a horse. He bears a long mace with
+a top like a fir-cone.
+
+_Eighth side._ A figure with curly hair, and an acorn in its hand,
+ending below in a fish.
+
+Sec. LXXVIII. Ninth Capital. _First side._ Faith. She has her left hand on
+her breast, and the cross on her right. Inscribed "FIDES OPTIMA IN DEO."
+The Faith of Giotto holds the cross in her right hand; in her left, a
+scroll with the Apostles' Creed. She treads upon cabalistic books, and
+has a key suspended to her waist. Spenser's Faith (Fidelia) is still
+more spiritual and noble:
+
+  "She was araied all in lilly white,
+   And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,
+   With wine and water fild up to the hight,
+   In which a serpent did himselfe enfold,
+   That horrour made to all that did behold;
+   But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:
+   And in her other hand she fast did hold
+   A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood;
+   Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood."
+
+Sec. LXXIX. _Second side._ Fortitude. A long-bearded man [Samson?] tearing
+open a lion's jaw. The inscription is illegible, and the somewhat vulgar
+personification appears to belong rather to Courage than Fortitude. On
+the Renaissance copy it is inscribed "FORTITUDO SUM VIRILIS." The Latin
+word has, perhaps, been received by the sculptor as merely signifying
+"Strength," the rest of the perfect idea of this virtue having been
+given in "Constantia" previously. But both these Venetian symbols
+together do not at all approach the idea of Fortitude as given generally
+by Giotto and the Pisan sculptors; clothed with a lion's skin, knotted
+about her neck, and falling to her feet in deep folds; drawing back her
+right hand, with the sword pointed towards her enemy; and slightly
+retired behind her immovable shield, which, with Giotto, is square, and
+rested on the ground like a tower, covering her up to above her
+shoulders; bearing on it a lion, and with broken heads of javelins
+deeply infixed.
+
+Among the Greeks, this is, of course, one of the principal virtues;
+apt, however, in their ordinary conception of it to degenerate into mere
+manliness or courage.
+
+Sec. LXXX. _Third side._ Temperance; bearing a pitcher of water and a
+cup. Inscription, illegible here, and on the Renaissance copy nearly so,
+"TEMPERANTIA SUM" (INOM' L^s)? only left. In this somewhat vulgar and
+most frequent conception of this virtue (afterwards continually
+repeated, as by Sir Joshua in his window at New College) temperance is
+confused with mere abstinence, the opposite of Gula, or gluttony;
+whereas the Greek Temperance, a truly cardinal virtue, is the moderator
+of _all_ the passions, and so represented by Giotto, who has placed a
+bridle upon her lips, and a sword in her hand, the hilt of which she is
+binding to the scabbard. In his system, she is opposed among the vices,
+not by Gula or Gluttony, but by Ira, Anger. So also the Temperance of
+Spenser, or Sir Guyon, but with mingling of much sternness:
+
+  "A goodly knight, all armd in harnesse meete,
+   That from his head no place appeared to his feete,
+   His carriage was full comely and upright;
+   His countenance demure and temperate;
+   But yett so sterne and terrible in sight,
+   That cheard his friendes, and did his foes amate."
+
+The Temperance of the Greeks, [Greek: sophrosyne], involves the idea of
+Prudence, and is a most noble virtue, yet properly marked by Plato as
+inferior to sacred enthusiasm, though necessary for its government. He
+opposes it, under the name "Mortal Temperance" or "the Temperance which
+is of men," to divine madness, [Greek: mania], or inspiration; but he
+most justly and nobly expresses the general idea of it under the term
+[Greek: hubris], which, in the "Phaedrus," is divided into various
+intemperances with respect to various objects, and set forth under the
+image of a black, vicious, diseased and furious horse, yoked by the side
+of Prudence or Wisdom (set forth under the figure of a white horse with
+a crested and noble head, like that which we have among the Elgin
+Marbles) to the chariot of the Soul. The system of Aristotle, as above
+stated, is throughout a mere complicated blunder, supported by
+sophistry, the laboriously developed mistake of Temperance for the
+essence of the virtues which it guides. Temperance in the mediaeval
+systems is generally opposed by Anger, or by Folly, or Gluttony: but her
+proper opposite is Spenser's Acrasia, the principal enemy of Sir Guyon,
+at whose gates we find the subordinate vice "Excesse," as the
+introduction to Intemperance; a graceful and feminine image, necessary
+to illustrate the more dangerous forms of subtle intemperance, as
+opposed to the brutal "Gluttony" in the first book. She presses grapes
+into a cup, because of the words of St. Paul, "Be not drunk with wine,
+wherein is excess;" but always delicately,
+
+  "Into her cup she scruzd with daintie breach
+   Of her fine fingers, without fowle empeach,
+   That so faire winepresse made the wine more sweet."
+
+The reader will, I trust, pardon these frequent extracts from Spenser,
+for it is nearly as necessary to point out the profound divinity and
+philosophy of our great English poet, as the beauty of the Ducal Palace.
+
+Sec. LXXXI. _Fourth side._ Humility; with a veil upon her head, carrying
+a lamp in her lap. Inscribed in the copy, "HUMILITAS HABITAT IN ME."
+
+This virtue is of course a peculiarly Christian one, hardly recognized
+in the Pagan systems, though carefully impressed upon the Greeks in
+early life in a manner which at this day it would be well if we were to
+imitate, and, together with an almost feminine modesty, giving an
+exquisite grace to the conduct and bearing of the well-educated Greek
+youth. It is, of course, one of the leading virtues in all the monkish
+systems, but I have not any notes of the manner of its representation.
+
+Sec. LXXXII. _Fifth side._ Charity. A woman with her lap full of
+loaves(?), giving one to a child, who stretches his arm out for it across
+a broad gap in the leafage of the capital.
+
+Again very far inferior to the Giottesque rendering of this virtue. In
+the Arena Chapel she is distinguished from all the other virtues by
+having a circular glory round her head, and a cross of fire; she is
+crowned with flowers, presents with her right hand a vase of corn and
+fruit, and with her left receives treasure from Christ, who appears
+above her, to provide her with the means of continual offices of
+beneficence, while she tramples under foot the treasures of the earth.
+
+The peculiar beauty of most of the Italian conceptions of Charity, is in
+the subjection of mere munificence to the glowing of her love, always
+represented by flames; here in the form of a cross round her head; in
+Oreagna's shrine at Florence, issuing from a censer in her hand; and,
+with Dante, inflaming her whole form, so that, in a furnace of clear
+fire, she could not have been discerned.
+
+Spenser represents her as a mother surrounded by happy children, an idea
+afterwards grievously hackneyed and vulgarized by English painters and
+sculptors.
+
+Sec. LXXXIII. _Sixth side._ Justice. Crowned, and with sword. Inscribed in
+the copy, "REX SUM JUSTICIE."
+
+This idea was afterwards much amplified and adorned in the only good
+capital of the Renaissance series, under the Judgment angle. Giotto has
+also given his whole strength to the painting of this virtue,
+representing her as enthroned under a noble Gothic canopy, holding
+scales, not by the beam, but one in each hand; a beautiful idea, showing
+that the equality of the scales of Justice is not owing to natural laws,
+but to her own immediate weighing the opposed causes in her own hands.
+In one scale is an executioner beheading a criminal; in the other an
+angel crowning a man who seems (in Selvatico's plate) to have been
+working at a desk or table.
+
+Beneath her feet is a small predella, representing various persons
+riding securely in the woods, and others dancing to the sound of music.
+
+Spenser's Justice, Sir Artegall, is the hero of an entire book, and the
+betrothed knight of Britomart, or chastity.
+
+Sec. LXXXIV. _Seventh side._ Prudence. A man with a book and a pair of
+compasses, wearing the noble cap, hanging down towards the shoulder, and
+bound in a fillet round the brow, which occurs so frequently during the
+fourteenth century in Italy in the portraits of men occupied in any
+civil capacity.
+
+This virtue is, as we have seen, conceived under very different degrees
+of dignity, from mere worldly prudence up to heavenly wisdom, being
+opposed sometimes by Stultitia, sometimes by Ignorantia. I do not find,
+in any of the representations of her, that her truly distinctive
+character, namely, _forethought_, is enough insisted upon: Giotto
+expresses her vigilance and just measurement or estimate of all things
+by painting her as Janus-headed, and gazing into a convex mirror, with
+compasses in her right hand; the convex mirror showing her power of
+looking at many things in small compass. But forethought or
+anticipation, by which, independently of greater or less natural
+capacities, one man becomes more _prudent_ than another, is never enough
+considered or symbolized.
+
+The idea of this virtue oscillates, in the Greek systems, between
+Temperance and Heavenly Wisdom.
+
+Sec. LXXXV. _Eighth side._ Hope. A figure full of devotional expression,
+holding up its hands as in prayer, and looking to a hand which is
+extended towards it out of sunbeams. In the Renaissance copy this hand
+does not appear.
+
+Of all the virtues, this is the most distinctively Christian (it could
+not, of course, enter definitely into any Pagan scheme); and above all
+others, it seems to me the _testing_ virtue,--that by the possession of
+which we may most certainly determine whether we are Christians or not;
+for many men have charity, that is to say, general kindness of heart, or
+even a kind of faith, who have not any habitual _hope_ of, or longing
+for, heaven. The Hope of Giotto is represented as winged, rising in the
+air, while an angel holds a crown before her. I do not know if Spenser
+was the first to introduce our marine virtue, leaning on an anchor, a
+symbol as inaccurate as it is vulgar: for, in the first place, anchors
+are not for men, but for ships; and in the second, anchorage is the
+characteristic not of Hope, but of Faith. Faith is dependent, but Hope
+is aspirant. Spenser, however, introduces Hope twice,--the first time as
+the Virtue with the anchor; but afterwards fallacious Hope, far more
+beautifully, in the Masque of Cupid:
+
+  "She always smyld, and in her hand did hold
+   An holy-water sprinckle, dipt in deowe."
+
+Sec. LXXXVI. Tenth Capital. _First side._ Luxury (the opposite of
+chastity, as above explained). A woman with a jewelled chain across her
+forehead, smiling as she looks into a mirror, exposing her breast by
+drawing down her dress with one hand. Inscribed "LUXURIA SUM IMENSA."
+
+These subordinate forms of vice are not met with so frequently in art as
+those of the opposite virtues, but in Spenser we find them all. His
+Luxury rides upon a goat:
+
+  "In a greene gowne he clothed was full faire,
+   Which underneath did hide his filthinesse,
+   And in his hand a burning hart he bare."
+
+But, in fact, the proper and comprehensive expression of this vice is
+the Cupid of the ancients; and there is not any minor circumstance more
+indicative of the _intense_ difference between the mediaeval and the
+Renaissance spirit, than the mode in which this god is represented.
+
+I have above said, that all great European art is rooted in the
+thirteenth century; and it seems to me that there is a kind of central
+year about which we may consider the energy of the middle ages to be
+gathered; a kind of focus of time which, by what is to my mind a most
+touching and impressive Divine appointment, has been marked for us by
+the greatest writer of the middle ages, in the first words he utters;
+namely, the year 1300, the "mezzo del cammin" of the life of Dante. Now,
+therefore, to Giotto, the contemporary of Dante, and who drew Dante's
+still existing portrait in this very year, 1300, we may always look for
+the central mediaeval idea in any subject: and observe how he represents
+Cupid; as one of three, a terrible trinity, his companions being Satan
+and Death; and he himself "a lean scarecrow, with bow, quiver, and
+fillet, and feet ending in claws,"[155] thrust down into Hell by
+Penance, from the presence of Purity and Fortitude. Spenser, who has
+been so often noticed as furnishing the exactly intermediate type of
+conception between the mediaeval and the Renaissance, indeed represents
+Cupid under the form of a beautiful winged god, and riding on a lion,
+but still no plaything of the Graces, but full of terror:
+
+  "With that the darts which his right hand did straine
+   Full dreadfully he shooke, that all did quake,
+   And clapt on hye his coloured winges twaine,
+   That all his many it afraide did make."
+
+His _many_, that is to say, his company; and observe what a company it
+is. Before him go Fancy, Desire, Doubt, Danger, Fear, Fallacious Hope,
+Dissemblance, Suspicion, Grief, Fury, Displeasure, Despite, and Cruelty.
+After him, Reproach, Repentance, Shame,
+
+  "Unquiet Care, and fond Unthriftyhead,
+   Lewd Losse of Time, and Sorrow seeming dead,
+   Inconstant Chaunge, and false Disloyalty,
+   Consuming Riotise, and guilty Dread
+   Of heavenly vengeaunce; faint Infirmity,
+   Vile Poverty, and lastly Death with infamy."
+
+Compare these two pictures of Cupid with the Love-god of the
+Renaissance, as he is represented to this day, confused with angels, in
+every faded form of ornament and allegory, in our furniture, our
+literature, and our minds.
+
+Sec. LXXXVII. _Second side._ Gluttony. A woman in a turban, with a
+jewelled cup in her right hand. In her left, the clawed limb of a bird,
+which she is gnawing. Inscribed "GULA SINE ORDINE SUM."
+
+Spenser's Gluttony is more than usually fine:
+
+  "His belly was upblowne with luxury,
+   And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,
+   And like a crane his necke was long and fyne,
+   Wherewith he swallowed up excessive feast,
+   For want whereof poore people oft did pyne."
+
+He rides upon a swine, and is clad in vine-leaves, with a garland of
+ivy. Compare the account of Excesse, above, as opposed to Temperance.
+
+Sec. LXXXVIII. _Third side._ Pride. A knight, with a heavy and stupid
+face, holding a sword with three edges: his armor covered with ornaments
+in the form of roses, and with two ears attached to his helmet. The
+inscription indecipherable, all but "SUPERBIA."
+
+Spenser has analyzed this vice with great care. He first represents it
+as the Pride of life; that is to say, the pride which runs in a deep
+under current through all the thoughts and acts of men. As such, it is a
+feminine vice, directly opposed to Holiness, and mistress of a castle
+called the House of Pryde, and her chariot is driven by Satan, with a
+team of beasts, ridden by the mortal sins. In the throne chamber of her
+palace she is thus described:
+
+  "So proud she shyned in her princely state,
+   Looking to Heaven, for Earth she did disdayne;
+   And sitting high, for lowly she did hate:
+   Lo, underneath her scornefull feete was layne
+   A dreadfull dragon with an hideous trayne;
+   And in her hand she held a mirrhour bright,
+   Wherein her face she often vewed fayne"
+
+The giant Orgoglio is a baser species of pride, born of the Earth and
+Eolus; that is to say, of sensual and vain conceits. His foster-father
+and the keeper of his castle is Ignorance. (Book I. canto VIII.)
+
+Finally, Disdain is introduced, in other places, as the form of pride
+which vents itself in insult to others.
+
+Sec. LXXXIX. _Fourth side._ Anger. A woman tearing her dress open at her
+breast. Inscription here undecipherable; but in the Renaissance copy it
+is "IRA CRUDELIS EST IN ME."
+
+Giotto represents this vice under the same symbol; but it is the weakest
+of all the figures in the Arena Chapel. The "Wrath" of Spenser rides upon
+a lion, brandishing a fire-brand, his garments stained with blood. Rage,
+or Furor, occurs subordinately in other places. It appears to me very
+strange that neither Giotto nor Spenser should have given any
+representation of the _restrained_ Anger, which is infinitely the most
+terrible; both of them make him violent.
+
+Sec. XC. _Fifth side._ Avarice. An old woman with a veil over her
+forehead, and a bag of money in each hand. A figure very marvellous for
+power of expression. The throat is all made up of sinews with skinny
+channels deep between them, strained as by anxiety, and wasted by famine;
+the features hunger-bitten, the eyes hollow, the look glaring and intense,
+yet without the slightest: caricature. Inscribed in the Renaissance
+copy, "AVARITIA IMPLETOR."
+
+Spenser's Avarice (the vice) is much feebler than this; but the god
+Mammon and his kingdom have been described by him with his usual power.
+Note the position of the house of Richesse:
+
+  "Betwixt them both was but a little stride,
+   That did the House of Richesse from Hell-mouth divide."
+
+It is curious that most moralists confuse avarice with covetousness,
+although they are vices totally different in their operation on the
+human heart, and on the frame of society. The love of money, the sin of
+Judas and Ananias, is indeed the root of all evil in the hardening of
+the heart; but "covetousness, which is idolatry," the sin of Ahab, that
+is, the inordinate desire of some seen or recognized good,--thus
+destroying peace of mind,--is probably productive of much more misery in
+heart, and error in conduct, than avarice itself, only covetousness is
+not so inconsistent with Christianity: for covetousness may partly
+proceed from vividness of the affections and hopes, as in David, and be
+consistent with, much charity; not so avarice.
+
+Sec. XCI. _Sixth side_. Idleness. Accidia. A figure much broken away,
+having had its arms round two branches of trees.
+
+I do not know why Idleness should be represented as among trees, unless,
+in the Italy of the fourteenth century, forest country was considered as
+desert, and therefore the domain of Idleness. Spenser fastens this vice
+especially upon the clergy,--
+
+  "Upon a slouthfull asse he chose to ryde,
+   Arayd in habit blacke, and amis thin,
+   Like to an holy monck, the service to begin.
+   And in his hand his portesse still he bare,
+   That much was worne, but therein little redd."
+
+And he properly makes him the leader of the train of the vices:
+
+  "May seem the wayne was very evil ledd,
+   When such an one had guiding of the way"
+
+Observe that subtle touch of truth in the "wearing" of the portesse,
+indicating the abuse of books by idle readers, so thoroughly
+characteristic of unwilling studentship from the schoolboy upwards.
+
+Sec. XCII. _Seventh side._ Vanity. She is smiling complacently as she
+looks into a mirror in her lap. Her robe is embroidered with roses, and
+roses form her crown. Undecipherable.
+
+There is some confusion in the expression of this vice, between pride in
+the personal appearance and lightness of purpose. The word Vanitas
+generally, I think, bears, in the mediaeval period, the sense given it in
+Scripture. "Let not him that is deceived trust in Vanity, for Vanity
+shall be his recompense." "Vanity of Vanities." "The Lord knoweth the
+thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." It is difficult to find this
+sin,--which, after Pride, is the most universal, perhaps the most fatal,
+of all, fretting the whole depth of our humanity into storm "to waft a
+feather or to drown a fly,"--definitely expressed in art. Even Spenser,
+I think, has only partially expressed it under the figure of Phaedria,
+more properly Idle Mirth, in the second book. The idea is, however,
+entirely worked out in the Vanity Fair of the "Pilgrim's Progress."
+
+Sec. XCIII. _Eighth side._ Envy. One of the noblest pieces of expression
+in the series. She is pointing malignantly with her finger; a serpent is
+wreathed about her head like a cap, another forms the girdle of her
+waist, and a dragon rests in her lap.
+
+Giotto has, however, represented her, with still greater subtlety, as
+having her fingers terminating in claws, and raising her right hand with
+an expression partly of impotent regret, partly of involuntary grasping;
+a serpent, issuing from her mouth, is about to bite her between the
+eyes; she has long membranous ears, horns on her head, and flames
+consuming her body. The Envy of Spenser is only inferior to that of
+Giotto, because the idea of folly and quickness of hearing is not
+suggested by the size of the ear: in other respects it is even finer,
+joining the idea of fury, in the wolf on which he rides, with that of
+corruption on his lips, and of discoloration or distortion in the whole
+mind:
+
+                   "Malicious Envy rode
+  Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw
+  Between his cankred teeth a venemous tode,
+  That all the poison ran about his jaw.
+  _All in a kirtle of discolourd say
+  He clothed was, ypaynted full of eies_,
+  And in his bosome secretly there lay
+  An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes
+  In many folds, and mortall sting implyes."
+
+He has developed the idea in more detail, and still more loathsomely, in
+the twelfth canto of the fifth book.
+
+Sec. XCIV. ELEVENTH CAPITAL. Its decoration is composed of eight birds,
+arranged as shown in Plate V. of the "Seven Lamps," which, however, was
+sketched from the Renaissance copy. These birds are all varied in form
+and action, but not so as to require special description.
+
+Sec. XCV. TWELFTH CAPITAL. This has been very interesting, but is
+grievously defaced, four of its figures being entirely broken away, and
+the character of two others quite undecipherable. It is fortunate that
+it has been copied in the thirty-third capital of the Renaissance
+series, from which we are able to identify the lost figures.
+
+_First side._ Misery. A man with a wan face, seemingly pleading with a
+child who has its hands crossed on its breast. There is a buckle at his
+own breast in the shape of a cloven heart. Inscribed "MISERIA."
+
+The intention of this figure is not altogether apparent, as it is by no
+means treated as a vice; the distress seeming real, and like that of a
+parent in poverty mourning over his child. Yet it seems placed here as
+in direct opposition to the virtue of Cheerfulness, which follows next
+in order; rather, however, I believe, with the intention of illustrating
+human life, than the character of the vice which, as we have seen, Dante
+placed in the circle of hell. The word in that case would, I think, have
+been "Tristitia," the "unholy Griefe" of Spenser--
+
+          "All in sable sorrowfully clad,
+  Downe hanging his dull head with heavy chere:
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  A pair of pincers in his hand he had,
+  With which he pinched people to the heart."
+
+He has farther amplified the idea under another figure in the fifth
+canto of the fourth book:
+
+  "His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,
+   That neither day nor night from working spared;
+   But to small purpose yron wedges made:
+   Those be unquiet thoughts that carefull minds invade.
+   Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,
+   Ne better had he, ne for better cared;
+   With blistered hands among the cinders brent."
+
+It is to be noticed, however, that in the Renaissance copy this figure
+is stated to be, not Miseria, but "Misericordia." The contraction is a
+very moderate one, Misericordia being in old MS. written always as
+"Mia." If this reading be right, the figure is placed here rather as the
+companion, than the opposite, of Cheerfulness; unless, indeed, it is
+intended to unite the idea of Mercy and Compassion with that of Sacred
+Sorrow.
+
+Sec. XCVI. _Second side._ Cheerfulness. A woman with long flowing hair,
+crowned with roses, playing on a tambourine, and with open lips, as
+singing. Inscribed "ALACRITAS."
+
+We have already met with this virtue among those especially set by
+Spenser to attend on Womanhood. It is inscribed in the Renaissance copy,
+"ALACHRITAS CHANIT MECUM." Note the gutturals of the rich and fully
+developed Venetian dialect now affecting the Latin, which is free from
+them in the earlier capitals.
+
+Sec. XCVII. _Third side._ Destroyed; but, from the copy, we find it has
+been Stultitia, Folly; and it is there represented simply as a man
+_riding_, a sculpture worth the consideration of the English residents
+who bring their horses to Venice. Giotto gives Stultitia a feather, cap,
+and club. In early manuscripts he is always eating with one hand, and
+striking with the other; in later ones he has a cap and bells, or cap
+crested with a cock's head, whence the word "coxcomb."
+
+Sec. XCVIII. _Fourth side._ Destroyed, all but a book, which identifies it
+with the "Celestial Chastity" of the Renaissance copy; there represented
+as a woman pointing to a book (connecting the convent life with the
+pursuit of literature?).
+
+Spenser's Chastity, Britomart, is the most exquisitely wrought of all
+his characters; but, as before noticed, she is not the Chastity of the
+convent, but of wedded life.
+
+Sec. XCIX. _Fifth side._ Only a scroll is left; but, from the copy, we
+find it has been Honesty or Truth. Inscribed "HONESTATEM DILIGO." It is
+very curious, that among all the Christian systems of the virtues which
+we have examined, we should find this one in Venice only.
+
+The Truth of Spenser, Una, is, after Chastity, the most exquisite
+character in the "Faerie Queen."
+
+Sec. C. _Sixth side._ Falsehood. An old woman leaning on a crutch; and
+inscribed in the copy, "FALSITAS IN ME SEMPER EST." The Fidessa of
+Spenser, the great enemy of Una, or Truth, is far more subtly conceived,
+probably not without special reference to the Papal deceits. In her true
+form she is a loathsome hag, but in her outward aspect,
+
+  "A goodly lady, clad in scarlot red,
+   Purfled with gold and pearle;...
+   Her wanton palfrey all was overspred
+   With tinsell trappings, woven like a wave,
+   Whose bridle rung with golden bels and bosses brave."
+
+Dante's Fraud, Geryon, is the finest personification of all, but the
+description (Inferno, canto XVII.) is too long to be quoted.
+
+Sec. CI. _Seventh side._ Injustice. An armed figure holding a halbert;
+so also in the copy. The figure used by Giotto with the particular
+intention of representing unjust government, is represented at the gate
+of an embattled castle in a forest, between rocks, while various deeds
+of violence are committed at his feet. Spenser's "Adicia" is a furious
+hag, at last transformed into a tiger.
+
+_Eighth side._ A man with a dagger looking sorrowfully at a child, who
+turns its back to him. I cannot understand this figure. It is inscribed
+in the copy, "ASTINECIA (Abstinentia?) OPITIMA."
+
+Sec. CII. THIRTEENTH CAPITAL. It has lions' heads all round, coarsely
+cut.
+
+FOURTEENTH CAPITAL. It has various animals, each sitting on its
+haunches. Three dogs, one a greyhound, one long-haired, one short-haired
+with bells about its neck; two monkeys, one with fan-shaped hair
+projecting on each side of its face; a noble boar, with its tusks,
+hoofs, and bristles sharply cut; and a lion and lioness.
+
+Sec. CIII. FIFTEENTH CAPITAL. The pillar to which it belongs is thicker
+than the rest, as well as the one over it in the upper arcade.
+
+The sculpture of this capital is also much coarser, and seems to me
+later than that of the rest; and it has no inscription, which is
+embarrassing, as its subjects have had much meaning; but I believe
+Selvatico is right in supposing it to have been intended for a general
+illustration of Idleness.
+
+_First side._ A woman with a distaff; her girdle richly decorated, and
+fastened by a buckle.
+
+_Second side._ A youth in a long mantle, with a rose in his hand.
+
+_Third side._ A woman in a turban stroking a puppy which she holds by
+the haunches.
+
+_Fourth side._ A man with a parrot.
+
+_Fifth side._ A woman in very rich costume, with braided hair, and dress
+thrown into minute folds, holding a rosary(?) in her left hand, her
+right on her breast.
+
+_Sixth side._ A man with a very thoughtful face, laying his hand upon
+the leaves of the capital.
+
+_Seventh side._ A crowned lady, with a rose in her hand.
+
+_Eighth side._ A boy with a ball in his left hand, and his right laid on
+his breast.
+
+Sec. CIV. SIXTEENTH CAPITAL. It is decorated with eight large heads,
+partly intended to be grotesque,[156] and very coarse and bad, except only
+that in the sixth side, which is totally different from all the rest,
+and looks like a portrait. It is thin, thoughtful, and dignified;
+thoroughly fine in every way. It wears a cap surmounted by two winged
+lions; and, therefore, I think Selvatico must have inaccurately written
+the list given in the note, for this head is certainly meant to express
+the superiority of the Venetian character over that of other nations.
+Nothing is more remarkable in all early sculpture, than its appreciation
+of the signs of dignity of character in the features, and the way in
+which it can exalt the principal figure in any subject by a few touches.
+
+Sec. CV. SEVENTEENTH CAPITAL. This has been so destroyed by the sea wind,
+which sweeps at this point of the arcade round the angle of the palace,
+that its inscriptions are no longer legible, and great part of its
+figures are gone. Selvatico states them as follows: Solomon, the wise;
+Priscian, the grammarian; Aristotle, the logician; Tully, the orator;
+Pythagoras, the philosopher; Archimedes, the mechanic; Orpheus, the
+musician; Ptolemy, the astronomer. The fragments actually remaining are
+the following:
+
+_First side._ A figure with two books, in a robe richly decorated with
+circles of roses. Inscribed "SALOMON (SAP)IENS."
+
+_Second side._ A man with one book, poring over it: he has had a long
+stick or reed in his hand. Of inscription only the letters "GRAMMATIC"
+remain.
+
+_Third side._ "ARISTOTLE:" so inscribed. He has a peaked double beard
+and a flat cap, from under which his long hair falls down his back.
+
+_Fourth side._ Destroyed.
+
+_Fifth side._ Destroyed, all but a board with three (counters?) on it.
+
+_Sixth side._ A figure with compasses. Inscribed "GEOMET * *"
+
+_Seventh side._ Nothing is left but a guitar with its handle wrought
+into a lion's head.
+
+_Eighth side._ Destroyed.
+
+Sec. CVI. We have now arrived at the EIGHTEENTH CAPITAL, the most
+interesting and beautiful of the palace. It represents the planets, and
+the sun and moon, in those divisions of the zodiac known to astrologers
+as their "houses;" and perhaps indicates, by the position in which they
+are placed, the period of the year at which this great corner-stone was
+laid. The inscriptions above have been in quaint Latin rhyme, but are
+now decipherable only in fragments, and that with the more difficulty
+because the rusty iron bar that binds the abacus has broken away, in its
+expansion, nearly all the upper portions of the stone, and with them the
+signs of contraction, which are of great importance. I shall give the
+fragments of them that I could decipher; first as the letters actually
+stand (putting those of which I am doubtful in brackets, with a note of
+interrogation), and then as I would read them.
+
+Sec. CVII. It should be premised that, in modern astrology, the houses
+of the planets are thus arranged:
+
+  The house of the Sun,      is Leo.
+        "          Moon,     "  Cancer.
+        "       of Mars,     "  Aries and Scorpio.
+        "          Venus,    "  Taurus and Libra.
+        "          Mercury,  "  Gemini and Virgo.
+        "          Jupiter,  "  Sagittarius and Pisces.
+        "          Saturn,   "  Capricorn.
+        "          Herschel, "  Aquarius.
+
+The Herschel planet being of course unknown to the old astrologers, we
+have only the other six planetary powers, together with the sun; and
+Aquarius is assigned to Saturn as his house. I could not find Capricorn
+at all; but this sign may have been broken away, as the whole capital is
+grievously defaced. The eighth side of the capital, which the Herschel
+planet would now have occupied, bears a sculpture of the Creation of
+Man: it is the most conspicuous side, the one set diagonally across the
+angle; or the eighth in our usual mode of reading the capitals, from
+which I shall not depart.
+
+Sec. CVIII. _The first side_, then, or that towards the Sea, has Aquarius,
+as the house of Saturn, represented as a seated figure beautifully
+draped, pouring a stream of water out of an amphora over the leaves of
+the capital. His inscription is:
+
+  "ET SATURNE DOMUS (ECLOCERUNT?) 1^s 7BRE."
+
+Sec. CIX. _Second side._ Jupiter, in his houses Sagittarius and Pisces,
+represented throned, with an upper dress disposed in radiating folds
+about his neck, and hanging down upon his breast, ornamented by small
+pendent trefoiled studs or bosses. He wears the drooping bonnet and long
+gloves; but the folds about the neck, shot forth to express the rays of
+the star, are the most remarkable characteristic of the figure. He
+raises his sceptre in his left hand over Sagittarius, represented as the
+centaur Chiron; and holds two thunnies in his right. Something rough,
+like a third fish, has been broken away below them; the more easily
+because this part of the group is entirely undercut, and the two fish
+glitter in the light, relieved on the deep gloom below the leaves. The
+inscription is:
+
+  "INDE JOVI'[157] DONA PISES SIMUL ATQ^s CIRONA."
+
+Or,
+
+  "Inde Jovis dona
+   Pisces simul atque Chirona."
+
+Domus is, I suppose, to be understood before Jovis: "Then the house of
+Jupiter gives (or governs?) the fishes and Chiron."
+
+Sec. CX. _Third side._ Mars, in his houses Aries and Scorpio. Represented
+as a very ugly knight in chain mail, seated sideways on the ram, whose
+horns are broken away, and having a large scorpion in his left hand,
+whose tail is broken also, to the infinite injury of the group, for it
+seems to have curled across to the angle leaf, and formed a bright line
+of light, like the fish in the hand of Jupiter. The knight carries a
+shield, on which fire and water are sculptured, and bears a banner upon
+his lance, with the word "DEFEROSUM," which puzzled me for some time. It
+should be read, I believe, "De ferro sum;" which would be good
+_Venetian_ Latin for "I am of iron."
+
+Sec. CXI. _Fourth side._ The Sun, in his house Leo. Represented under the
+figure of Apollo, sitting on the Lion, with rays shooting from his head,
+and the world in his hand. The inscription:
+
+  "TU ES DOMU' SOLIS (QUO *?) SIGNE LEONI."
+
+I believe the first phrase is, "Tunc est Domus solis;" but there is a
+letter gone after the "quo," and I have no idea what case of signum
+"signe" stands for.
+
+Sec. CXII. _Fifth side._ Venus, in her houses Taurus and Libra. The most
+beautiful figure of the series. She sits upon the bull, who is deep in
+the dewlap, and better cut than most of the animals, holding a mirror in
+her right hand, and the scales in her left. Her breast is very nobly and
+tenderly indicated under the folds of her drapery, which is exquisitely
+studied in its fall. What is left of the inscription, runs:
+
+  "LIBRA CUM TAURO DOMUS * * * PURIOR AUR *."
+
+Sec. CXIII. _Sixth side._ Mercury, represented as wearing a pendent
+cap, and holding a book: he is supported by three children in reclining
+attitudes, representing his houses Gemini and Virgo. But I cannot
+understand the inscription, though more than usually legible.
+
+  "OCCUPAT ERIGONE STIBONS GEMINUQ' LACONE."
+
+Sec. CXIV. _Seventh side._ The Moon, in her house Cancer. This sculpture,
+which is turned towards the Piazzetta, is the most picturesque of the
+series. The moon is represented as a woman in a boat, upon the sea, who
+raises the crescent in her right hand, and with her left draws a crab
+out of the waves, up the boat's side. The moon was, I believe,
+represented in Egyptian sculptures as in a boat; but I rather think the
+Venetian was not aware of this, and that he meant to express the
+peculiar sweetness of the moonlight at Venice, as seen across the
+lagoons. Whether this was intended by putting the planet in the boat,
+may be questionable, but assuredly the idea was meant to be conveyed by
+the dress of the figure. For all the draperies of the other figures on
+this capital, as well as on the rest of the facade, are disposed in
+severe but full folds, showing little of the forms beneath them; but the
+moon's drapery _ripples_ down to her feet, so as exactly to suggest the
+trembling of the moonlight on the waves. This beautiful idea is highly
+characteristic of the thoughtfulness of the early sculptors: five
+hundred men may be now found who could have cut the drapery, as such,
+far better, for one who would have disposed its folds with this
+intention. The inscription is:
+
+  "LUNE CANCER DOMU T. PBET IORBE SIGNORU."
+
+Sec. CXV. _Eighth side._ God creating Man. Represented as a throned
+figure, with a glory round the head, laying his left hand on the head of
+a naked youth, and sustaining him with his right hand. The inscription
+puzzled me for a long time; but except the lost r and m of "formavit,"
+and a letter quite undefaced, but to me unintelligible, before the word
+Eva, in the shape of a figure of 7, I have safely ascertained the rest.
+
+  "DELIMO DSADA DECO STAFO * * AVIT7EVA."
+
+Or
+
+    "De limo Dominus Adam, de costa fo(rm) avit Evam;"
+  From the dust the Lord made Adam, and from the rib Eve.
+
+I imagine the whole of this capital, therefore--the principal one of the
+old palace,--to have been intended to signify, first, the formation of
+the planets for the service of man upon the earth; secondly, the entire
+subjection of the fates and fortune of man to the will of God, as
+determined from the time when the earth and stars were made, and, in
+fact, written in the volume of the stars themselves.
+
+Thus interpreted, the doctrines of judicial astrology were not only
+consistent with, but an aid to, the most spiritual and humble
+Christianity.
+
+In the workmanship and grouping of its foliage, this capital is, on the
+whole, the finest I know in Europe. The sculptor has put his whole
+strength into it. I trust that it will appear among the other Venetian
+casts lately taken for the Crystal Palace; but if not, I have myself
+cast all its figures, and two of its leaves, and I intend to give
+drawings of them on a large scale in my folio work.
+
+Sec. CXVI. NINETEENTH CAPITAL. This is, of course, the second counting
+from the Sea, on the Piazzetta side of the palace, calling that of the
+Fig-tree angle the first.
+
+It is the most important capital, as a piece of evidence in point of
+dates, in the whole palace. Great pains have been taken with it, and in
+some portion of the accompanying furniture or ornaments of each of its
+figures a small piece of colored marble has been inlaid, with peculiar
+significance: for the capital represents the _arts of sculpture and
+architecture_; and the inlaying of the colored stones (which are far too
+small to be effective at a distance, and are found in this one capital
+only of the whole series) is merely an expression of the architect's
+feeling of the essential importance of this art of inlaying, and of the
+value of color generally in his own art.
+
+Sec. CXVII. _First side._ "ST. SIMPLICIUS": so inscribed. A figure working
+with a pointed chisel on a small oblong block of green serpentine, about
+four inches long by one wide, inlaid in the capital. The chisel is, of
+course, in the left hand, but the right is held up open, with the palm
+outwards.
+
+_Second side._ A crowned figure, carving the image of a child on a small
+statue, with a ground of red marble. The sculptured figure is highly
+finished, and is in type of head much like the Ham or Japheth at the
+Vine angle. Inscription effaced.
+
+_Third side._ An old man, uncrowned, but with curling hair, at work on a
+small column, with its capital complete, and a little shaft of dark red
+marble, spotted with paler red. The capital is precisely of the form of
+that found in the palace of the Tiepolos and the other thirteenth
+century work of Venice. This one figure would be quite enough, without
+any other evidence whatever, to determine the date of this flank of the
+Ducal Palace as not later, at all events, than the first half of the
+fourteenth century. Its inscription is broken away, all but "DISIPULO."
+
+_Fourth side._ A crowned figure; but the object on which it has been
+working is broken away, and all the inscription except "ST. E(N?)AS."
+
+_Fifth side._ A man with a turban, and a sharp chisel, at work on a kind
+of panel or niche, the back of which is of red marble.
+
+_Sixth side._ A crowned figure, with hammer and chisel, employed _on a
+little range of windows of the fifth order_, having roses set, instead
+of orbicular ornaments, between the spandrils, with a rich cornice, and
+a band of marble inserted above. This sculpture assures us of the date
+of the fifth order window, which it shows to have been universal in the
+early fourteenth century.
+
+There are also five arches in the block on which the sculptor is
+working, marking the frequency of the number five in the window groups
+of the time.
+
+_Seventh side._ A figure at work on a pilaster, with Lombardic
+thirteenth century capital (for account of the series of forms in
+Venetian capitals, see the final Appendix of the next volume), the shaft
+of dark red spotted marble.
+
+_Eighth side._ A figure with a rich open crown, working on a delicate
+recumbent statue, the head of which is laid on a pillow covered with a
+rich chequer pattern; the whole supported on a block of dark red marble.
+Inscription broken away, all but "ST. SYM. (Symmachus?) TV * * ANVS."
+There appear, therefore, altogether to have been five saints, two of
+them popes, if Simplicius is the pope of that name (three in front, two
+on the fourth and sixth sides), alternating with the three uncrowned
+workmen in the manual labor of sculpture. I did not, therefore, insult
+our present architects in saying above that they "ought to work in the
+mason's yard with their men." It would be difficult to find a more
+interesting expression of the devotional spirit in which all great work
+was undertaken at this time.
+
+Sec. CXVIII. TWENTIETH CAPITAL. It is adorned with heads of animals, and
+is the finest of the whole series in the broad massiveness of its effect;
+so simply characteristic, indeed, of the grandeur of style in the
+entire building, that I chose it for the first Plate in my folio work.
+In spite of the sternness of its plan, however, it is wrought with great
+care in surface detail; and the ornamental value of the minute chasing
+obtained by the delicate plumage of the birds, and the clustered bees on
+the honeycomb in the bear's mouth, opposed to the strong simplicity of
+its general form, cannot be too much admired. There are also more grace,
+life, and variety in the sprays of foliage on each side of it, and under
+the heads, than in any other capital of the series, though the earliness
+of the workmanship is marked by considerable hardness and coldness in
+the larger heads. A Northern Gothic workman, better acquainted with
+bears and wolves than it was possible to become in St. Mark's Place,
+would have put far more life into these heads, but he could not have
+composed them more skilfully.
+
+Sec. CXIX. _First side._ A lion with a stag's haunch in his mouth. Those
+readers who have the folio plate, should observe the peculiar way in
+which the ear is cut into the shape of a ring, jagged or furrowed on the
+edge; an archaic mode of treatment peculiar, in the Ducal Palace, to the
+lions' heads of the fourteenth century. The moment we reach the
+Renaissance work, the lions' ears are smooth. Inscribed simply, "LEO."
+
+_Second side._ A wolf with a dead bird in his mouth, its body
+wonderfully true in expression of the passiveness of death. The feathers
+are each wrought with a central quill and radiating filaments. Inscribed
+"LUPUS."
+
+_Third side._ A fox, not at all like one, with a dead cock in his mouth,
+its comb and pendent neck admirably designed so as to fall across the
+great angle leaf of the capital, its tail hanging down on the other
+side, its long straight feathers exquisitely cut. Inscribed "(VULP?)IS."
+
+_Fourth side._ Entirely broken away.
+
+_Fifth side_. "APER." Well tusked, with a head of maize in his mouth; at
+least I suppose it to be maize, though shaped like a pine-cone.
+
+_Sixth side._ "CHANIS." With a bone, very ill cut; and a bald-headed
+species of dog, with ugly flap ears.
+
+_Seventh side._ "MUSCIPULUS." With a rat (?) in his mouth.
+
+_Eighth side._ "URSUS." With a honeycomb, covered with large bees.
+
+Sec. CXX. TWENTY-FIRST CAPITAL. Represents the principal inferior
+professions.
+
+_First side._ An old man, with his brow deeply wrinkled, and very
+expressive features, beating in a kind of mortar with a hammer.
+Inscribed "LAPICIDA SUM."
+
+_Second side._ I believe, a goldsmith; he is striking a small flat bowl
+or patera, on a pointed anvil, with a light hammer. The inscription is
+gone.
+
+_Third side._ A shoemaker with a shoe in his hand, and an instrument for
+cutting leather suspended beside him. Inscription undecipherable.
+
+_Fourth side._ Much broken. A carpenter planing a beam resting on two
+horizontal logs. Inscribed "CARPENTARIUS SUM."
+
+_Fifth side._ A figure shovelling fruit into a tub; the latter very
+carefully carved from what appears to have been an excellent piece of
+cooperage. Two thin laths cross each other over the top of it. The
+inscription, now lost, was, according to Selvatico, "MENSURATOR"?
+
+_Sixth side._ A man, with a large hoe, breaking the ground, which lies
+in irregular furrows and clods before him. Now undecipherable, but
+according to Selvatico, "AGRICHOLA."
+
+_Seventh side._ A man, in a pendent cap, writing on a large scroll which
+falls over his knee. Inscribed "NOTARIUS SUM."
+
+_Eighth side._ A man forging a sword, or scythe-blade: he wears a large
+skull-cap; beats with a large hammer on a solid anvil; and is inscribed
+"FABER SUM."
+
+Sec. CXXI. TWENTY-SECOND CAPITAL. The Ages of Man; and the influence of
+the planets on human life.
+
+_First side._ The moon, governing infancy for four years, according to
+Selvatico. I have no note of this side, having, I suppose, been
+prevented from raising the ladder against it by some fruit-stall or
+other impediment in the regular course of my examination; and then
+forgotten to return to it.
+
+_Second side._ A child with a tablet, and an alphabet inscribed on it.
+The legend above is
+
+  "MECUREU^s DNT. PUERICIE PAN. X."
+
+Or, "Mercurius dominatur pueritiae per annos X." (Selvatico reads VII.)
+"Mercury governs boyhood for ten (or seven) years."
+
+_Third side._ An older youth, with another tablet, but broken. Inscribed
+
+  "ADOLOSCENCIE * * * P. AN. VII."
+
+Selvatico misses this side altogether, as I did the first, so that the
+lost planet is irrecoverable, as the inscription is now defaced. Note
+the o for e in adolescentia; so also we constantly find u for o;
+showing, together with much other incontestable evidence of the same
+kind, how full and deep the old pronunciation of Latin always remained,
+and how ridiculous our English mincing of the vowels would have sounded
+to a Roman ear.
+
+_Fourth side._ A youth with a hawk on his fist.
+
+     "IUVENTUTI DNT SOL. P. AN. XIX."
+  The son governs youth for nineteen years.
+
+_Fifth side._ A man sitting, helmed, with a sword over his shoulder.
+Inscribed
+
+    "SENECTUTI DNT MARS. P. AN. XV."
+  Mars governs manhood for fifteen years.
+
+_Sixth side._ A very graceful and serene figure, in the pendent cap,
+reading.
+
+   "SENICIE DNT JUPITER, P. ANN. XII."
+  Jupiter governs age for twelve years.
+
+_Seventh side._ An old man in a skull-cap, praying.
+
+  "DECREPITE DNT SATN UQ^s ADMOTE." (Saturnus usque ad mortem.)
+             Saturn governs decrepitude until death.
+
+_Eighth side._ The dead body lying on a mattress.
+
+    "ULTIMA EST MORS PENA PECCATI."
+  Last comes death, the penalty of sin.
+
+Sec. CXXII. Shakspeare's Seven Ages are of course merely the expression
+of this early and well known system. He has deprived the dotage of its
+devotion; but I think wisely, as the Italian system would imply that
+devotion was, or should be, always delayed until dotage.
+
+TWENTY-THIRD CAPITAL. I agree with Selvatico in thinking this has been
+restored. It is decorated with large and vulgar heads.
+
+Sec. CXXIII. TWENTY-FOURTH CAPITAL. This belongs to the large shaft which
+sustains the great party wall of the Sala del Gran Consiglio. The shaft
+is thicker than the rest; but the capital, though ancient, is coarse and
+somewhat inferior in design to the others of the series. It represents
+the history of marriage: the lover first seeing his mistress at a
+window, then addressing her, bringing her presents; then the bridal, the
+birth and the death of a child. But I have not been able to examine
+these sculptures properly, because the pillar is encumbered by the
+railing which surrounds the two guns set before the Austrian
+guard-house.
+
+Sec. CXXIV. TWENTY-FIFTH CAPITAL. We have here the employments of the
+months, with which we are already tolerably acquainted. There are,
+however, one or two varieties worth noticing in this series.
+
+_First side._ March. Sitting triumphantly in a rich dress, as the
+beginning of the year.
+
+_Second side._ April and May. April with a lamb: May with a feather fan
+in her hand.
+
+_Third side._ June. Carrying cherries in a basket.
+
+I did not give this series with the others in the previous chapter,
+because this representation of June is peculiarly Venetian. It is called
+"the month of cherries," mese delle ceriese, in the popular rhyme on the
+conspiracy of Tiepolo, quoted above, Vol. I.
+
+The cherries principally grown near Venice are of a deep red color, and
+large, but not of high flavor, though refreshing. They are carved upon
+the pillar with great care, all their stalks undercut.
+
+_Fourth side._ July and August. The first reaping; the _leaves_ of the
+straw being given, shooting out from the tubular stalk. August,
+opposite, beats (the grain?) in a basket.
+
+_Fifth side._ September. A woman standing in a wine-tub, and holding a
+branch of vine. Very beautiful.
+
+_Sixth side._ October and November. I could not make out their
+occupation; they seem to be roasting or boiling some root over a fire.
+
+_Seventh side._ December. Killing pigs, as usual.
+
+_Eighth side._ January warming his feet, and February frying fish. This
+last employment is again as characteristic of the Venetian winter as the
+cherries are of the Venetian summer.
+
+The inscriptions are undecipherable, except a few letters here and
+there, and the words MARCIUS, APRILIS, and FEBRUARIUS.
+
+This is the last of the capitals of the early palace; the next, or
+twenty-sixth capital, is the first of those executed in the fifteenth
+century under Foscari; and hence to the Judgment angle the traveller has
+nothing to do but to compare the base copies of the earlier work with
+their originals, or to observe the total want of invention in the
+Renaissance sculptor, wherever he has depended on his own resources.
+This, however, always with the exception of the twenty-seventh and of
+the last capital, which are both fine.
+
+I shall merely enumerate the subjects and point out the plagiarisms of
+these capitals, as they are not worth description.
+
+Sec. CXXV. TWENTY-SIXTH CAPITAL. Copied from the fifteenth, merely
+changing the succession of the figures.
+
+TWENTY-SEVENTH CAPITAL. I think it possible that this may be part of the
+old work displaced in joining the new palace with the old; at all
+events, it is well designed, though a little coarse. It represents eight
+different kinds of fruit, each in a basket; the characters well given,
+and groups well arranged, but without much care or finish. The names are
+inscribed above, though somewhat unnecessarily, and with certainly as
+much disrespect to the beholder's intelligence as the sculptor's art,
+namely, ZEREXIS, PIRI, CHUCUMERIS, PERSICI, ZUCHE, MOLONI, FICI, HUVA.
+Zerexis (cherries) and Zuche (gourds) both begin with the same letter,
+whether meant for z, s, or c I am not sure. The Zuche are the common
+gourds, divided into two protuberances, one larger than the other, like
+a bottle compresed near the neck; and the Moloni are the long
+water-melons, which, roasted, form a staple food of the Venetians to
+this day.
+
+Sec. CXXVI. TWENTY-EIGHTH CAPITAL. Copied from the seventh.
+
+TWENTY-NINTH CAPITAL. Copied from the ninth.
+
+THIRTIETH CAPITAL. Copied from the tenth. The "Accidia" is noticeable as
+having the inscription complete, "ACCIDIA ME STRINGIT;" and the
+"Luxuria" for its utter want of expression, having a severe and calm
+face, a robe up to the neck, and her hand upon her breast. The
+inscription is also different: "LUXURIA SUM STERC^S (?) INFERI" (?).
+
+THIRTY-FIRST CAPITAL. Copied from the eighth.
+
+THIRTY-SECOND CAPITAL. Has no inscription, only fully robed figures
+laying their hands, without any meaning, on their own shoulders, heads,
+or chins, or on the leaves around them.
+
+THIRTY-THIRD CAPITAL. Copied from the twelfth.
+
+THIRTY-FOURTH CAPITAL. Copied from the eleventh.
+
+THIRTY-FIFTH CAPITAL. Has children, with birds or fruit, pretty in
+features, and utterly inexpressive, like the cherubs of the eighteenth
+century.
+
+Sec. CXXVII. THIRTY-SIXTH CAPITAL. This is the last of the Piazzetta
+facade, the elaborate one under the Judgment angle. Its foliage is
+copied from the eighteenth at the opposite side, with an endeavor on the
+part of the Renaissance sculptor to refine upon it, by which he has
+merely lost some of its truth and force. This capital will, however, be
+always thought, at first, the most beautiful of the whole series: and
+indeed it is very noble; its groups of figures most carefully studied,
+very graceful, and much more pleasing than those of the earlier work,
+though with less real power in them; and its foliage is only inferior to
+that of the magnificent Fig-tree angle. It represents, on its front or
+first side, Justice enthroned, seated on two lions; and on the seven
+other sides examples of acts of justice or good government, or figures
+of lawgivers, in the following order:
+
+_Second side._ Aristotle, with two pupils, giving laws. Inscribed:
+
+  "ARISTOT * * CHE DIE LEGE."
+   Aristotle who declares laws.
+
+_Third side._ I have mislaid my note of this side: Selvatico and Lazari
+call it "Isidore" (?).[158]
+
+_Fourth side._ Solon with his pupils. Inscribed:
+
+  "SAL^O UNO DEI SETE SAVI DI GRECIA CHE DIE LEGE."
+   Solon, one of the seven sages of Greece, who declares laws.
+
+Note, by the by, the pure Venetian dialect used in this capital, instead
+of the Latin in the more ancient ones. One of the seated pupils in this
+sculpture is remarkably beautiful in the sweep of his flowing drapery.
+
+_Fifth side._ The chastity of Scipio. Inscribed:
+
+  "ISIPIONE A CHASTITA CH * * * E LA FIA (e la figlia?) * * ARE."
+
+A soldier in a plumed bonnet presents a kneeling maiden to the seated
+Scipio, who turns thoughtfully away.
+
+_Sixth side._ Numa Pompilius building churches.
+
+  "NUMA POMPILIO IMPERADOR EDIFICHADOR DI TEMPI E CHIESE."
+
+Numa, in a kind of hat with a crown above it, directing a soldier in
+Roman armor (note this, as contrasted with the mail of the earlier
+capitals). They point to a tower of three stories filled with tracery.
+
+_Seventh side._ Moses receiving the law. Inscribed:
+
+  "QUANDO MOSE RECEVE LA LEGE I SUL MONTE."
+
+Moses kneels on a rock, whence springs a beautifully fancied tree, with
+clusters of three berries in the centre of three leaves, sharp and
+quaint, like fine Northern Gothic. The half figure of the Deity comes
+out of the abacus, the arm meeting that of Moses, both at full stretch,
+with the stone tablets between.
+
+_Eighth side._ Trajan doing justice to the Widow.
+
+  "TRAJANO IMPERADOR CHE FA JUSTITIA A LA VEDOVA."
+
+He is riding spiritedly, his mantle blown out behind: the widow kneeling
+before his horse.
+
+Sec. CXXVIII. The reader will observe that this capital is of peculiar
+interest in its relation to the much disputed question of the character
+of the later government of Venice. It is the assertion by that
+government of its belief that Justice only could be the foundation of
+its stability; as these stones of Justice and Judgment are the
+foundation of its halls of council. And this profession of their faith
+may be interpreted in two ways. Most modern historians would call it, in
+common with the continual reference to the principles of justice in the
+political and judicial language of the period,[159] nothing more than a
+cloak for consummate violence and guilt; and it may easily be proved to
+have been so in myriads of instances. But in the main, I believe the
+expression of feeling to be genuine. I do not believe, of the majority
+of the leading Venetians of this period whose portraits have come down
+to us, that they were deliberately and everlastingly hypocrites. I see
+no hypocrisy in their countenances. Much capacity of it, much subtlety,
+much natural and acquired reserve; but no meanness. On the contrary,
+infinite grandeur, repose, courage, and the peculiar unity and
+tranquillity of expression which come of sincerity or _wholeness_ of
+heart, and which it would take much demonstration to make me believe
+could by any possibility be seen on the countenance of an insincere man.
+I trust, therefore, that these Venetian nobles of the fifteenth century
+did, in the main, desire to do judgment and justice to all men; but, as
+the whole system of morality had been by this time undermined by the
+teaching of the Romish Church, the idea of justice had become separated
+from that of truth, so that dissimulation in the interest of the state
+assumed the aspect of duty. We had, perhaps, better consider, with some
+carefulness, the mode in which our own government is carried on, and the
+occasional difference between parliamentary and private morality, before
+we judge mercilessly of the Venetians in this respect. The secrecy with
+which their political and criminal trials were conducted, appears to
+modern eyes like a confession of sinister intentions; but may it not
+also be considered, and with more probability, as the result of an
+endeavor to do justice in an age of violence?--the only means by which
+Law could establish its footing in the midst of feudalism. Might not
+Irish juries at this day justifiably desire to conduct their proceedings
+with some greater approximation to the judicial principles of the
+Council of Ten? Finally, if we examine, with critical accuracy, the
+evidence on which our present impressions of Venetian government are
+founded, we shall discover, in the first place, that two-thirds of the
+traditions of its cruelties are romantic fables: in the second, that the
+crimes of which it can be proved to have been guilty, differ only from
+those committed by the other Italian powers in being done less wantonly,
+and under profounder conviction of their political expediency: and
+lastly, that the final degradation of the Venetian power appears owing
+not so much to the principles of its government, as to their being
+forgotten in the pursuit of pleasure.
+
+Sec. CXXIX. We have now examined the portions of the palace which contain
+the principal evidence of the feeling of its builders. The capitals of
+the upper arcade are exceedingly various in their character; their
+design is formed, as in the lower series, of eight leaves, thrown into
+volutes at the angles, and sustaining figures at the flanks; but these
+figures have no inscriptions, and though evidently not without meaning,
+cannot be interpreted without more knowledge than I possess of ancient
+symbolism. Many of the capitals toward the Sea appear to have been
+restored, and to be rude copies of the ancient ones; others, though
+apparently original, have been somewhat carelessly wrought; but those of
+them, which are both genuine and carefully treated, are even finer in
+composition than any, except the eighteenth, in the lower arcade. The
+traveller in Venice ought to ascend into the corridor, and examine with
+great care the series of capitals which extend on the Piazzetta side
+from the Fig-tree angle to the pilaster which carries the party wall of
+the Sala del Gran Consiglio. As examples of graceful composition in
+massy capitals meant for hard service and distant effect, these are
+among the finest things I know in Gothic art; and that above the
+fig-tree is remarkable for its sculptures of the four winds; each on the
+side turned towards the wind represented. Levante, the east wind; a
+figure with rays round its head, to show that it is always clear weather
+when that wind blows, raising the sun out of the sea: Hotro, the south
+wind; crowned, holding the sun in its right hand; Ponente, the west
+wind; plunging the sun into the sea: and Tramontana, the north wind;
+looking up at the north star. This capital should be carefully examined,
+if for no other reason than to attach greater distinctness of idea to
+the magnificent verbiage of Milton:
+
+                "Thwart of these, as fierce,
+  Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,
+  Eurus, and Zephyr; with their lateral noise,
+  Sirocco and Libecchio."
+
+I may also especially point out the bird feeding its three young ones on
+the seventh pillar on the Piazzetta side; but there is no end to the
+fantasy of these sculptures; and the traveller ought to observe them all
+carefully, until he comes to the great Pilaster or complicated pier
+which sustains the party wall of the Sala del Consiglio; that is to say,
+the forty-seventh capital of the whole series, counting from the
+pilaster of the Vine angle inclusive, as in the series of the lower
+arcade. The forty-eighth, forty-ninth, and fiftieth are bad work, but
+they are old; the fifty-first is the first Renaissance capital of the
+upper arcade: the first new lion's head with smooth ears, cut in the
+time of Foscari, is over the fiftieth capital; and that capital, with
+its shaft, stands on the apex of the eighth arch from the Sea, on the
+Piazzetta side, of which one spandril is masonry of the fourteenth and
+the other of the fifteenth century.
+
+Sec. CXXX. The reader who is not able to examine the building on the spot
+may be surprised at the definiteness with which the point of junction is
+ascertainable; but a glance at the lowest range of leaves in the
+opposite Plate (XX.) will enable him to judge of the grounds on which
+the above statement is made. Fig. 12 is a cluster of leaves from the
+capital of the Four Winds; early work of the finest time. Fig. 13 is a
+leaf from the great Renaissance capital at the Judgment angle, worked in
+imitation of the older leafage. Fig. 14 is a leaf from one of the
+Renaissance capitals of the upper arcade, which are all worked in the
+natural manner of the period. It will be seen that it requires no great
+ingenuity to distinguish between such design as that of fig. 12 and that
+of fig. 14.
+
+[Illustration: Plate XX.
+               LEAFAGE OF THE VENETIAN CAPITALS.]
+
+Sec. CXXXI. It is very possible that the reader may at first like fig. 14
+the best. I shall endeavor, in the next chapter, to show why he should
+not; but it must also be noted, that fig. 12 has lost, and fig. 14
+gained, both largely, under the hands of the engraver. All the bluntness
+and coarseness of feeling in the workmanship of fig. 14 have disappeared
+on this small scale, and all the subtle refinements in the broad masses
+of fig. 12 have vanished. They could not, indeed, be rendered in line
+engraving, unless by the hand of Albert Durer; and I have, therefore,
+abandoned, for the present, all endeavor to represent any more important
+mass of the early sculpture of the Ducal Palace: but I trust that, in a
+few months, casts of many portions will be within the reach of the
+inhabitants of London, and that they will be able to judge for
+themselves of their perfect, pure, unlabored naturalism; the freshness,
+elasticity, and softness of their leafage, united with the most noble
+symmetry and severe reserve,--no running to waste, no loose or
+experimental lines, no extravagance, and no weakness. Their design is
+always sternly architectural; there is none of the wildness or
+redundance of natural vegetation, but there is all the strength,
+freedom, and tossing flow of the breathing leaves, and all the
+undulation of their surfaces, rippled, as they grew, by the summer
+winds, as the sands are by the sea.
+
+Sec. CXXXII. This early sculpture of the Ducal Palace, then, represents
+the state of Gothic work in Venice at its central and proudest period,
+i.e. circa 1350. After this time, all is decline,--of what nature and
+by what steps, we shall inquire in the ensuing chapter; for as this
+investigation, though still referring to Gothic architecture, introduces
+us to the first symptoms of the Renaissance influence, I have considered
+it as properly belonging to the third division of our subject.
+
+Sec. CXXXIII. And as, under the shadow of these nodding leaves, we
+bid farewell to the great Gothic spirit, here also we may cease our
+examination of the details of the Ducal Palace; for above its upper
+arcade there are only the four traceried windows,[160] and one or two of
+the third order on the Rio Facade, which can be depended upon as
+exhibiting the original workmanship of the older palace. I examined the
+capitals of the four other windows on the facade, and of those on the
+Piazzetta, one by one, with great care, and I found them all to be of
+far inferior workmanship to those which retain their traceries: I
+believe the stone framework of these windows must have been so cracked
+and injured by the flames of the great fire, as to render it necessary
+to replace it by new traceries; and that the present mouldings and
+capitals are base imitations of the original ones. The traceries were at
+first, however, restored in their complete form, as the holes for the
+bolts which fastened the bases of their shafts are still to be seen in
+the window-sills, as well as the marks of the inner mouldings on the
+soffits. How much the stone facing of the facade, the parapets, and the
+shafts and niches of the angles, retain of their original masonry, it is
+also impossible to determine; but there is nothing in the workmanship
+of any of them demanding especial notice; still less in the large
+central windows on each facade, which are entirely of Renaissance
+execution. All that is admirable in these portions of the building is
+the disposition of their various parts and masses, which is without
+doubt the same as in the original fabric, and calculated, when seen from
+a distance, to produce the same impression.
+
+Sec. CXXXIV. Not so in the interior. All vestige of the earlier modes of
+decoration was here, of course, destroyed by the fires; and the severe
+and religious work of Guariento and Bellini has been replaced by the
+wildness of Tintoret and the luxury of Veronese. But in this case,
+though widely different in temper, the art of the renewal was at least
+intellectually as great as that which had perished: and though the halls
+of the Ducal Palace are no more representative of the character of the
+men by whom it was built, each of them is still a colossal casket of
+priceless treasure; a treasure whose safety has till now depended on its
+being despised, and which at this moment, and as I write, is piece by
+piece being destroyed for ever.
+
+Sec. CXXXV. The reader will forgive my quitting our more immediate
+subject, in order briefly to explain the causes and the nature of this
+destruction; for the matter is simply the most important of all that can
+be brought under our present consideration respecting the state of art
+in Europe.
+
+The fact is, that the greater number of persons or societies throughout
+Europe, whom wealth, or chance, or inheritance has put in possession of
+valuable pictures, do not know a good picture from a bad one,[161] and
+have no idea in what the value of a picture really consists. The
+reputation of certain works is raised, partly by accident, partly by the
+just testimony of artists, partly by the various and generally bad taste
+of the public (no picture, that I know of, has ever, in modern times,
+attained popularity, in the full sense of the term, without having some
+exceedingly bad qualities mingled with its good ones), and when this
+reputation has once been completely established, it little matters to
+what state the picture may be reduced: few minds are so completely
+devoid of imagination as to be unable to invest it with the beauties
+which they have heard attributed to it.
+
+Sec. CXXXVI. This being so, the pictures that are most valued are for the
+most part those by masters of established renown, which are highly or
+neatly finished, and of a size small enough to admit of their being
+placed in galleries or saloons, so as to be made subjects of
+ostentation, and to be easily seen by a crowd. For the support of the
+fame and value of such pictures, little more is necessary than that they
+should be kept bright, partly by cleaning, which is incipient
+destruction, and partly by what is called "restoring," that is, painting
+over, which is of course total destruction. Nearly all the gallery
+pictures in modern Europe have been more or less destroyed by one or
+other of these operations, generally exactly in proportion to the
+estimation in which they are held; and as, originally, the smaller and
+more highly finished works of any great master are usually his worst,
+the contents of many of our most celebrated galleries are by this time,
+in reality, of very small value indeed.
+
+Sec. CXXXVII. On the other hand, the most precious works of any noble
+painter are usually those which have been done quickly, and in the heat
+of the first thought, on a large scale, for places where there was
+little likelihood of their being well seen, or for patrons from whom
+there was little prospect of rich remuneration. In general, the best
+things are done in this way, or else in the enthusiasm and pride of
+accomplishing some great purpose, such as painting a cathedral or a
+camposanto from one end to the other, especially when the time has been
+short, and circumstances disadvantageous.
+
+Sec. CXXXVIII. Works thus executed are of course despised, on account of
+their quantity, as well as their frequent slightness, in the places
+where they exist; and they are too large to be portable, and too vast
+and comprehensive to be read on the spot, in the hasty temper of the
+present age. They are, therefore, almost universally neglected,
+whitewashed by custodes, shot at by soldiers, suffered to drop from the
+walls piecemeal in powder and rags by society in general; but, which is
+an advantage more than counterbalancing all this evil, they are not
+often "restored." What is left of them, however fragmentary, however
+ruinous, however obscured and defiled, is almost always _the real
+thing_; there are no fresh readings: and therefore the greatest
+treasures of art which Europe at this moment possesses are pieces of old
+plaster on ruinous brick walls, where the lizards burrow and bask, and
+which few other living creatures ever approach; and torn sheets of dim
+canvas, in waste corners of churches; and mildewed stains, in the shape
+of human figures, on the walls of dark chambers, which now and then an
+exploring traveller causes to be unlocked by their tottering custode,
+looks hastily round, and retreats from in a weary satisfaction at his
+accomplished duty.
+
+Sec. CXXXIX. Many of the pictures on the ceilings and walls of the Ducal
+Palace, by Paul Veronese and Tintoret, have been more or less reduced,
+by neglect, to this condition. Unfortunately they are not altogether
+without reputation, and their state has drawn the attention of the
+Venetian authorities and academicians. It constantly happens, that
+public bodies who will not pay five pounds to preserve a picture, will
+pay fifty to repaint it:[162] and when I was at Venice in 1846, there
+were two remedial operations carrying on, at one and the same time, in
+the two buildings which contain the pictures of greatest value in the
+city (as pieces of color, of greatest value in the world), curiously
+illustrative of this peculiarity in human nature. Buckets were set on
+the floor of the Scuola di San Rocco, in every shower, to catch the rain
+which came through the pictures of Tintoret on the ceiling; while in the
+Ducal Palace, those of Paul Veronese were themselves laid on the floor
+to be repainted; and I was myself present at the re-illumination of the
+breast of a white horse, with a brush, at the end of a stick five feet
+long, luxuriously dipped in a common house-painter's vessel of paint.
+
+This was, of course, a large picture. The process has already been
+continued in an equally destructive, though somewhat more delicate
+manner, over the whole of the humbler canvases on the ceiling of the
+Sala del Gran Consiglio; and I heard it threatened when I was last in
+Venice (1851-2) to the "Paradise" at its extremity, which is yet in
+tolerable condition,--the largest work of Tintoret, and the most
+wonderful piece of pure, manly, and masterly oil-painting in the world.
+
+Sec. CXL. I leave these facts to the consideration of the European patrons
+of art. Twenty years hence they will be acknowledged and regretted; at
+present, I am well aware, that it is of little use to bring them
+forward, except only to explain the present impossibility of stating
+what pictures _are_, and what _were_, in the interior of the Ducal
+Palace. I can only say, that in the winter of 1851, the "Paradise" of
+Tintoret was still comparatively uninjured, and that the Camera di
+Collegio, and its antechamber, and the Sala de' Pregadi were full of
+pictures by Veronese and Tintoret, that made their walls as precious as
+so many kingdoms; so precious indeed, and so full of majesty, that
+sometimes when walking at evening on the Lido, whence the great chain of
+the Alps, crested with silver clouds, might be seen rising above the
+front of the Ducal Palace, I used to feel as much awe in gazing on the
+building as on the hills, and could believe that God had done a greater
+work in breathing into the narrowness of dust the mighty spirits by
+whom its haughty walls had been raised, and its burning legends written,
+than in lifting the rocks of granite higher than the clouds of heaven,
+and veiling them with their various mantle of purple flower and shadowy
+pine.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [99] The reader will find it convenient to note the following
+    editions of the printed books which have been principally consulted
+    in the following inquiry. The numbers of the manuscripts referred to
+    in the Marcian Library are given with the quotations.
+
+      Sansovino.   Venetia Descritta. 4to, Venice, 1663.
+      Sansovino.   Lettera intorno al Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1829.
+      Temanza.   Antica Pianta di Venezia, with text. Venice, 1780.
+      Cadorin.   Pareri di XV. Architetti. 8vo, Venice, 1838.
+      Filiasi.   Memorie storiche. 8vo, Padua, 1811.
+      Bettio.   Lettera discorsiva del Palazzo Ducale. 8vo, Venice, 1837.
+      Selvatico.   Architettura di Venezia. 8vo, Venice, 1847.
+
+  [100] The year commonly given is 810, as in the Savina Chronicle
+    (Cod. Marcianus), p. 13. "Del 810 fece principiar el pallazzo Ducal
+    nel luogo ditto Bruolo in confin di S. Moise, et fece riedificar la
+    isola di Eraclia." The Sagornin Chronicle gives 804; and Filiasi,
+    vol. vi. chap. 1, corrects this date to 813.
+
+  [101] "Amplio la citta, fornilla di casamenti, _e per il culto d'
+    Iddio e l' amministrazione della giustizia_ eresse la cappella di S.
+    Marco, e il palazzo di sua residenza."--Pareri, p. 120. Observe,
+    that piety towards God, and justice towards man, have been at least
+    the nominal purposes of every act and institution of ancient Venice.
+    Compare also Temanza, p. 24. "Quello che abbiamo di certo si e che
+    il suddetto Agnello lo incomincio da fondamenti, e cost pure la
+    cappella ducale di S. Marco."
+
+  [102] What I call the Sea, was called "the Grand Canal" by the
+    Venetians, as well as the great water street of the city; but I
+    prefer calling it "the Sea," in order to distinguish between that
+    street and the broad water in front of the Ducal Palace, which,
+    interrupted only by the island of San Giorgio, stretches for many
+    miles to the south, and for more than two to the boundary of the
+    Lido. It was the deeper channel, just in front of the Ducal Palace,
+    continuing the line of the great water street itself which the
+    Venetians spoke of as "the Grand Canal." The words of Sansovino are:
+    "Fu cominciato dove si vede, vicino al ponte della paglia, et
+    rispondente sul canal grande." Filiasi says simply: "The palace was
+    built where it now is." "Il palazio fu fatto dove ora pure
+    esiste."--Vol. iii. chap. 27. The Savina Chronicle, already quoted,
+    says: "In the place called the Bruolo (or Broglio), that is to say,
+    on the Piazzetta."
+
+  [103] "Omni decoritate illius perlustrata."--Sagornino, quoted by
+    Cadorin and Temanza.
+
+  [104] There is an interesting account of this revolt in Monaci, p.
+    68. Some historians speak of the palace as having been destroyed
+    entirely; but, that it did not even need important restorations,
+    appears from Sagornino's expression, quoted by Cadorin and Temanza.
+    Speaking of the Doge Participazio, he says: "Qui Palatii hucusque
+    manentis fuerit fabricator." The reparations of the palace are
+    usually attributed to the successor of Candiano, Pietro Orseolo I.;
+    but the legend, under the picture of that Doge in the Council
+    Chamber, speaks only of his rebuilding St. Mark's, and "performing
+    many miracles." His whole mind seems to have been occupied with
+    ecclesiastical affairs; and his piety was finally manifested in a
+    way somewhat startling to the state, by his absconding with a French
+    priest to St. Michael's, in Gascony, and there becoming a monk. What
+    repairs, therefore, were necessary to the Ducal Palace, were left to
+    be undertaken by his son, Orseolo II., above named.
+
+  [105] "Quam non modo marmoreo, verum aureo compsit
+    ornamento."--_Temanza_, p. 25.
+
+  [106] "L'anno 1106, uscito fuoco d'una casa privata, arse parte del
+    palazzo."--_Sansovino_. Of the beneficial effect of these fires,
+    vide Cadorin, p. 121, 123.
+
+  [107] "Urbis situm, aedificiorum decorem, et regiminis aequitatem
+    multipliciter commendavit."--_Cronaca Dandolo_, quoted by Cadorin.
+
+  [108] "Non solamente rinovo il palazzo, ma lo aggrandi per ogni
+    verso."--_Sansovino_. Zanotto quotes the Altinat Chronicle for
+    account of these repairs.
+
+  [109] "El palazzo che anco di mezzo se vede vecchio, per M.
+    Sebastian Ziani fu fatto compir, come el se vede."--_Chronicle of
+    Pietro Dolfino_, Cod. Ven. p. 47. This Chronicle is spoken of by
+    Sansovino as "molto particolare e distinta."--_Sansovino, Venezia
+    descritta_, p. 593.--It terminates in the year 1422.
+
+  [110] See Vol. I. Appendix 3.
+
+  [111] Vide Sansovino's enumeration of those who flourished in the
+    reign of Gradenigo, p. 564.
+
+  [112] Sansovino, 324, 1.
+
+  [113] "1301 fu presa parte di fare una sala grande per la riduzione
+    del gran consiglio, e fu fatta quella che ora si chiama dello
+    Scrutinio."--_Cronaca Sivos_, quoted by Cadorin. There is another
+    most interesting entry in the Chronicle of Magno, relating to this
+    event; but the passage is so ill written, that I am not sure if I
+    have deciphered it correctly:--"Del 1301 fu preso de fabrichar la
+    sala fo ruina e fu fata (fatta) quella se adoperava a far el pregadi
+    e fu adopera per far el Gran Consegio fin 1423, che fu anni 122."
+    This last sentence, which is of great importance, is luckily
+    unmistakable:--"The room was used for the meetings of the Great
+    Council until 1423, that is to say, for 122 years."--_Cod. Ven_.
+    tom. i. p. 126. The Chronicle extends from 1253 to 1454.
+
+  [114] "Vi era appresso la Cancellaria, e la Gheba o Gabbia, chiamata
+    poi Torresella."--P. 324. A small square tower is seen above the
+    Vine angle in the view of Venice dated 1500, and attributed to
+    Albert Durer. It appears about 25 feet square, and is very probably
+    the Torresella in question.
+
+  [115] Vide Bettio, Lettera, p. 23.
+
+  [116] Bettio, Lettera, p. 20. "Those who wrote without having seen
+    them described them as covered with lead; and those who have seen
+    them know that, between their flat timber roofs and the sloping
+    leaden roof of the palace, the interval is five metres where it is
+    least, and nine where it is greatest."
+
+  [117] "Questo Dose anche fese far la porta granda che se al intrar
+    del Pallazzo, in su la qual vi e la sua statua che sta in
+    zenocchioni con lo confalon in man, davanti li pie de lo Lion S.
+    Marco,"--_Savin Chronicle_, Cod. Ven. p. 120.
+
+  [118] These documents I have not examined myself, being satisfied of
+    the accuracy of Cadorin, from whom I take the passages quoted.
+
+  [119] "Libras tres, soldos 15 grossorum."--_Cadorin_, 189, 1.
+
+  [120] Cod. Ven., No. CXLI. p. 365.
+
+  [121] Sansovino is more explicit than usual in his reference to this
+    decree: "For it having appeared that the place (the first Council
+    Chamber) was not capacious enough, the saloon on the Grand Canal was
+    ordered." "Per cio parendo che il luogo non fosse capace, fu
+    ordinata la Sala sul Canal Grande."--P. 324.
+
+  [122] Cadorin, 185, 2. The decree of 1342 is falsely given as of 1345
+    by the Sivos Chronicle, and by Magno; while Sanuto gives the decree
+    to its right year, 1342, but speaks of the Council Chamber as only
+    begun in 1345.
+
+  [123] Calendario. See Appendix 1, Vol. III.
+
+  [124] "Il primo che vi colorisse fu Guariento, il quale l' anno 1365
+    vi fece il Paradiso in testa della sala."--_Sansovino._
+
+  [125] "L' an poi 1400 vi fece il cielo compartita a quadretti d'oro,
+    ripieni di stelle, ch' era la insegna del Doge Steno."--_Sansovino_,
+    lib. VIII.
+
+  [126] "In questi tempi si messe in oro il cielo della sala del Gran
+    Consiglio et si fece il pergolo del finestra grande chi guarda sul
+    canale, adornato l'uno e l'altro di stelle, ch' erano l'insegne del
+    Doge."--_Sansovino_, lib. XIII. Compare also Pareri, p. 129.
+
+  [127] Baseggio (Pareri, p. 127) is called the Proto of the _New_
+    Palace. Farther notes will be found in Appendix 1, Vol. III.
+
+  [128] Cronaca Sanudo, No. CXXV. in the Marcian Library, p. 568.
+
+  [129] Tomaso Mocenigo.
+
+    [130] Vide notes in Appendix.
+
+  [131] On the 4th of April, 1423, according to the copy of the
+    Zancarol Chronicle in the Marcian Library, but previously, according
+    to the Caroldo Chronicle, which makes Foscari enter the Senate as
+    Doge on the 3rd of April.
+
+  [132] "Nella quale (the Sala del Gran Consiglio) non si fece Gran
+    Consiglio salvo nell' anno 1423, alli 3 April, et fu il primo giorno
+    che il Duce Foscari venisse in Gran Consiglio dopo la sua
+    creatione."--Copy in Marcian Library, p. 365.
+
+  [133] "E a di 23 April (1423, by the context) sequente fo fatto Gran
+    Conseio in la salla nuovo dovi avanti non esta piu fatto Gran
+    Conseio si che el primo Gran Conseio dopo la sua (Foscari's)
+    creation, fo fatto in la salla nuova, nel qual conseio fu el
+    Marchese di Mantoa," &c., p. 426.
+
+  [134] Compare Appendix 1, Vol. III.
+
+  [135] "Tutte queste fatture si compirono sotto il dogado del
+    Foscari, nel 1441."--_Pareri_, p. 131.
+
+  [136] This identification has been accomplished, and I think
+    conclusively, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has devoted all the
+    leisure which, during the last twenty years, his manifold offices of
+    kindness to almost every English visitant of Venice have left him,
+    in discovering and translating the passages of the Venetian records
+    which bear upon English history and literature. I shall have
+    occasion to take advantage hereafter of a portion of his labors,
+    which I trust will shortly be made public.
+
+  [137] See the last chapter of the third volume.
+
+  [138] "IN XRI--NOIE AMEN ANNINCARNATIONIS MCCCXVII. INESETBR." "In the
+    name of Christ, Amen, in the year of the incarnation, 1317, in the
+    month of September," &c.
+
+  [139] "Oh, venerable Raphael, make thou the gulf calm, we beseech
+    thee." The peculiar office of the angel Raphael is, in general,
+    according to tradition, the restraining the harmful influences of
+    evil spirits. Sir Charles Eastlake told me, that sometimes in this
+    office he is represented bearing the gall of the fish caught by
+    Tobit; and reminded me of the peculiar superstitions of the
+    Venetians respecting the raising of storms by fiends, as embodied in
+    the well-known tale of the Fisherman and St. Mark's ring.
+
+  [140] In the original, the succession of words is evidently suggested
+    partly by similarity of sound; and the sentence is made weighty by
+    an alliteration which is quite lost in our translation; but the very
+    allowance of influence to these minor considerations is a proof how
+    little any metaphysical order or system was considered necessary in
+    the statement.
+
+  [141] It occurs in a prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit,
+    "That He may keep my soul, and direct my way; compose my bearing,
+    and form my thoughts in holiness; may He govern my body, and protect
+    my mind; strengthen me in action, approve my vows, and accomplish my
+    desires; cause me to lead an honest and honorable life, and give me
+    good hope, charity and chastity, humility and patience: may He
+    govern the Five Senses of my body," &c. The following prayer is also
+    very characteristic of this period. It opens with a beautiful
+    address to Christ upon the cross; then proceeds thus: "Grant to us,
+    O Lord, we beseech thee, this day and ever, the use of penitence, of
+    abstinence, of humility, and chastity; and grant to us light,
+    judgment, understanding, and true knowledge, even to the end." One
+    thing I note in comparing old prayers with modern ones, that however
+    quaint, or however erring, they are always tenfold more condensed,
+    comprehensive, and to their purpose, whatever that may be. There is
+    no dilution in them, no vain or monotonous phraseology. They ask for
+    what is desired plainly and earnestly, and never could be shortened
+    by a syllable. The following series of ejaculations are deep in
+    spirituality, and curiously to our present purpose in the
+    philological quaintness of being built upon prepositions:--
+
+     "Domine Jesu Christe, sancta cruce tua apud me sis, ut me defendas.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro veneranda cruce tua post me sis, ut me
+    gubernes.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua intra me sis, ut me
+    reficeas.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro benedicta cruce tua circa me sis, ut me
+    conserves.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro gloriosa cruce tua ante me sis, ut me
+    deduces.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro laudanda cruce tua super me sis, ut
+    benedicas.
+      Domine Jesu Christe, pro magnifica cruce tua in me sis, ut me ad
+    regnum tuum perducas, per D. N. J. C. Amen."
+
+  [142] This arrangement of the cardinal virtues is said to have been
+    first made by Archytas. See D'Ancarville's illustration of the three
+    figures of Prudence, Fortitude, and Charity, in Selvatico's
+    "Cappellina degli Scrovegni," Padua, 1836.
+
+  [143] Or Penitence: but I rather think this is understood only in
+    Compunctio cordis.
+
+  [144] The transformation of a symbol into a reality, observe, as in
+    transubstantiation, is as much an abandonment of symbolism as the
+    forgetfulness of symbolic meaning altogether.
+
+  [145] On the window of New College, Oxford.
+
+  [146] Uniting the three ideas expressed by the Greek philosophers
+    under the terms [Greek: phroneei], [Greek: sophia], and [Greek:
+    episteme]; and part of the idea of [Greek: sophrosone].
+
+  [147] Isa. lxiv. 5.
+
+  [148] I can hardly think it necessary to point out to the reader the
+    association between sacred cheerfulness and solemn thought, or to
+    explain any appearance of contradiction between passages in which
+    (as above in Chap. V.) I have had to oppose sacred pensiveness to
+    unholy mirth, and those in which I have to oppose sacred
+    cheerfulness to unholy sorrow.
+
+  [149] "Desse," seat
+
+  [150] Usually called Charity: but this virtue in its full sense is
+    one of the attendant spirits by the Throne; the Kindness here meant
+    is Charity with a special object; or Friendship and Kindness, as
+    opposed to Envy, which has always, in like manner, a special object.
+    Hence the love of Orestes and Pylades is given as an instance of the
+    virtue of Friendship; and the Virgin's, "They have no wine," at
+    Cana, of general kindness and sympathy with others' pleasure.
+
+  [151] The "Faerie Queen," like Dante's "Paradise," is only half
+    estimated, because few persons take the pains to think out its
+    meaning. I have put a brief analysis of the first book in Appendix
+    2, Vol. III.; which may perhaps induce the reader to follow out the
+    subject for himself. No time devoted to profane literature will be
+    better rewarded than that spent _earnestly_ on Spenser.
+
+  [152] Inscribed, I believe, Pietas, meaning general reverence and
+    godly fear.
+
+  [153] I have given one of these capitals carefully already in my folio
+    work, and hope to give most of the others in due time. It was of no
+    use to draw them here, as the scale would have been too small to
+    allow me to show the expression of the figures.
+
+  [154] Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 226.
+
+  [155] Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. letter IV.
+
+  [156] Selvatico states that these are intended to be representative
+    of eight nations, Latins, Tartars, Turks, Hungarians, Greeks, Goths,
+    Egyptians, and Persians. Either the inscriptions are now defaced or
+    I have carelessly omitted to note them.
+
+  [157] The comma in these inscriptions stands for a small cuneiform
+    mark, I believe of contraction, and the small ^s for a zigzag mark
+    of the same kind. The dots or periods are similarly marked, on the
+    stone.
+
+  [158] Can they have mistaken the ISIPIONE of the fifth side for the
+    word Isidore?
+
+  [159] Compare the speech of the Doge Mocenigo, above,--"first justice,
+    and _then_ the interests of the state:" and see Vol. III. Chap. II.
+    Sec. LIX.
+
+  [160] Some further details respecting these portions, as well as
+    some necessary confirmations of my statements of dates, are,
+    however, given in Appendix 1, Vol. III. I feared wearying the
+    general reader by introducing them into the text.
+
+  [161] Many persons, capable of quickly sympathizing with any
+    excellence, when once pointed out to them, easily deceive themselves
+    into the supposition that they are judges of art. There is only one
+    real test of such power of judgment. Can they, at a glance, discover
+    a good picture obscured by the filth, and confused among the
+    rubbish, of the pawnbroker's or dealer's garret?
+
+  [162] This is easily explained. There are, of course, in every place
+    and at all periods, bad painters who conscientiously believe that
+    they can improve every picture they touch; and these men are
+    generally, in their presumption, the most influential over the
+    innocence, whether of monarchs or municipalities. The carpenter and
+    slater have little influence in recommending the repairs of the
+    roof; but the bad painter has great influence, as well as interest,
+    in recommending those of the picture.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+1. THE GONDOLIER'S CRY.
+
+
+Most persons are now well acquainted with the general aspect of the
+Venetian gondola, but few have taken the pains to understand the cries
+of warning uttered by its boatmen, although those cries are peculiarly
+characteristic, and very impressive to a stranger, and have been even
+very sweetly introduced in poetry by Mr. Monckton Milnes. It may perhaps
+be interesting to the traveller in Venice to know the general method of
+management of the boat to which he owes so many happy hours.
+
+A gondola is in general rowed only by one man, _standing_ at the stern;
+those of the upper classes having two or more boatmen, for greater speed
+and magnificence. In order to raise the oar sufficiently, it rests, not
+on the side of the boat, but on a piece of crooked timber like the
+branch of a tree, rising about a foot from the boat's side, and called a
+"forcola." The forcola is of different forms, according to the size and
+uses of the boat, and it is always somewhat complicated in its parts and
+curvature, allowing the oar various kinds of rests and catches on both
+its sides, but perfectly free play in all cases; as the management of
+the boat depends on the gondolier's being able in an instant to place
+his oar in any position. The forcola is set on the right-hand side of
+the boat, some six feet from the stern: the gondolier stands on a little
+flat platform or deck behind it, and throws nearly the entire weight of
+his body upon the forward stroke. The effect of this stroke would be
+naturally to turn the boat's head round to the left, as well as to send
+it forward; but this tendency is corrected by keeping the blade of the
+oar under the water on the return stroke, and raising it gradually, as
+a full spoon is raised out of any liquid, so that the blade emerges from
+the water only an instant before it again plunges. A _downward_ and
+lateral pressure upon the forcola is thus obtained, which entirely
+counteracts the tendency given by the forward stroke; and the effort,
+after a little practice, becomes hardly conscious, though, as it adds
+some labor to the back stroke, rowing a gondola at speed is hard and
+breathless work, though it appears easy and graceful to the looker-on.
+
+If then the gondola is to be turned to the left, the forward impulse is
+given without the return stroke; if it is to be turned to the right, the
+plunged oar is brought forcibly up to the surface; in either case a
+single strong stroke being enough to turn the light and flat-bottomed
+boat. But as it has no keel, when the turn is made sharply, as out of
+one canal into another very narrow one, the impetus of the boat in its
+former direction gives it an enormous lee-way, and it drifts laterally
+up against the wall of the canal, and that so forcibly, that if it has
+turned at speed, no gondolier can arrest the motion merely by strength
+or rapidity of stroke of oar; but it is checked by a strong thrust of
+the foot against the wall itself, the head of the boat being of course
+turned for the moment almost completely round to the opposite wall, and
+greater exertion made to give it, as quickly as possible, impulse in the
+new direction.
+
+The boat being thus guided, the cry "Premi" is the order from one
+gondolier to another that he should "press" or thrust forward his oar,
+without the back stroke, so as to send the boat's head round _to the
+left_; and the cry "Stali" is the order that he should give the return
+or upward stroke which sends the boat's head round to the _right_.
+Hence, if two gondoliers meet under any circumstances which render it a
+matter of question on which side they should pass each other, the
+gondolier who has at the moment the least power over his boat, cries to
+the other, "Premi," if he wishes the boats to pass with their right-hand
+sides to each other, and "Stali," if with their left. Now, in turning a
+corner, there is of course risk of collision between boats coming from
+opposite sides, and warning is always clearly and loudly given on
+approaching an angle of the canals. It is of course presumed that the
+boat which gives the warning will be nearer the turn than the one which
+receives and answers it; and therefore will not have so much time to
+check itself or alter its course. Hence the advantage of the turn, that
+is, the outside, which allows the fullest swing and greatest room for
+lee-way, is always yielded to the boat which gives warning. Therefore,
+if the warning boat is going to turn to the right, as it is to have the
+outside position, it will keep its own right-hand side to the boat which
+it meets, and the cry of warning is therefore "Premi," twice given;
+first as soon as it can be heard round the angle, prolonged and loud,
+with the accent on the e, and another strongly accented e added, a kind
+of question, "Premi-e," followed at the instant of turning, with "Ah
+Premi," with the accent sharp on the final i. If, on the other hand, the
+warning boat is going to turn to the left, it will pass with its
+left-hand side to the one it meets; and the warning cry is, "Stali-e, Ah
+Stali." Hence the confused idea in the mind of the traveller that Stali
+means "to the left," and "Premi" to the right; while they mean, in
+reality, the direct reverse; the Stali, for instance, being the order to
+the unseen gondolier who may be behind the corner, coming from the
+left-hand side, that he should hold as much as possible _to his own
+right_; this being the only safe order for him, whether he is going to
+turn the corner himself, or to go straight on; for as the warning
+gondola will always swing right across the canal in turning, a collision
+with it is only to be avoided by keeping well within it, and close up to
+the corner which it turns.
+
+There are several other cries necessary in the management of the
+gondola, but less frequently, so that the reader will hardly care for
+their interpretation; except only the "sciar," which is the order to the
+opposite gondolier to stop the boat as suddenly as possible by slipping
+his oar in front of the forcola. The _cry_ is never heard except when
+the boatmen have got into some unexpected position, involving a risk of
+collision; but the action is seen constantly, when the gondola is rowed
+by two or more men (for if performed by the single gondolier it only
+swings the boat's head sharp round to the right), in bringing up at a
+landing-place, especially when there is any intent of display, the boat
+being first urged to its full speed and then stopped with as much foam
+about the oar-blades as possible, the effect being much like that of
+stopping a horse at speed by pulling him on his haunches.
+
+
+2. OUR LADY OF SALVATION.
+
+"Santa Maria della Salute," Our Lady of Health, or of Safety, would be a
+more literal translation, yet not perhaps fully expressing the force of
+the Italian word in this case. The church was built between 1630 and
+1680, in acknowledgment of the cessation of the plague;--of course to
+the Virgin, to whom the modern Italian has recourse in all his principal
+distresses, and who receives his gratitude for all principal
+deliverances.
+
+The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration of this
+building; but there is a notable lesson to be derived from it, which is
+not often read. On the opposite side of the broad canal of the Giudecca
+is a small church, celebrated among Renaissance architects as of
+Palladian design, but which would hardly attract the notice of the
+general observer, unless on account of the pictures by John Bellini
+which it contains, in order to see which the traveller may perhaps
+remember having been taken across the Giudecca to the Church of the
+"Redentore." But he ought carefully to compare these two buildings with
+each other, the one built "to the Virgin," the other "to the Redeemer"
+(also a votive offering after the cessation of the plague of 1576); the
+one, the most conspicuous church in Venice, its dome, the principal one
+by which she is first discerned, rising out of the distant sea: the
+other, small and contemptible, on a suburban island, and only becoming
+an object of interest because it contains three small pictures! For in
+the relative magnitude and conspicuousness of these two buildings, we
+have an accurate index of the relative importance of the ideas of the
+Madonna and of Christ, in the modern Italian mind.
+
+Some further account of this church is given in the final Index to the
+Venetian buildings at the close of the third Volume.
+
+
+3. TIDES OF VENICE, AND MEASURES AT TORCELLO.
+
+The lowest and highest tides take place in Venice at different periods,
+the lowest during the winter, the highest in the summer and autumn.
+During the period of the highest tides, the city is exceedingly
+beautiful, especially if, as is not unfrequently the case, the water
+rises high enough partially to flood St. Mark's Place. Nothing can be
+more lovely or fantastic than the scene, when the Campanile and the
+Golden Church are reflected in the calm water, and the lighter gondolas
+floating under the very porches of the facade. On the other hand, a
+winter residence in Venice is rendered peculiarly disagreeable by the
+low tides, which sometimes leave the smaller canals entirely dry, and
+large banks of mud beneath the houses, along the borders of even the
+Grand Canal. The difference between the levels of the highest and lowest
+tides I saw in Venice was 6 ft. 3 in. The average fall rise is from two
+to three feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The measures of Torcello were intended for Appendix 4; but having by a
+misprint referred the reader to Appendix 3, I give them here. The entire
+breadth of the church within the walls is 70 feet; of which the square
+bases of the pillars, 3 feet on each side, occupy 6 feet; and the nave,
+from base to base, measures 31 ft. 1 in.; the aisles from base to wall,
+16 feet odd inches, not accurately ascertainable on account of the
+modern wainscot fittings. The intervals between the bases of the pillars
+are 8 feet each, increasing towards the altar to 8 ft. 3 in., in order
+to allow for a corresponding diminution in the diameter of the bases
+from 3 ft. to 2 ft. 11 in. or 2 ft. 10. in. This subtle diminution of
+the bases is in order to prevent the eye from feeling the greater
+narrowness of the shafts in that part of the nave, their average
+circumference being 6 ft. 10 in.; and one, the second on the north side,
+reaching 7 feet, while those at the upper end of the nave vary from 6
+ft. 8 in. to 6 ft. 4 in. It is probable that this diminution in the more
+distant pillars adds slightly to the perspective effect of length in the
+body of the church, as it is seen from the great entrance: but whether
+this was the intention or not, the delicate adaptation of this
+diminished base to the diminished shaft is a piece of fastidiousness in
+proportion which I rejoice in having detected; and this the more,
+because the rude contours of the bases themselves would little induce
+the spectator to anticipate any such refinement.
+
+
+4. DATE OF THE DUOMO OF TORCELLO.
+
+The first flight to the lagoons for shelter was caused by the invasion
+of Attila in the fifth century, so that in endeavoring to throw back the
+thought of the reader to the former solitude of the islands, I spoke of
+them as they must have appeared "1300 years ago." Altinum, however, was
+not finally destroyed till the Lombard invasion in 641, when the
+episcopal seat was removed to Torcello, and the inhabitants of the
+mainland city, giving up all hope of returning to their former homes,
+built their Duomo there. It is a disputed point among Venetian
+antiquarians, whether the present church be that which was built in the
+seventh century, partially restored in 1008, or whether the words of
+Sagornino, "ecclesiam jam vetustate consumptam recreare," justify them
+in assuming an entire rebuilding of the fabric. I quite agree with the
+Marchese Selvatico, in believing the present church to be the earlier
+building, variously strengthened, refitted, and modified by subsequent
+care; but, in all its main features, preserving its original aspect,
+except, perhaps, in the case of the pulpit and chancel screen, which, if
+the Chevalier Bunsen's conclusions respecting early pulpits in the Roman
+basilicas be correct (see the next article of this Appendix), may
+possibly have been placed in their present position in the tenth
+century, and the fragmentary character of the workmanship of the latter,
+noticed in Secs. X. and XI., would in that case have been the result of
+innovation, rather than of haste. The question, however, whether they
+are of the seventh or eleventh century, does not in the least affect our
+conclusions, drawn from the design of these portions of the church,
+respecting pulpits in general.
+
+
+5. MODERN PULPITS.
+
+There is no character of an ordinary modern English church which appears
+to me more to be regretted than the peculiar pompousness of the
+furniture of the pulpits, contrasted, as it generally is, with great
+meagreness and absence of color in the other portions of the church; a
+pompousness, besides, altogether without grace or meaning, and dependent
+merely on certain applications of upholstery; which, curiously enough,
+are always in worse taste than even those of our drawing-rooms. Nor do
+I understand how our congregations can endure the aspect of the wooden
+sounding-board attached only by one point of its circumference to an
+upright pillar behind the preacher; and looking as if the weight of its
+enormous leverage must infallibly, before the sermon is concluded, tear
+it from its support, and bring it down upon the preacher's head. These
+errors in taste and feeling will however, I believe, be gradually
+amended as more Gothic churches are built; but the question of the
+position of the pulpit presents a more disputable ground of discussion.
+I can perfectly sympathise with the feeling of those who wish the
+eastern extremity of the church to form a kind of holy place for the
+communion table; nor have I often received a more painful impression
+than on seeing the preacher at the Scotch church in George Street,
+Portman Square, taking possession of a perfect apse; and occupying
+therein, during the course of the service, very nearly the same position
+which the figure of Christ does in that of the Cathedral of Pisa. But I
+nevertheless believe that the Scotch congregation are perfectly right,
+and have restored the real arrangement of the primitive churches. The
+Chevalier Bunsen informed me very lately, that, in all the early
+basilicas he has examined, the lateral pulpits are of more recent date
+than the rest of the building; that he knows of none placed in the
+position which they now occupy, both in the basilicas and Gothic
+cathedrals, before the ninth century; and that there can be no doubt
+that the bishop always preached or exhorted, in the primitive times,
+from his throne in the centre of the apse, the altar being always set at
+the centre of the church, in the crossing of the transepts. His
+Excellency found by experiment in Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest of
+the Roman basilicas, that the voice could be heard more plainly from the
+centre of the apse than from any other spot in the whole church; and, if
+this be so, it will be another very important reason for the adoption of
+the Romanesque (or Norman) architecture in our churches, rather than of
+the Gothic. The reader will find some farther notice of this question in
+the concluding chapter of the third volume.
+
+Before leaving this subject, however, I must be permitted to say one
+word to those members of the Scotch Church who are severe in their
+requirement of the nominal or apparent extemporization of all addresses
+delivered from the pulpit. Whether they do right in giving those among
+their ministers who _cannot_ preach extempore, the additional and
+useless labor of committing their sermons to memory, may be a disputed
+question; but it can hardly be so, that the now not unfrequent habit of
+making a desk of the Bible, and reading the sermon stealthily, by
+slipping the sheets of it between the sacred leaves, so that the
+preacher consults his own notes _on pretence_ of consulting the
+Scriptures, is a very unseemly consequence of their over-strictness.
+
+
+6. APSE OF MURANO.
+
+The following passage succeeded in the original text to Sec. XV. of Chap.
+III. Finding it not likely to interest the general reader, I have placed
+it here, as it contains matter of some interest to architects.
+
+   "On this plinth, thus carefully studied in relations of magnitude,
+   the shafts are set at the angles, as close to each other as possible,
+   as seen in the ground-plan. These shafts are founded on pure Roman
+   tradition; their bases have no spurs, and the shaft itself is tapered
+   in a bold curve, according to the classical model. But, in the
+   adjustment of the bases to each other, we have a most curious
+   instance of the first beginning of the Gothic principle of
+   aggregation of shafts. They have a singularly archaic and simple
+   profile, composed of a single cavetto and roll, which are circular,
+   on a square plinth. Now when these bases are brought close to each
+   other at the angles of the apse, their natural position would be as
+   in fig. 3, Plate I., leaving an awkward fissure between the two
+   square plinths. This offended the architect's eye; so he cut part of
+   each of the bases away, and fitted them close to each other, as in
+   fig. 5, Plate I., which is their actual position. As before this
+   piece of rough harmonization the circular mouldings reached the sides
+   of the squares, they were necessarily cut partly away in the course
+   of the adjustment, and run into each other as in the figure, so as to
+   give us one of the first Venetian instances of the continuous Gothic
+   base.
+
+   "The shafts measure on the average 2 ft. 8-1/2 in. in circumference,
+   at the base, tapering so much that under the lowest fillet of their
+   necks they measure only 2 feet round, though their height is only 5
+   ft. 6 in., losing thus eight inches of girth in five feet and a half
+   of height. They are delicately curved all the way up; and are 2-1/2
+   in. apart from each other where they are nearest, and about 5 in. at
+   the necks of their capitals."
+
+
+7. EARLY VENETIAN DRESS.
+
+Sansovino's account of the changes in the dress of the Venetians is
+brief, masterly, and full of interest; one or two passages are deserving
+of careful notice, especially the introductory sentence. "For the
+Venetians from their first origin, having made it their aim to be
+peaceful and religious, and to keep on an equality with one another,
+that equality might induce stability and concord (as disparity produces
+confusion and ruin), made their dress a matter of conscience, ...; and
+our ancestors, observant lovers of religion, upon which all their acts
+were founded, and desiring that their young men should direct themselves
+to virtue, the true soul of all human action, _and above all to peace_,
+invented a dress conformable to their gravity, such, that in clothing
+themselves with it, they might clothe themselves also with modesty and
+honor. And because their mind was bent upon giving no offence to any
+one, and living quietly as far as might be permitted them, it seemed
+good to them to show to every one, even by external signs, this their
+endeavor, by wearing a long dress, which was in no wise convenient for
+persons of a quick temperament, or of eager and fierce spirits."
+
+Respecting the color of the women's dress, it is noticeable that blue is
+called "Venetian color" by Cassiodorus, translated "turchino" by
+Filiasi, vol. v. chap. iv. It was a very pale blue, as the place in
+which the word occurs is the description by Cassiodorus of the darkness
+which came over the sun's disk at the time of the Belisarian wars and
+desolation of the Gothic kingdom.
+
+
+8. INSCRIPTIONS AT MURANO.
+
+There are two other inscriptions on the border of the concha; but these,
+being written on the soffit of the face arch, which, as before noticed,
+is supported by the last two shafts of the chancel, could not be read by
+the congregation, and only with difficulty by those immediately
+underneath them. One of them is in black, the other in red letters. The
+first:
+
+  "Mutat quod sumsit, quod sollat crimina tandit
+   Et quod sumpsit, vultus vestisq. refulsit."
+
+The second:
+
+  "Discipuli testes, prophete certa videntes
+   Et cernunt purum, sibi credunt ese futurum."
+
+I have found no notice of any of these inscriptions in any Italian
+account of the church of Murano, and have seldom seen even Monkish Latin
+less intelligible. There is no mistake in the letters, which are all
+large and clear; but wrong letters may have been introduced by ignorant
+restorers, as has often happened in St. Mark's.
+
+
+9. SHAFTS OF ST. MARK.
+
+The principal pillars which carry the nave and transepts, fourteen in
+number, are of white alabaster veined with grey and amber; each of a
+single block, 15 ft. high, and 6 ft. 2 in. round at the base. I in vain
+endeavored to ascertain their probable value. Every sculptor whom I
+questioned on this subject told me there were no such pieces of
+alabaster in the market, and that they were to be considered as without
+price.
+
+On the facade of the church alone are two great ranges of shafts,
+seventy-two in the lower range, and seventy-nine in the upper; all of
+porphyry, alabaster, and verd-antique or fine marble; the lower about 9
+ft., the upper about 7 ft. high, and of various circumferences, from 4
+ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. round.
+
+There are now so many published engravings, and, far better than
+engravings, calotypes, of this facade, that I may point out one or two
+circumstances for the reader's consideration without giving any plate of
+it here. And first, we ought to note the relations of the shafts and
+wall, the latter being first sheeted with alabaster, and then the
+pillars set within two or three inches of it, forming such a grove of
+golden marble that the porches open before us as we enter the church
+like glades in a deep forest. The reader may perhaps at first question
+the propriety of placing the wall so close behind the shafts that the
+latter have nearly as little work to do as the statues in a Gothic
+porch; but the philosophy of this arrangement is briefly deducible from
+the principles stated in the text. The builder had at his disposal
+shafts of a certain size only, not fit to sustain the whole weight of
+the fabric above. He therefore turns just as much of the wall veil into
+shaft as he has strength of marble at his disposal, and leaves the rest
+in its massive form. And that there may be no dishonesty in this, nor
+any appearance in the shafts of doing more work than is really allotted
+to them, many are left visibly with half their capitals projecting
+beyond the archivolts they sustain, showing that the wall is very
+slightly dependent on their co-operation, and that many of them are
+little more than mere bonds or connecting rods between the foundation
+and cornices. If any architect ventures to blame such an arrangement,
+let him look at our much vaunted early English piers in Salisbury
+Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, where the small satellitic shafts are
+introduced in the same gratuitous manner, but with far less excuse or
+reason: for those small shafts have nothing but their delicacy and
+purely theoretical connection with the archivolt mouldings to recommend
+them; but the St. Mark's shafts have an intrinsic beauty and value of
+the highest order, and the object of the whole system of architecture,
+as above stated, is in great part to set forth the beauty and value of
+the shaft itself. Now, not only is this accomplished by withdrawing it
+occasionally from servile work, but the position here given to it,
+within three or four inches of a wall from which it nevertheless stands
+perfectly clear all the way up, is exactly that which must best display
+its color and quality. When there is much vacant space left behind a
+pillar, the shade against which it is relieved is comparatively
+indefinite, the eye passes by the shaft, and penetrates into the
+vacancy. But when a broad surface of wall is brought near the shaft, its
+own shadow is, in almost every effect of sunshine, so sharp and dark as
+to throw out its colors with the highest possible brilliancy; if there
+be no sunshine, the wall veil is subdued and varied by the most subtle
+gradations of delicate half shadow, hardly less advantageous to the
+shaft which it relieves. And, as far as regards pure effect in open air
+(all artifice of excessive darkness or mystery being excluded), I do not
+know anything whatsoever in the whole compass of the European
+architecture I have seen, which can for a moment be compared with the
+quaint shade and delicate color, like that of Rembrandt and Paul
+Veronese united, which the sun brings out, as his rays move from porch
+to porch along the St. Mark's facade.
+
+And, as if to prove that this was indeed the builder's intention, and
+that he did not leave his shafts idle merely because he did not know how
+to set them to work safely, there are two pieces of masonry at the
+extremities of the facade, which are just as remarkable for their frank
+trust in the bearing power of the shafts as the rest are for their want
+of confidence in them. But, before we come to these, we must say a word
+or two respecting the second point named above, the superior position of
+the shafts.
+
+It was assuredly not in the builder's power, even had he been so
+inclined, to obtain shafts high enough to sustain the whole external
+gallery, as it is sustained in the nave, on one arcade. He had, as above
+noticed, a supply of shafts of every sort and size, from which he chose
+the largest for his nave shafts; the smallest were set aside for
+windows, jambs, balustrades, supports of pulpits, niches, and such other
+services, every conceivable size occurring in different portions of the
+building; and the middle-sized shafts were sorted into two classes, of
+which on the average one was about two-thirds the length of the other,
+and out of these the two stories of the facade and sides of the church
+are composed, the smaller shafts of course uppermost, and more numerous
+than the lower, according to the ordinary laws of superimposition
+adopted by all the Romanesque builders, and observed also in a kind of
+architecture quite as beautiful as any we are likely to invent, that of
+forest trees.
+
+Nothing is more singular than the way in which this kind of
+superimposition (the only right one in the case of shafts) will shock a
+professed architect. He has been accustomed to see, in the Renaissance
+designs, shaft put on the top of shaft, three or four times over, and he
+thinks this quite right; but the moment he is shown a properly
+subdivided superimposition, in which the upper shafts diminish in size
+and multiply in number, so that the lower pillars would balance them
+safely even without cement, he exclaims that it is "against law," as if
+he had never seen a tree in his life.
+
+Not that the idea of the Byzantine superimposition was taken from trees,
+any more than that of Gothic arches. Both are simple compliances with
+laws of nature, and, therefore, approximations to the forms of nature.
+
+There is, however, one very essential difference between tree structure
+and the shaft structure in question; namely, that the marble branches,
+having no vital connexion with the stem, must be provided with a firm
+tablet or second foundation whereon to stand. This intermediate plinth
+or tablet runs along the whole facade at one level, is about eighteen
+inches thick, and left with little decoration as being meant for hard
+service. The small porticos, already spoken of as the most graceful
+pieces of composition with which I am acquainted, are sustained on
+detached clusters of four or five columns, forming the continuation of
+those of the upper series, and each of these clusters is balanced on one
+grand detached shaft; as much trust being thus placed in the pillars
+here, as is withdrawn from them elsewhere. The northern portico has only
+one detached pillar at its outer angle, which sustains three shafts and
+a square pilaster; of these shafts the one at the outer angle of the
+group is the thickest (so as to balance the pilaster on the inner
+angle), measuring 3 ft. 2 in. round, while the others measure only 2 ft.
+10 in. and 2 ft. 11 in.; and in order to make this increase of diameter,
+and the importance of the shaft, more manifest to the eye, the old
+builders made the shaft _shorter_ as well as thicker, increasing the
+depth both of its capital and the base, with what is to the thoughtless
+spectator ridiculous incongruity, and to the observant one a most
+beautiful expression of constructive genius. Nor is this all. Observe:
+the whole strength of this angle depends on accuracy of _poise_, not on
+breadth or strength of foundation. It is a _balanced_, not a propped
+structure: if the balance fails, it must fall instantly; if the balance
+is maintained, no matter how the lower shaft is fastened into the
+ground, all will be safe. And to mark this more definitely, the great
+lower shaft _has a different base from all the others of the facade_,
+remarkably high in proportion to the shaft, on a circular instead of a
+square plinth, and _without spurs_, while all the other bases have spurs
+without exception. Glance back at what is said of the spurs at p. 79 of
+the first volume, and reflect that all expression of _grasp_ in the foot
+of the pillar is here useless, and to be replaced by one of balance
+merely, and you will feel what the old builder wanted to say to us, and
+how much he desired us to follow him with our understanding as he laid
+stone above stone.
+
+And this purpose of his is hinted to us once more, even by the position
+of this base in the ground plan of the foundation of the portico; for,
+though itself circular, it sustains a hexagonal plinth _set obliquely to
+the walls of the church_, as if expressly to mark to us that it did not
+matter how the base was set, so only that the weights were justly
+disposed above it.
+
+
+10. PROPER SENSE OF THE WORD IDOLATRY.
+
+I do not intend, in thus applying the word "Idolatry" to certain
+ceremonies of Romanist worship, to admit the propriety of the ordinary
+Protestant manner of regarding those ceremonies as distinctively
+idolatrous, and as separating the Romanist from the Protestant Church by
+a gulf across which we must not look to our fellow-Christians but with
+utter reprobation and disdain. The Church of Rome does indeed
+distinctively violate the _second_ commandment; but the true force and
+weight of the sin of idolatry are in the violation of the first, of
+which we are all of us guilty, in probably a very equal degree,
+considered only as members of this or that communion, and not as
+Christians or unbelievers. Idolatry is, both literally and verily, not
+the mere bowing down before sculptures, but the serving or becoming the
+slave of any images or imaginations which stand between us and God, and
+it is otherwise expressed in Scripture as "walking after the
+_Imagination_" of our own hearts. And observe also that while, at least
+on one occasion, we find in the Bible an indulgence granted to the mere
+external and literal violation of the second commandment, "When I bow
+myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this
+thing," we find no indulgence in any instance, or in the slightest
+degree, granted to "covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. iii. 5; no
+casual association of terms, observe, but again energetically repeated
+in Ephesians, v. 5, "No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any
+inheritance in the kingdom of Christ"); nor any to that denial of God,
+idolatry in one of its most subtle forms, following so often on the
+possession of that wealth against which Agur prayed so earnestly, "Give
+me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee, and say,
+'Who is the Lord?'"
+
+And in this sense, which of us is not an idolater? Which of us has the
+right, in the fulness of that better knowledge, in spite of which he
+nevertheless is not yet separated from the service of this world, to
+speak scornfully of any of his brethren, because, in a guiltless
+ignorance, they have been accustomed to bow their knees before a statue?
+Which of us shall say that there may not be a spiritual worship in their
+apparent idolatry, or that there is not a spiritual idolatry in our own
+apparent worship?
+
+For indeed it is utterly impossible for one man to judge of the feeling
+with which another bows down before an image. From that pure reverence
+in which Sir Thomas Brown wrote, "I can dispense with my hat at the
+sight of a cross, but not with a thought of my Redeemer," to the worst
+superstition of the most ignorant Romanist, there is an infinite series
+of subtle transitions; and the point where simple reverence and the use
+of the image merely to render conception more vivid, and feeling more
+intense, change into definite idolatry by the attribution of Power to
+the image itself, is so difficultly determinable that we cannot be too
+cautions in asserting that such a change has actually taken place in the
+case of any individual. Even when it is definite and certain, we shall
+oftener find it the consequence of dulness of intellect than of real
+alienation of heart from God; and I have no manner of doubt that half of
+the poor and untaught Christians who are this day lying prostrate before
+crucifixes, Bambinos, and Volto Santos, are finding more acceptance with
+God, than many Protestants who idolize nothing but their own opinions or
+their own interests. I believe that those who have worshipped the thorns
+of Christ's crown will be found at last to have been holier and wiser
+than those who worship the thorns of the world's service, and that to
+adore the nails of the cross is a less sin than to adore the hammer of
+the workman.
+
+But, on the other hand, though the idolatry of the lower orders in the
+Romish Church may thus be frequently excusable, the ordinary subterfuges
+by which it is defended are not so. It may be extenuated, but cannot be
+denied; and the attribution of power to the image,[163] in which it
+consists, is not merely a form of popular feeling, but a tenet of
+priestly instruction, and may be proved, over and over again, from any
+book of the Romish Church services. Take for instance the following
+prayer, which occurs continually at the close of the service of the Holy
+Cross:
+
+  "Saincte vraye Croye aouree,
+   Qui du corps Dieu fu aournee
+   Et de sa sueur arrousee,
+   Et de son sanc enluminee,
+   Par ta vertu, par ta puissance,
+   Defent mon corps de meschance,
+   Et montroie moy par ton playsir
+   Que vray confes puisse mourir."
+
+  "Oh holy, true, and golden Cross, which wast adorned with God's body,
+    and watered with His sweat, and illuminated with His blood, by thy
+    healing virtue and thy power, defend my body from mischance; and by
+    thy good pleasure, let me make a good confession when I die."
+
+There can be no possible defence imagined for the mere terms in which
+this prayer and other such are couched: yet it is always to be
+remembered, that in many cases they are rather poetical effusions than
+serious prayers; the utterances of imaginative enthusiasm, rather than
+of reasonable conviction; and as such, they are rather to be condemned
+as illusory and fictitious, than as idolatrous, nor even as such,
+condemned altogether, for strong love and faith are often the roots of
+them and the errors of affection are better than the accuracies of
+apathy. But the unhappy results, among all religious sects, of the habit
+of allowing imaginative and poetical belief to take the place of
+deliberate, resolute, and prosaic belief, have been fully and admirably
+traced by the author of the "Natural History of Enthusiasm."
+
+
+11. SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES.
+
+  (1.) _The Terraced House._
+
+The most conspicuous pile in the midmost reach of the Grand Canal is the
+Casa Grimani, now the Post-Office. Letting his boat lie by the steps of
+this great palace, the traveller will see, on the other side of the
+canal, a building with a small terrace in front of it, and a little
+court with a door to the water, beside the terrace. Half of the house is
+visibly modern, and there is a great seam, like the edge of a scar,
+between it and the ancient remnant, in which the circular bands of the
+Byzantine arches will be instantly recognized. This building not having,
+as far as I know, any name except that of its present proprietor, I
+shall in future distinguish it simply as the Terraced House.
+
+
+  (2.) _Casa Businello._
+
+To the left of this edifice (looking from the Post-Office) there is a
+modern palace, on the other side of which the Byzantine mouldings appear
+again in the first and second stories of a house lately restored. It
+might be thought that the shafts and arches had been raised yesterday,
+the modern walls having been deftly adjusted to them, and all appearance
+of antiquity, together with the ornamentation and proportions of the
+fabric, having been entirely destroyed. I cannot, however, speak with
+unmixed sorrow of these changes, since, without his being implicated in
+the shame of them, they fitted this palace to become the residence of
+the kindest friend I had in Venice. It is generally known as the Casa
+Businello.
+
+
+  (3.) _The Braided House._
+
+Leaving the steps of the Casa Grimani, and turning the gondola away from
+the Rialto, we will pass the Casa Businello, and the three houses which
+succeed it on the right. The fourth is another restored palace, white
+and conspicuous, but retaining of its ancient structure only the five
+windows in its second story, and an ornamental moulding above them which
+appears to be ancient, though it is inaccessible without scaffolding,
+and I cannot therefore answer for it. But the five central windows are
+very valuable; and as their capitals differ from most that we find
+(except in St. Mark's), in their plaited or braided border and
+basket-worked sides, I shall call this house, in future, the Braided
+House.[164]
+
+
+  (4.) _The Madonnetta House._
+
+On the other side of this palace is the Traghetto called "Della
+Madonnetta;" and beyond this Traghetto, still facing the Grand Canal, a
+small palace, of which the front shows mere vestiges of arcades, the old
+shafts only being visible, with obscure circular seams in the modern
+plaster which covers the arches. The side of it is a curious
+agglomeration of pointed and round windows in every possible position,
+and of nearly every date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It
+is the smallest of the buildings we have to examine, but by no means the
+least interesting: I shall call it, from the name of its Traghetto, the
+Madonnetta House.
+
+
+  (5.) _The Rio Foscari House._
+
+We must now descend the Grand Canal as far as the Palazzo Foscari, and
+enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca' Foscari, at the side of
+that palace. Almost immediately after passing the great gateway of the
+Foscari courtyard, we shall see on our left, in the ruinous and
+time-stricken walls which totter over the water, the white curve of a
+circular arch covered with sculpture, and fragments of the bases of
+small pillars, entangled among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I
+have already, in the folio plates which accompanied the first volume,
+partly illustrated this building. In what references I have to make to
+it here, I shall speak of it as the Rio Foscari House.
+
+
+  (6.) _Casa Farsetti._
+
+We have now to reascend the Grand Canal, and approach the Rialto. As
+soon as we have passed the Casa Grimani, the traveller will recognize,
+on his right, two rich and extensive masses of building, which form
+important objects in almost every picturesque view of the noble bridge.
+Of these, the first, that farthest from the Rialto, retains great part
+of its ancient materials in a dislocated form. It has been entirely
+modernized in its upper stories, but the ground floor and first floor
+have nearly all their original shafts and capitals, only they have been
+shifted hither and thither to give room for the introduction of various
+small apartments, and present, in consequence, marvellous anomalies in
+proportion. This building is known in Venice as the Casa Farsetti.
+
+
+  (7.) _Casa Loredan._
+
+The one next to it, though not conspicuous, and often passed with
+neglect, will, I believe, be felt at last, by all who examine it
+carefully, to be the most beautiful palace in the whole extent of the
+Grand Canal. It has been restored often, once in the Gothic, once in the
+Renaissance times,--some writers say, even rebuilt; but, if so, rebuilt
+in its old form. The Gothic additions harmonize exquisitely with its
+Byzantine work, and it is easy, as we examine its lovely central arcade,
+to forget the Renaissance additions which encumber it above. It is known
+as the Casa Loredan.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eighth palace is the Fondaco de' Turchi, described in the text. A
+ninth existed, more interesting apparently than any of these, near the
+Church of San Moise, but it was thrown down in the course of
+"improvements" a few years ago. A woodcut of it is given in M. Lazari's
+Guide.
+
+
+12. MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS.
+
+Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days, we have
+defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and few of more
+practical importance than this, which I shall have occasion again and
+again to allege in support of many future deductions:
+
+"All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself the
+objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly attainable; and
+becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose to itself any other
+objects, better attainable with other materials."
+
+Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,--as in
+ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of
+hair,--is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting,
+but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture.
+All sculpture, therefore, which professes as its chief end the
+expression of such characters, is debased; and if the suggestion of them
+be accidentally required of it, that suggestion is only to be given to
+an extent compatible with perfect ease of execution in the given
+material,--not to the utmost possible extent. For instance: some of the
+most delightful drawings of our own water-color painter, Hunt, have been
+of birds' nests; of which, in painting, it is perfectly possible to
+represent the intricate fibrous or mossy structure; therefore, the
+effort is a legitimate one, and the art is well employed. But to carve a
+bird's nest out of marble would be physically impossible, and to reach
+any approximate expression of its structure would require prolonged and
+intolerable labor. Therefore, all sculpture which set itself to carving
+birds' nests as an end, or which, if a bird's nest were required of it,
+carved it to the utmost possible point of realization, would be debased.
+Nothing but the general form, and as much of the fibrous structure as
+could be with perfect ease represented, ought to be attempted at all.
+
+But more than this. The workman has not done his duty, and is not
+working on safe principles, unless he even so far _honors_ the materials
+with which he is working as to set himself to bring out their beauty,
+and to recommend and exalt, as far as lie can, their peculiar qualities.
+If he is working in marble, he should insist upon and exhibit its
+transparency and solidity; if in iron, its strength and tenacity; if in
+gold, its ductility; and he will invariably find the material grateful,
+and that his work is all the nobler for being eulogistic of the
+substance of which it is made. But of all the arts, the working of glass
+is that in which we ought to keep these principles most vigorously in
+mind. For we owe it so much, and the possession of it is so great a
+blessing, that all our work in it should be completely and forcibly
+expressive of the peculiar characters which give it so vast a value.
+
+These are two, namely, its DUCTILITY when heated, and TRANSPARENCY when
+cold, both nearly perfect. In its employment for vessels, we ought
+always to exhibit its ductility, and in its employment for windows, its
+transparency. All work in glass is bad which does not, with loud voice,
+proclaim one or other of these great qualities.
+
+Consequently, _all cut glass_ is barbarous: for the cutting conceals its
+ductility, and confuses it with crystal. Also, all very neat, finished,
+and perfect form in glass is barbarous: for this fails in proclaiming
+another of its great virtues; namely, the ease with which its light
+substance can be moulded or blown into any form, so long as perfect
+accuracy be not required. In metal, which, even when heated enough to be
+thoroughly malleable, retains yet such weight and consistency as render
+it susceptible of the finest handling and retention of the most delicate
+form, great precision of workmanship is admissible; but in glass, which
+when once softened must be blown or moulded, not hammered, and which is
+liable to lose, by contraction or subsidence, the fineness of the forms
+given to it, no delicate outlines are to be attempted, but only such
+fantastic and fickle grace as the mind of the workman can conceive and
+execute on the instant. The more wild, extravagant, and grotesque in
+their gracefulness the forms are, the better. No material is so adapted
+for giving full play to the imagination, but it must not be wrought with
+refinement or painfulness, still less with costliness. For as in
+gratitude we are to proclaim its virtues, so in all honesty we are to
+confess its imperfections; and while we triumphantly set forth its
+transparency, we are also frankly to admit its fragility, and therefore
+not to waste much time upon it, nor put any real art into it when
+intended for daily use. No workman ought ever to spend more than an hour
+in the making of any glass vessel.
+
+Next in the case of windows, the points which we have to insist upon
+are, the transparency of the glass and its susceptibility of the most
+brilliant colors; and therefore the attempt to turn painted windows into
+pretty pictures is one of the most gross and ridiculous barbarisms of
+this pre-eminently barbarous century. It originated, I suppose, with the
+Germans, who seem for the present distinguished among European nations
+by the loss of the sense of color; but it appears of late to have
+considerable chance of establishing itself in England: and it is a
+two-edged error, striking in two directions; first at the healthy
+appreciation of painting, and then at the healthy appreciation of glass.
+Color, ground with oil, and laid on a solid opaque ground, furnishes to
+the human hand the most exquisite means of expression which the human
+sight and invention can find or require. By its two opposite qualities,
+each naturally and easily attainable, of transparency in shadow and
+opacity in light, it complies with the conditions of nature; and by its
+perfect governableness it permits the utmost possible fulness and
+subtlety in the harmonies of color, as well as the utmost perfection in
+the drawing. Glass, considered as a material for a picture, is exactly
+as bad as oil paint is good. It sets out by reversing the conditions of
+nature, by making the lights transparent and the shadows opaque; and the
+ungovernableness of its color (changing in the furnace), and its
+violence (being always on a high key, because produced by actual light),
+render it so disadvantageous in every way, that the result of working in
+it for pictorial effect would infallibly be the destruction of all the
+appreciation of the noble qualities of pictorial color.
+
+In the second place, this modern barbarism destroys the true
+appreciation of the qualities of glass. It denies, and endeavors as far
+as possible to conceal, the transparency, which is not only its great
+virtue in a merely utilitarian point of view, but its great spiritual
+character; the character by which in church architecture it becomes
+most touchingly impressive, as typical of the entrances of the Holy
+Spirit into the heart of man; a typical expression rendered specific and
+intense by the purity and brilliancy of its sevenfold hues;[165] and
+therefore in endeavoring to turn the window into a picture, we at once
+lose the sanctity and power of the noble material, and employ it to an
+end which is utterly impossible it should ever worthily attain. The true
+perfection of a painted window is to be serene, intense, brilliant, like
+flaming jewellery; full of easily legible and quaint subjects, and
+exquisitely subtle, yet simple, in its harmonies. In a word, this
+perfection has been consummated in the designs, never to be surpassed,
+if ever again to be approached by human art, of the French windows of
+the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+  [163] I do not like to hear Protestants speaking with gross and
+    uncharitable contempt even of the worship of relics. Elisha once
+    trusted his own staff too far; nor can I see any reasonable ground
+    for the scorn, or the unkind rebuke, of those who have been taught
+    from their youth upwards that to hope even in the hem of the garment
+    may sometimes be better than to spend the living on physicians.
+
+  [164] Casa Tiepolo (?) in Lazari's Guide.
+
+  [165] I do not think that there is anything more necessary to the
+    progress of European art in the present day than the complete
+    understanding of this sanctity of Color. I had much pleasure in
+    finding it, the other day, fully understood and thus sweetly
+    expressed in a little volume of poems by a Miss Maynard:
+
+      "For still in every land, though to Thy name
+       Arose no temple,--still in every age,
+       Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise,
+       _We_ praised Thee; and at rise and set of sun
+       Did we assemble duly, and intone
+       A choral hymn that all the lands might hear.
+       In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee,
+       Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood.
+       But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come,
+       Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house,
+       We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise
+       Thee, Light of Light! Thee, God of very God!"
+
+                                         _A Dream of Fair Colors._
+
+    These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable for a very unobtrusive
+    and pure religious feeling in subjects connected with art.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
+
+Page 58: 'endeavoring to imagine its aspect' corrected from 'aspeet.'
+
+Page 84: 'inadmissible altogether, or objectionable' from
+    'objecjectionable.'
+
+Page 179: 'the surface sculpture will' corrected from 'wiil.'
+
+Page 188: 'central class will always' originally 'aways.'
+
+Page 191: 'with the rest of the spirit' originally 'spirt.'
+
+Page 204: 'the heart of that languor' originally 'langour.'
+
+Page 263: 'merely noting this one assured fact' changed from 'nothing.'
+
+Footnote 130: Appendi corrected to Appendix.
+
+
+
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