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 Ulrich Middeldorf 
 

Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Research Library, The Getty Research Institute 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/venicestones01rusk 
 
THE 
 
 STONES OF VENICE. 
 
London : 
 
 Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 
 
 New-street-Square. 
 
THE 
 
 f fnttrs nf SSnixi 
 
 VOLUME THE FIRST. 
 
 Xl)e jfountiattons. 
 
 BY JOHN RUSKIN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE," " MODERN PAINTERS," 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., 65. CORNH1LL. 
 
 1851. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In the course of arranging the following essay, I put many things 
 aside in rny thoughts, to be said in the Preface, things which I 
 shall now put aside altogether, and pass by ; for when a book has 
 been advertised a year and a half, it seems best to present it with 
 as little preface as possible. 
 
 Thus much, however, it is necessary for the reader to know, 
 that, when I planned the work, I had materials by me, collected 
 at different times of sojourn in Venice during the last seventeen 
 years, which it seemed to me might be arranged with little 
 difficulty, and which I believed to be of value as illustrating the 
 history of Southern Gothic. Requiring, however, some clearer 
 assurance respecting certain points of chronology, I went to 
 Venice finally in the autumn of 1849, not doubting but that the 
 dates of the principal edifices of the ancient city were either 
 ascertained, or ascertainable without extraordinary research. To 
 my consternation, I found that the Venetian antiquaries were not 
 agreed within a century as to the date of the building of the 
 facades of the Ducal Palace, and that nothing was known of any 
 other civil edifice of the early city, except that at some time or 
 other it had been fitted up for somebody's reception, and been 
 thereupon fresh painted. Every date in question was deter- 
 minablc only by internal evidence ; and it became necessary for 
 
vi PBEEACE. 
 
 me to examine not only every one of the older palaces, stone by 
 stone, but every fragment throughout the city which afforded 
 any clue to the formation of its styles. This I did as well as I 
 could, and I believe there will be found, in the following pages, 
 the only existing account of the details of early Venetian archi- 
 tecture on which dependence can be placed, as far as it goes. I 
 do not care to point out the deficiencies of other works on this 
 subject; the reader will find, if he examines them, either that 
 the buildings to which I shall specially direct his attention have 
 been hitherto undescribed, or else that there are great dis- 
 crepancies between previous descriptions and mine : for which 
 discrepancies I may be permitted to give this single and sufficient 
 reason, that my account of every building is based on personal 
 examination and measurement of it, and that my taking the 
 pains so to examine what I had to describe, was a subject of 
 grave surprise to my Italian friends. The work of the Marchese 
 Selvatico is, however, to be distinguished with respect ; it is 
 clear in arrangement, and full of useful, though vague, infor- 
 mation : and I have found cause to adopt, in great measure, its 
 views of the chronological succession of the edifices of Venice. I 
 shall have cause hereafter to quarrel with it on other grounds, 
 but not without expression of gratitude for the assistance it has 
 given me. Fontana's " Fabbriche di Venezia " is also historically 
 valuable, but does not attempt to give architectural detail. 
 Cicognara, as is now generally known, is so inaccurate as hardly 
 to deserve mention. 
 
 Indeed, it is not easy to be accurate in an account of anything, 
 however simple. Zoologists often disagree in their descriptions 
 of the curve of a shell, or the plumage of a bird, though they may 
 lay their specimen on the table, and examine it at their leisure ; 
 how much greater becomes the likelihood of error in the de- 
 scription of things which must be in many parts observed from a 
 distance, or under unfavourable circumstances of light and shade ; 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 and of which many of the distinctive features have been worn 
 away by time. 1 believe few people have any idea of the cost of 
 truth in these things ; of the expenditure of time necessary to 
 make sure of the simplest facts, and of the strange way in which 
 separate observations will sometimes falsify each other, incapable 
 of reconcilement, owing to some imperceptible inadvertency. I 
 am ashamed of the number of times in which I have had to say, 
 in the following pages, " I am not sure," and I claim for them no 
 authority, as if they were thoroughly sifted from error, even in 
 what they more confidently state. Only, as far as my time, and 
 strength, and mind served me, I have endeavoured, down to the 
 smallest matters, to ascertain and speak the truth. 
 
 Nor was the subject without many and most discouraging 
 difficulties, peculiar to itself. As far as my inquiries have ex- 
 tended, there is not a building in Venice, raised prior to the 
 sixteenth century, which has not sustained essential change in 
 one or more of its most important features. By far the greater 
 number present examples of three or four different styles, it may 
 be successive, it may be accidentally associated ; and, in many 
 instances, the restorations or additions have gradually replaced 
 the entire structure of the ancient fabric, of which nothing but 
 the name remains, together with a kind of identity, exhibited in 
 the anomalous association of the modernized portions : the Will of 
 the old building asserted through them all, stubbornly, though 
 vainly, expressive ; superseded by codicils, and falsified by mis- 
 interpretation ; yet animating what would otherwise be a mere 
 group of fantastic masque, as embarrassing to the antiquary, as, 
 to the mineralogist, the epigene crystal, formed by materials of 
 one substance modelled on the perished crystals of another. The 
 church of St. Mark's itself, harmonious as its structure may at 
 first sight appear, is an epitome of the changes of Venetian archi- 
 tecture from the tenth to the nineteenth century. Its crypt, and 
 the line of low arches which support the screen, are apparently 
 
 A 4 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 the earliest portions ; the lower stories of the main fabric are 
 of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with later Gothic interpo- 
 lations ; the pinnacles are of the earliest fully developed Venetian 
 Gothic (fourteenth century) ; but one of them, that on the pro- 
 jection at the eastern extremity of the Piazzetta de Leoni, is of 
 far finer, and probably earlier workmanship than all the rest. 
 The southern range of pinnacles is again inferior to the northern 
 and western, and visibly of later date. Then the screen, which 
 most writers have described as part of the original fabric, bears 
 its date inscribed on its architrave, 1394, and with it are as- 
 sociated a multitude of small screens, balustrades, decorations of 
 the interior building, and probably the rose window of the south 
 transept. Then come the interpolated traceries of the front and 
 sides ; then the crocketings of the upper arches, extravagances of 
 the incipient Renaissance ; and, finally, the figui'es which carry 
 the water-spouts on the north side — utterly barbarous seven- 
 teenth or eighteenth century work — connect the whole with the 
 plastered restorations of the years 1844 and 1845. Most of the 
 palaces in Venice have sustained interpolations hardly less nu- 
 merous ; and those of the Ducal Palace are so intricate, that a 
 year's labour would probably be insufficient altogether to disen- 
 tangle and define them. I therefore gave up all thoughts of 
 obtaining a perfectly clear chronological view of the early archi- 
 tecture ; but the dates necessary to the main purposes of the book 
 the reader will find well established ; and of the evidence brought 
 forward for those of less importance, he is himself to judge. 
 Doubtful estimates are never made grounds of argument ; and 
 the accuracy of the account of the buildings themselves, for 
 which alone I pledge myself, is of course entirely independent of 
 them. 
 
 In like manner, as the statements briefly made in the chapters 
 on construction involve questions so difficult and so general, that 
 1 cannot hope that every expression referring to them will be 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 found free from error : and as the conclusions to which I have en- 
 deavoured to lead the reader are thrown into a form the validity 
 of which depends on that of each successive step, it might be 
 argued, if fallacy or weakness could be detected in one of them, 
 that all the subsequent reasonings were valueless. The reader 
 may be assured, however, that it is not so ; the method of proof 
 used in the following essay being only one out of many which 
 were in my choice, adopted because it seemed to me the shortest 
 and simplest, not as being the strongest. In many cases, the 
 conclusions are those which men of quick feeling would arrive at 
 instinctively ; and I then sought to discover the reasons of what 
 so strongly recommended itself as truth. Though these reasons 
 could every one of them, from the beginning to the end of the 
 book, be proved insufficient, the truth of its conclusions would 
 remain the same. I should only regret that I had dishonoured 
 them by an ill-grounded defence ; and endeavour to repair my 
 error by a better one. 
 
 I have not, however, written carelessly ; nor should I in any- 
 wise have expressed doubt of the security of the following argu- 
 ment, but that it is physically impossible for me, being engaged 
 quite as much with mountains, and clouds, and trees, and criticism 
 of painting, as Avith architecture, to verify, as I should desire, the 
 expression of every sentence bearing upon empirical and technical 
 matters. Life is not long enough ; nor does a day pass by with- 
 out causing me to feel more bitterly the impossibility of carrying 
 out to the extent which I should desire, the separate studies which 
 general criticism continually forces me to undertake. I can only 
 assure the reader, that he will find the certainty of every state- 
 ment I permit myself to make, increase with its importance ; and 
 that, for the security of the final conclusions of the following 
 essay, as well as for the resolute veracity of its account of what- 
 ever facts have come under my own immediate cognizance, I will 
 pledge myself to the uttermost. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 It was necessary, to the accomplishment of the purpose of the 
 work (of which account is given in the First Chapter), that I 
 should establish some canons of judgment, which the general 
 reader should thoroughly understand, and, if it pleased him, 
 accept, before we took cognizance, together, of any architecture 
 whatsoever. It has taken me more time and trouble to do this 
 than I expected; but, if I have succeeded, the thing done will lie 
 of use for many other purposes than that to which it is now put. 
 The establishment of these canons, which I have called " the 
 Foundations," and some account of the connection of Venetian 
 architecture with that of the x*est of Europe, have filled the pre- 
 sent volume. The second will, I hope, contain all I have to say 
 about Venice itself. 
 
 It was of course inexpedient to reduce drawings of crowded 
 details to the size of an octavo volume, — I do not say impossible, 
 but inexpedient ; requiring infinite pains on the part of the en- 
 graver, with no result except farther pains to the beholder. And 
 as, on the other hand, folio books are not easy reading, I deter- 
 mined to separate the text and the unreduceable plates. I have 
 given, with the principal text, all the illustrations absolutely ne- 
 cessary to the understanding of it, and, in the detached work, such 
 additional text as had special reference to the larger illustrations. 
 
 A considerable number of these larger plates were at first 
 intended to be executed in tinted lithography ; but, finding the 
 result unsatisfactory, I have determined to prepare the principal 
 subjects for mezzotinting, — a change of method requiring two 
 new drawings to be made of every subject ; one a carefully 
 penned outline for the etcher, and then a finished drawing upon 
 the etching. This work does not proceed fast, while I am also 
 occupied with the completion of the text ; but the numbers of it 
 will appear as fast as I can prepare them. 
 
 For the illustrations of the body of the work itself, I have used 
 any kind of engraving which seemed suited to the subjects — line 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 and mezzotint, on steel, with mixed lithographs and woodcuts, at 
 considerable loss of uniformity in the appearance of the volume, 
 but, I hope, with advantage, in rendering the character of the 
 architecture it describes. And both in the plates and the text I 
 have aimed chiefly at clear intelligibility ; that any one, however 
 little versed in the subject, might be able to take up the book, and 
 understand what it meant forthwith. I have utterly failed of 
 my purpose, if I have not made all the essential parts of the 
 essay intelligible to the least learned, and easy to the most 
 desultory readers, who are likely to take interest in the matter 
 at all. There are few passages which even require so much as 
 an acquaintance with the elements of Euclid, and these may be 
 missed, without harm to the sense of the rest, by every reader to 
 whom they may appear mysterious ; and the architectural terms 
 necessarily employed (which are very few) are explained as they 
 occur, or in a note ; so that, though I may often be found trite 
 or tedious, I trust that I shall not be obscure. I am especially 
 anxious to rid this essay of ambiguity, because I want to gain 
 the ear of all kinds of persons. Every man has, at some time of 
 his life, personal interest in architecture. He has influence on 
 the design of some public building ; or he has to buy, or build, or 
 alter his own house. It signifies less whether the knowledge of 
 other arts be general or not ; men may live without buying 
 pictures or statues : but, in architecture, all must in some way 
 commit themselves; they must do mischief, and waste their 
 money, if they do not know how to turn it to account. Churches, 
 and shops, and warehouses, and cottages, and small row, and 
 place, and terrace houses, must be built, and lived in, however 
 joyless or inconvenient. And it is assuredly intended that all 
 of us should have knowledge, and act upon our knowledge, in 
 matters with which we are daily concerned, and not be left to 
 the caprice of architects, or mercy of contractors. There is not, 
 indeed, anything in the following essay bearing on the special 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 forms and needs of modern buildings ; but the principles it 
 inculcates are universal ; and they are illustrated from the re- 
 mains of a city which should surely be interesting to the men 
 of London, as affording the richest existing examples of archi- 
 tecture raised by a mercantile community, for civil uses, and 
 domestic magnificence. 
 
 Denmark Hill, 
 February, 1851. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 Preface - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 V 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 The 
 
 Quarry 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The 
 
 Virtues of Architecture 
 
 - 35 
 
 III. 
 
 The 
 
 Six Divisions of 
 
 Architecture - 
 
 - 46 
 
 IV. 
 
 The 
 
 Wall Base - 
 
 - 
 
 - 51 
 
 V. 
 
 The 
 
 Wall Veil - 
 
 - 
 
 - 57 
 
 VI. 
 
 The 
 
 Wall Cornice 
 
 - 
 
 - 61 
 
 VII. 
 
 The 
 
 Pier Base - 
 
 - 
 
 - 69 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The 
 
 Shaft 
 
 - 
 
 - 81 
 
 IX. 
 
 The 
 
 Capital 
 
 - 
 
 - 101 
 
 X. 
 
 The 
 
 Arch Line - 
 
 - 
 
 - 118 
 
 XL 
 
 The 
 
 Arch Masonry 
 
 - 
 
 - 127 
 
 XII. 
 
 The 
 
 Arch Load - 
 
 - 
 
 - 139 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Koof 
 
 - 
 
 - 143 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Roof Cornice 
 
 - 
 
 - 150 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Buttress 
 
 - 
 
 - 161 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Fork 
 
 t of Aperture 
 
 - 
 
 - 169 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Filling of Aperture 
 
 - 
 
 - 178 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Protection of Aperture 
 
 - 189 
 
 XIX. 
 
 SUPERIMPOSITION - 
 
 - 
 
 - 194 
 
 XX. 
 
 The 
 
 Material of Ornament 
 
 - 205 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Treatment of Ornament 
 
 - 230 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 XXII. The Angle - - - - -252 
 
 XXIII. The Edge and Fillet - - 259 
 
 XXIV. The Roll and Recess - 268 
 XXV. The Base - - - - - - 273 
 
 XXVI. The Wall Veil and Shaft - - - 286 
 
 XXVII. The Coenice and Capital ... 296 
 
 XXVIII. The Archivolt - - - - - 322 
 
 XXIX. The Roof - - 332 
 
 XXX. The Vestibule - - - - 338 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 1. Foundation of Venice - - - 349 
 
 2. Power of the Doges - 350 
 
 3. Serrar del Consiglio ----- 350 
 
 4. S. Pietko di Castello - - - - - 351 
 
 5. Papal Power in Venice ----- 351 
 
 6. Renaissance Ornaments ----- 358 
 
 7. Varieties of the Orders ----- 359 
 
 8. The Northern Energy ----- 360 
 
 9. Wooden Churches of the North - - 367 
 
 10. Church of Alexandria ----- 368 
 
 11. Renaissance Landscape ----- 368 
 
 12. Romanist Modern Art ----- 370 
 
 13. Mr. Fergusson's System ----- 374 
 
 14. Divisions of Humanity ----- 379 
 
CONTENTS. ' XV 
 
 Page 
 
 15. Instinctive Judgments - - 383 
 
 16. Strength of Shafts - 386 
 
 17. Answer to Mr. Garbett - - 386 
 
 18. Early English Capitals - - 394 
 
 19. Tombs near St. Anastasia - - - 395 
 
 20. Shafts of the Ddcal Palace - - - 396 
 
 21. Ancient Representations of Water - - 398 
 
 22. Arabian Ornamentation - - - -409 
 
 23. Varieties of Chamfer - 409 
 
 24. Renaissance Bases - - - - - -410 
 
 25. Romanist Decoration of Bases - - - - 411 
 
LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 Plate 
 
 I. Wall Veil Decoration, Ca' Trevisan and Ca' Dario, to face page 13 
 
 II. Plans of Piers - 97 
 
 III. Arch Masonry - - - ,,129 
 
 IV. Arch Masonry - - - - „ 131 
 V. Arch Masonry, Broletto of Como - „ 136 
 
 VI. Types of Towers - - - - ,,201 
 
 VII. Abstract Lines - - - - „ 216 
 
 VIII. Decoration by Disks, Ca' Badoari - - „ 235 
 
 IX. Edge Decoration - „ 260 
 
 X. Profiles of Bases - - ,,275 
 
 XI. Plans of Bases - - - ,,279 
 
 XII. Decorations of Bases - - - „ 281 
 
 XIII. Wall Veil Decoration - - - „ 287 
 
 XIV. Spandril Decoration, Ducal Palace - „ 290 
 XV. Cornice Profiles - „ 297 
 
 XVI. Cornice Decoration - „ 302 
 
 XVII. Capitals— Concave - - - „ 313 
 
 XVIII. Capitals — Convex - - - „ 318 
 
 XIX. Archivolt Decoration, Verona - „ 323 
 
 XX. Wall Veil Decoration, Ca' Trevisan - „ 358 
 
 XXI. Wall Veil Decoration, San Michelc, Lucca „ 364 
 
THE 
 
 STONES OF VENICE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE QUARRY. 
 
 § I. Since first the dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, 
 three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its 
 sands : the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the First 
 of these great powers only the memory remains ; of the Second, ■ 
 the ruin ; the Third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget 
 their example, may be led through prouder eminence to less pitied 
 destruction. 
 
 The exaltation, the sin, and the punishment of Tyre have 
 been recorded for us, in perhaps the most touching words ever 
 uttered by the Prophets of Israel against the cities of the stranger. 
 But we read them as a lovely song ; and close our ears to the 
 sternness of their warning: for the very depth of the Fall of 
 Tyre has blinded us to its reality, and we forget, as we watch 
 the bleaching of the rocks between the sunshine and the sea, that 
 they were once " as in Eden, the garden of God." 
 
 Her successor, like her in perfection of beauty, though less in 
 endurance of dominion, is still left for our beholding in the 
 final period of her decline : a ghost upon the sands of the sea, 
 so weak — so quiet, — so bereft of all but her loveliness, that we 
 might well doubt, as we watched her faint reflection in the mirage 
 of the lagoon, which was the City, and which the Shadow. 
 
 I would endeavour to trace the lines of this image before it be 
 
 ; 
 
/• 
 
 2 THE QUARRY. 
 
 for ever lost, and to record, as far as I may, the warning which 
 seems to me to be uttered by every one of the fast-gaining waves, 
 that beat, like passing bells, against the Stones of Venice. 
 
 § II. It would be difficult to overrate the value of the lessons 
 which might be derived from a faithful study of the history of 
 this strange and mighty city : a history which, in spite of the 
 labour of countless chroniclers, remains in vague and disputable 
 outline, — barred with brightness and shade, like the far away 
 edse of her own ocean, where the surf and the sandbank are 
 mingled with the sky. The inquiries in which we have to engage 
 will hardly render this outline clearer, but their results will, in 
 some degree, alter its aspect ; and, so far as they bear upon 
 it at all, they possess an interest of a far higher kind than 
 that usually belonging to architectural investigations. I may, 
 perhaps, in the outset, and in few words, enable the general 
 reader to form a clearer idea of the importance of every existing 
 expression of Venetian character through Venetian art, and of 
 the breadth of interest which the true history of Venice embraces, 
 than he is likely to have gleaned from the current fables of her 
 mystery or magnificence. 
 
 § ill. Venice is usually conceived as an oligarchy : She was so 
 during a period less than the half of her existence, and that in- 
 cluding the days of her decline ; and it is one of the first questions 
 needing severe examination, whether that decline was owing in 
 any wise to the change in the form of her government, or alto- 
 gether, as assuredly in great part, to changes in the character of 
 the persons of whom it was composed. 
 
 The state of Venice existed Thirteen Hundred and Seventy-six 
 years, from the first establishment of a consular government on 
 the island of the Rialto*, to the moment when the General-in- 
 chief of the French army of Italy pronounced the Venetian 
 republic a thing of the past. Of this period, Two Hundred and 
 Seventy-sixf years -were passed in a nominal subjection to the 
 cities of old Venetia, especially to Padua, and in an agitated 
 
 * Appendix 1.: " Foundation of Venice." 
 ■f Appendix 2. : " Power of the Doges." 
 
THE QUARRY. 3 
 
 form of democracy, of which the executive appears to have been 
 entrusted to tribunes*, chosen, one by the inhabitants of each of 
 the principal islands. For six hundred years f, during which the 
 power of Venice was continually on the increase, her government 
 was an elective monarchy, her King or doge possessing, in early 
 times at least, as much independent authority as any other 
 European sovereign, but an authority gradually subjected to 
 limitation, and shortened almost daily of its prerogatives, while 
 it increased in a spectral and incapable magnificence. The final 
 government of the nobles, under the image of a king, lasted for 
 five hundred years, during which Venice reaped the fruits of her 
 former energies, consumed them, — and expired. 
 
 § IV. Let the reader therefore conceive the existence of the 
 Venetian state as broadly divided into two periods : the first of 
 nine hundred, the second of five hundred years, the separation 
 being marked by what was called the " Serrar delConsiglio;" that 
 is to say, the final and absolute distinction of the nobles from the 
 commonalty, and the establishment of the government in their 
 hands to the exclusion alike of the influence of the people on the 
 one side, and the authority of the doge on the other. 
 
 Then the first period, of nine hundred years, presents us with 
 the most interesting spectacle of a people struggling out of anarchy 
 into order and power ; and then governed, for the most part, by 
 the worthiest and noblest man whom they could find among 
 them J, called their Doge or Leader, with an aristocracy gradually 
 and resolutely forming itself around him, out of which, and at 
 last by which, he was chosen ; an aristocracy owing its origin 
 to the accidental numbers, influence, and wealth of some among 
 the families of the fugitives from the older Venetia, and gradually 
 organising itself, by its unity and heroism, into a separate body. 
 
 This first period includes the Eise of Venice, her noblest 
 achievements, and the circumstances which determined her clia- 
 
 * Sisniondi, Hist, des Eep. Ital., vol. i. cb. v. 
 
 f Appendix 3. : " Serrar del Consiglio." 
 
 | " Ha saputo trovar modo die non uno, non pochi, non molti, signoreggiano, 
 ma molti buoni, pocbi migliori, e insiememente, un ottimo solo." — Sansovino. 
 Ah, well done, Venice ! Wisdom this, indeed. 
 
 b 2 
 

 4 THE QUARRY. 
 
 racter and position among European powers ; and within its range, 
 as might have been anticipated, we find the names of all her hero 
 princes, — of Pietro Urseolo, Ordalafo Falier, Domenico Michieli, 
 Sebastiano Ziani, and Enrico Dandolo. 
 
 § v. The second period opens with a hundred and twenty 
 years, the most eventful in the career of Venice — the central 
 struggle of her life — stained with her darkest crime, the murder 
 of Carrara — disturbed by her most dangerous internal sedition, 
 the conspiracy of Falier — oppressed by her most fatal war, the 
 Avar of Cliiozza — and distinguished by the glory of her two noblest 
 citizens (for in this period the heroism of her citizens replaces 
 that of her monarchs), Vittor Pisani and Carlo Zeno. 
 
 I date the commencement of the Fall of Venice from the death 
 of Carlo Zeno, 8th May, 1418*; the visible commencement from 
 that of another of her noblest and wisest children, the Doge 
 Tomaso Mocenigo, who expired five years later. The reign of 
 Foscari followed, gloomy with pestilence and war; a war in 
 which large acquisitions of territory were made by subtle or 
 fortunate policy in Lombardy, and disgrace, significant as irrepa- 
 rable, sustained in the battles on the Po at Cremona, and in the 
 marshes of Caravaggio. In 1454, Venice, the first of the states 
 of Christendom, humiliated herself to the Turk : in the same year 
 was established the Incpiisition of State f, and from this period 
 her government takes the perfidious and mysterious form under 
 which it is usually conceived. In 1477, the great Turkish in- 
 vasion spread terror to the shores of the lagoons ; and in 1508 
 the league of Cambrai marks the period usually assigned as the 
 commencement of the decline of the Venetian power J; the com- 
 mercial prosperity of Venice in the close of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury blinding her historians to the previous evidence of the 
 diminution of her internal strength. 
 
 * Dam, liv. xii. cli. xii. 
 
 + Darn, liv. xvi. cap. xx. "We owe to this historian the discovery of the 
 statutes of the tribunal and date of its establishment. 
 
 + Ominously signified by their humiliation to the Papal power (as before to 
 the Turkish) in 1509, and their abandonment of their right of appointing the 
 clergy of their territories. 
 
THE QUARRY. 5 
 
 § VI. Now there is apparently a significative coincidence be- 
 tween the establishment of the aristocratic and oligarchical powers, 
 and the diminution of the prosperity of the state. But this is 
 the very question at issue ; and it appears to me quite undeter- 
 mined by any historian, or determined by each in accordance 
 with his own prejudices. It is a triple question : first, Avhether 
 the oligarchy established by the efforts of individual ambition 
 was the cause, in its subsequent operation, of the Fall of Venice ; 
 or (secondly) whether the establishment of the oligarchy itself be 
 not the sign and evidence, rather than the cause, of national ener- 
 vation ; or (lastly) whether, as I rather think, the history of 
 Venice might not be written almost without reference to the 
 construction of her senate or the prerogatives of her Doge. It is 
 the history of a people eminently at unity in itself, descendants 
 of Roman race, long disciplined by adversity, and compelled by 
 its position either to live nobly or to perish : — for a thousand 
 years they fought for life ; for three hundred they invited death : 
 their battle was rewarded, and their call was heard. 
 
 § VII. Throughout her career, the victories of Venice, and, at 
 many periods of it, her safety, were purchased by individual 
 heroism ; and the man who exalted or saved her was sometimes 
 (oftenest) her king, sometimes a noble, sometimes a citizen. To 
 him no matter, nor to her: the real question is, not so much what 
 names they bore, or with what powers they were entrusted, as 
 how they were trained ; how they were made masters of them- 
 selves, servants of their country, patient of distress, impatient of 
 dishonour ; and what was the true reason of the chauge from the 
 time when she could find saviours among those whom she had 
 cast into prison, to that when the voices of her own children 
 commanded her to sign covenant with Death.* 
 
 § Vin. On this collateral question I wish the reader's mind to 
 be fixed throughout all our subsequent inquiries. It will give 
 double interest to every detail : nor will the interest be profitless ; 
 for the evidence which I shall be able to deduce from the arts of 
 
 * The senate voted the abdication of their authority by a majority of 512 to 
 14. (Alison, ch. xxiii.') 
 
 n 3 
 
b THE QUARRY. 
 
 Venice will be both frequent and irrefragable, that the decline 
 of her political prosperity was exactly coincident with that of 
 domestic and individual religion. 
 
 I say domestic and individual; for — and this is the second 
 point which I wish the reader to keep in mind — the most curious 
 phenomenon in all Venetian history is the vitality of religion in 
 private life, and its deadness in public policy. Amidst the 
 enthusiasm, chivalry, or fanaticism of the other states of Europe, 
 Venice stands, from first to last, like a masked statue ; her cold- 
 ness impenetrable, her exertion only aroused by the touch of a 
 secret spring. That spring was her commercial interest, — this 
 the one motive of all her important political acts, or enduring 
 national animosities. She could forgive insults to her honour, 
 but never rivalship in her commerce ; she calculated the glory of 
 her conquests by their value, and estimated their justice by their 
 facility. The fame of success remains, when the motives of 
 attempt are forgotten ; and the casual reader of her history may 
 perhaps be surprised to be reminded, that the expedition which 
 was commanded by the noblest of her princes, and whose results 
 added most to her military glory, was one in which, while all 
 Europe around her was wasted by the fire of its devotion, she 
 first calculated the highest price she could exact from its piety 
 for the armament she furnished, and then, for the advancement 
 of her own private interests, at once broke her faith* and 
 betrayed her religion. 
 
 § IX. And yet, in the midst of this national criminality, we 
 shall be struck again and again by the evidences of the most 
 noble individual feeling. The tears of Dandolo were not shed in 
 hypocrisy, though they could not blind him to the importance of 
 the conquest of Zara. The habit of assigning to religion a direct 
 influence over all his oion actions, and all the affairs of his own 
 daily life, is remarkable in every great Venetian during the times 
 of the prosperity of the state; nor are instances wanting in which 
 the private feeling of the citizens reaches the sphere of their 
 
 * By directing the arms of the Crusaders against a Christian prince. Daru, 
 liv. iv. cli. iv. viii. 
 
THE QUARRY. 7 
 
 policy, and even becomes the guide of its course where the scales 
 of expediency are doubtfully balanced. I sincerely trust that 
 the inquirer would be disappointed who should endeavour to 
 trace any more immediate reasons for their adoption of the cause 
 of Alexander III. against Barbarossa, than the piety which was 
 excited by the character of their suppliant, and the noble pride 
 which was provoked by the insolence of the emperor. But the 
 heart of Venice is shown only in her hastiest councils ; her 
 worldly spirit recovers the ascendancy whenever she has time 
 to calculate the probabilities of advantage, or when they are 
 sufficiently distinct to need no calculation ; and the entire 
 subjection of private piety to national policy is not only remark- 
 able throughout the almost endless series of treacheries and 
 tyrannies by which her empire was enlarged and maintained, but 
 symbolised by a very singular circumstance in the building of 
 the city itself. I am aware of no other city of Europe in which 
 its cathedral was not the principal feature. But the principal 
 church in Venice was the chapel attached to the palace of her 
 prince, and called the " Chiesa Ducale." The patriarchal 
 church*, inconsiderable in size and mean in decoration, stands on 
 the outermost islet of the Venetian group, and its name, as well as 
 its site, are probably unknown to the greater number of travellers 
 passing hastily through the city. Nor is it less worthy of 
 remark, that the two most important temples of Venice, next to 
 the ducal chapel, owe their size and magnificence, not to national 
 efforts, but to the energy of the Franciscan and Dominican 
 monks, supported by the vast organisation of those great societies 
 on the mainland of Italy, and countenanced by the most pious, 
 and perhaps also, in his generation, the most wise, of all the 
 princes of Venice f, who now rests beneath the roof of one of 
 those very temples, and whose life is not satirized by the images 
 of the Virtues which a Tuscan sculptor has placed around his 
 tomb. 
 
 § X. There are, therefore, two strange and solemn lights in 
 
 * Appendix 4. : " San Pietro di Castello." 
 "I" Toinaso Mocenigo, above named, § v. 
 
 B 4 
 
8 THE QUARRY. 
 
 which we have to regard almost every scene in the fitful history 
 of the Rivo Alto. We find, on the one band, a deep and constant 
 tone of individual religion characterising the lives of the citizens 
 of Venice in her greatness ; we find this spirit influencing them 
 in all the familiar and immediate concerns of life, giving a 
 peculiar dignity to the conduct even of their commercial trans- 
 actions, and confessed by them with a simplicity of faith that 
 may well put to shame the hesitation with which a man of the 
 world at present admits (even if it be so in reality) that religious 
 feeling has any influence over the minor branches of his conduct. 
 And we find as the natural consequence of all this, a healthy 
 serenity of mind and energ} r of will expressed in all their actions, 
 and a habit of heroism which never fails them, even when the 
 immediate motive of action ceases to be praiseworthy. With the 
 fulness of this spirit the prosperity of the state is exactly cor- 
 respondent, and with its failure her decline, and that with a 
 closeness and precision Avhich it will be one of the collateral 
 objects of the following essay to demonstrate from such acci- 
 dental evidence as the field of its inquiry presents. And, thus 
 far, all is natural and simple. But the stopping short of this 
 religious faith when it appears likely to influence national action, 
 correspondent as it is, and that most strikingly, with several 
 characteristics of the temper of our present English legislature, 
 is a subject, morally and politically, of the most curious interest 
 and complicated difficulty; one, however, which the range of my 
 present inquiry will not permit me to approach, and for the 
 treatment of which I must be content to furnish materials in the 
 light I may be able to throw upon the private tendencies of the 
 Venetian character. 
 
 § XI. There is, however, another most interesting feature in 
 the policy of Venice which will be often brought before us ; 
 and which a Romanist would gladly assign as the reason of its 
 irreligion ; namely, the magnificent and successful struggle which 
 she maintained against the temporal authority of the Church of 
 Rome. It is true that, in a rapid survey of her career, the eye is 
 at first arrested by the strange drama to which I have already 
 
THE QUARRY. i) 
 
 alluded, closed bj' that ever memorable scene in the portico of 
 St. Mark's *, the central expression in most men's thoughts of 
 the unendurable elevation of the pontifical power ; it is true that 
 the proudest thoughts of Venice, as well as the insignia of her 
 prince, and the form of her chief festival, recorded the service 
 thus rendered to the Roman Church. But the enduring sen- 
 timent of years more than balanced the enthusiasm of a moment ; 
 and the bull of Clement V., which excommunicated the Venetians 
 and their doge, likening them to Dathan, Abiram, Absalom, 
 and Lucifer, is a stronger evidence of the great tendencies of the 
 Venetian government than the umbrella of the doge or the ring 
 of the Adriatic. The humiliation of Francesco Dandolo blotted 
 out the shame of Barbarossa, and the total exclusion of eccle- 
 siastics from all share in the councils of Venice became an 
 enduring mark of her knowledge of the spirit of the Church of 
 Rome, and of her defiance of it. 
 
 To this exclusion of Papal influence from her councils, the 
 Romanist will attribute their irreligion, and the Protestant their 
 success. f The first may be silenced by a reference to the cha- 
 racter of the policy of the Vatican itself; and the second by his 
 own shame, when he reflects that the English legislature sa- 
 crificed their principles to expose themselves to the very danger 
 which the Venetian senate sacrificed theirs to avoid. 
 
 § XII. One more circumstance remains to be noted respecting 
 the Venetian government, the singular unity of the families 
 
 " In that temple porch, 
 (The brass is gone, the porphyry remains,) 
 Did Barbarossa fling his mantle off", 
 And kneeling, on his neck receive the foot 
 Of the proud Pontiff — thus at last consoled 
 For flight, disguise, and many an aguish shake 
 On his stone pillow." 
 
 I need hardly say whence the lines are taken : Rogers's "Italy" has, I believe, 
 now a place in the best beloved compartment of all libraries, and will never be 
 removed from it. There is more true expression of the spirit of Venice in the 
 passages devoted to her in that poem, than in all else that has been written 
 of her. 
 
 f At least, such success as they had. Vide Appendix 5. : " The Papal Power 
 in Venice." 
 
10 THE QUARRY. 
 
 composing it, — unity far from sincere or perfect, but still ad- 
 mirable when contrasted with the fiery feuds, the almost daily 
 revolutions, the restless successions of families and parties in 
 power, which fill the annals of the other states of Italy. That 
 rivalship should sometimes be ended by the dagger, or enmity 
 conducted to its ends under the mask of law, could not but be 
 anticipated where the fierce Italian spirit was subjected to so 
 severe a restraint : it is much that jealousy appears usually un- 
 mingled with illegitimate ambition, and that, for every instance 
 in which private passion sought its gratification through public 
 danger, there are a thousand in which it was sacrificed to the 
 public advantage. Venice may well call upon us to note with 
 reverence, that of all the towers which are still seen rising like 
 a branchless forest from her islands, there is but one whose oflice 
 was other than that of summoning to prayer, and that one was 
 a watch-tower only : from first to last, while the palaces of the 
 other cities of Italy were lifted into sullen fortitudes of rampart, 
 and fringed with forked battlements for the javelin and the bow, 
 the sands of Venice never sank under the weight of a war tower, 
 and her roof terraces were wreathed with Arabian imagery, of 
 golden globes suspended on the leaves of lilies.* 
 
 § Xlll. These, then, appear to me to be the points of chief 
 general interest in the character and fate of the Venetian people. 
 I would next endeavour to give the reader some idea of the 
 manner in which the testimony of Art bears upon these questions, 
 and of the aspect which the arts themselves assume when they 
 are regarded in their true connection with the history of the 
 state : — 
 
 1st. Receive the witness of Painting. 
 
 It will be remembered that I put the commencement of the Fall 
 of Venice as far back as 1418. 
 
 Now, John Bellini was born in 1423, and Titian in 1480. John 
 Bellini, and his brother Gentile, two years older than he, close 
 
 * The inconsiderable fortifications of the arsenal are no exception to this 
 statement, as far as it regards the city itself. They are little more than a 
 semblance of precaution against the attack of a foreign enemy. 
 
THE QUARRY. 11 
 
 the line of the sacred painters of Venice. But the most solemn 
 spirit of religious faith animates their works to the last. There 
 is no religion in any work of Titian's : there is not even the 
 smallest evidence of religious temper or sympathies either in 
 himself, or in those for whom he painted. His larger sacred 
 subjects are merely themes for the exhibition of pictorial rhetoric, 
 — composition and colour. His minor works are generally made 
 subordinate to purposes of portraiture. The Madonna in the 
 church of the Frari is a mere lay figure, introduced to form a 
 link of connection between the portraits of various members of 
 the Pesaro family who surround her. 
 
 Now this is not merely because John Bellini was a religious 
 man and Titian was not. Titian and Bellini are each true repre- 
 sentatives of the school of painters contemporary with them ; and 
 the difference in their artistic feeling is a consequence not so 
 much of difference in their own natural characters as in their 
 early education : Bellini was brought up in faith ; Titian in 
 formalism. Between the years of their births the vital religion of 
 Venice had expired. 
 
 § XIV. The vital religion, observe, not the formal. Outward 
 observance was as strict as ever ; and doge and senator still were 
 painted, in almost every important instance, kneeling before the 
 Madonna or St. Mark ; a confession of faith made universal by 
 the pure gold of the Venetian sequin. But observe the great 
 picture of Titian's, in the ducal palace, of the Doge Antonio 
 Grimani kneeling before Faith : there is a curious lesson in it. 
 The figure of Faith is a coarse portrait of one of Titian's least 
 graceful female models : Faith had become carnal. The eye is 
 first caught by the flash of the Doge's armour. The heart of 
 Venice was in her wars, not in her worship. 
 
 The mind of Tintoret, incomparably more deep and serious than 
 that of Titian, casts the solemnity of its own tone over the sacred 
 subjects which it approaches, and sometimes forgets itself into 
 devotion ; but the principle of treatment is altogether the same 
 as Titian's : absolute subordination of the religious subject to 
 purposes of decoration or portraiture. 
 
12 THE QUARRY. 
 
 The evidence might be accumulated a thousandfold from the 
 ■works of Veronese, and of every succeeding painter, — that the 
 fifteenth century had taken away the religious heart of Venice. 
 
 § XV. Such is the evidence of Painting. To collect that of 
 Architecture will be our task through many a page to come; but 
 I must here give a general idea of its heads. 
 
 Philippe de Commynes, writing of his entry into Venice in 
 1495, says, — 
 
 " Chascun me feit seoir au meillieu de ces deux ambassadeurs qui 
 est l'honneur dTtalie que d'estre au meillieu ; et me menerent 
 au long de la grant rue, qu'ilz appellent le Canal Grant, et est 
 bien large. Les gallees y passent a travers, et y ay veu navire de 
 quatre cens tonneaux ou plus pres des maisons : et est la plus 
 belle rue que je croy qui soit en tout le monde, et la mieulx 
 maisonnee, et va le long de la ville. Les maisons sont fort 
 grandes et haultes, et de bonne pierre, et les anciennes toutes 
 painctes ; les aultres faictes depuis cent ans : toutes ont le devant 
 de marbre blanc, qui leur vient dTstrie. a cent mils de la, et 
 encores maincte grant piece de porphire et de sarpentine sur le 
 devant. . . . C'est la plus triumphante cite que j'aye jamais veue 
 et qui plus faict d'honneur a ambassadeurs et estrangiers, et qui 
 plus saigement se gouverne, et oil le service de Dieu est le plus 
 sollempnellement faict : et encores qu'il y peust bien avoir d'aultres 
 faultes, si croy je que Dieu les a en ayde pour la reverence qu'ilz 
 portent au service de l'Eglise."* 
 
 § XVI. This passage is of peculiar interest, for two reasons. 
 Observe, first, the impression of Commynes respecting the religion 
 of Venice : of which, as I have above said, the forms still 
 remained with some glimmering of life in them, and were the 
 evidence of what the real life had been in former times. Put 
 observe, secondly, the impression instantly made on Commynes' 
 mind by the distinction between the elder palaces and those built 
 " within this last hundred years; which all have their fronts of 
 white marble brought from Istria, a hundred miles away, and 
 
 * Memoires de Commynes, liv. vii. eh. xviii. 
 
"Wa 1 1 -"V? 1 1 I) pforftficn 
 
 (A THEVISAN, I'A'DAUIO 
 
THE QUARRY. 13 
 
 besides, many a large piece of porphyry and serpentine upon 
 their fronts." 
 
 On the opposite page I have given two of the ornaments of 
 the palaces which so struck the French ambassador.* He was 
 right in his notice of the distinction. There had indeed come a 
 change over Venetian architecture in the fifteenth century ; and a 
 change of some importance to us moderns : we English owe to it 
 our St. Paul's Cathedral, and Europe in general owes to it the 
 utter degradation or destruction of her schools of architecture, 
 never since revived. But that the reader may understand this, 
 it is necessary that he should have some general idea of the 
 connection of the architecture of Venice with that of the rest of 
 Europe, from its origin forwards. 
 
 § xvn. All European architecture, bad and good, old and 
 new, is derived from Greece through Rome, and coloured and 
 perfected from the East. The history of architecture is nothing 
 but the tracing of the various modes and directions of this 
 derivation. Understand this, once for all: if you hold fast this 
 great connecting clue, you may string all the types of successive 
 architectural invention upon it like so many beads. The Doric 
 and the Corinthian orders are the roots, the one of all Romanesque, 
 massy-capitaled buildings — Xorman, Lombard, Byzantine, and 
 what else you can name of the kind ; and the Corinthian of all 
 Gothic, Early English, French, German, and Tuscan. Now 
 observe : those old Greeks gave the shaft ; Rome gave the arch ; 
 the Arabs pointed and foliated the arch. The shaft and arch, 
 the frame-work and strength of architecture, are from the race of 
 Japheth : the spirituality and sanctity of it from Ismael, Abraham, 
 and Shem. 
 
 § XVIII. There is high probability that the Greek received his 
 shaft system from Egypt ; but I do not care to keep this earlier 
 derivation in the mind of the reader. It is only necessary that he 
 should be able to refer to a fixed point of origin, when the form of 
 the shaft was first perfected. But it may be incidentally observed 
 
 * Appendix 6. : " Kenaissance Ornaments." 
 
 
14 THE QUARRY. 
 
 that if the Greeks did indeed receive their Doric from Egypt, then 
 the three families of the earth have each contributed their part to 
 its noblest architecture : and Ham, the servant of the others, fur- 
 nishes the sustaining or bearing member, the shaft ; Japheth the 
 arch; Shem the spiritualisation of both. 
 
 § XIX. I have said that the two orders, Doric and Corinthian, 
 are the roots of all European architecture. You have, perhaps, 
 heard of five orders : but there are only two real orders ; and there 
 never can be any more until doomsday. On one of these orders 
 the ornament is convex : those are Doric, Norman, and what 
 else you recollect of the kind. On the other the ornament is 
 concave : those are Corinthian, Early English, Decorated, and 
 what else you recollect of that kind. The transitional form, in 
 which the ornamental line is straight, is the centre or root of both. 
 All other orders are varieties of these, or phantasms and gro- 
 tesques, altogether indefinite in number and species.* 
 
 § XX. This Greek architecture, then, with its two orders, was 
 clumsily copied and varied by the Romans with no particular 
 result, until they began to bring the arch into extensive practical 
 service ; except only that the Doric capital was spoiled in en- 
 deavours to mend it, and the Corinthian much varied and enriched 
 with fanciful, and often very beautiful imagery. And in this 
 state of things came Christianity: seized upon the arch as her 
 own : decorated it, and delighted in it : invented a new Doric 
 capital to replace the spoiled Roman one : and all over the Roman 
 empire set to work, with such materials as were nearest at hand, 
 to express and adorn herself as best she could. This Roman 
 Christian architecture is the exact expression of the Christianity 
 of the time, very fervid and beautiful — but very imperfect; in 
 many respects ignorant, and yet radiant with a strong, child- 
 like light of imagination, which flames up under Constantino, 
 illumines all the shores of the Bosphorus and the iEgean and the 
 Adriatic Sea, and then gradually, as ,the people give themselves 
 up to idolatry, becomes corpse-light. I The architecture sinks into 
 
 * Appendix 7. : " Varieties of the Orders." 
 
THE QUARRY. 15 
 
 a settled form — a strange, gilded, and embalmed repose: it, with 
 the religion it expressed ; and so would have remained for ever, 
 — so does remain, where its languor has been undisturbed.* But 
 rough wakening was ordained for it. 
 
 § XXI. This Christian art of the declining empire is divided 
 into two great branches, western and eastern; one centred at 
 Rome, the other at Byzantium, of which the one is the early 
 Christian Romanesque, properly so called, and the other, carried 
 to higher imaginative perfection by Greek workmen, is distin- 
 guished from it as Byzantine. But I wish the reader, for the 
 present, to class these two branches of art together in his mind, 
 they being, in points of main importance, the same ; that is to say, 
 both of them a true continuance and sequence of the art of old 
 Rome itself, flowing uninterruptedly down from the fountain-head, 
 and entrusted always to the best workmen who could be found — 
 Latins in Italy and Greeks in Greece ; and thus both branches 
 may be ranged under the general term of Christian Romanesque, 
 an architecture which had lost the refinement of Pagan art in the 
 degradation of the empire, but which was elevated by Christianity 
 to higher aims, and by the fancy of the Greek workmen endowed 
 with brighter forms. And this art the reader may conceive as 
 extending in its various branches over all the central provinces of 
 the empire, taking aspects more or less refined, according to its 
 proximity to the seats of government ; dependent for all its power 
 on the vigour and freshness of the religion which animated it ; 
 and as that vigour and purity departed, losing its own vitality, 
 and sinking into nerveless rest, not deprived of its beauty, but 
 benumbed, and incapable of advance or change. 
 
 § XXir. Meantime there had been preparation for its renewal. 
 While in Rome and Constantinople, and in the districts under their 
 immediate influence, this Roman art of pure descent was practised 
 in all its refinement, an impure form of it — a patois of Roman- 
 esque — was carried by inferior workmen into distant provinces ; 
 
 * The reader will find the weak points of Byzantine architecture shrewdly 
 seized, and exquisitely sketched, in the opening chapter of the most delightful 
 book of travels I ever opened, — Curzon's " Monasteries of the Levant." 
 
16 THE QUARRY. 
 
 and still ruder imitations of this patois were executed by the 
 barbarous nations on the skirts of the empire. But these bar- 
 barous nations were in the strength of their youth ; and while, 
 in the centre of Europe, a refined and purely descended art was 
 sinking into graceful formalism, on its confines a barbarous and 
 borrowed ai't was organising itself into strength and consistency. 
 The reader must therefore consider the history of the work of the 
 period as broadly divided into two great heads : the one em- 
 bracing the elaborately languid succession of the Christian art of 
 Eome ; and the other, the imitations of it executed by nations in 
 every conceivable phase of early organisation, on the edges of the 
 empire, or included in its now merely nominal extent. 
 
 § XXlll. Some of the barbaric nations were, of course, not 
 susceptible of this influence ; and, when they burst over the 
 Alps, appear, like the Huns, as scourges only, or mix, as the 
 Ostrogoths, with the enervated Italians, and give physical 
 strength to the mass with which they mingle, without materially 
 affecting its intellectual character. But others, both south and 
 north of the empire, had felt its influence, back to the beach of 
 the Indian Ocean on the one hand, and to the ice creeks of the 
 North Sea on the other. On the north and west the influence 
 was of the Latins ; on the south and east, of the Greeks. Two 
 nations, pre-eminent above all the rest, represent to us the force 
 of derived mind on either side. As the central power is eclipsed, 
 the orbs of reflected light gather into their fulness; and when 
 sensuality and idolatry had done their work, and the religion of 
 the empire was laid asleep in a glittering sepulchre, the living 
 li"ht rose upon both horizons, and the fierce swords of the Lom- 
 bard and Arab were shaken over its golden paralysis. 
 
 § XXIV. The work of the Lombard was to give hardihood and 
 system to the enervated body and enfeebled mind of Christendom ; 
 that of the Arab was to punish idolatry, and to proclaim the 
 spirituality of worship. The Lombard covered every church 
 which he built with the sculptured representations of bodily 
 exercises — hunting and war.* The Arab banished all imagination 
 * Appendix 8. : " The Northern Energy." 
 
THE QUARRY. 17 
 
 of creature form from his temples, and proclaimed from their 
 minarets, " There is no god but God." Opposite in their cha- 
 racter and mission, alike in their magnificence of energy, iliey 
 came from the North and from the South, the glacier torrent and 
 the lava stream : they met and contended over the wreck of the 
 Roman empire ; and the very centre of the struggle, the point of 
 pause of both, the dead water of the opposite eddies, charged 
 with embayed fragments of the Roman wreck, is Venice. 
 
 The Ducal palace of Venice contains the three elements in 
 exactly equal proportions — the Roman, Lombard, and Arab. It 
 is the central building of the world. 
 
 § XXV. The reader will now begin to understand something 
 of the importance of the study of the edifices of a city which 
 concludes, within the circuit of some seven or eight miles, the 
 field of contest between the three pre-eminent architectures of the 
 world : — each architecture expressing a condition of religion ; 
 each an erroneous condition, yet necessary to the correction of 
 the others, and corrected by them. 
 
 § XXVI. It will be part of my endeavour in the following 
 work, to mark the various modes in which the northern and 
 southern architectures were developed from the Roman : here I 
 must pause only to name the distinguishing characteristics of the 
 great families. The Christian Roman and Byzantine work is 
 round-arched, with single and well-proportioned shafts ; capitals 
 imitated from classical Roman ; mouldings more or less so ; and 
 large surfaces of Avails entirely covered with imagery, mosaic, 
 and paintings, whether of scripture history or of sacred symbols. 
 
 The Arab school is at first the same in its principal features, 
 the Byzantine workmen being employed by the caliphs ; but the 
 Arab rapidly introduces characters half Persepolitan, half Egyptian, 
 into the shafts and capitals : in his intense love of excitement he 
 points the arch and writhes it into extravagant foliations; he 
 banishes the animal imagery, and invents an ornamentation of 
 his own (called Arabesque) to replace it : this not being adapted 
 for covering; lar<re surfaces, he concentrates it on features of 
 
 Do ? 
 
 interest, and bars his surfaces with horizontal lines of colour, 
 
 c 
 
18 THE QUARRY. 
 
 the expression of the level of the Desert. He retains the dome, 
 and adds the minaret. All is done with exquisite refinement. 
 
 § XXVII. The changes effected by the Lombard are more 
 curious still, for they are in the anatomy of the building, more 
 than its decoration. The Lombard architecture represents, as 
 I said, the whole of that of the northern barbaric nations. 
 And this I believe was, at first, an imitation in wood of the 
 Christian Roman churches or basilicas. Without staying to 
 examine the whole structure of a basilica, the reader will easily 
 understand thus much of it : that it had a nave and two aisles, 
 the nave much higher than the aisles ; that the nave was sepa- 
 rated from the aisles by rows of shafts, which supported, above, 
 large spaces of flat or dead wall, rising above the aisles, and 
 forming the upper part of the nave, now called the clerestory, 
 which had a gabled wooden roof. 
 
 These high dead walls were, in Roman work, built of stone ; 
 but in the wooden work of the North, they must necessarily have 
 been made of horizontal boards or timbers attached to uprights 
 on the top of the nave pillars, which were themselves also of 
 wood.* Now, these uprights were necessarily thicker than the 
 rest of the timbers, and formed vertical scpiare pilasters above the 
 nave piers. As Christianity extended and civilisation increased, 
 these wooden structures were changed into stone ; but they 
 were literally petrified, retaining the form which had been made 
 necessary by their being of wood. The upright pilaster above 
 the nave pier remains in the stone edifice, and is the first form 
 of the great distinctive feature of Northern architecture — the 
 vaulting shaft. In that form the Lombards brought it into 
 Italy in the seventh century, and it remains to this day in 
 St. Ambrogio of Milan, and St. Michele of Pavia. 
 
 § XXVlll. "When the vaulting shaft was introduced in the cle- 
 restory walls, additional members were added for its support to the 
 nave piers. Perhaps two or three pine trunks, used for a single 
 pillar, gave the first idea of the grouped shaft. Be that as it may, 
 the arrangement of the nave pier in the form of a cross accompanies 
 
 * Appendix 9.: "Wooden Churches of the North." 
 
THE QUARRY. 19 
 
 the superimposition of the vaulting shaft ; together with corre- 
 spondent grouping of minor shafts in door-ways and apertures of 
 windows. Thus, the whole body of the Northern architecture, 
 represented by that of the Lombards, may be described as. rough 
 but majestic Avork, round-arched, with grouped shafts, added 
 vaulting shafts, and endless imagery of active life and fantastic 
 superstitions. 
 
 § XXIX. The glacier stream of the Lombards, and the following 
 one of the Normans, left their erratic blocks wherever they had 
 flowed ; but without influencing, I think, the Southern nations 
 beyond the sphere of their own presence. But the lava stream of 
 the Arab, even after it ceased to flow, warmed the whole of the 
 Northern air; and the history of Gothic architecture is the 
 history of the refinement and spiritualisation of Northern work 
 under its influence. The noblest buildings of the world, the 
 Pisan-Romanesque, Tuscan (Giottesque) Gothic, and Veronese 
 Gothic, are those of the Lombard schools themselves, under its 
 close and direct influence ; the various Gothics of the North are 
 the original forms of the architecture which the Lombards brought 
 into Italy, changing under the less direct influence of the Arab. 
 
 § XXX. Understanding thus much of the formation of the 
 great European styles, we shall have no difficulty in tracing the 
 succession of architectures in Venice herself. From what I said 
 of the central character of Venetian art, the reader is not, of 
 course, to conclude that the Roman, Northern, and Arabian 
 elements met together and contended for the mastery at the same 
 period. The earliest element was the pure Christian Roman ; but 
 few, if any, remains of this art exist at Venice ; for the present 
 city was in the earliest times only one of many settlements formed 
 on the chain of marshy islands which extend from the mouths of 
 the Isonzo to those of the Adige, and it was not until the beginning 
 of the ninth century that it became the seat of government ; while 
 the cathedral of Torcello, though Christian Roman in general 
 form, was rebuilt in the eleventh century, and shows evidence of 
 Byzantine workmanship in many of its details. This cathedral, 
 however, with the church of Santa Fosca at Torcello, San Giacomo 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE QUARRY. 
 
 di Rialto at Venice, and the crypt of St. Mark's, form a distinct 
 group of building, in which the Byzantine influence is exceedingly 
 slight ; and which is probably very sufficiently representative of 
 the earliest architecture on the islands. 
 
 § XXXI. The Ducal residence was removed to Venice in 809, 
 and the body of St. Mark was brought from Alexandria twenty 
 years later. The first church of St. Mark's was, doubtless, built 
 in imitation of that destroyed at Alexandria, and from which the 
 relics of the saint had been obtained. During the ninth, tenth, 
 and eleventh centuries, the architecture of Venice seems to have 
 been formed on the same model, and is almost identical with that 
 of Cairo under the caliphs*, it being quite immaterial whether the 
 reader chooses to call both Byzantine or both Arabic ; the work- 
 men being certainly Byzantine, but forced to the invention of 
 new forms by their Arabian masters, and bringing these forms into 
 use in whatever other parts of the world they were employed. 
 
 To this first manner of Venetian architecture, together with 
 such vestiges as remain of the Christian Roman, I shall devote 
 the first division of the following inquiry. The examples re- 
 maining of it consist of three noble churches (those of Torccllo, 
 Murano, and the greater part of St. Mark's), and about ten or 
 twelve fragments of palaces. 
 
 § XXXII. To this style succeeds a transitional one, of a cha- 
 racter much more distinctly Arabian : the shafts become more 
 slender, and the arches consistently pointed, instead of round ; 
 certain other changes, not to be enumerated in a sentence, taking 
 place in the capitals and mouldings. This style is almost ex- 
 clusively secular. It was natural for the Venetians to imitate 
 the beautiful details of the Arabian dwelling-house, while they 
 would with reluctance adopt those of the mosque for Christian 
 churches. 
 
 I have not succeeded in fixing limiting dates for this style. 
 It appears in part contemporary with the Byzantine manner, 
 but outlives it. Its position is, however, fixed by the central 
 date, 1180, that of the elevation of the granite shafts of the 
 
 * Appendix 10.: "Church of Alexandria." 
 
THE QUARRY. 21 
 
 Piazzetta, whose capitals are the two most important pieces 
 of detail in this transitional style in Venice. Examples of its 
 application to domestic buildings exist in almost every street of 
 the city, and will form the subject of the second division of the 
 following essay. 
 
 § xxxni. The Venetians were always ready to receive 
 lessons in art from their enemies (else had there been no Arab 
 work in Venice). But their especial dread and hatred of the 
 Lombards appears to have long prevented them from receiving 
 the influence of the art which that people had introduced on the 
 mainland of Italy. Nevertheless, during the practice of the two 
 stvles above distinguished, a peculiar and very primitive con- 
 dition of pointed Gothic had arisen in ecclesiastical architecture. 
 It appears to be a feeble reflection of the Lombard- Arab forms, 
 which were attaining perfection upon the continent, and would 
 probabty, if left to itself, have been soon merged in the Venetian- 
 Arab school, with which it had from the first so close a fellow- 
 ship, that it will be found difficult to distinguish the Arabian 
 ogives from those which seem to have been built under this early 
 Gothic influence. The churches of San Giacopo dell' Orio, San 
 Giovanni in Bragora, the Carmine, and one or two more, furnish 
 the only important examples of it. But, in the thirteenth century, 
 the Franciscans and Dominicans introduced from the continent 
 their morality and their architecture, already a distinct Gothic, 
 curiously developed from Lombardic and Northern (German ?) 
 forms ; and the influence of the principles exhibited in the vast 
 churches of St. Paul and the Frari began rapidly to affect the 
 Venetian-Arab school. Still the two systems never became 
 united ; the Venetian policy repressed the power of the church, 
 and the Venetian artists resisted its example ; and thenceforward 
 the architecture of the city becomes divided into ecclesiastical and 
 civil : the one an ungraceful yet powerful form of the Western 
 Gothic, common to the whole peninsula, and only showing 
 Venetian sympathies in the adoption of certain characteristic 
 mouldings ; the other a rich, luxuriant, and entirely original 
 Gothic, formed from the Venetian-Arab by the influence of the 
 
 c 3 
 
22 THE QUARRY. 
 
 Dominican and Franciscan architecture, and especially by the 
 engrafting upon the Arab forms of the most novel feature of the 
 Franciscan work, its traceries. These various forms of Gothic, 
 the distinctive architecture of Venice, chiefly represented by the 
 churches of St. John and Paid, the Frari, and San Stefano, on 
 the ecclesiastical side, and by the Ducal palace, and the other 
 principal Gothic palaces, on the secular side, will be the subject 
 of the third division of the essay. 
 
 § XXXIV. Now observe. The transitional (or especially Arabic) 
 style of the Venetian work is centralised by the date 1180, and 
 is transformed gradually into the Gothic, which extends in its 
 purity from the middle of the thirteenth to the beginning of the 
 fifteenth century ; that is to say, over the precise period [which 
 I have described as the central epoch of the life of Venice. I 
 dated her decline from the year 1418; Foscari became doge five 
 years later, and in his reign the first marked signs appear in 
 architecture of that mighty change which Philippe de Cominynes 
 notices as above, the change to which London owes St. Paul's, 
 Rome St. Peter's, Venice and Vicenza the edifices commonly 
 supposed to be their noblest, and Europe in general the degra- 
 dation of every art she has since practised. 
 
 § xxxv. Tins change appears first in a loss of truth and 
 vitality in existing architecture all over the world. (Compare 
 " Seven Lamps," chap, ii.) All the Gothics in existence, 
 southern or northern, were corrupted at once : the German and 
 French lost themselves in every species of extravagance ; the 
 English Gothic was confined, in its insanity, by a strait-waist- 
 coat of perpendicular lines; the Italian effloresced on the main- 
 l.md into the meaningless ornamentation of the Certosa of Pavia 
 and the Cathedral of Como (a style sometimes ignorantly called 
 Italian Gothic), and at Venice into the insipid confusion of the 
 Porta della Carta and wild crockets of St. Mark's. This corrup- 
 tion of all architecture, especially ecclesiastical, corresponded with, 
 and marked the state of religion over all Europe, — the peculiar 
 degradation of the liomanist superstition, and of public morality 
 in consequence, which brought about the Reformation. 
 
THE QUARRY. 23 
 
 § XXXVI. Against the corrupted papacy arose two great 
 divisions of adversaries, Protestants in Germany and England, 
 Rationalists in France and Italy ; the one requiring the purifica- 
 tion of religion, the other its destruction. The Protestant kept 
 the religion, but cast aside the heresies of Rome, and with them 
 her arts, by which last rejection he injured his own character, 
 cramped his intellect in refusing to it one of its noblest exercises, 
 and materially diminished his influence. It may be a serious 
 question how far the Pausing of the Reformation has been a 
 consequence of this error. 
 
 The Rationalist kept the arts and cast aside the religion 
 This rationalistic art is the art commonly called Renaissance, 
 marked by a return to pagan systems, not to adopt them and 
 hallow them for Christianity, but to rank itself under them as an 
 imitator and pupil. In Painting it is headed by Giulio Romano 
 and Nicolo Poussin ; in Architecture, by Sansovino and Palladio. 
 
 § XXXVII. Instant degradation followed in every direction, 
 — a flood of folly and hypocrisy. Mythologies ill understood at 
 first, then perverted into feeble sensualities, take the place of the 
 representations of Christian subjects, which had become blas- 
 phemous under the treatment of men like the Caracci. Gods 
 without power, satyrs without rusticity, nymphs without inno- 
 cence, men without humanity, gather into idiot groups upon the 
 polluted canvass, and scenic affectations encumber the streets 
 with preposterous marble. Lower and lower declines the level of 
 abused intellect ; the base school of landscape * gradually usurps 
 the place of the historical painting, which had sunk into prurient 
 pedantry, — the Alsatian sublimities of Salvator, the confectionary 
 idealities of Claude, the dull manufacture of Gaspar and Cana- 
 letto, south of the Alps, and on the north the patient devotion 
 of besotted lives to delineation of bricks and fogs, fat cattle and 
 ditchwater. And thus, Christianity and morality, com^age, and 
 intellect, and art all crumbling together into one wreck, we are 
 hurried on to the fall of Italy, the revolution in France, an 1 the 
 
 * Appendix 11. : "Renaissance Landscape." 
 c 4 
 
24 THE QUARRY. 
 
 condition of art in England (saved by her Protestantism from 
 severer penalty) in the time of George II. 
 
 § xxxvin. I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done 
 anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance 
 landscape painting. But the harm which has been done by Claude 
 and the Poussins is as nothing when compared to the mischief 
 effected bj' Palladio, Scamozzi, and Sansovino. Claude and the 
 Poussins were weak men, and have had no serious influence on 
 the general mind. There is little harm in their works being 
 purchased at high prices : their real influence is very slight, and 
 they may be left without grave indignation to their poor mission 
 of furnishing drawing-rooms and assisting stranded conversation. 
 Not so the Renaissance architecture. Raised at once into all the 
 magnificence of which it was capable by Michael Angelo, then 
 taken up by men of real intellect and imagination, such as 
 Scamozzi, Sansovino, Inigo Jones, and Wren, it is impossible to 
 estimate the extent of its influence on the European mind ; and 
 that the more, because few persons are concerned with painting, 
 and, of those few, the larger number regard it with slight atten- 
 tion ; but all men are concerned with architecture, and have at 
 some time of their lives serious business with it. It does not much 
 matter that an individual loses two or three hundred pounds in buy- 
 ing a bad picture, but it is to be regretted that a nation should lose 
 two or three hundred thousand in raising a ridiculous building. 
 ]S"or is it merely wasted wealth or distempered conception w r hich 
 we have to regret in this Renaissance architecture : but we shall 
 find in it partly the root, partly the expression, of certain domi- 
 nant evils of modern times — over-sophistication and ignorant 
 classicalism ; the one destroying the healthfulness of general 
 society, the other rendering our schools and universities useless 
 to a large number of the men who pass through them. 
 
 Now Venice, as she was once the most religious, was in her 
 tall the most corrupt, of European states ; and as she was in her 
 strength the centre of the pure currents of Christian archi- 
 tecture, so she is in her decline the source of the Renaissance. 
 It was the originality and splendour of the palaces of Yieenza and 
 
THE QUARRY. 25 
 
 Venice which gave this school its eminence in the eyes of Europe; 
 and the dying city, magnificent in her dissipation, and graceful 
 in her follies, obtained wider worship in her decrepitude than in 
 her youth, and sank from the midst of her admirers into the 
 grave. 
 
 § XXXIX. It is in Venice, therefore, and in Venice only, that 
 effectual blows can be struck at this pestilent art of the Renais- 
 sance. Destroy its claims to admiration there, and it can assert 
 them nowhere else. This, therefore, will be the final purpose of the 
 following essay. I shall not devote a fourth section to Palladio, 
 nor weary the reader with successive chapters of vituperation ; 
 but I shall, in my account of the earlier architecture, compare 
 the forms of all its leading features with those into which they 
 were corrupted by the Classicalists ; and pause, in the close, on 
 the edge of the precipice of decline, so soon as I have made its 
 depth discernible. In doing this I shall depend upon two dis- 
 tinct kinds of evidence: — the first, the testimony borne by par- 
 ticular incidents and facts to a want of thought or of feeling in 
 the builders ; from which we may conclude that their archi- 
 tecture must be bad: — the second, the sense, which I doubt not 
 I shall be able to excite in the reader, of a systematic ugliness in 
 the architecture itself. Of the first kind of testimony I shall 
 here give two instances, which may be immediately useful in 
 fixing in the reader's mind the epoch above indicated for the 
 commencement of decline. 
 
 § XL. I must again refer to the importance which I have above 
 attached to the death of Carlo Zeno and the doge Tomaso 
 Mocenigo. The tomb of that doge is, as I said, wrought by a 
 Florentine ; but it is of the same general type and feeling as 
 all the Venetian tombs of the period, and it is one of the last 
 which retains it. The classical element enters largely into its 
 details, but the feeling of the whole is as yet unaffected. Like 
 all the lovely tombs of Venice and Verona, it is a sarcophagus 
 with a recumbent figure above, and this figure is a faithful but 
 tender portrait, wrought as far as it can be without painfulness, 
 of the doge as he lay in death. He wears his ducal robe and 
 
26 THE QUARRY. 
 
 bonnet — his head is laid slightly aside upon his pillow — his 
 hands are simply crossed as they fall. The face is emaciated, the 
 features large, but so pure and lordly in their natural chiselling, 
 that they must have looked like marble even in their animation. 
 They are deeply worn away by thought and death ; the veins on 
 the temples branched and starting; the skin gathered in sharp 
 folds ; the brow high-arched and shaggy; the eye-ball magnificently 
 large ; the curve of the lips just veiled by the light moustache at 
 the side ; the beard short, double, and sharp-pointed : all noble 
 and quiet ; the white sepulchral dust marking like light the stern 
 angles of the cheek and brow. 
 
 This tomb was sculptured in 1424, and is thus described by 
 one of the most intelligent of the recent writers who represent 
 the popular feeling respecting Venetian art. 
 
 " Of the Italian school is also the rich but ugly (ricco ma non bel) sar- 
 cophagus in which repose the ashes of Tomaso Mocenigo. It may be called 
 one of the last links which connect the declining art of the Middle Ages 
 with that of the Renaissance, which was in its rise. We will not stay to 
 particularise the defects of each of the seven figures of the front and sides, 
 which represent the cardinal and theological virtues ; nor will we make any 
 remarks upon those which stand in the niches above the pavilion, because 
 we consider them unworthy both of the age and reputation of the Florentine 
 school, which was then with reason considered the most notable in Italy."* 
 
 It is well, indeed, not to pause over these defects ; but it might 
 have been better to have paused a moment beside that noble image 
 of a king's mortality. 
 
 § xli. In the choir of the same church, St. Giov. and Paolo, is 
 another tomb, that of the Doge Andrea Vendramin. This doge 
 died in 1478, after a short reign of two years, the most disastrous 
 in the annals of Venice. He died of a pestilence which followed 
 the ravage of the Turks, carried to the shores of the lagoons. 
 He died, leaving Venice disgraced by sea and land, with the 
 smoke of hostile devastation rising in the blue distances of 
 Friuli ; and there was raised to him the most costly tomb ever 
 bestowed on her monarchs. 
 
 § XLII. If the writer above quoted was cold beside the statue of 
 
 * Selvatico, " Architettura di Venezia," p. 1 17. 
 
THE QUARRY. 27 
 
 one of the fathers of his country, he atones for it by his eloquence 
 beside the tomb of the Vendramin. I must not spoil the force of 
 Italian superlative by translation. 
 
 " Quando si guarda a quella corretta eleganza di profili e di proporzioni, 
 a quella squisitezza d' ornamenti, a quel certo sapoi'e antico che senza ombra 
 d ! imitazione traspare da tutta 1' opera — &c. Sopra ornatissimo zoccolo 
 fornito di squisiti intagli s' alza uno stylobate — &c. Sotto le colonne, il 
 predetto stilobate si inuta leggiadramente in piedistallo, poi con bella 
 novita di pensiero e di efFetto va coronato da un fregio il piu gentile che 
 veder si possa — &c. Non puossi lasciar senza un cenno F area dove sta 
 chiuso il doge ; capo lavoro di pensiero e di esecuzione." &c. 
 
 There are two pages and a half of closely printed praise, of 
 which the above specimens may suffice ; but there is not a word 
 of the statue of the dead from beginning to end. I am myself in 
 the habit of considering this rather an important part of a tomb, 
 and I was especially interested in it here, because Selvatico only 
 echoes the praise of thousands. It is unanimously declared the 
 chef d'oeuvre of Renaissance sepulchral work, and pronounced 
 by Cicognara, (also quoted by Selvatico) 
 
 " II vertice a cui 1' arti Veneziane si spinsero col ministero del scalpello," 
 — "The very culminating point to which the Venetian arts attained by 
 ministry of the chisel." 
 
 To this culminating point, therefore, covered with dust and 
 cobwebs, I attained, as I did to every tomb of importance in 
 Venice, by the ministry of such ancient ladders as were to be 
 found in the sacristan's keeping. I was struck at first by the 
 excessive awkwardness and want of feeling in the fall of the hand 
 towards the spectator, for it is thrown off the middle of the body 
 in order to show its fine cutting. Now the Mocenigo hand, severe 
 and even stiff in its articulations, has its veins finely drawn, its 
 sculptor having justly felt that the delicacy of the veining expresses 
 alike dignity and age and birth. The Vendramin hand is far 
 more laboriously cut, but its blunt and clumsy contour at once 
 makes us feel that all the care has been thrown away, and well it 
 may be, for it has been entirely bestowed in cutting gouty 
 wrinkles about the joints. Such as the hand is, I looked lor 
 
28 THE QUARRY. 
 
 its fellow. At first I thought it had been broken off, but, on 
 clearing away the dust, I saw the wretched effigy had only one 
 hand, and was a mere block on the inner side. The face, heavy 
 and disagreeable in its features, is made monstrous bv its semi- 
 sculpture. One side of the forehead is wrinkled elaborately, the 
 other left smooth ; one side only of the doge's cap is chased ; one 
 cheek only is finished, and the other blocked out and distorted 
 besides ; finally, the ermine robe, which is elaborately imitated to 
 its utmost lock of hair and of ground hair on the one side, 
 is blocked out only on the other : it having been supposed 
 throughout the work that the effigy was only to be seen from 
 below, and from one side. 
 
 § XLIII. It was indeed to be so seen by nearly every one ; and I 
 do not blame — I should, on the contrary, have praised — the 
 sculptor for regulating his treatment of it by its position ; if that 
 treatment had not involved, first, dishonesty, in giving only half 
 a face, a monstrous mask, wdien we demanded true portraiture of 
 the dead ; and, secondly, such utter coldness of feeling, as could 
 only consist with an extreme of intellectual and moral degrada- 
 tion: Who, with a heart in his breast, could have stayed his hand 
 as he drew the dim lines of the old man's countenance — unma- 
 jestic once, indeed, but at least sanctified by the solemnities of 
 ,l L ath — could have stayed his hand, as he reached the bend of the 
 grey forehead, and measured out the last veins of it at so much 
 the zecchin ? 
 
 I do not think the reader, if he has feeling, will expect that 
 much talent should be shown in the rest of his work, by the 
 sculptor of this base and senseless lie. The whole monument is 
 one wearisome aggregation of that species of ornamental flourish, 
 which, when it is done with a pen, is called penmanship, and 
 when done witli a chisel, should be called chiseimanship ; the 
 subject of it being chiefly fat-limbed boys sprawling on dolphins, 
 dolphins incapable of swimming, and dragged along the sea by 
 expanded pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 
 But now, reader, comes the very gist and point of the whole 
 matter. This lying monument to a dishonoured doge, this cul- 
 
THE QUARRY. 29 
 
 minating pride of the Renaissance art of Venice, is at least 
 veracious, if in nothing else, in its testimony to the character of 
 its sculptor. He was banished from Venice for forgery in 1487.* 
 
 § XLrv. I have more to say about this convict's work hereafter ; 
 but I pass, at present, to the second, slighter, but yet more inte- 
 resting piece of evidence, which I promised. 
 
 The ducal palace has two principal facades ; one towards the 
 sea, the other towards the Piazzetta. The seaward side, and, as 
 far as its seventh main arch inclusive, the Piazzetta side, is 
 work of the early part of the fourteenth century, some of it 
 perhaps even earlier ; while the rest of the Piazzetta side is of the 
 fifteenth. The difference in age has been gravely disputed by 
 the Venetian antiquaries, who have examined many documents 
 on the subject, and quoted some which they never examined. I 
 have myself collated most of the written documents, and one 
 document more, to which the Venetian antiquaries never thought 
 of refen'ing, — the masonry of the palace itself. 
 
 § XLV. That masonry changes at the centre of the eighth arch 
 from the sea angle on the Piazzetta side. It has been of com- 
 paratively small stones up to that point ; the fifteenth century 
 work instantly begins with larger stones, " brought from Istria, a 
 hundred miles away."f The ninth shaft from the sea in the lower 
 arcade, and the seventeenth, which is above it, in the upper 
 arcade, commence the series of fifteenth century shafts. These 
 two are somewhat thicker than the others, and carry the party- 
 wall of the Sala del Scrutinio. Now observe, reader. The face 
 of the palace, from this point to the Porta della Carta, was built at 
 the instance of that noble Doge Mocenigo beside whose tomb you 
 have been standing ; at his instance, and in the beginnina; of the 
 reign of his successor, Foscari ; that is to say, circa 1424. This 
 is not disputed ; it is only disputed that the sea facade is earlier ; 
 of which, however, the proofs are as simple as they are incontro- 
 vertible : for not only the masonry, but the sculpture, changes at 
 the ninth lower shaft, and that in the capitals of the shafts both 
 
 * Selvatico, p. 221. 
 
 t The older work is of Istrian stone also, but of different quality. 
 
30 THE QUARBT. 
 
 of the upper and lower arcade: the costumes of the figures 
 introduced in the sea facade being purely Giottesque, corre- 
 spondent with those of Giotto's work in the Arena Chapel at 
 Padua, while the costume on the other capitals is Renaissance- 
 Classic : and the lions' heads between the arches change at the 
 same point. And there are a multitude of other evidences in the 
 statues of the angles, with which I shall not at present trouble 
 the reader. 
 
 § XLYI. Now, the architect who built under Foscari, in 1124 
 (remember my date for the decline of Venice, 1418), was obliged 
 to follow the principal forms of the older palace. But he had not 
 the wit to invent new capitals in the same style ; he therefore 
 clumsily copied the old ones. The palace has seventeen main 
 arches on the sea facade, eighteen on the Piazzetta side, which 
 in all are of course carried by thirty-six pillai-s ; and these pillars 
 I shall always number from right to left, from the angle of the 
 palace at the Ponte della Paglia to that next the Porta della 
 Carta. I number them in this succession, because I thus have 
 the earliest shafts first numbered. So counted, the 1st, the 18th, 
 and the 36th, are the great supports of the angles of the palace ; 
 and the first of the fifteenth century series, being, as above 
 stated, the 9th from the sea on the Piazzetta side, is the 26th 
 of the entire series, and will always in future be so numbered, 
 so that all numbers above twenty-six indicate fifteenth century 
 work, and all below it, fourteenth century, with some exceptional 
 cases of restoration. 
 
 Then the copied capitals are : the 28th, copied from the 7th ; 
 the 29th, from the 9th ; the 30th, from the 10th; the 31st, from 
 the 8th; the 33d, from the 12th; and the 34th, from the 11th ; 
 the others being dull inventions of the 15th century, except the 
 36th, which is very nobly designed. 
 
 § XLVII. The capitals thus selected from the earlier portion of 
 the palace for imitation, together with the rest, will be accurately 
 described hereafter ; the point I have here to notice is in the 
 copy of the ninth capital, which was decorated (being, like the 
 rest, octagonal) with figures of the eight Virtues: — Faith, Hope, 
 
THE QUARRY. 31 
 
 Charity, Justice, Temperance, Prudence, Humility (the Venetian 
 antiquaries call it Humanity!), and Fortitude The Virtues of 
 the fourteenth century are somewhat hard-featured ; with vivid 
 and living expression, and plain every-day clothes of the time. 
 Charity has her lap full of apples (perhaps loaves), and is giving 
 one to a little child, who stretches his arm for it across a gap in 
 the leafage of the capital. Fortitude tears open a lion's jaws ; 
 Faith lays her hand on her breast, as she beholds the Cross ; and 
 Hope is praying, while above her a hand is seen emerging from 
 sunbeams — the hand of God (according to that of Revelations, 
 " The Lord God giveth them light ") ; and the inscription above 
 is, " Spes optima in Deo." 
 
 § XLVm. This design, then, is, rudeby and with imperfect 
 chiselling, imitated by the fifteenth century workmen : the Vir- 
 tues have lost their hard features and living expression ; they have 
 now all got Roman noses, and have had their hair curled. Their 
 actions and emblems are, however, preserved until we come to 
 Hope : she is still praying, but she is praying to the sun only ; 
 The hand of God is gone. 
 
 Is not this a curious and striking type of the spirit which had 
 then become dominant in the world, forgetting to see God's 
 hand in the light He gave ; so that in the issue, when that light 
 opened into the Reformation on the one side, and into full 
 knowledge of ancient literature on the other, the one was arrested 
 and the other perverted ? 
 
 § XLIX. Such is the nature of the accidental evidence on which 
 I shall depend for the proof of the inferiority of character in the 
 Renaissance workmen. But the proof of the inferiority of the 
 work itself is not so easy, for in this I have to appeal to judg- 
 ments which the Renaissance work has itself distorted. I felt 
 this difficulty very forcibly as I read a slight review of my 
 former work, " The Seven Lamps," in " The Architect : " the 
 writer noticed my constant praise of St. Mark's : " Mr. Ruskin 
 thinks it a very beautiful building! We," said the Architect, 
 " think it a very ugly building." I was not surprised at the 
 difference of opinion, but at the thing being considered so 
 
32 THE QtTARRT. 
 
 completely a subject of opinion. My opponents in matters of 
 painting always assume that there is such a thing as a law of 
 right, and that I do not understand it : but my architectural 
 adversaries appeal to no law, they simply set their opinion 
 against mine ; and indeed there is no law at present to which 
 either they or I can appeal. No man can speak with rational 
 decision of the merits or demerits of buildings: he may with 
 obstinacy ; he may with resolved adherence to previous pre- 
 judices ; but never as if the matter could be otherwise decided 
 than by majority of votes, or pertinacity of partizanship. I had 
 always, however, a clear conviction that there was a law in this 
 matter : that good architecture might be indisputably discerned 
 and divided from the bad ; that the opposition in their very 
 nature and essence was clearly visible ; and that we were all of 
 us just as unwise in disputing about the matter without re- 
 ference to principle, as we should be for debating about the 
 genuineness of a coin without ringing it. I felt also assured 
 that this law must be universal if it were conclusive ; that it 
 must enable us to reject all foolish and base work, and to accept 
 all noble and wise work, without reference to style or national 
 feeling ; that it must sanction the design of all truly great 
 nations and times, Gothic or Greek or Arab ; that it must cast 
 off and reprobate the design of all foolish nations and times, 
 Chinese or Mexican or modern European ; and that it must be 
 easily applicable to all possible architectural inventions of human 
 mind. I set myself, therefore, to establish such a law, in full 
 belief that men are intended, without excessive difficulty, and 
 by use of their general common sense, to know good things 
 from bad ; and that it is only because they will not be at the 
 pains required for the discernment, that the world is so widely 
 encumbered with forgeries and basenesses. I found the work 
 simpler than I had hoped; the reasonable things ranged them- 
 selves in the order I required, and the foolish things fell aside, 
 and took themselves away so soon as they were looked in the 
 face. 1 had then, with respect to Venetian architecture, the 
 choice, either to establish each division of law in a separate form, 
 
THE QUARRY. 33 
 
 as I came to the features with which it was concerned, or else to 
 ask the reader's patience, while I followed out the general inquiry 
 first, and determined with him a code of right and wrong, to 
 which we might together make retrospective appeal. I thought 
 this the best, though perhaps the dullest way; and in these first 
 following pages I have therefore endeavoured to arrange those 
 foundations of criticism, on which I shall rest in my account of 
 Venetian architecture, in a form clear and simple enough to be 
 intelligible even to those who never thought of architecture 
 before. To those who have, much of what is stated in them 
 will be well-known or self-evident ; but they must not be indig- 
 nant at a simplicity on which the whole argument depends for 
 its usefulness. From that which appears a mere truism when 
 first stated, they will find very singular consequences sometimes 
 following, — consequences altogether unexpected, and of con- 
 siderable importance ; I will not pause here to dwell on their 
 importance, nor on that of the thing itself to be clone; for I 
 believe most readers will at once admit the value of a criterion 
 of right and wrong in so practical and costly an art as architec- 
 ture, and will be apt rather to doubt the possibility of its attain- 
 ment than dispute its usefulness if attained. I invite them, 
 therefore, to a fair trial, being certain that even if I should fail 
 in my main purpose, and be unable to induce in my reader the 
 confidence of judgment I desire, I shall at least receive his thanks 
 for the suggestion of consistent reasons, which may determine 
 hesitating choice, or justify involuntary preference. And if I 
 should succeed, as I hope, in making the Stones of Venice 
 touchstones, and detecting, by the mouldering of her marble, 
 poison more subtle than ever was betrayed by the rending 
 of her crystal ; and if thus I am enabled to show the baseness of 
 the schools of architecture and nearly every other art, which have 
 for three centuries been predominant in Europe, I believe the 
 result of the inquiry may be serviceable for proof of a more vital 
 truth than any at which I have hitherto hinted. For observe : 
 I said the Protestant had despised the arts, and the Rationalist 
 corrupted them. But what has the Romanist done meanwhile ? 
 
 D 
 
34 THE QUARRY. 
 
 He boasts that it was the papacy which raised the arts ; why 
 could it not support them when it was left to its own strength ? 
 How came it to yield to the Classicalism which was based on 
 infidelity, and to oppose no barrier to innovations, which have 
 reduced the once faithfully conceived imagery of its worship to 
 stage decoration ? Shall we not rather find that Romanism, 
 instead of being a promoter of the arts, has never shown itself 
 capable of a single great conception since the separation of Protes- 
 tantism from its side.* So long as, corrupt though it might be, 
 no clear witness had been borne against it, so that it still in- 
 cluded in its ranks a vast number of faithful Christians, so long its 
 arts were noble. But the witness was borne — the error made 
 apparent ; and Rome, refusing to hear the testimony or forsake 
 the falsehood, has been struck from that instant with an intellec- 
 tual palsy, which has not only incapacitated her from any further 
 use of the arts which once were her ministers, but has made her 
 worship the shame of its own shrines, and her worshippers their 
 destroyers. Come, then, if truths such as these are worth our 
 thoughts ; come, and let us know, before we enter the streets of 
 the Sea city, whether we are indeed to submit ourselves to their 
 undistinguished enchantment, and to look upon the last changes 
 which were wrought on the lifted forms of her palaces, as we 
 should on the capricious towering of summer clouds in the sunset, 
 ere they sank into the deep of night ; or whether, rather, we shall 
 not behold in the brightness of their accumulated marble, pages 
 on which the sentence of her luxury was to be written until the 
 waves should efface it, as they fulfilled — " God has numbered thy 
 kingdom, and finished it." 
 
 * Appendix 12. : " Komanist Modern Art." 
 
35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 § I. We address ourselves, then, first to the task of determining 
 some law of right, which we may apply to the architecture of all 
 the world and of all time; and by help of which, and judgment 
 according to which, we may as easily pronounce whether a 
 building is good or noble, as, by applying a plumb-line, whether it 
 be perpendicular. 
 
 The first question will of course be, What are the possible 
 Virtues of architecture ? 
 
 In the main, we require from buildings, as from men, two kinds 
 of goodness : first, the doing their practical duty well : then that 
 they be graceful and pleasing in doing it ; which last is itself 
 another form of duty. 
 
 Then the practical duty divides itself into two branches, — 
 acting and talking: — acting, as to defend us from weather or 
 violence ; talking, as the duty of monuments or tombs, to record 
 facts and express feelings ; or of chui'ches, temples, public edifices, 
 treated as books of history, to tell such history clearly and forcibly. 
 
 We have thus, altogether, three great branches of architectural 
 virtue, and we require of any building, — 
 
 1. That it act well, and do the things it was intended to do in 
 
 the best way. 
 
 2. That it speak well, and say the tilings it was intended to 
 
 say in the best words. 
 
 3. That it look well, and please us by its presence, whatever it 
 
 has to do or say.* 
 
 § II. Now, as regards the second of these virtues, it is evident 
 
 * Appendix 13.: "Mr. Fergusson's System." 
 d 2 
 
36 II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 that we can establish no general laws. First, because it is not a 
 virtue required in all buildings ; there are some which are only 
 for covert or defence, and from which we ask no conversation. 
 Secondly, because there are countless methods of expression, 
 some conventional, some natural : each conventional mode has 
 its own alphabet, which evidently can be no subject of general 
 laws. Every natural mode is instinctively employed and in- 
 stinctively understood, wherever there is true feeling ; and this 
 instinct is above law. The choice of conventional methods 
 depends on circumstances out of calculation, and that of natural 
 methods on sensations out of control ; so that we can only say 
 that the choice is right, when we feel that the means are ef- 
 fective ; and we cannot always say that it is wrong when they 
 are not so. 
 
 A building which recorded the Bible history by means of a 
 series of sculptural pictures, would be perfectly useless to a person 
 unacquainted with the Bible beforehand ; on the other hand, the 
 text of the Old and New Testaments might be written on its 
 walls, and yet the building be a very inconvenient kind of book, 
 not so useful as if it had been adorned with intelligible and vivid 
 sculpture. So, again, the power of exciting emotion must vary 
 or vanish, as the spectator becomes thoughtless or cold ; and the 
 building may be often blamed for what is the fault of its critic, or 
 endowed with a charm which is of its spectator's creation. It is 
 not, therefore, possible to make expressional character any fair 
 criterion of excellence in buildings, until we can fully place our- 
 selves in the position of those to whom their expression was 
 originally addressed, and until we are certain that we understand 
 every symbol, and are capable of being touched by every associ- 
 ation which its builders employed as letters of their language. I 
 shall continually endeavour to put the reader into such sympa- 
 thetic temper, when I ask for his judgment of a building; and in 
 every work I may bring before him I shall point out, as far as I 
 am able, whatever is peculiar in its expression ; nay, I must even 
 depend on such peculiarities for much of my best evidence re- 
 specting the character of the builders. But I cannot legalise 
 
II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 37 
 
 the judgment for which I plead, nor insist upon it if it be refused. 
 I can neither force the reader to feel this architectural rhetoric, 
 nor compel him to confess that the rhetoric is powerful, if it have 
 produced no impression on his own mind. 
 
 § III. I leave, therefore, the expression of buildings for inci- 
 dental notice only. But their other two virtues are proper sub- 
 jects of law, — their performance of their common and necessary 
 work, and their conformity with universal and divine canons of 
 loveliness : respecting these there can be no doubt, no ambiguity. 
 I would have the reader discern them so quickly that, as he 
 passes along a street, he may, by a glance of the eye, distinguish 
 the noble from the ignoble work. He can do this, if he permit 
 free play to his natural instincts ; and all that I have to do for 
 him is to remove from those instincts the artificial restraints 
 which prevent their action, and to encourage them to an un- 
 affected and unbiassed choice between right and wrong. 
 
 § IV. We have, then, two qualities of buildings for subjects 
 of separate inquiry : their action, and aspect, and the sources of 
 virtue in both ; that is to say, Strength and Beauty, both of these 
 being less admired in themselves, than as testifying the intelligence 
 or imagination of the builder. 
 
 For we have a worthier way of looking at human than at 
 divine architecture : much of the value both of construction and 
 decoration, in the edifices of men, depends upon our being led 
 by the thing produced or adorned, to some contemplation of 
 the powers of mind concerned in its creation or adornment. 
 We are not so led by divine work, but are content to rest in 
 the contemplation of the thing created. I wish the reader to 
 note this especially; we take pleasure, or should take pleasure, 
 in architectural construction altogether as the manifestation of an 
 admirable human intelligence ; it is not the strength, not the size, 
 not the finish of the work which we are to venerate : rocks are 
 always stronger, mountains always larger, all natural objects 
 more finished ; but it is the intelligence and resolution of man 
 in overcoming physical difficulty which are to be the source of 
 our pleasure and subject of our praise. And again, in decora- 
 
 D 3 
 
38 II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 tion or beauty, it is less the actual loveliness of the thing pro- 
 duced, than the choice and invention concerned in the production, 
 which are to delight us ; the love and the thoughts of the work- 
 man more than his work : his work must always be imperfect, 
 but his thoughts and affections may be true and deep. 
 
 § v. This origin of our pleasure in architecture I must insist 
 upon at somewhat greater length, for I would fain do away with 
 some of the ungrateful coldness which we show towards the 
 <rood builders of old time. In no art is there closer connection 
 between our delight in the work, and our admiration of the 
 workman's mind, than in architecture, and yet we rarely ask for 
 a builder's name. The patron at whose cost, the monk through 
 whose dreaming, the foundation was laid, we remember occa- 
 sionally ; never the man who verily did the work. Did the 
 reader ever hear of William of Sens as having had anything to 
 do with Canterbury Cathedral? or of Pietro Basegio as in any- 
 wise connected with the Ducal palace of Venice ? There is much 
 ingratitude and injustice in this ; and therefore I desire my reader 
 to observe carefully how much of his pleasure in building is 
 derived, or should be derived, from admiration of the intellect of 
 men whose names he knows not. 
 
 § VI. The two virtues of architecture which we can justly 
 weigh, are, we said, its strength or good construction, and its beauty 
 or good decoration. Consider first, therefore, what you mean 
 when you say a building is well constructed or well built ; you do 
 not merely mean that it answers its purpose, — this is much, and 
 many modern buildings fail of this much ; but if it be verily well 
 built, it must answer this purpose in the simplest way, and witli 
 no over-expenditure of means. We require of a light-house, for 
 instance, that it shall stand firm and carry a light ; if it do not 
 this, assuredly it has been ill built ; but it may do it to the 
 end of time, and yet not be well built. It may have hundreds of 
 tons of stone in it more than were needed, and have cost thousands 
 of pounds more than it ought. To pronounce it well or ill built, 
 we must know the utmost forces it can have to resist, and the 
 best arrangements of stone for encountering them, and the 
 
II. THE VIRTUES OP ARCHITECTURE. 39 
 
 quickest ways of effecting such arrangements: then only, so far 
 as such arrangements have been chosen, and such methods used, 
 is it well built. Then the knowledge of all difficulties to be met, 
 and of all means of meeting them, and the quick and true fancy 
 or invention of the modes of applying the means to the end, are 
 what we have to admire in the builder, even as he is seen through 
 this first or inferior part of his work. Mental power, observe : 
 not muscular, nor mechanical, nor technical, nor empirical, — 
 pure, precious, majestic, massy intellect ; not to be had at vulgar 
 price, nor received without thanks, and without asking from 
 whom. 
 
 § VII. Suppose, for instance, we are present at the building of 
 a bridge : the bricklayers or masons have had their centering 
 erected for them, and that centering was put together by a 
 carpenter, who had the line of its curve traced for him by the 
 architect : the masons are dexterously handling and fitting their 
 bricks, or, by the help of machinery, carefully adjusting stones 
 which are numbered for their places. There is probably in their 
 quickness of eye and readiness of hand something admirable ; but 
 this is not what I ask the reader to admire : not the caiqientering, 
 nor the bricklaying, nor anything that he can presently see and 
 understand, but the choice of the curve, and the shaping of 
 the numbered stones, and the appointment of that number ; there 
 were many things to be known and thought upon before these 
 were decided. The man who chose the curve and numbered 
 the stones, had to know the times and tides of the river, and tin 1 
 strength of its floods, and the height and flow of them, and the 
 soil of the banks, and the endurance of it, and the weight of the 
 stones he had to build with, and the kind of traffic that day by 
 day would be carried on over his bridge, — all this specially, and 
 all the great general laws of force and weight, and their working ; 
 and in the choice of the curve and numbering of stones are 
 expressed not only his knowledge of these, but such ingenuity 
 and firmness as he had, in applying special means to overcome 
 the special difficulties about his bridge. There is no saying how 
 much wit, how much depth of thought, how much fancy, presence 
 
 D 4 
 
40 II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 of mind, courage, and fixed resolution there may have gone to 
 the placing of a single stone of it. This is what we have to 
 admire, — this grand power and heart of man in the thing ; not 
 his technical or empirical way of holding the trowel and laying 
 mortar. 
 
 § VIII. Now there is in everything properly called art this con- 
 cernment of the intellect, even in the province of the art which 
 seems merely practical. For observe : in this bridge-building I 
 suppose no reference to architectural principles ; all that I sup- 
 pose we want is to get safely over the river ; the man who has 
 taken us over is still a mere bridge-builder, — a builder, not an 
 architect : he may be a rough, artless, feelingless man, incapable 
 of doing any one truly fine thing all his days. I shall call upon 
 you to despise him presently in a sort, but not as if he were a 
 mere smoother of mortar ; perhaps a great man, infinite in 
 memory, indefatigable in labour, exhaustless in expedient, un- 
 surpassable in quickness of thought. Take good heed you 
 understand him before you despise him. 
 
 § IX. But why is he to be in anywise despised ? By no means 
 despise him, unless he happen to be without a soul*, or at least 
 to show no signs of it; which possibly he may not in merely 
 carrying you across the river. He may be merely what Mr. 
 Carlyle rightly calls a human beaver after all ; and there may be 
 nothing in all that ingenuity of his greater than a complication 
 of animal faculties, an intricate bestiality, — iiest or hive building 
 in its highest development. You need something more than 
 this, or the man is despicable ; you need that virtue of building 
 through which he may show his affections and delights ; you 
 need its beauty or decoration. 
 
 § X. Not that, in reality, one division of the man is more human 
 than another. Theologists fall into this error very fatally and 
 continually ; and a man from whom I have learned much, Lord 
 Lindsay, has hurt his noble book by it, speaking as if the spirit 
 of the man only were immortal, and were opposed to his intellect, 
 
 * Appendix 14. : " Divisions of Humanity." 
 
II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 41 
 
 and the latter to the senses ; whereas all the divisions of humanity- 
 are noble or brutal, immortal or mortal, according to the degree 
 of their sanctification : and there is no part of the man which is 
 not immortal and divine when it is once given to God, and no 
 part of him which is not mortal by the second death, and brutal 
 before the first, when it is withdrawn from God. For to what 
 shall we trust for our distinction from the beasts that perish ? 
 To our higher intellect? — yet are we not bidden to be wise as the 
 serpent, and to consider the ways of the ant ? — or to our affec- 
 tions ? nay ; these are more shared by the lower animals than our 
 intelligence. Hamlet leaps into the grave of his beloved, and 
 leaves it, — a dog had stayed. Humanity and immortality consist 
 neither in reason, nor in love ; not in the body, nor in the 
 animation of the heart of it, nor in the thoughts and stirrings of 
 the brain of it, — but in the dedication of them all to Him who 
 will raise them up at the last day. 
 
 § XI. It is not, therefore, that the signs of his affections, which 
 man leaves upon his work, are indeed more ennobling than the 
 signs of his intelligence ; but it is the balance of both whose 
 expression we need, and the signs of the government of them all 
 by Conscience; and Discretion, the daughter of Conscience. So, 
 then, the intelligent part of man being eminently, if not chiefly, 
 displayed in the structure of his work, his affectionate part is to 
 be shown in its decoration ; and, that decoration may be indeed 
 lovely, two things are needed : first, that the affections be vivid, 
 and honestly shown ; secondly, that they be fixed on the right 
 things. 
 
 § XII. You think, perhaps, I have put the requirements in 
 wrong order. Logically I have ; practically I have not : for it 
 is necessary first to teach men to speak out, and say what they 
 like, truly ; and, in the second place, to teach them which of their 
 likings are ill set, and which justly. If a man is cold in his 
 likings and dislikings, or if he will not tell you what he likes, you 
 can make nothing of him. Only get him to feel quickly and to 
 speak plainly, and you may set him right. And the fact is, that 
 the great evil of ail recent architectural effort has not been that 
 
42 II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 men liked wrong things ; but that they either cared nothing about 
 any, or pretended to like what they did not. Do you suppose 
 that any modern architect likes what he builds, or enjoys it ? 
 Not in the least. He builds it because he has been told that such 
 and such things are fine, and that he should like them. He pre- 
 tends to like them, and gives them a false relish of vanity. Do 
 you seriously imagine, reader, that any living soul in London 
 likes triglyphs?* — or gets any hearty enjoyment out of pedi- 
 ments ?f You are much mistaken. Greeks did : English people 
 never did, — never will. Do you fancy that the architect of old 
 Burlington Mews, in Regent Street, had any particular satisfaction 
 in putting the blank triangle over the archway, instead of a 
 useful garret window ? By no manner of means. He had been 
 told it was right to do so, and thought he should be admired for 
 doing it. Very few faults of architecture are mistakes of honest 
 choice : they are almost always hypocrisies. 
 
 § XIII. So, then, the first thing we have to ask of the de- 
 coration is that it should indicate strong liking, and that 
 honestly. It matters not so much what the thing is, as that the 
 builder should really love it and enjoy it, and say so plainly. 
 The architect of Bourges Cathedral liked hawthorns ; so he has 
 covered his porch with hawthorn, — it is a perfect Xiobe of May. 
 Never was such hawthorn ; you would try to gather it forthwith, 
 but for fear of being pricked. The old Lombard architects liked 
 hunting ; so they covered their work with horses and hounds, 
 and men blowing trumpets two yards long. The base Renais- 
 sance architects of Venice liked masquing and fiddling ; so they 
 covered their work with comic masks and musical instruments. 
 Even that was better than our English way of liking nothing, 
 and professing to like triglyphs. 
 
 § XIV. But the second requirement in decoration, is sign of our 
 liking the right thing. And the right thing to be liked is God's 
 
 * Triglyph. Literally, " Three Cut" The awkward upright ornament with 
 two notches in it, and a cut at each side, to be seen everywhere at the tops of 
 Doric colonnades, ancient and modern. 
 
 f Pediment. The triangular space above Greek porticos, as on the Mansion 
 House or Royal Exchange. 
 
II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 43 
 
 work, which He made for our delight and contentment in this 
 world. And all noble ornamentation is the expression of man's 
 delight in God's work. 
 
 § XV. So, then, these are the two virtues of building : first, 
 the signs of man's own good work ; secondly, the expression 
 of man's delight in better work than his own. And these are the 
 two virtues of which I desire my reader to be able quickly to 
 judge, at least in some measure ; to have a definite opinion up to 
 a certain point. Beyond a certain point he cannot form one. 
 When the science of the building is great, great science is of 
 course required to comprehend it ; and, therefore, of difficult 
 bridges, and light-houses, and harbour walls, and river dykes, 
 and railway tunnels, no judgment may be rapidly formed. But 
 of common buildings, built in common circumstances, it is very 
 possible for every man, or woman, or child, to form judgment 
 both rational and rapid. Their necessary, or even possible, fea- 
 tures are but few ; the laws of their construction are as simple 
 as they are interesting. The labour of a few hours is enough to 
 render the reader master of their main points ; and from that 
 moment he will find in himself a power of judgment which can 
 neither be escaped nor deceived, and discover subjects of interest 
 where everything before had appeared barren. For though the 
 laws are few and simple, the modes of obedience to them are 
 not so. Every building presents its own requirements and diffi- 
 culties : and every good building has peculiar appliances or con- 
 trivances to meet them. Understand the laws of structure, and 
 you will feel the special difficulty in every new building which 
 you approach; and you will know also, or feel instinctively*, 
 whether it has been wisely met or otherwise. And an enormous 
 number of buildings, and of styles of building, you will be able 
 to cast aside at once, as at variance with these constant laws of 
 structure, and therefore unnatural and monstrous. 
 
 § XVI. Then, as regards decoration, I want you only to consult 
 your own natural choice and liking. There is a right and wrong 
 in it ; but you will assuredly like the right if you suffer your 
 
 * Appendix 15.: " Instinctive Judgments." 
 
44 II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 natural instinct to lead you. Half the evil in this world comes 
 from people not knowing what they do like, not deliberately 
 setting themselves to find out what they really enjoy. All people 
 enjoy giving away money, for instance : they don't know that, — 
 they rather think they like keeping it ; and they do keep it 
 under this false impression, often to their great discomfort. 
 Every body likes to do good ; but not one in a hundred finds this 
 out. Multitudes think they like to do evil ; yet no man ever 
 really enjoyed doing evil since God made the world. 
 
 So in this lesser matter of ornament. It needs some little care 
 to try experiments upon yourself; it needs deliberate question 
 and upright answer. l>ut there is no difficulty to be overcome, 
 no abstruse reasoning to be gone into ; only a little watchfulness 
 needed, and thou<rhtfulness, and so much honestv as will enable 
 you to confess to yourself, and to all men, that you enjoy things, 
 though great authorities say you should not. 
 
 § XVII. Tins looks somewhat like pride ; but it is true humility, a 
 trust that you have been so created as to enjoy what is fitting for 
 you, and a willingness to be pleased, as it was intended you should 
 be. It is the child's spirit, which we are then most happy when we 
 most recover; only wiser than children in that we are ready to 
 think it subject of thankfulness that we can still be pleased with 
 a fair colour or a dancing light. And, above all, do not try to 
 make all these pleasures reasonable, nor to connect the delight 
 which you take in ornament with that which you take in con- 
 struction or usefulness. They have no connection ; and every 
 effort that you make to reason from one to the other will blunt 
 your sense of beauty, or confuse it with sensations altogether 
 inferior to it. You were made for enjoyment, and the world was 
 filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud 
 to be pleased by them, or too grasping to care for what you 
 cannot turn to other account than mere delight. Remember 
 that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless ; 
 peacocks and lilies for instance ; at least I suppose this quill I 
 hold in my hand writes better than a peacock's would, and the 
 peasants of Vevay, whose fields in spring time are as white with 
 
II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. 45 
 
 lilies as the Dent du Midi is with its snow, told me the hay was 
 none the better for them. 
 
 § xvni. Our task therefore divides itself into two branches, 
 and these I shall follow in succession. I shall first consider the 
 construction of buildings, dividing them into their really ne- 
 cessary members or features ; and I shall endeavour so to lead the 
 reader forward from the foundation upwards, as that he may find 
 out for himself the best way of doing everything, and having so 
 discovered it, never forget it. I shall give him stones, and bricks, 
 and straw, chisels and trowels, and the ground, and then ask him 
 to build ; only helping him, as I can, if I find him puzzled. And 
 when he has built his house or church, I shall ask him to 
 ornament it, and leave it to him to choose the ornaments as I 
 did to find out the construction : I shall use no influence with 
 him whatever, except to counteract previous prejudices, and 
 leave him, as far as may be, free. And when he has thus 
 found out how to build, and chosen his forms of decoration, I 
 shall do what I can to confirm his confidence in what he has 
 done. I shall assure him that, no one in the world could, so far, 
 have done better, and require him to condemn, as futile or 
 fallacious, whatever has no resemblance to his own performances. 
 
40 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SIX DIVISIONS OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 § I. The practical duties of buildings are twofold. 
 
 They have either (1), to hold and protect something; or (2), 
 to place or carry something. 
 
 1. Architecture of Protection. This is architecture intended 
 
 to protect men or their possessions from violence of any 
 kind, whether of men or of the elements. It will include 
 all churches, houses, and treasuries ; fortresses, fences, 
 and ramparts ; the architecture of the hut and sheep- 
 fold ; of the palace and citadel; of the dyke, breakwater, 
 and sea-wall. And the protection, when of living creatures, 
 is to be understood as including commodiousness and 
 comfort of habitation, wherever these arc possible under 
 the civen circumstances. 
 
 2. Architecture of Position. This is architecture intended to 
 
 carry men or things to some certain places, or to hold them 
 there. This will include all bridges, acmeducts, and road 
 architecture ; light-houses, which have to hold light in 
 appointed places ; chimnies to carry smoke or direct 
 currents of air ; staircases ; towers, which are to be watched 
 from or cried from, as in mosques, or to hold bells, or to 
 place men in positions of offence, as ancient moveable 
 attacking towers, and most fortress towers. 
 
 § II. Protective architectui'e has to do one or all of three things : 
 to wall a space, to roof it, and to give access to it, of persons, 
 light, and air ; and it is therefore to be considered under the 
 three divisions of walls, roofs, and apertures. 
 
III. THE SIX DIVISIONS OF ARCHITECTURE. 47 
 
 We will take, first, a short general view of the connection of 
 these members, and then examine them in detail : endeavouring 
 always to keep the simplicity of our first arrangement in view ; 
 for protective architecture has indeed no other members than 
 these, unless flooring and paving be considered architecture, which 
 it is only when the flooring is also a roof; the laying of the stones 
 or timbers for footing being paviour's or carpenter's work, rather 
 than architect's ; and, at all events, work respecting the well or ill 
 doing of which we shall hardly find much difference of opinion, 
 except in points of aesthetics. We shall therefore concern ourselves 
 only with the construction of walls, roofs, and apertures. 
 
 § ill. 1. Walls. — A wall is an even and united fence, whether 
 of wood, earth, stone, or metal. When meant for purposes of 
 mere partition or enclosure, it remains a wall proper : but it has 
 generally also to sustain a certain vertical or lateral pressure, 
 for which its strength is at first increased by some general 
 addition to its thickness ; but if the pressure becomes very great, 
 it is gathered up into piers to resist vertical pressure, and 
 supported by buttresses to resist lateral pressure. 
 
 If its functions of partition or enclosure are continued, together 
 with that of resisting vertical pressure, it remains as a wall veil 
 between the piers into which it has been partly gathered; but 
 if it is recpiired only to resist the vertical or roof pressure, it is 
 gathered up into piers altogether, loses its wall character, and 
 becomes a group or line of piers. 
 
 On the other hand, if the lateral pressure be slight, it may 
 retain its character of a wall, being supported against the pressure 
 by buttresses at intervals ; but if the lateral pressure be very 
 great, it is supported against such pressure by a continuous 
 buttress, loses its wall character, and becomes a dyke or rampart. 
 
 § IV. We shall have therefore (A) first to get a general idea 
 of a wall, and of right construction of walls ; then (B) to see how 
 this wall is gathered into piers, and to get a general idea of piers 
 and the right construction of piers; then (C) to see how a wall 
 is supported by buttresses, and to get a general idea of buttresses 
 and the right construction of buttresses. This is surely very 
 
48 
 
 III. THE SIX DIVISIONS OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 simple, and it is .ill we shall have to do with walls and their 
 divisions. 
 
 § v. 2. Roofs. — A roof is the covering of a space, narrow or 
 wide. It will be most conveniently studied by first considering 
 the forms in which it may be carried over a narrow space, and 
 then expanding these on a wide plan : only there is some difficulty 
 here in the nomenclature, for an arched roof over a narrow space 
 is called an arch ; but a flat roof over a narrow space has (I 
 believe) no name, except that which belongs properly to the 
 piece of stone or wood composing such a roof, namely, lintel. 
 But the reader will have no difficulty in understanding that he 
 is first to consider roofs on the section only, thinking how 
 best to construct a narrow bar or slice of them, of whatever 
 
 form 
 
 as, 
 
 Fi K . I. 
 
 for in- 
 y, or z, 
 
 .n> 
 
 stance, x, 
 
 over the plan or area 
 a, Fig. I. Having 
 done this, let him 
 imagine these several 
 divisions, first moved 
 along (or set side by 
 side) over a rect- 
 angle, b, Fig. I., and 
 then revolved round 
 a point (or crossed at 
 it) over a polygon, c, 
 or circle, d, and he 
 b (1 will have every form 
 
 of simple roof; the 
 arched section giving successively the vaulted roof and dome, and 
 the gabled section giving the gabled roof and spire. 
 
 As we go further into the subject, we shall only have to add 
 one or two forms to the sections here given, in order to embrace 
 all the uncombined roofs in existence ; and we shall not trouble 
 the reader with many questions respecting cross-vaulting, and 
 other modes of their combination. 
 
III. THE SIX DIVISIONS OF ARCHITECTURE. 49 
 
 § VI. Now, it also happens, from its place in buildings, that 
 the sectional roof over a narrow space will need to be considei'ed 
 before we come to the expanded roof over a broad one. For 
 when a wall has been gathered, as above explained, into piers, 
 that it may better bear vertical pressure, it is generally necessary 
 that it should be expanded again at the top into a continuous 
 wall before it carries the true roof. Arches or lintels are, there- 
 fore, thrown from pier to pier, and a level preparation for 
 carrying the real roof is made above them. After we have 
 examined the structure of piers, therefore, we shall have to see 
 how lintels or arches are thrown from pier to pier, and the whole 
 prepared for the superincumbent roof; this arrangement being 
 universal in all good architecture prepared for vertical pressures : 
 and we shall then examine the condition of the great roof itself. 
 And because the structure of the roof very often introduces 
 certain lateral pressures which have much to do with the placing 
 of buttresses, it will be well to do all this before we examine the 
 nature of buttresses, and, therefore, between parts (B) and (C) 
 of the above plan, § IV. So now we shall have to study : (A) 
 the construction of walls; (B) that of piers; (C) that of lintels 
 or arches prepared for roofing; (D) that of roofs proper; and 
 (E) that of buttresses. 
 
 § VII. 3. Apertures. — There must either be intervals between 
 the piers, of which intervals the character will be determined by 
 that of the piers themselves, or else doors or windows in the 
 walls proper. And, respecting doors or windows, we have to 
 determine three things : first, the proper shape of the entire 
 aperture ; secondly, the way in which it is to be filled with 
 valves or glass ; and, thirdly, the modes of protecting it on the 
 outside, and fitting appliances of convenience to it, as porches 
 or balconies. And this will be our division F ; and if the reader 
 wdl have the patience to go through these six heads, which 
 include every possible feature of protective architecture, and to 
 consider the simple necessities and fitnesses of each, I will 
 answer for it, he shall never confound good architecture with 
 bad any moi^e. For, as to architecture of position, a great part 
 
 E 
 
50 III. THE SIX DIVISIONS OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 of it involves necessities of construction with which the spec- 
 tator cannot become generally acquainted, and of the compliance 
 with which he is therefore never expected to judge, — as in 
 chimnies, light-houses, &c. : and the other forms of it are so 
 closely connected with those of protective architecture, that a 
 few words in Chap. XIX. respecting staircases and towers, will 
 contain all with which the reader need be troubled on the 
 subject. 
 
51 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE WALL BASE. 
 
 § I. Our first business, then, is with Wall, and to find out 
 wherein lies the true excellence of the " Wittiest Partition-" For 
 it is rather strange that, often as we speak of a " dead " wall, and 
 that with considerable disgust, we have not often, since Snout's 
 time, heard of a living one. But the common epithet of oppro- 
 brium is justly bestowed, and marks a right feeling. A wall has 
 no business to be dead. Tt ought to have members in its make, 
 and purposes in its existence, like an organised creature, and to 
 answer its ends in a living and energetic way ; and it is only 
 when we do not choose to put any strength nor organisation into 
 it, that it oft'ends us by its deadness. Every wall ought to be a 
 " sweet and lovely wall." I do not care about its having ears ; but, 
 for instruction and exhortation, I would often have it to " hold 
 up its fingers." What its necessary members and excellences 
 are, it is our present business to discover. 
 
 § II. A Avail has been defined to be an even and united fence of 
 wood, earth, stone, or metal. Metal fences, however, seldom, if 
 ever, take the form of walls, but of railings ; and, like all other 
 metal constructions, must be left out of our present investi- 
 gation ; as may be also walls composed merely of light planks 
 or laths for purposes of partition or inclosure. Substantial 
 walls, whether of wood or earth (I use the word earth as in- 
 cluding clay, baked or unbaked, and stone), have, in their perfect 
 form, three distinct members; — the Foundation, Body or Veil, 
 and Cornice. 
 
 § in. The foundation is to the wall what the paw is to an 
 animal. It is a long foot, wider than the wall, on which the wall 
 
 E 2 
 
52 IV. THE WALL BASE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 is to stand, and which keeps it from settling into the ground. 
 It is most necessary that this great element of security should be 
 visible to the eye, and therefore made a part of the structure 
 above ground. Sometimes, indeed, it becomes incorporated -with 
 the entire foundation of the building, a vast table on which walls 
 or piers are alike set : but even then, the eye, taught by the 
 reason, requires some additional preparation or foot for the wall, 
 and the building is felt to be imperfect without it. This founda- 
 tion we shall call the Base of the wall. 
 
 j IV. The body of the wall is of course the principal mass of it, 
 formed of mud or clay, of bricks or stones, of logs or hewn timber ; 
 the condition of structure being, that it is of equal thickness 
 everywhere, below and above. It may be half a foot thick, or six 
 feet thick, or fifty feet thick ; but if of equal thickness everywhere, 
 it is still a wall proper : if to its fifty feet of proper thickness 
 there be added so much as an inch of thickness in particular parts, 
 that added thickness is to be considered as some form of buttress 
 or pier, or other appliance.* 
 
 In perfect architecture, however, walls are generally kept of 
 moderate thickness, and strengthened by piers or buttresses ; and 
 the part of the wall between these, being generally intended only 
 to secure privacy, or keep out the slighter forces of weather, may 
 be properly called a Wall Veil. I shall always use this word 
 " Veil " to signify the even portion of a wall, it being more 
 expressive than the term Body. 
 
 § V. When the materials with which this veil is built are very 
 loose, or of shapes which do not fit well together, it sometimes 
 becomes necessary, or at least adds to security, to introduce 
 courses of more solid material. Thus, bricks alternate witli 
 rolled pebbles in the old walls of Verona, and hewn stones witli 
 brick in its Lombard churches. A banded structure, almo.-t a 
 stratification of the wall, is thus produced ; and the courses of 
 
 * Many walls are slightly sloped or curved towards their tops, and have but- 
 tresses added to them (that of the Queen's Bench Prison is a curious instance of the 
 vertical buttress and inclined wall) ; but in all such instances the slope of the 
 wall is properly to be considered a condition of incorporated buttress. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 IV. THE WALL BASE. 53 
 
 more solid material are sometimes decorated with carving;. Even 
 when the wall is not thus banded through its whole height, it 
 frequently becomes expedient to lay a course of stone, or at least 
 of more carefully chosen materials, at regular heights ; and such 
 belts or bands we may call String courses. These are a kind of 
 epochs in the wall's existence ; something like periods of rest and 
 reflection in human life, before entering on a new career. Or 
 else, in the building, they correspond to the divisions of its stories 
 within, express its internal structure, and mark off some portion 
 of the ends of its existence already attained. 
 
 § VI. Finally, on the top of the wall some protection from the 
 weather is necessary, or some preparation for the reception of 
 superincumbent weight, called a coping, or Cornice. I shall 
 use the word Cornice for both ; for, in fact, a coping is a roof to 
 the wall itself, and is carried by a small cornice as the roof of 
 the building by a large one. In either case, the cornice, small or 
 large, is the termination of the wall's existence, the accomplish- 
 ment of its work. When it is meant to carry some superin- 
 cumbent weight, the cornice may be considered as its hand, 
 opened to carry something above its head ; as the base was con- 
 sidered its foot : and the three parts should grow out of each other 
 and form one whole, like the root, stalk, and bell of a flower. 
 
 These three parts we shall examine in succession ; and, first, 
 the Base. 
 
 § vn. It may be sometimes in our power, and it is always 
 expedient, to prepare for the whole building some settled 
 foundation, level and firm, out of sight. But this has not 
 been done in some of the noblest buildings in existence. It 
 cannot always be done perfectly, except at enormous expense; 
 and, in reasoning upon the superstructure, we shall never suppose 
 it to be done. The mind of the spectator does not conceive it ; 
 and he estimates the merits of the edifice on the supposition of 
 its being built upon the ground. Even if there be a vast table 
 land of foundation elevated for the whole of it, accessible by steps 
 all round, as at Pisa, the surface of this table is always conceived 
 as capable of yielding somewhat to superincumbent weight, and 
 
 E 3 
 
54 
 
 IV. THE WALL BASE 
 
 CONSTRICTION. 
 
 Fig. II. 
 
 generally is so ; and we shall base all our arguments on the 
 widest possible supposition, that is to say, that the building stands 
 on a surface either of earth, or, at all events, capable of yielding 
 in some decree to its weight. 
 
 § vni. Now, let the reader simply ask himself how, on such a 
 surface, he would set about building a substantial wall, that 
 should be able to bear weight and to stand for ages. He would 
 assuredly look about for the largest stones he had at his disposal, 
 and, rudely levelling the ground, he would lay these well together 
 over a considerably larger width than he required the wall to be, 
 
 (suppose as at a, Fig. II.), in 
 order to equalise the pressure 
 of the wall over a large sur- 
 face, and form its foot. On 
 the top of these he would 
 perhaps lay a second tier of 
 large stones, b, or even a 
 third, c, making the breadth 
 somewhat less each time, so 
 as to prepare for the pressure 
 of the wall on the centre, and, 
 naturally or necessarily, using 
 somewhat smaller stones above 
 than below (since we supposed him to look about for the largest 
 first), and cutting them more neatly. His third tier, if not his 
 second, will probably appear a sufficiently secure foundation for 
 finer work ; for if the earth yield at all, it will probably yield 
 pretty equally under the great mass of masonry now knit together 
 over it. So he will prepare for the wall itself at once by sloping 
 off the next tier of stones to the right diameter, as at d. If 
 there be any joints in this tier within the wall, he may perhaps, 
 for further security, lay a binding stone across them, e, and then 
 begin the work of the wall veil itself, whether in bricks or stones. 
 § IX. I have supposed the preparation here to be for a large 
 wall, because such a preparation will give us the best general 
 type. But it is evident that the essential features of the arrange- 
 
construction. IV. THE WALL BASE. 55 
 
 ment are only two, that is to say, one tier of massy work for 
 foundation, suppose c, missing the first two ; and the receding tier 
 or real foot of the wall, d. The reader will find these members, 
 though only of brick, in most of the considerable and independent 
 walls in the suburbs of London. 
 
 § X. It is evident, however, that the general type, Fig. II., will be 
 subject to many different modifications in different circumstances. 
 Sometimes the ledges of the tiers a and b may be of greater width ; 
 and when the building is in a secure place, and of finished ma- 
 sonry, these may be sloped off also like the main foot d. In 
 Venetian buildings these lower ledges are exposed to the sea, 
 and therefore left rough hewn ; but in fine work and in important 
 positions the lower ledges may be bevelled and decorated like the 
 upper, or another added above d ; and all these parts may be in 
 different proportions, according to the disposition of the building 
 above them. But we have nothing to do with any of these varia- 
 tions at present, they being all more or less dependent upon deco- 
 rative considerations, except only one of very great importance, that 
 is to say, the widening of the lower ledge into a stone seat, which 
 may be often done in buildings of great size with most beautiful 
 effect : it looks kind and hospitable, and preserves the work above 
 from violence. In St. Mark's at Venice, which is a small and low 
 church, and needing no great foundation for the wall veils of it, 
 we find only the three members, b, c, and d. Of these the first 
 rises about a foot above the pavement of St. Mark's Place, and 
 forms an elevated dais in some of the recesses of the porches, 
 chequered red and white ; c forms a seat which follows the line of 
 the walls, while its basic character is marked by its also carrying 
 certain shafts with which we have here no concern ; d is of white 
 marble ; and all are enriched and decorated in the simplest and 
 most perfect manner possible, as we shall see in Chap. XXV. 
 And thus much may serve to fix the type of wall bases, a type 
 oftener followed in real practice than any other we shall hereafter 
 be enabled to determine : for wall bases of necessity must be 
 solidly built, and the architect is therefore driven into the 
 adoption of the right form ; or if he deviate from it, it is 
 
 E 4 
 
56 IV. THE WALL BASE, 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 generally in meeting some necessity of peculiar circumstances, 
 as in obtaining cellars and underground room, or in preparing 
 for some grand features or particular parts of the wall, or in 
 some mistaken idea of decoration, — into which errors we had 
 better not pursue him until we understand something more of 
 the rest of the building : let us therefore proceed to consider the 
 wall veil. 
 
57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WALL VEIL. 
 
 § I. The summer of the year 1849 was spent by the writer in 
 researches little bearing upon his present subject, and connected 
 chiefly with proposed illustrations of the mountain forms in the 
 works of J. M. W. Turner. But there are sometimes more valu- 
 able lessons to be learned in the school of nature than in that of 
 Vitruvius, and a fragment of building among the Alps is singu- 
 larly illustrative of the chief feature which I have at present to 
 develope as necessary to the perfection of the wall veil. 
 
 It is a fragment of some size ; a group of broken walls, one of 
 them overhanging ; crowned with a cornice, nodding some hundred 
 and fifty feet over its massy flank, three thousand above its glacier 
 base, and fourteen thousand above the sea, — a wall truly of 
 some majesty, at once the most precipitous and the strongest mass 
 in the whole chain of the Alps, the Mont Cervin. 
 
 g II. It has been falsely represented as a peak or tower. It is 
 a vast ridged promontory, connected at its western root with the 
 Dent d'Erin, and lifting itself like a rearing horse with its face to 
 the east. All the way along the flank of it, for half a day's 
 journey on the Zmutt glacier, the grim black terraces of its 
 foundations range almost without a break ; and the clouds, when 
 their day's work is done, and they are weary, lay themselves down 
 on those foundation steps, and rest till dawn, each with his leagues 
 of grey mantle stretched along the grisly ledge, and the cornice 
 of the mighty wall gleaming in the moonlight, three thousand feet 
 above. 
 
 § ill. The eastern face of the promontory is hewn down, as if by 
 the single sweep of a sword, from the crest of it to the base ; hewn 
 concave and smooth, like the hollow of a wave : on each flank of 
 it there is set a buttress, both of about equal height, their heads 
 
58 V. THE WALL VEIL. construction. 
 
 sloped out from the main wall about seven hundred feet below 
 its summit. That on the north is the most important ; it is as 
 sharp as the frontal angle of a bastion, and sloped sheer away to 
 the north-east, throwing out spur beyond spur, until it terminates 
 in a long low curve of russet precipice, at whose foot a great bay 
 of the glacier of the Col de Cervin lies as level as a lake. This 
 spur is one of the few points from which the mass of the Mont 
 Cervin is in anywise approachable. It is a continuation of the 
 masonry of the mountain itself, and affords us the means of ex- 
 amining the character of its materials. 
 
 § IV. Few architects would like to build with them. The 
 slope of the rocks to the north-west is covered two feet deep with 
 their ruins, a mass of loose and slaty shale, of a dull brick-red 
 colour, which yields beneath the foot like ashes, so that, in running 
 down, you step one yard, and slide three. The rock is indeed hard 
 beneath, but still disposed in thin courses of these cloven shales, 
 so finely laid that they look in places more like a heap of crushed 
 autumn leaves than a rock ; and the first sensation is one of 
 unmitigated surprise, as if the mountain were upheld by miracle ; 
 but surprise becomes more intelligent reverence for the great 
 builder, when we find, in the middle of the mass of these dead 
 leaves, a course of living rock, of cpiartz as white as the snow 
 that encircles it, and harder than a bed of steel. 
 
 § V. It is one only of a thousand iron bands that knit the 
 strength of the mighty mountain. Through the buttress and the 
 wall alike, the courses of its varied masonry are seen in their 
 successive order, smooth and true as if laid by line ami 
 plummet*, but of thickness and strength continually varying, 
 and with silver cornices glittering along the edge of each, laid by 
 the snowy winds and carved by the sunshine, — stainless orna- 
 ments of the eternal temple, by which " neither the hammer nor 
 the axe, nor any tool, •was heard while it was in building." 
 
 § VI. I do not, however, bring this forward as an instance of 
 any universal law of natural building ; there are solid as well as 
 coursed masses of precipice, but it is somewhat curious that the 
 
 • On the eastern side : violently contorted on the northern and western. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 V. THE WALL VEIL. 59 
 
 most noble cliff in Europe, which this eastern front of the Cervin 
 is, I believe, without dispute, should be to us an example of the 
 utmost possible stability of preeipitousness attained with materials 
 of imperfect and variable character ; and, what is more, there are 
 very few cliffs which do not display alternations between compact 
 and friable conditions of their material, marked in their contours 
 by bevelled slopes when the bricks are soft, and vertical steps when 
 they are harder. And, although we are not hence to conclude 
 that it is well to introduce courses of bad materials when we can 
 get perfect material, I believe we may conclude with great certainty 
 that it is better and easier to strengthen a wall necessarily of 
 imperfect substance, as of brick, by introducing carefully laid 
 courses of stone, than by adding to its thickness ; and the first 
 impression we receive from the unbroken aspect of a wall veil, 
 unless it be of hewn stone throughout, is that it must be both 
 thicker and weaker than it would have been, had it been properly 
 coursed. The decorative reasons for adopting the coursed arrange- 
 ment, which we shall notice hereafter, are so weighty, that they 
 would alone be almost sufficient to enforce it; and the constructive 
 ones will apply universally, except in the rare cases in which the 
 choice of perfect or imperfect material is entirely open to us, or 
 where the general system of the decoration of the building requires 
 absolute unity in its surface. 
 
 § VII. As regards the arrangement of the intermediate parts 
 themselves, it is regulated by certain conditions of bonding and 
 fitting the stones or bricks, which the reader need hardly be 
 troubled to consider, and which I wish that bricklayers themselves 
 were always honest enough to observe. But I hardly know 
 whether to note under the head of aesthetic or constructive law, 
 this important principle, that masonry is always bad which appears 
 to have arrested the attention of the architect more than absolute 
 conditions of strength require. Nothing is more contemptible in 
 any work than an appearance of the slightest desire on the part 
 of the builder to direct attention to the way its stones are put 
 together, or of any trouble taken either to show or to conceal it 
 more than was rigidly necessary : it may sometimes, on the one 
 
GO 
 
 V. THE WALL VEIL. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Fig. III. 
 
 I II I 
 
 hand, be necessary to conceal it as far as may be, by delicate 
 and close fitting, when the joints would interfere with lines of 
 sculpture or of mouldings; and it may often, on the other 
 hand, be delightful to show it, as it is delightful in places to 
 show the anatomy even of the most delicate human frame : 
 but studiously to conceal it is the error of vulgar painters, who 
 are afraid to show that their figures have bones ; and studiously 
 to display it is the error of the base pupils of Michael Angelo, who 
 turned heroes' limbs into surgeons' diagrams, — but with less 
 excuse than theirs, for there is less interest in the anatomy dis- 
 played. Exhibited masonry is in most cases the expedient of 
 architects who do not know how to fill up blank spaces, and 
 many a building, which would have been decent enough if let 
 alone, has been scrawled over with straight lines, as in Fig. III., 
 
 on exactly the same principles, and 
 with just the same amount of intel- 
 ligence as a boy's in scrawling his 
 copy-book -when he cannot write. 
 The device was thought ingenious 
 at one period of architectural his- 
 tory ; St. Paul's and Whitehall are 
 covered with it, and it is in this 
 I imagine that some of our modern 
 architects suppose the great merit of those buildings to consist. 
 There is, however, no excuse for errors in disposition of masonry, 
 for there is but one law upon the subject, and that easily com- 
 plied with, to avoid all affectation and all unnecessary expense, 
 either in showing or concealing. Every one knows a building is 
 built of separate stones ; nobody will ever object to seeing that 
 it is so, but nobody wants to count them. The divisions of a 
 church are much like the divisions of a sermon ; they are always 
 right, so long as they are necessary to edification, and always wrong 
 when they are thrust upon the attention as divisions only. There 
 may be neatness in carving when there is richness in feasting ; 
 but I have heard many a discourse, and seen many a church wall, 
 in which it was all carving and no meat. 
 
 1 I I I "J 
 
 rzr 
 
 i 
 
61 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WALL CORNICE. 
 
 § I. We have lastly to consider the close of the wall's existence, 
 or its cornice. It was above stated, that a cornice has one of two 
 offices : if the wall have nothing to carry, the cornice is its roof, 
 and defends it from the weather ; if there is weight to be carried 
 above the wall, the cornice is its hand, and is expanded to carry 
 the said weight. 
 
 There are several ways of roofing or protecting independent 
 Avails, according to the means nearest at hand : sometimes the 
 wall has a true roof all to itself; sometimes it terminates in a 
 small gabled ridge, made of bricks set slanting, as constantly in 
 the suburbs of London ; or of hewn stone, in stronger work ; or 
 in a single sloping face, inclined to the outside. We need not 
 trouble ourselves at present about these small roofings, which are 
 merely the diminutions of large ones ; but Ave must examine the 
 important and constant member of the wall structure, which 
 prepares it either for these small roofs or for weight above, and 
 is its true cornice. 
 
 § II. The reader will, perhaps, as heretofore, be kind enough to 
 think for himself, how, having carried up his wall veil as high as 
 it may be needed, he will set about protecting it from weather, or 
 preparing it for weight. Let him imagine the top of the un- 
 finished wall, as it would be seen from above, with all the joints, 
 perhaps uncemented, or imperfectly filled up with cement, open 
 to the sky ; and small broken materials filling gaps between large 
 ones, and leaving cavities ready for the rain to soak into, and 
 loosen and dissolve the cement, and split, as it froze, the whole to 
 pieces. I am much mistaken if his first impulse would not be to 
 take a great flat stone and lay it on the top ; or rather a series of 
 such, side by side, projecting well over the edge of the wall veil. 
 If, also, he proposed to lay a weight (as, for instance, the end of 
 
62 
 
 VI. THE WALL COHNICE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 a beam) on the wall, he would feel at once that the pressure of 
 this beam on, or rather among, the small stones of the wall veil, 
 might very possibly dislodge or disarrange some of them; and 
 his first impulse would be, in this case, also to lay a large flat 
 stone on the top of all to receive the beam, or 
 any other weight, and distribute it equally 
 among the small stones below, as at a, Fig. IV. 
 § ill. We must therefore have our flat stone 
 in either case ; and let b, Fig. IV., be the section 
 or side of it, as it is set across the wall. Now, 
 evidently, if by any chance this weight happen 
 to be thrown more on the edges of this stone 
 than the centre, there will be a chance of these 
 edges breaking off. Had we not better, there- 
 fore, put another stone, sloped off to the wall, 
 beneath the projecting one, as at c. But now 
 our cornice looks somewhat too heavy for the 
 wall ; and as the upper stone is evidently of 
 needless thickness, we will thin it somewhat, and 
 wc have the form d. Now observe : the lower or bevelled stone 
 here at d corresponds to d in the base (Fig. II., page 54.). That 
 was the foot of the wall ; this is its hand. And the top stone here, 
 which is a constant member of cornices, corresponds to the under 
 stone c, in Fig. II., which is a constant member of bases. The 
 reader has no idea at present of the enormous importance of these 
 members ; but as we shall have to refer to them perpetually, I 
 must ask him to compare them, and fix their relations well in his 
 mind : and, for convenience, I shall call the bevelled or sloping 
 stone, X, and the upright edged stone, Y. The reader may re- 
 member easily which is which ; for X is an intersection of two 
 slopes, and may therefore properly mean either of the two sloping 
 stones • and Y is a figure with a perpendicular line and two 
 slopes, and may therefore fitly stand for the upright stone in 
 relation to each of the sloping ones : and as we shall have to say 
 much more about cornices than about bases, let X and Y stand 
 for the stones of the cornice, and Xb and Yb for those of the 
 base, when distinction is needed. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 VI. THE WALL COKNICE. 
 
 63 
 
 § IV. Now the form at d, Fig. IV., is the great root and primal 
 type of all cornices whatsoever. In order to see what forms may- 
 be developed from it, let us take its profile a little larger — «, 
 Fig. V., with X and Y duly marked. Now this form, being the 
 
 root of all cornices, 
 may either have to 
 
 — finish the wall, and 
 so keep off rain ; or, 
 as so often stated, to 
 
 — carry weight. If the 
 former, it is evident 
 
 — that, in its present 
 
 — profile, the rain will 
 run back down the 
 slope of X ; and if the 
 latter, that the sharp 
 angle or edge of X, at 
 
 k, may be a little too weak for its work, and run a chance of 
 giving way. To avoid the evil in the first case, suppose we 
 hollow the slope of X inwards, as at b ; and to avoid it in the 
 second case, suppose we strengthen X by letting it bulge out- 
 wards, as at c. 
 
 § V. These (b and c) are the profiles of two vast families of 
 cornices, springing from the same root, which, with a third 
 arising from their combination (owing its origin to aesthetic con- 
 siderations, and inclining sometimes to the one, sometimes to the 
 other), have been employed, each on its third part of the archi- 
 tecture of the whole world throughout all ages, and must con- 
 tinue to be so employed through such time as is yet to come. 
 We do not at present speak of the third or combined group ; but 
 the relation of the two main branches to each other, and to the 
 line of origin, is given at e, Fig. V. ; where the dotted lines are 
 the representatives of the two families, and the straight line of 
 the root. The slope of. this right line, as well as the nature of the 
 curves, here drawn as segments of circles, we leave undetermined : 
 the slope, as well as the proportion of the depths of X and Y 
 to each other, vary according to the weight to be carried, the 
 
64 VI. THE WALL CORNICE. 
 
 CONSTRrcTION. 
 
 strength of the stone, the size of the cornice, and a thousand 
 other accidents ; and the nature of the curves according to 
 aesthetic laws. It is in these infinite fields that the invention of 
 the architect is permitted to expatiate, but not in the alteration 
 of primitive forms. 
 
 § VI. But to proceed. It will doubtless appear to the reader, 
 that, even allowing for some of these permissible variations in the 
 curve or slope of X, neither the form at b, nor any approximation 
 to that form, would be sufficiently undercut to keep the rain from 
 running back upon it. This is true ; but we have to consider 
 that the cornice, as the close of the wall's life, is of all its 
 features that which is best fitted for honour and ornament. It 
 has been esteemed so by almost all builders, and has been 
 lavishly decorated in modes hereafter to be considered. But 
 it is evident that, as it is high above the eye, the fittest place 
 to receive the decoration is the slope of X, which is inclined 
 towards the spectator ; and if we cut away or hollow out this 
 slope more than we have done at b, all decoration will be hid in 
 the shadow. If, therefore, the climate be fine, and rain of long 
 continuance not to be dreaded, we shall not hollow the stone X 
 further, adopting the curve at b merely as the most protective in 
 our power. But if the climate be one in which rain is frequent 
 and dangerous, as in alternations with frost, we may be com- 
 pelled to consider the cornice in a character distinctly protective, 
 and to hollow out X farther, so as to enable it thoroughly to 
 accomplish its purpose. A cornice thus treated loses its cha- 
 racter as the crown or honour of the wall, takes the office of its 
 protector, and is called a dripstone. The dripstone is natu- 
 rally the attribute of Northern buildings, and therefore especially 
 of Gothic architecture; the true cornice is the attribute of 
 Southern buildings, and therefore of Greek and Italian archi- 
 tecture: and it is one of their peculiar beauties, and eminent 
 features of superiority. 
 
 § VII. Before passing to the dripstone, however, let us examine 
 a little farther into the nature of the true cornice. AVe cannot, 
 indeed, render either of the forms b or c, Fig. V., perfectly protec- 
 tive from rain, but we can help them a little in their duty by a 
 
construction. VI. THE WALL CORNICE. 65 
 
 slight advance of their upper ledge. This, with the form b, we 
 can best manage by cutting off the sharp upper point of its curve, 
 which is evidently weak and useless ; and we shall have the form 
 /. By a slight advance of the upper stone in c, we shall have the 
 parallel form g. 
 
 These two cornices, / and g, are characteristic of early Byzan- 
 tine work, and are found on all the most lovely examples of it in 
 Venice. The type a is rarer, but occurs pure in the most 
 exquisite piece of composition in Venice — the northern portico 
 of St. Mark's ; and will be given in due time. 
 
 § VIII. Now the reader has doubtless noticed that these forms 
 of cornice result, from considerations of fitness and necessity, far 
 more neatly and decisively than the forms of the base, which we 
 left only very generally determined. The reason is, that there 
 are many ways of building foundations, and many good ways, 
 dependent upon the peculiar accidents of the ground and nature 
 of accessible materials. There is also room to spare in width, 
 and a chance of a part of the arrangement being concealed by the 
 ground, so as to modify height. But we have no room to spare 
 in width on the top of a wall, and all that we do must be 
 thoroughly visible ; and we can but have to deal with bricks or 
 stones of a certain degree of fineness, and not with mere gravel, 
 or sand, or clay, — so that as the conditions are limited, the forms 
 become determined ; and our steps will be more clear and certain 
 the farther we advance. The sources of a river are usually half 
 lost among moss and pebbles, and its first movements doubtful 
 in direction ; but, as the current gathers force, its banks are de- 
 termined, and its branches are numbered. 
 
 § IX. So far of the true cornice : we have still to determine the 
 form of the dripstone. 
 
 We go back to our primal type or root of cornice, a of Fig. V. 
 We take this at a in Fig. VI., and we are to consider it entirely as 
 a protection against rain. Now the only way in which the rain 
 can be kept from running back on the slope of X is by a bold 
 hollowing out of it upwards, b. But clearly, by thus doing, we 
 shall so weaken the projecting part of it that the least shock 
 
 F 
 
 
66 
 
 VI. THE WALL CORNICE. 
 
 CONSTRICTION. 
 
 would break it at the neck, c; we must therefore cut the whole 
 out of one stone, which will give us the form d. That the water 
 
 Fig. VI. 
 
 may not lodge on the upper ledge of this, we had better round 
 it off; and it will better protect the joint at the bottom of the 
 slope if we let the stone project over it in a roll, cutting the 
 recess deeper above. These two changes are made in e : e is the 
 type of dripstones ; the projecting part being, however, more or 
 less rounded into an approximation to the shape of a falcon's 
 beak, and often reaching it completely. But the essential part of 
 the arrangement is the up and under cutting of the curve. 
 Wherever we find this, we are sure that the climate is wet, or 
 that the builders have been bred in a wet country, and that the 
 rest of the building will be prepared for rougli weather. The up 
 cutting of the curve is sometimes all the distinction between the 
 mouldings of far-distant countries and utterly strange nations. 
 Fig. VII. represents a moulding with an outer 
 and inner curve, the latter under-cut. Take 
 the outer line, and this moulding is one con- 
 stant in Venice, in architecture traceable to 
 Arabian types, and chiefly to the early mosques 
 of Cairo. But take the inner line ; it is a drip- 
 stone at Salisbury. In that narrow interval 
 between the curves there is, when we read it 
 rightly, an expression of another and a mightier 
 curve, — the orbed sweep of the earth and sea, between the desert 
 of the Pyramids, and the green and level fields through which 
 the clear streams of Sarum wind so slowly. 
 
 And so delicate is the test, that though pure cornices are often 
 found in the North, — borrowed from classical models, — so surely 
 
 Fig. VII. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 VI. THE WALL CORNICE. 
 
 67 
 
 Fig. vii r. 
 
 as we find a true dripstone moulding in the South, the influence 
 of Northern builders has been at work ; and this will be one of 
 the principal evidences which I shall use in detecting Lombard 
 influence on Arab work ; for the true Byzantine and Arab 
 mouldings are all open to the sky and light, but the Lombards 
 brought with them from the North the fear of rain, and in all the 
 Lombardic Gothic we instantly recognize the shadowy dripstone : 
 a, Fig. VIIL, is from a noble fragment at Milan, in the Piazza dei 
 Mercanti ; b, from the Broletto of Como. Compare them with c 
 
 and d, both from Salisbury ; 
 e and / from Lisieux, Nor- 
 mandy; g and h from Wen- 
 lock Abbey, Shropshire. 
 
 § X. The reader is now 
 master of all that he need 
 know about the construc- 
 tion of the general wall 
 cornice, fitted either to be- 
 come a crown of the wall, 
 or to carry weight above. 
 If, however, the weight 
 above become considerable, it may be necessary to support the 
 cornice at intervals with brackets ; especially if it be required 
 to project far, as well as to carry weight ; as, for instance, if there 
 be a gallery on the top of the wall. This kind of bracket-cor- 
 nice, deep or shallow, forms a separate family, essentially con- 
 nected with roofs and galleries; for if there be no superincumbent 
 weight, it is evidently absurd to put brackets to a plain cornice 
 or dripstone (though this is sometimes done in carrying out a 
 style) ; so that, as soon as we see a bracket put to a cornice, it 
 implies, or should imply, that there is a roof or gallery above it. 
 Hence this family of cornices I shall consider in connection with 
 roofing, calling them "roof cornices," while what we have hitherto 
 examined are proper " wall cornices." The roof cornice and 
 parapet are therefore treated in division D. 
 
68 VI. THE WALL CORNICE. construction. 
 
 We are not, however, as yet nearly ready for our roof. We 
 have only obtained that which was to be the object of our first 
 division (A); we have got, that is to say, a general idea of a wall 
 and of the three essential parts of a wall ; and we have next, it 
 will be remembered, to get an idea of a pier and the essential 
 parts of a pier, which were to be the subjects of our second 
 division (B). 
 
69 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE PIER BASE. 
 
 § I. In § in. of Chap. III., it was stated that when a wall had to 
 sustain an addition of vertical pressure, it was first fitted to 
 sustain it by some addition to its own thickness ; but if the 
 pressure became very great, by being gathered up into Piers. 
 
 I must first make the reader understand what I mean by a 
 wall's being gathered up. Take a piece of tolerably thick drawing- 
 paper, or thin Bristol board, five or six inches square. Set it on 
 its edge on the table, and put a small octavo book on the edge or 
 top of it, and it will bend instantly. Tear it into four strips all 
 across, and roll up each strip tightly. Set these rolls on end on 
 the table, and they will carry the small octavo perfectly well. 
 Now the thickness or substance of the paper employed to carry 
 the weight is exactly the same as it was before, only it is 
 differently arranged, that is to say, " gathered up." * If therefore 
 a wall be gathered up like the Bristol board, it will bear greater 
 weight than it would if it remained a wall veil. The sticks into 
 which you gather it are called Piers. A pier is a coagulated 
 wall. 
 
 § n. Now you cannot quite treat the wall as you did the 
 Bristol board, and twist it up at once ; but let us see how you 
 can treat it. Let a, Fig. IX. be the plan of a wall which you have 
 made inconveniently and expensively thick, and which still appears 
 to be slightly too weak for what it must carry : divide it, as at b, 
 into equal spaces, a, b, a, b, &c. Cut out a thin slice of it at 
 
 * The experiment is not quite fair in this rude fashion ; for the small rolls owe 
 their increase of strength much more to their tubular form than their aggregation 
 of material ; but if the paper be cut up into small strips, and tied together firmly 
 in three or four compact bundles, it will exhibit increase of strength enough to 
 show the principle. Vide, however, Appendix 16., " Strength of Shafts." 
 
 r 3 
 
70 
 
 VII. THE PIER BASE. 
 
 . o\~[Rl i TION. 
 
 Fie. IX. 
 
 every a on each side, and put the slices you cut out on at every 
 b on each side, and you will have the plan at b, with exactly 
 
 the same quantity 
 of bricks. But 
 your wall is now 
 so much concen- 
 trated, that, if it 
 was only slightly 
 too weak before, it 
 will be stronger 
 now than it need 
 be; so you may 
 spare some of your 
 space as well as 
 your bricks by cut- 
 
 ting off the cor- 
 ners of the thicker 
 parts, as suppose 
 c, c, c, c, at c : and 
 you have now a 
 series of square piers connected by a wall veil, which, on less 
 space and with less materials, will do the work of the wall at A 
 perfectly well. 
 
 § m. I do not say how much may be cut away in the corners 
 c, c, — that is a mathematical question with which we need not 
 trouble ourselves : all that we need know is, that out of every 
 slice we take from the " 6's " and put on at the " a%" we may 
 keep a certain percentage of room and bricks, until, supposing 
 that we do not want the wall veil for its own sake, this latter is 
 thinned entirety away, like the girdle of the Lady of Avenel, 
 and finally breaks, and we have nothing but a row of square 
 piers, d. 
 
 § IV. But have we yet arrived at the form which will spare 
 most room, and use fewest materials ? No ; and to get farther 
 we must apply the general principle to our wall, which is equally 
 true in morals and mathematics, that the strength of materials, 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 VII. THE PIEH BASE. 71 
 
 or of men, or of minds, is always most available when it is applied 
 as closely as possible to a single point. 
 
 Let the point to which we wish the strength of our square piers 
 to be applied, be chosen. Then we shall of course put them 
 directly under it, and the point will be in their centre. But now 
 some of their materials are not so near or close to this point as 
 others. Those at the corners are farther off than the rest. 
 
 Now, if every particle of the pier be brought as near as 
 possible to the centre of it, the form it assumes is the circle. 
 
 The circle must be, therefore, the best possible form of plan 
 for a pier, from the beginning of time to the end of it. A circular 
 pier is called a pillar or column, and all good architecture adapted 
 to vertical support is made up of pillars, has always been so, and 
 must ever be so, as long as the laws of the universe hold. 
 
 The final condition is represented at E, in its relation to that 
 at d. It will be observed that though each circle projects a little 
 beyond the side of the square out of which it is formed, the space cut 
 off" at the angles is greater than that added at the sides ; for, having 
 our materials in a more concentrated arrangement, we can afford 
 to part with some of them in this last transformation, as in all 
 the rest. 
 
 § V. And now, what have the base and the cornice of the wall 
 been doing while we have been cutting the veil to pieces and 
 gathering it together ? 
 
 The base is also cut to pieces, gathered together, and becomes 
 the base of the column. 
 
 The cornice is cut to pieces, gathered together, and becomes 
 the capital of the column. Do not be alarmed at the new word, it 
 does not mean a new thing ; a capital is only the cornice of a 
 column, and you may, if you like, call a cornice the capital of a 
 wall. 
 
 We have now, therefore, to examine these three concentrated 
 forms of the base, veil, and cornice : first, the concentrated base, 
 still called the Base of the column ; then the concentrated veil, 
 called the Shaft of the column ; then the concentrated cornice, 
 called the Capital of the column. 
 
 F 4 
 
72 
 
 VII. THE TIER BASE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 
 
 Fig. X. 
 
 And first the Base : — 
 
 § VI. Look back to the main type, Fig. II. page 54., and apply 
 its profiles in due proportion to the feet of the pillars at E in 
 Fig. IX. above : If each step in Fig. II. were gathered accurately, 
 the projection of the entire circular base would be less in propor- 
 tion to its height than it is in Fig. II. ; but the approximation 
 to the result in Fig. X. is quite accurate enough for our purposes. 
 (I pray the reader to observe that I have not made the smallest 
 change, except this necessary expression of a reduction in 
 diameter, in Fig. II. as it is applied in Fig. X., only I have not 
 
 drawn the joints of 
 the stones, because 
 these would confuse 
 the outlines of the 
 bases ; and I have 
 not represented the 
 rounding of the 
 shafts, because it 
 does not bear at 
 present on the ar- 
 gument.) Now it would hardly be convenient, if we had to pass 
 between the pillars, to have to squeeze ourselves through one of 
 those angular gaps or breches de Roland in Fig. X. Our first 
 impulse would be to cut them open ; but we cannot do this, or 
 our piers are unsafe. We have but one other resource, to fill 
 
 them up until we have 
 a floor wide enough 
 to let us pass easily : 
 this we may perhaps 
 obtain at the first 
 ledge, we are nearly 
 sure to get it at the 
 second, and we may 
 then obtain access to 
 the raised interval, 
 either by raising the earth over the lower courses of foundation, 
 or by steps l'ound the entire building. 
 
 Fig. XI. 
 
construction. VII. THE PIER BASE. 7. 'J 
 
 Fig. XL is the arrangement of Fig. X. so treated. 
 
 § VTI. But suppose the pillars are so vast that the lowest chink 
 in Fig. X. would be quite wide enough to let us pass through it. 
 Is there then any reason for filling it up ? Yes. It will be 
 remembered that in Chap. IV. § vill. the chief reason for the 
 wide foundation of the wall was stated to be " that it miaht 
 equalise its pressure over a large surface ; " but when the found- 
 ation is cut to pieces as in Fig. X., the pressure is thrown on a 
 succession of narrowed and detached spaces of that surface. If 
 the ground is in some places more disposed to yield than in 
 others, the piers in those places will sink more than the rest, and 
 this distortion of the system will be probably of more import- 
 ance in pillars than in a wall, because the adjustment of the 
 weight above is more delicate ; we thus actually want the weight 
 of the stones between the pillars, in order that the whole founda- 
 tion may be bonded into one, and sink together if it sink at all : 
 and the more massy the pillars, the more we shall need to fill 
 the intervals of their foundations. In the best form of Greek 
 architecture, the intervals are filled up to the root of the shaft 
 and the columns have no independent base ; they stand on the 
 even floor of their foundation. 
 
 § vni. Such a structure is not only admissible, but, when the 
 column is of great thickness in proportion to its height, and the 
 sufficient firmness, either of the ground or prepared floor is 
 evident, it is the best of all, having a strange dignity in its 
 excessive simplicity. It is, or ought to be, connected in our 
 minds with the deep meaning of primeval memorial. " And 
 Jacob took the stone that he had put for hjs pillow, and set it up 
 for a pillar." I do not fancy that he put a base for it first. If 
 you try to put a base to the rock-piers of Stonehenge, you will 
 hardly find them improved ; and two of the most perfect buildings 
 in the world, the Parthenon and Ducal palace of Venice, have no 
 bases to their pillars : the latter has them, indeed, to its upper 
 arcade shafts ; and had once, it is said, a continuous raised base 
 for its lower ones : but successive elevations of St. Mark's Place 
 have covered this base, and parts of the shafts themselves, with 
 
74 VII. THE PIER BASE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 an inundation of paving stones ; and yet the building is, I doubt 
 not, as grand as ever. Finally, the two most noble pillars in 
 Venice, those brought from Acre, stand on the smooth marble 
 surface of the Piazzetta, with no independent bases whatever. 
 They are rather broken away beneath, so that you may look 
 under parts of them, and stand (not quite erect, but leaning 
 somewhat) safe by their own massy weight. Nor could any 
 bases possibly be devised that would not spoil them. 
 
 § IX. But it is otherwise if the pillar be so slender as to look 
 doubtfully balanced. It would indeed stand quite as safely 
 without an independent base as it would with one (at least, 
 unless the base be in the form of a socket). But it will not 
 appear so safe to the eye. And here, for the first time, I have 
 to expi-ess and apply a principle, which I believe the reader will at 
 once grant, — that features necessary to express security to the 
 imagination, are often as essential parts of good architecture as 
 those required for security itself. It was said that the wall base 
 was the foot or paw of the wall. Exactly in the same way, and 
 with clearer analogy, the pier base is the foot or paw of the pier. 
 Let us, then, take a hint from nature. A foot has two offices, to 
 bear up, and to hold firm. As far as it has to bear up, it is un- 
 cloven, with slight projection, — look at an elephant's (the Doric 
 base of animality) * ; but as far as it has to hold firm, it is 
 divided and clawed, with wide projections, — look at an eagle's. 
 
 § X. Now observe. In proportion to the massiness of the 
 column, we require its foot to express merely the power of 
 bearing up ; in fact, it can do without a foot, like the Squire 
 in Chevy Chase, if the ground only be hard enough. But if 
 the column be slender, and look as if it might lose its balance, 
 we require it to look as if it had hold of the ground, or the 
 ground hold of it, it does not matter which, — some expression 
 of claw, prop, or socket. Now let us go back to Fig. XL, and 
 take up one of the bases there, in the state in which we left it. 
 We may leave out the two lower steps (with which we have 
 
 * Appendix 17. : " Answer to Mr. Garbett." 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 VII. THE PIER BASE. 
 
 nothing more to do, as they have become the united floor or 
 foundation of the whole), and, for the sake of greater clearness, I 
 shall not draw the bricks in the shaft, nor the flat stone which 
 carries them, though the reader is to suppose them remaining as 
 drawn in Fig. XI. ; but I shall only draw the shaft and its two 
 essential members of base, Xb and Yb, as explained at p. 62, above : 
 and now, expressing the rounding of these members on a some- 
 what larger scale, we have the profile a, Fig. XII. ; b, the per- 
 
 Fig. xn. 
 
 spective appearance of such a base seen from above ; and c, the 
 plan of it. 
 
 § XI. Now I am quite sure the reader is not satisfied of the 
 stability of this form as it is seen at b ; nor would he ever be 
 so with the main contour of a circular base. Observe, we have 
 
7(5 VII. THE PIEK BASE. 
 
 • ..N- I 111 i II. >\. 
 
 taken some trouble to reduce the member Yb into this round form, 
 and all that we have gained by doing so, is this unsatisfactory 
 and unstable look of the base ; of which the chief reason is, that 
 a circle, unless enclosed by right lines, has never an appearance 
 of fixture, or definite place*, — we suspect it of motion, like an orb 
 of heaven ; and the second is, that the whole base, considered as 
 the foot of the shaft, has no grasp nor hold : it is a club-foot, 
 and looks too blunt for the limb, — it wants at least expansion, 
 if not division. 
 
 § XII. Suppose, then, instead of taking so much trouble with 
 the member Y b, we save time and labour, and leave it a square 
 block. Xb must, however, evidently follow the pillar, as its con- 
 dition is that it slope to the very base of the wall veil, and of 
 whatever the wall veil becomes. So the corners of Yb will project 
 beyond the circle of Xb, and we shah 1 have (Fig. XII.) the profile 
 d, the perspective appearance e, and the plan /. I am quite sure 
 the reader likes e much better than he did b. The circle is now 
 placed, and we are not afraid of its rolling away. The foot has 
 greater expansion, and we have saved labour besides, with little 
 loss of space, for the interval between the bases is just as great as 
 it was before, — we have only filled up the corners of the squares. 
 
 But is it not possible to mend the form still farther ? There is 
 surely still an appearance of separation between Xb and Yb, as if 
 the one might slip off the other. The foot is expanded enough ; 
 but it needs some expression of grasp as well. It has no toes. 
 Suppose we were to put a spur or prop to Xb at each corner, so as 
 to hold it fast in the centre of Yb. We will do this in the simplest 
 possible form. We will have the spur, or small buttress, sloping 
 straight from the corner of Yb up to the top of Xb, and, as seen 
 from above, of the shape of a triangle. Applying such spurs in 
 Fig. XII., we have the diagonal profile at g, the perspective h, 
 and the plan i. 
 
 § XIII. I am quite sure the reader likes this last base the best, 
 
 * Yet more so than any other figure enclosed by a curved line : for the circle, 
 in its relations to its own centre, is the curve of greatest stability. Compare 
 § xx. of Chap. XX. 
 
construction. VII. THE PIER BASE. 77 
 
 and feels as if it were the firmest. But lie must carefully distin- 
 guish between this feeling or imagination of the eye, and the real 
 stability of the structure. That this real stability has been 
 slightly increased by the changes between b and h, in Fig. XII., is 
 true. There is in the base h somewhat less chance of accidental 
 dislocation, and somewhat greater solidity and weight. But this 
 very slight gain of security is of no importance whatever when 
 compared with the general requirements of the structure. The 
 pillar must be perfectly secure, and more than secure, with the 
 base b, or the building will be unsafe, whatever other base you 
 put to the pillar. The changes are made, not for the sake of the 
 almost inappreciable increase of security they involve, but in order 
 to convince the eye of the real security which the base b appears 
 to compromise. This is especially the case with regard to the 
 props or spurs, which are absolutely useless in reality, but are of 
 the highest importance as an expression of safety. And this 
 will farther appear when we observe that they have been above 
 quite arbitrarily supposed to be of a triangular form. Why tri- 
 angular ? Why should not the spur be made wider and stronger, 
 so as to occupy the whole width of the angle of the square, and 
 to become a complete expansion of Xb to the edge of the square ? 
 Simply because, whatever its width, it has, in reality, no supporting 
 power whatever ; and the expression of support is greatest where 
 it assumes a form approximating to that of the spur or claw of an 
 animal. We shall, however, find hereafter, that it ought indeed 
 to be much wider than it is in Fig. XII., whei'e it is narrowed in 
 order to make its structure clearly intelligible. 
 
 § XIV. If the reader chooses to consider this spur as an aesthetic 
 feature altogether, he is at liberty to do so, and to transfer what 
 we have here said of it to the beginning of Chap. XXV. I think 
 that its true place is here, as an expression of safety, and not a 
 means of beauty ; but I will assume only, as established, the form 
 e of Fig. XII., which is absolutely, as a construction, easier, 
 stronger, and more perfect than b. A word or two now of its 
 materials. The wall base, it will be remembered, was built of 
 stones more neatly cut as they were higher in place ; and the 
 
78 VII. THE MEK BASE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 members, Y and X, of the pier base, were the highest members 
 of the wall base gathered. But, exactly in proportion to this 
 gathering or concentration in form, should, if possible, be the 
 gathering or concentration of substance. For, as the whole weight 
 of the building is now to rest upon few and limited spaces, it is of 
 the greater importance that it should be there received by solid 
 masonry. Xb and Yb are therefore, if possible, to be each of a 
 single stone ; or, when the shaft is small, both cut out of one block, 
 and especially if spurs are to be added to Xb. The reader must 
 not be angry with me for stating things so self-evident, for these 
 are all necessary steps in a chain of argument which I must not 
 break. Even this change from detached stones to a single block is 
 not without significance ; for it is part of the real service and 
 value of the member Y b to provide for the reception of the shaft 
 a surface free from joints; and the eye always conceives it as a 
 firm covering over all inequalities or fissures in the smaller masonry 
 of the floor. 
 
 § XV. I have said nothing yet of the proportion of the height 
 of Yb to its width, nor of that of Yb and Xb to each other. 
 Both depend much on the height of shaft, and are besides variable 
 within certain limits, at the architect's discretion. But the limits 
 of the height of Yb may be thus generally stated. If it look so 
 thin as that the weight of the column above might break it, it is 
 too low ; and if it is higher than its own width, it is too high. 
 The utmost admissible height is that of a cubic block ; for if it 
 ever become higher than it is wide, it becomes itself a part of a 
 pier, and not the base of one. 
 
 § xvi. I have also supposed Yb, when expanded from beneath 
 Xb, as always expanded into a square, and four spurs only to be 
 added at the angles. But Yb may be expanded into a pentagon, 
 hexagon, or polygon; and Xb then may have five, six, or many 
 spurs. In proportion, however, as the sides increase in number, 
 the spurs become shorter and less energetic in their effect, and 
 the square is in most cases the best form. 
 
 § xvn. We have hitherto conducted the argument entirely on 
 fhr supposition of the pillars being numerous, and in a range. 
 
construction. VII. THE HER BASE. 79 
 
 Suppose, however, that we require only a single pillar : as we 
 have free space round it, there is no need to fill up the first ranges 
 of its foundations ; nor need we do so in order to equalise pres- 
 sure, since the pressure to be met is its own alone. Under such 
 circumstances, it is well to exhibit the lower tiers of the foundation 
 as well as Yb and Xb. The noble bases of the two granite 
 pillars of the Piazzetta at Venice are formed by the entire series 
 of members given in Fig. X., the lower courses expanding into 
 steps, with a superb breadth of proportion to the shaft. The 
 member Xb is of course circular, having its proper decorative 
 mouldings, not here considered ; Y b is octagonal, but filled up 
 into a square by certain curious groups of figures representing 
 the trades of Venice. The three courses below are octagonal, with 
 their sides set across the angles of the innermost octagon, Yb. 
 The shafts are 15 feet in circumference, and the lowest octagons 
 of the bases 56, (7 feet each side). 
 
 § XVIII. Detached buildings, like our own Monument, are 
 not pillars, but towers built in imitation of pillars. As towers 
 they are barbarous, being dark, inconvenient, and unsafe, besides 
 lying, and pretending to be what they are not. As shafts 
 they are barbarous, because they were designed at a time when 
 the Renaissance architects had introduced and forced into accept- 
 ance, as de rigueur, a kind of columnar high-heeled shoe, — a 
 thing which they called a pedestal, and which is to a true base 
 exactly what a Greek actor's cothurnus was to a Greek gentle- 
 man's sandal. But the Greek actor knew better, I believe, than 
 to exhibit or to decorate his cork sole ; and, with shafts as with 
 heroes, it is rather better to put the sandal off than the cothurnus 
 on. There are, indeed, occasions on which a pedestal may be 
 necessary ; it may be better to raise a shaft from a sudden 
 depression of plinth to a level with others, its companions, by 
 means of a pedestal, than to introduce a higher shaft ; or it may 
 be better to place a shaft of alabaster, if otherwise too short for 
 our purpose, on a pedestal, than to use a larger shaft of coarser 
 material; but the pedestal is in each case a make-shift, not an 
 additional perfection. It may, in the like manner, be sometimes 
 
80 VII. THE PIER BASE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 convenient for men to walk on stilts, but not to keep their stilts 
 on as ornamental parts of dress. The bases of the Nelson Column, 
 the Monument, and the column of the Place Vendome, are to the 
 shafts, exactly what highly ornamented wooden legs would be to 
 human beings. 
 
 § XIX. So far of bases of detached shafts. As we do not yet 
 know in what manner shafts are likely to be grouped, we can say 
 nothing of those of grouped shafts until we know more of what 
 they are to support. 
 
 Lastly ; we have throughout our reasoning upon the base 
 supposed the pier to be circular. But circumstances may occur 
 to prevent its being reduced to this form, and it may remain 
 square or rectangular ; its base will then be simply the wall base 
 following its contour, and we have no spurs at the angles. Thus 
 much may serve respecting pier bases ; we have next to examine 
 the concentration of the Wall Veil, or the Shaft. 
 
CONSTRUCTION 
 
 81 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SHAFT. 
 
 § I. We have seen in the last Chapter how, in converting the wall 
 into the square or cylindrical shaft, we parted at every change 
 of form with some quantity of material. In proportion to the 
 quantity thus surrendered, is the necessity that what we retain 
 should be good of its kind, and well set together, since everything 
 now depends on it. 
 
 It is clear also that the best material, and the closest concen- 
 tration, is that of the natural crystalline rocks; and that, by 
 having reduced our wall into the shape of shafts, we may be 
 enabled to avail ourselves of this better material, and to exchange 
 cemented bricks for crystallised blocks of stone. Therefore, the 
 general idea of a perfect shaft is that of a single stone hewn into 
 a form more or less elongated and cylindrical. Under this form, 
 or at least under the ruder one of a long stone set upright, the 
 conception of true shafts appears first to have occurred to the 
 human mind ; for the reader must note this carefully, once for 
 all, it does not in the least follow that the order of architectural 
 features which is most reasonable in their arrangement, is most 
 probable in their invention. I have theoretically deduced shafts 
 from walls, but shafts were never so reasoned out in architectural 
 practice. The man who first propped a thatched roof with poles 
 was the discoverer of their principle ; and he who first hewed a 
 long stone into a cylinder, the perfecter of their practice. 
 
 § II. It is clearly necessary that shafts of this kind (we will 
 call them, for convenience, block shafts) should be composed of 
 stone not liable to flaws or fissures ; and, therefore, that we must 
 no longer continue our argument as if it were always possible to 
 do what is to be done in the best way ; for the style of a national 
 
 G 
 
82 VIII. THE SHAFT. cosstbuctiois. 
 
 architecture may evidently depend, in great measure, upon the 
 nature of the rocks of the country. 
 
 Our own English rocks, which supply excellent building stone 
 from their thin and easily divisible beds, are for the most part 
 entirely incapable of being worked into shafts of any size, except 
 only the granites and whinstones, whose hardness renders them 
 intractable for ordinary purposes; — and English architecture 
 therefore supplies no instances of the block shaft applied on an 
 extensive scale ; while the facility of obtaining large masses of 
 marble has in Greece and Italy been partly the cause of the 
 adoption of certain noble types of architectural form peculiar 
 to those countries, or, when occurring elsewhere, derived from 
 them. 
 
 We have not, however, in reducing our walls to shafts, calcu- 
 lated on the probabilities of our obtaining better materials than 
 those of which the walls were built ; and we shall therefore first 
 consider the form of shaft which will be best when we have the 
 best materials ; and then consider how far we can imitate, or how 
 far it will be wise to imitate, this form with any materials we can 
 obtain. 
 
 § ill. Now as I gave the reader the ground, and the stones, 
 that he might for himself find out how to build his wall, I 
 shall give him the block of marble, and the chisel, that he may 
 himself find out how to shape his column. Let him suppose the 
 elongated mass, so given him, rudely hewn to the thickness which 
 he has calculated will be proportioned to the weight it has 
 to carry. The conditions of stability will require that some 
 allowance be made in finishing it for any chance of slight 
 disturbance or subsidence of the ground below, and that, as 
 everything must depend on the uprightness of the shaft, as little 
 chance should be left as possible of its being thrown off its balance. 
 It will therefore be prudent to leave it slightly thicker at the 
 base than at the top. This excess of diameter at the base being 
 determined, the reader is to ask himself how most easily and 
 simply to smooth the column from one extremity to the other. 
 To cut it into a true straight-sided cone would be a matter of 
 
I (INSTRUCTION. 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 83 
 
 much trouble and nicety, and would incur the continual risk of 
 chipping into it too deep. Why not leave some room for a 
 chance stroke, work it slightly, very slightly, convex, and smooth 
 the curve by the eye between the two extremities ? you will save 
 much trouble and time, and the shaft will be all the stronger. 
 
 This is accordingly the natural form of a detached block shaft. 
 It is the best. No other will ever be so agreeable to the mind 
 or eye. I do not mean that it is not capable of more refined 
 execution, or of the application of some of the laws of aesthetic 
 beauty, but that it is the best recipient of execution and subject 
 of law ; better, in either case, than if you had taken more pains, 
 and cut it straight. 
 
 § IV. You will observe, however, that the convexity is to be 
 very slight, and that the shaft is not to bulge in the centre, but to 
 taper from the root in a curved line ; the peculiar character of 
 the curve you will discern better by exaggerating, in a diagram, 
 the conditions of its sculpture. 
 
 Let a, a, b, b, at A, Fig. XIII., be the rough block of the shaft, laid 
 
 on the ground; 
 F 'g- xin - and as thick as 
 
 you can by any 
 chance require 
 it to be ; you 
 will leave it of 
 this full thick- 
 ness at its base 
 at a, but at the 
 other end you 
 will mark off 
 upon it the diameter, c, d, which you intend it to have at the 
 summit ; you will then take your mallet and chisel, and working 
 from c and d you will roughly knock off the corners, shaded in 
 the figure, so as to reduce the shaft to the figure described by 
 the inside lines in a and the outside lines in b ; you then proceed 
 to smooth it, you chisel away the shaded parts in b, and leave 
 your finished shaft of the form of the inside lines <?, g,f, />. 
 
 a ■> 
 
 B 
 
 /- 
 
 minimi i ;mim i j fcmuin :v.ii B 
 
 ■g 
 h 
 
8 I VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 I 0RSTR1 i-TloN. 
 
 The result of this operation will be of course that the shaft 
 tapers faster towards the top than it does near the ground. 
 Observe this carefully ; it is a point of great future importance. 
 
 § v. So far of the shape of detached or block shafts. AVe can 
 cany the type no farther on merely structural considerations : 
 let us pass to the shaft of inferior materials. 
 
 Unfortunately, in practice, this step must be soon made. It is 
 alike difficult to obtain, transport, and raise, block shafts more 
 than ten or twelve feet long, except in remarkable positions, and 
 as pieces of singular magnificence. Large pillars are therefore 
 always composed of more than one block of stone. Such pillars 
 are either jointed like basalt columns, and composed of solid 
 pieces of stone set one above another ; or they are filled up 
 towers, built of small stones cemented into a mass, with more or 
 less of regularity : Keep this distinction carefully in mind, it is of 
 great importance ; for the jointed column, every stone com- 
 posing which, however thin, is (so to speak) a complete slice of 
 the shaft, is just as strong as the block pillar of one stone, so long 
 as no forces are brought into action upon it which would have a 
 tendency to cause horizontal dislocation. But the pillar which is 
 built as a filled-up tower is of course liable to fissure in any 
 direction, if its cement give way. 
 
 But, in either case, it is evident that all constructive reason for 
 the curved contour is at once destroyed. Far from being an 
 easy or natural procedure, the fitting of each portion of the 
 curve to its fellow, in the separate stones, would require painful 
 care and considerable masonic skill ; while, in the case of the filled- 
 up tower, the curve outwards would be even unsafe ; for its 
 greatest strength (and that the more in proportion to its careless 
 building) lies in its bark, or shell of outside stone; and this, if 
 curved outwards, would at once burst outwards if heavily loaded 
 above. 
 
 If, therefore, the curved outline be ever retained in such shafts, 
 it must be in obedience to aesthetic laws only. 
 
 § VI. But farther. Not only the curvature, but even the 
 tapering by straight lines, would be somewhat difficult of exe- 
 
construction. VIII. THE SHAFT. 85 
 
 eution in the pieced column. Where, indeed, the entire shaft is 
 composed of four or five blocks set one upon another, the diameters 
 may be easily determined at the successive joints, and the stones 
 chiselled to the same slope. But this becomes sufficiently trouble- 
 some when the joints are numerous, so that the pillar is like a 
 pile of cheeses ; or when it is to be built of small and irregular 
 stones. We should be naturally led, in the one case, to cut all 
 the cheeses to the same diameter ; in the other, to build by the 
 plumb-line ; and, in both, to give up the tapering altogether. 
 
 § VII. Farther. Since the chance, in the one case, of horizontal 
 dislocation, in the other, of irregular fissure, is much increased by 
 the composition of the shaft out of joints or small stones, a 
 larger bulk of shaft is required to carry the given weight ; and, 
 cccteris paribus, jointed and cemented shafts must be thicker in 
 proportion to the weight they carry than those which are of one 
 block. 
 
 We have here evidently natural causes of a very marked 
 division in schools of architecture : one group composed of 
 buildings whose shafts are either of a single stone or of few joints ; 
 the shafts, therefore, being gracefully tapei'ed, and reduced by 
 successive experiments to the narrowest possible diameter pro- 
 portioned to the weight they carry : and the other group em- 
 bracing those buildings whose shafts are of many joints or of 
 small stones ; shafts which are therefore not tapered, and rather 
 thick and ponderous in proportion to the weight they carry ; the 
 latter school being evidently somewhat imperfect and inelegant 
 as compared with the former. 
 
 It may perhaps appear, also, that this arrangement of the 
 materials in cylindrical shafts at all would hardly have suggested 
 itself to a people who possessed no large blocks out of which to 
 hew them ; and that the shaft built of many pieces is probably 
 derived from, and imitative of, the shaft hewn from few or from 
 one. 
 
 § vill. If, therefore, you take a good geological map of Europe, 
 and lay your finger upon the spots where volcanic influences 
 supply either travertin or marble in accessible and available 
 
86 VIII. THE SHAFT. cohstjhjcmon. 
 
 masses, you will probably mark the points where the types of the 
 first school have been originated and developed. If, in the next 
 place, you will mark the districts where broken and rugged basalt 
 or whinstone, or slaty sandstone, supply materials on easier terms 
 indeed, but fragmentary and unmanageable, you will probably 
 distinguish some of the birthplaces of the derivative and less 
 graceful school. You will, in the first case, lay your finger on 
 Ptestum, Agrigentum, and Athens ; in the second, on Durham 
 and Lindisfarne. 
 
 The shafts of the great primal school are, indeed, in their first 
 form, as massy as those of the other, and the tendency of both is 
 to continual diminution of their diameters: but in the first school 
 it is a true diminution in the thickness of the independent pier; 
 in the last, it is an apparent diminution, obtained by giving 
 it the appearance of a group of minor piers. The distinction, 
 however, with which we are concerned is not that of slenderness, 
 but of vertical or curved contour ; and we may note generally 
 that while throughout the whole range of Northern work, the 
 perpendicular shaft appears in continually clearer development, 
 throughout every group which has inherited the spirit of the 
 Greek, the shaft retains its curved or tapered form ; and the 
 occurrence of the vertical detached shaft may at all times, in 
 Lairopean architecture, be regarded as one of the most important 
 collateral evidences of Northern influence. 
 
 § IX. It is necessary to limit this observation to European 
 architecture, because the Egyptian shaft is often untapered, like 
 the Northern. It appears that the Central Southern, or Greek 
 shaft, was tapered or curved on aesthetic rather than constructive 
 principles ; and the Egyptian which precedes, and the Northern 
 which follows it, are both vertical, the one because the best 
 form had not been discovered, the other because it could not 
 be attained. Both are in a certain degree barbaric ; and both 
 possess in combination and in their ornaments a power altogether 
 different from that of the Greek shaft, and at least as impressive, 
 if not as admirable. 
 
 § x. We have hitherto spoken of shafts as if their number were 
 
construction. VIII. THE SHAFT. 87 
 
 fixed, and only their diameter variable according to the weight to 
 be borne. But this supposition is evidently gratuitous ; for the same 
 weight may be carried either by many and slender, or by few 
 and massy shafts. If the reader will look back to Fig. IX., he will 
 find the number of shafts into which the wall was reduced to be 
 dependent altogether upon the length of the spaces a, b, a, b, &c, 
 a length which was arbitrarily fixed. We are at liberty to make 
 these spaces of what length we choose, and, in so doing, to increase 
 the number and diminish the diameter of the shafts, or vice versd. 
 § XI. Supposing the materials are in each case to be of the 
 same kind, the choice is in great part at the architect's discretion, 
 only there is a limit on the one hand to the multiplication of the 
 slender shaft, in the inconvenience of the narrowed interval, and 
 on the other, to the enlargement of the massy shaft, in the loss 
 of breadth to the building.* That will be commonly the best 
 proportion which is a natural mean between the two limits ; 
 leaning to the side of grace or of grandeur according to the 
 expressional intention of the work. I say, commonly the best, 
 because, in some cases, this expressional intention may prevail 
 over all other considerations, and a column of unnecessary bulk 
 or fantastic slightness be adopted in order to strike the spectator 
 with awe or with surprise. f The architect is, however, rarely in 
 practice compelled to use one kind of material only ; and his 
 choice lies frequently between the employment of a larger number 
 of solid and perfect small shafts, or a less number of pieced and 
 cemented large ones. It is often possible to obtain from quarries 
 near at hand, blocks which might be cut into shafts eight or 
 twelve feet long and four or five feet round, when larger shafts 
 can only be obtained in distant localities ; and the question then 
 is between the perfection of smaller features and the imperfection 
 
 * In saying this, it is assumed that the interval is one which is to be traversed 
 by men ; and that a certain relation of the shafts and intervals to the size of the 
 human figure is therefore necessary. When shafts are used in the upper stories 
 of buildings, or on a scale which ignores all relation to the human figure, no such 
 relative limits exist either to slenderness or solidity. 
 
 f Vide the interesting discussion of this point in Mr. Fergusson's account of 
 the Temple of Karnak, " Principles of Beauty in Art," p. 219. 
 
 g 4 
 
88 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 & 
 
 Fig. XIV. 
 
 S-> 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 b 
 
 m 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 
 pfw 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 of larger. We shall find numberless instances in Italy in which 
 the first choice has been boldly, and I think most wisely made ; 
 and magnificent buildings have been composed of systems of 
 small but perfect shafts, multiplied and superimposed. So long 
 as the idea of the symmetry of a perfect shaft remained in the 
 builder's mind, his choice could hardly be directed otherwise, and 
 
 the adoption of the built and 
 towerdike shaft appears to 
 have been the result of a loss 
 of this sense of symmetry 
 consequent on the employment 
 of intractable materials. 
 
 § XII. But farther : we have 
 up to this point spoken of 
 shafts as always set in ranges, 
 and at equal intervals from 
 each other. But there is no 
 necessity for this ; and mate- 
 rial differences may be made 
 in their diameters if two or 
 more be grouped so as to do 
 together the work of one large 
 one, and that within, or nearly 
 within, the space which the 
 larger one would have occu- 
 pied. 
 
 § xni. Let a, b, c, Fig. 
 XIV. be three surfaces, of 
 which b and c contain equal 
 areas, and each of them double 
 that of a: then supposing 
 them all loaded to the same 
 height, b or c would receive 
 twice as much weight as A ; 
 therefore, to carry b or c 
 loaded, we should need a shaft 
 
 
 \ 
 
 c 
 
 r J 
 
 
 I 
 
 »3 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 
 _ 
 
 
 c ?>' 
 
 
 d s 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 89 
 
 of twice the strength needed to carry a. Let s be the shaft 
 required to carry a, and s 2 the shaft required to carry b or c ; 
 then s may be divided into two shafts, or s 2 into four shafts, as 
 at s 3 , all equal in area or solid contents* ; and the mass a might 
 be carried safely by two of them, and the masses b and c, each 
 by four of them. 
 
 Now if we put the single shafts each under the centre of the 
 mass they have to bear, as represented by the shaded circles at 
 a, a 2 , a 3 , the masses a and c are both of them very ill supported, 
 and even b insufficiently ; but apply the four and the two shafts 
 as at b, b 2 , b 3 , and they are supported satisfactorily. Let the 
 weight on each of the masses be doubled, and the shafts doubled 
 in area, then we shall have such arrangements as those at c, c 2 , c 3 ; 
 and if again the shafts and weight be doubled, we shall have 
 d, d 2 , d 3 . 
 
 § XIV. Now it will at once be observed that the arrangement 
 of the shafts in the series of b and c is always exactly the same 
 in their relations to each other ; only the group of b is set evenly, 
 and the group of c is set obliquely, — the one carrying a square, 
 the other a cross. 
 
 You have in these two series the primal representations of 
 shaft arrangement in the Southern and Northern schools ; while 
 the group b, of which b 2 is the double, set evenly, and c 2 the 
 double, set obliquely, is common to both. The reader will be 
 surprised to find how all the complex and varied forms of shaft 
 arrangement will range themselves into one or other of these 
 groups ; and still more surprised to find the oblique or cross set 
 system on the one hand, and the square set system on the other, 
 severally distinctive of Southern and Northern work. The dome 
 of St. Mark's, and the crossing of the nave and transepts of 
 Beauvais, are both carried by square piers ; but the piers of St. 
 Mark's are set square to the walls of the church, and those of 
 Beauvais obliquely to them : and this difference is even a more 
 
 * I have assumed that the strength of similar shafts of equal height is as the 
 squares of their diameters; which, though not actually a correct expression, is 
 sufficiently so for all our present purposes. 
 
90 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 (""NSTRl'CTMN, 
 
 essential one than that between the smooth surface of the one and 
 the reedy complication of the other. The two squares here in 
 the margin (Fig. XV.) are exactly of the same size, but their 
 
 expression is altogether different, 
 and in that difference lies one of 
 the most subtle distinctions be- 
 tween the Gothic and Greek spirit, 
 — from the shaft, which bears the 
 building, to the smallest decoration. 
 The Greek square is by preference 
 set evenly, the Gothic square obliquely ; and that so constantly, 
 that wherever we find the level or even square occurring as a 
 prevailing form, either in plan or decoration, in early northern 
 work, there we may at least suspect the presence of a southern 
 or Greek influence ; and, on the other hand, wherever the oblique 
 square is prominent in the south, we may confidently look for 
 farther evidence of the influence of the Gothic architects. The 
 rule must not of course be pressed far when, in either school, there 
 has been determined search for every possible variety of decorative 
 figures ; and accidental circumstances may reverse the usual 
 system in special cases: but the evidence drawn from this 
 character is collaterally of the highest value, and the tracing 
 it out is a pursuit of singular interest. Thus, the Pisan 
 Romanesque might in an instant be pronounced to have been 
 formed under some measure of Lombardic influence, from the 
 oblique squares set under its arches ; and in it we have the spirit 
 of northern Gothic affecting details of the southern ; — obliquity 
 of square, in magnificently shafted Romanesque. At Monza, on 
 the other hand, the levelled square is the characteristic figure of 
 the entire decoration of the facade of the Duonio, eminently giving 
 it southern character ; but the details are derived almost entirely 
 from the northern Gothic. Here then we have southern spirit 
 and northern detail. Of the cruciform outline of the load of the 
 shaft, a still more positive test of northern work, we shall have 
 more to say in the 28th Chapter; we must at present note certain 
 farther changes in the form of the grouped shaft, which open 
 
' ip>sTBUCTION. 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 91 
 
 Fig. XVI. 
 
 the way to every branch of its endless combinations, southern or 
 northern. 
 
 § XV. 1. If the group at d 3 , Fig. XIV., be taken from under its 
 loading, and have its centre filled up, it will become a quatrefoil ; 
 and it will represent, in their form of most frequent occurrence, a 
 family of shafts, whose plans are foiled figures, trefoils, quatrefoils, 
 cinquefoils, &c. ; of which a trefoiled example, from the Frari at 
 Venice, is the third in Plate II., and a quatrefoil from Salisbury 
 the eighth. It is rare, however, to find in Gothic architecture 
 shafts of this family composed of a large number of foils, be- 
 cause multifoiled shafts are seldom true grouped shafts, but are 
 rather canaliculated conditions of massy piers. The represen- 
 tatives of this family may be con- 
 sidered as the quatrefoil on the 
 Gothic side of the Alps ; and the 
 Egyptian multifoiled shaft on the 
 south, approximating to the general 
 type, b, Fig. XVI. 
 
 § XVI. Exactly opposed to this 
 great family is that of shafts which 
 have concave curves instead of con- 
 vex on each of their sides ; but 
 these are not, properly speaking, 
 grouped shafts at all, and their pro- 
 per place is among decorated piers ; 
 only they must be named here in 
 order to mark their exact oppo- 
 sition to the foiled system. In their 
 simplest form, represented by c, Fig. 
 XVI., they have no representatives 
 in good architecture, being evidently weak and meagre ; but ap- 
 proximations to them exist in late Gothic, as in the vile cathe- 
 dral of Orleans, and in modern cast-iron shafts. In their fully 
 developed form they are the Greek Doric, a, Fig. XVI., and 
 occur in caprices of the Romanesque and Italian Gothic : </, 
 Fig. XVI., is from the Duomo of Monza. 
 
92 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 I ..SM HI i TION. 
 
 § xvn. 2. Between c t and d a of Fig. XIV. there may be evi- 
 dently another condition, represented at 6, Plate II., (p. 97.), and 
 formed by the insertion of a central shaft within the four external 
 ones. This central shaft we may suppose to expand in proportion 
 to the weight it has to cany. If the external shafts expand in the 
 same proportion, the entire form remains unchanged ; but if they 
 do not expand, they may (1) be pushed out by the expanding 
 shaft, or (2) be gradually swallowed up in its expansion, as at 4, 
 Plate II. If they are pushed out, they are removed farther 
 from each other by every increase of the central shaft ; and 
 others may then be introduced in the vacant spaces ; giving, on 
 the plan, a central orb with an ever increasing host of satellites, 
 10, Plate II.; the satellites themselves often varying in size, 
 and perhaps quitting contact with the central shaft. Suppose 
 them in any of their conditions fixed, while the inner shaft 
 expands, and they will be gradually buried in it, forming more 
 complicated conditions of 4, Plate II. The combinations are 
 thus altogether infinite, even supposing the central shaft to be 
 circular only; but their infinity is multipled by many other 
 infinities when the central shaft itself becomes square or crosslet 
 on the section, or itself multifoiled (8, Plate II.) with satellite 
 shafts eddying about its recesses and angles, in every possible 
 relation of attraction. Among these endless conditions of change, 
 the choice of the architect is free, this only being generally noted : 
 that, as the whole value of such piers depends, first, upon their 
 being wisely fitted to the weight above them, and, secondly, upon 
 their all working together: and one not failing the rest, perhaps 
 to the ruin of all, lie must never multiply shafts without visible 
 cause in the disposition of members superimposed*: and in his 
 multiplied group he should, if possible, avoid a marked separation 
 between the large central shaft and its satellites; for if this exist, 
 the satellites will either appear useless altogether, or else, which 
 is worse, they will look as if they were meant to keep the central 
 
 ' How far this condition limits the system of shaft grouping we shall see 
 presently. The reader must remember, that we :it present reason respecting 
 shafts in the abstract only. 
 
< (INSTRUCTION. 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 93 
 
 shaft together by wiring or caging it in ; like iron rods set round 
 a supple cylinder, — a fatal fault in the piers of Westminster 
 Abbey, and, in a less degree, in the noble nave of the cathedral of 
 Bourges. 
 
 § xvm. While, however, we have been thus subdividing or 
 assembling our shafts, how far has it been possible to retain their 
 curved or tapered outline ? So long as they remain distinct and 
 equal, however close to each other, the independent curvature 
 may evidently be retained. But when once they come in contact, 
 it is equally evident that a column, formed of shafts touching at 
 the base and separate at the top, would appear as if in the very 
 act of splitting asunder. Hence, in all the closely arranged 
 groups, and especially those with a central shaft, the tapering is 
 sacrificed ; and with less cause for regret, because it was a pro- 
 vision against subsidence or distortion, which cannot now take 
 place with the separate members of the group. Evidently, the 
 work, if safe at all, must be executed with far greater accuracy 
 and stability when its supports are so delicately arranged, than 
 would be implied by such precaution. In grouping shafts, there- 
 fore, a true perpendicular line is, in nearly all cases, given to the 
 pier ; and the reader will anticipate that the two schools, which 
 we have already found to be distinguished, the one by its perpen- 
 dicular and pieced shafts, and the other by its curved and block 
 shafts, will be found divided also in their employment of grouped 
 shafts; — it is likely that the idea of grouping, however suggested, 
 will be fully entertained and acted upon by the one, but hesi- 
 tatingly by the other ; and that we shall find, on the one hand, 
 buildings displaying sometimes mass}- piers of small stones, some- 
 times clustered piers of rich complexity, and on the other, more 
 or less regular succession of block shafts, each treated as entirely 
 independent of those around it. 
 
 § xix. Farther, the grouping of shafts once admitted, it is 
 probable that the complexity and richness of such arrangements 
 would recommend them to the eye, and induce their frequent, even 
 their unnecessary introduction ; so that weight which might have 
 been borne by a single pillar, would be in preference supported 
 
94 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 I ONSTRtJCTION. 
 
 by four or five. And if the stone of the country, whose frag- 
 mentary character first occasioned the building and piecing of 
 the large pier, were yet in beds consistent enough to supply 
 shafts of very small diameter, the strength and simplicity of such 
 a construction might justify it, as well as its grace. The fact, 
 however, is that the charm which the multiplication of line 
 possesses for the eye has always been one of the chief ends of the 
 work in the grouped schools ; and that, so far from employing 
 the grouped piers in order to the introduction of very slender 
 block shafts, the most common form in which such piers occur is 
 that of a solid jointed shaft, each joint being separately cut into 
 the contour of the group required. 
 
 § XX. We have hitherto supposed that all grouped or clustered 
 shafts have been the result or the expression of an actual ga- 
 thering and binding together of detached shafts This is not, 
 however, always so : for some clustered shafts are little more 
 than solid piers channelled on the surface, and their form appears 
 to be merely the development of some longitudinal furrowing or 
 striation on the original single shaft. That clustering or striation, 
 whichever we choose to call it, is in this case a decorative feature, 
 and to be considered under the head of decoration. 
 
 § XXI. It must be evident to the reader at a glance, that the 
 real scrviceableness of any of these grouped arrangements must 
 depend on the relative shortness of the shafts, and that, when the 
 whole pier is so lofty that its minor members become mere reeds 
 or rods of stone, those minor members can no longer be charged 
 with any considerable Aveight. And the fact is, that in the most 
 complicated Gothic arrangements, when the pier is tall and its 
 satellites stand clear of it, no real work is given them to do, and 
 they might all be removed without endangering the building. 
 They are merely the expression of a great consistent system, and 
 are in architecture what is often found in animal anatomy, — a 
 bone, or process of a bone, useless, under the ordained circum- 
 stances of its life, to the particular animal in which it is found, 
 and slightly developed, but yet distinctly existent, and represent- 
 ing, for the sake of absolute consistency, the same bone in its ap- 
 
CONSTRUCTION'. 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 95 
 
 pointed, and generally useful, place, either in the skeletons of all 
 animals, or in the genus to which the animal itself belongs. 
 
 § XXII. Farther : as it is not easy to obtain pieces of stone 
 long enough for these supplementary shafts (especially as it is 
 always unsafe to lay a stratified stone with its beds upright) they 
 have been frequently composed of two or more short shafts set 
 upon each other, and to conceal the unsightly junction, a flat 
 stone has been interposed, carved into certain mouldings, which 
 have the appearance of a ring on the shaft. Now observe : the 
 whole pier was the gathering of the whole wall, the base gathers 
 into base, the veil into the shaft, and the string courses of the 
 veil gather into these rings ; and when this is clearly expressed, 
 and the rings do indeed correspond with the string courses of 
 the wall veil, they are perfectly admissible and even beautiful ; 
 but otherwise, and occurring, as they do in the shafts of West- 
 minster, in the middle of continuous lines, they are but sorry 
 make-shifts, and of late, since gas has been invented, have be- 
 come especially offensive from their unlucky resemblance to the 
 joints of gas-pipes, or common water-pipes. There are two leaden 
 ones, for instance, on the left hand as one enters the abbey at 
 Poet's Corner, Avith their solderings and funnels looking exactly 
 like rings and capitals, and most disrespectfully mimicking the 
 shafts of the abbey, inside. 
 
 Thus far we have traced the probable conditions of shaft 
 structure in pure theory ; I shall now lay before the reader a 
 brief statement of the facts of the thing in time past and present. 
 
 § xxiil. In the earliest and grandest shaft architecture which 
 we know, that of Egypt, we have no grouped arrangements, 
 properly so called, but either single and smooth shafts, or richly 
 reeded and furrowed shafts, which represent the extreme con- 
 ditions of a complicated group bound together to sustain a single 
 mass ; and are indeed, without doubt, nothing else than imitations 
 of bundles of reeds, or of clusters of the lotus*: but in these 
 shafts there is merely the idea of a group, not the actual func- 
 
 * The capitals being formed by the flowers, or by a representation of the bulging 
 out of the reeds at the top, under the weight of the architrave. 
 
( J6 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 tion or structui'e of a group ; they are just as much solid and 
 simple shafts as those which are smooth, and merely by the 
 method of their decoration present to the eye the image of a 
 richly complex arrangement. 
 
 § XXIV. After these we have the Greek shaft, less in scale, 
 and losing all suggestion or purpose of suggestion of complex- 
 ity, its so-called flutings being, visibly as actually, an external 
 decoration. 
 
 § xxv. The idea of the shaft remains absolutely single in 
 the Roman and Byzantine mind ; but true grouping begins in 
 Christian architecture by the placing of two or more separate 
 shafts side by side, each having its own work to do ; then three 
 or four, still with separate work ; then, by such steps as those 
 above theoretically pursued, the number of the members increases, 
 while they coagulate into a single mass ; and we have finally a 
 shaft apparently composed of thirty, forty, fifty, or more distinct 
 members ; a shaft which, in the reality of its service, is as much a 
 single shaft as the old Egyptian one ; but which differs from the 
 Egyptian in that all its members, how many soever, have each 
 individual work to do, and a separate rib of arch or roof to carry : 
 and thus the great Christian truth of distinct services of the 
 individual soul is typified in the Christian shaft ; and the old 
 Egyptian servitude of the multitudes, the servitude inseparable 
 from the children of Ham, is typified also in that ancient shaft 
 of the Egyptians, which in its gathered strength of the river 
 reeds, seems, as the sands of the desert drift over its ruin, to be 
 intended to remind us for ever of the end of the association of the 
 wicked. " Can the rush grow up without mire, or the flag grow 
 without water ? — So are the paths of all that forget God; and 
 the hypocrite's hope shall perish." 
 
 § xxvi. Let the reader then keep this distinction of the three 
 systems clearly in his mind : Egyptian system, an apparent 
 cluster supporting a simple capital and single weight ; Greek 
 and Roman system, single shaft, single weight ; Gothic system, 
 divided shafts, divided weight : at first actually and simply 
 divided, at last apparently and infinitely divided; so that the 
 
II. 
 
 Pfnnii 11 f Pii-rii . 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 97 
 
 fully formed Gothic shaft is a return to the Egyptian, but tin- 
 weight is divided in the one and undivided in the other. 
 
 § XXVH. The transition from the actual to the apparent cluster, 
 in the Gothic, is a question of the most curious interest ; I have 
 thrown together the shaft sections in Plate II. to illustrate it, and 
 exemplify what has been generally stated above.* 
 
 1. The earliest, the most frequent, perhaps the most beautiful 
 of all the groups, is also the simplest ; the two shafts arranged as 
 at b or c, (Fig. XIV.) above, bearing an oblong mass, and substi- 
 tuted for the still earlier structure a, Fig. XIV. In Plate XVII. 
 (Chap. XXVII.) are three examples of the transition: the one on 
 the left, at the top, is the earliest single-shafted arrangement, con- 
 stant in the rough Romanesque windows ; a huge hammer-shaped 
 capital being employed to sustain the thickness of the wall. 
 It was rapidly superseded by the double shaft, as on the right of 
 it ; a very early example from the cloisters of the Duomo, Verona. 
 Beneath, is a most elaborate and perfect one from St. Zeno of 
 Verona, where the group is twice complicated, two shafts being- 
 used, both with quatrefoil sections. The plain double shaft, how- 
 ever, is by far the most frequent, both in the Northern and 
 Southern Gothic, but for the most part early ; it is very frequent 
 in cloisters, and in the singular one of St. Michael's Mount, 
 Normandy, a small pseudo-arcade runs along between the pairs 
 of shafts, a miniature aisle. The group is employed on a magni- 
 ficent scale, but ill proportioned, for the main piers of the apse 
 of the cathedral of Coutances, its purpose being to conceal one 
 shaft behind the other, and make it appear to the spectator from 
 the nave as if the apse were sustained by single shafts of inor- 
 dinate slenderness. The attempt is ill-judged, and the result un- 
 satisfactory. 
 
 § XXVin. 2. When these pairs of shafts come near each other, 
 
 * I have not been at the pains to draw the complicated piers in this plate with 
 absolute exactitude to the scale of each : they are accurate enough for their 
 purpose : those of them respecting which we shall have farther question, will lie 
 given on a much larger scale. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Fig. XVII. 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 o o 
 © o 
 
 O O 
 
 Fie. XVIII. 
 
 us frequently at the turnings of angles (Fig. XVII.), the quad- 
 ruple group results, b 2, Fig. XIV., of which the 
 Lombardic sculptors were excessively fond, usually 
 tying the shafts together in their centre, in a lover's 
 knot. They thus occur in Plate V., from the Bro- - 
 letto of Como ; at the angle of St. Michele of Lucca, 
 Plate XXI. ; and in the balustrade of St. Mark's. 
 This is a group, however, which I have never 
 seen used on a large scale.* 
 
 § XXIX. 3. Such groups, consolidated by a small square in their 
 centre, form the shafts of St. Zeno, just spoken 
 of, and figured in Plate XVII. , which are among 
 the most interesting pieces of work I know in 
 Italy. I give their entire arrangement here at 
 the side, Fig. XVIII. : both shafts have the same 
 section, but one receives a half turn as it as- 
 cends, giving it an exquisite spiral contour: the 
 plan of their bases, with their plinth, is given at 
 2, Plate II. ; and note it carefully, for it is an 
 epitome of all that we observed above, respecting 
 the oblique and even square. It was asserted 
 that the oblique belonged to the north, the even 
 to the south : we have here the northern Lom- 
 bardic nation naturalised in Italy, and, behold, 
 the oblique and even quatrefoil linked together ; not confused, but 
 actually linked by a bar of stone, as seen in Plate XVIL, under 
 the capitals. 
 
 4. Next to these, observe the two groups of five shafts eacli 
 5 and 6, Plate II., one oblique, the other even. Both are from 
 upper stories ; the oblique one from the triforium of Salisbury : 
 the even one from the upper range of shafts in the facade of 
 St. Mark's at Venice.f 
 
 § xxx. Around these central types are grouped, in Plate II., 
 
 * The largest I remember support a monument in St. Zeno of Verona : they 
 are of red marble, some ten or twelve feet high. 
 
 ■j" The effect of this last is given in Plate VI. of the folio seri< 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 VIII. THE SHAFT. 99 
 
 four simple examples of the satellitic cluster, all of the Northern 
 Gothic : 4, from the Cathedral of Amiens ; 7, from that of Lyons 
 (nave pier) ; 8, the same from Salisbury ; 10, from the porch of 
 Notre Dame, Dijon, having satellites of three magnitudes ; 9 is 
 one of the piers between the doors of the same church, with shafts 
 of four magnitudes, and is an instance of the confusion of mind 
 of the Northern ai'chitects between piers proper and jamb mould- 
 ings (noticed farther in the next chapter, § XXXI.) : for this fig. 9., 
 which is an angle at the meeting of two jambs, is treated like a 
 rich independent shaft, and the figure below, 12, which is half 
 of a true shaft, is treated like a meeting of jambs. 
 
 All these four examples belonging to the oblique or Northern 
 system, the curious trefoil plan, 3, lies between the two, as the 
 double quatrefoil next it unites the two. The trefoil is from the 
 Frari, Venice, and has a richly worked capital in the Byzantine 
 manner, — an imitation, I think, of the Byzantine work by the 
 Gothic builders: 1 is to be compared with it, being one of the 
 earliest conditions of the cross shaft, from the atrium of St. Am- 
 brogio at Milan. 13 is the nave pier of St. Michele at Pavia, 
 showing the same condition more fully developed; and 11 an- 
 other nave pier from Vienne, on the Rhone, of far more distinct 
 Roman derivation, for the flat pilaster is set to the nave, and is 
 fluted like an antique one. 12 is the grandest development I 
 have ever seen of the cross shaft, with satellite shafts in the 
 nooks of it : it is half of one of the great western piers of the 
 cathedral of Bourges, measuring eight feet each side, thirty-two 
 round.* Then the one below (15) is half of a nave pier of 
 Rouen Cathedral, showing the mode in which such conditions as 
 that of Dijon (9) and that of Bourges (12) were fused together 
 into forms of inextricable complexity ; (inextricable I mean in 
 the irregularity of proportion and projection, for all of them 
 
 * The entire development of this cross system in connection with the vaulting 
 ribs, has been most clearly explained by Professor Willis (Architecture of Mid. 
 Ages, Chap. IV.) ; and I strongly recommend every reader who is inclined to 
 take pains in the matter, to read that chapter. I have been contented, in my 
 own text, to pursue the abstract idea of shaft form. 
 
 ii 2 
 
100 VIII. THE SHAFT. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 are easily resolvable into simple systems in connection with the 
 roof ribs). This pier of Rouen is a type of the last condition 
 of the good Gothic ; from this point the small shafts begin to 
 lose shape, and run into narrow fillets and ridges, projecting 
 at the same time farther and farther in weak tongue-like sections, 
 as described in the " Seven Lamps." I have only here given 
 one example of this family, an unimportant but sufficiently 
 characteristic one (16), from St. Gervais of Falaise. One side 
 of the nave of that church is Norman, the other Flamboyant, 
 and the two piers 14 and 16 stand opposite each other. It 
 would be useless to endeavour to trace farther the fantasticism 
 of the later Gothic shafts ; they become mere aggregations of 
 mouldings very sharply and finely cut, their bases at the same 
 time running together in strange complexity and their capitals 
 diminishing and disappearing. Some of their conditions, which, 
 in their rich striation, resemble crystals of beryl, are very massy 
 and grand ; others, meagre, harsh, or effeminate in themselves, 
 are redeemed by richness and boldness of decoration ; and I have 
 long had it in my mind to reason out the entire harmony of 
 this French Flamboyant system, and fix its types and possible 
 power. But this inquiry is foreign altogether to our present pur- 
 pose, and we shall therefore turn back from the Flamboyant to 
 the Norman side of the Falaise aisle, resolute for the future that 
 all shafts of which we may have the ordering, shall be permitted, 
 as with wisdom we may also permit men or cities, to gather them- 
 selves into companies, or constellate themselves into clusters, but 
 not to fuse themselves into mere masses of nebulous aggregation. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 101 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CAPITAL. 
 
 § I. The reader will remember that in Chap. VII. § v. it was 
 said that the cornice of the wall, being cut to pieces and gathered 
 together, formed the capital of the column. We have now to 
 follow it in its transformation. 
 
 We must, of course, take our simplest form or root of cornices 
 (a, in Fig. V., above). We will take X and Y there, and we 
 must necessarily gather them together as we did Xb and Yb in 
 Chap. VII. Look back to the tenth paragraph of Chap. VII., read 
 or glance it over again, substitute X and Y for Xb and Yb, 
 read capital for base, and, as we said that the capital was the 
 hand of the pillar, while the base was its foot, read also fingers 
 for toes ; and as you look to the plate, Fig. XII., turn it upside 
 down. Then h, in Fig. XII. , becomes now your best general 
 form of block capital, as before of block base. 
 
 § n. You will thus have a perfect idea of the analogies 
 between base and capital ; our farther inquiry is into their 
 differences. You cannot but have noticed that when Fig. XII. 
 is turned upside down, the square stone (Y) looks too heavy for 
 the supporting stone (X) ; and that in the profile of cornice (a 
 of Fig. V.) the proportions are altogether different. You will 
 feel the fitness of this in an instant when you consider that the 
 principal function of the sloping part in Fig. XII. is as a prop 
 to the pillar to keep it from slipping aside ; but the function of 
 the sloping stone in the cornice and capital is to carry weight 
 above. The thrust of the slope in the one case should therefore 
 be lateral, in the other upwards. 
 
 § m. We will therefore take the two figures, e and h of 
 Fig. XII., and make this change in them as we reverse them, 
 
 ■*& v 
 
 H 3 
 
102 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION 
 
 using now the exact profile of the cornice a, — the father of 
 cornices ; and we shall thus have a and b, Fig. XIX. 
 
 Fijr. XIX. 
 
 \i^ ( | 
 
 Both of these are sufficiently ugly, the reader thinks ; so do I ; 
 but we will mend them before we have done with them : that at a 
 is assuredly the ugliest, — like a tile on a flower-pot. It is, never- 
 theless, the father of capitals ; being the simplest condition of the 
 gathered father of cornices. But it is to be observed that the 
 diameter of the shaft here is arbitrarily assumed to be small, in 
 order more clearly to show the general relations of the sloping 
 stone to the shaft and upper stone ; and this smallness of the 
 shaft diameter is inconsistent with the serviceableness and beauty 
 of the arrangement at a, if it were to be realised (as we shall see 
 presently) ; but it is not inconsistent with its central character, 
 as the representative of every species of possible capital ; nor is 
 its tile and flower-pot look to be regretted, as it may remind the 
 reader of the reported origin of the Corinthian capital. The 
 stones of the cornice, hitherto called X and Y, receive, now that 
 they form the capital, each a separate name; the sloping stone 
 is called the Bell of the capital, and that laid above it, the Abacus. 
 Abacus means a board or tile : I wish there were an English 
 word for it, but I fear there is no substitution possible, the term 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 103 
 
 having been Ions; fixed, and the reader will find it convenient to 
 familiarise himself with the Latin one. 
 
 § IV. The form of base, e of Fig. XII., which corresponds to this 
 first form of capital, a, was said to be objectionable only because it 
 looked insecure ; and the spurs were added as a kind of pledge of 
 stability to the eye. But evidently the projecting corners of the 
 abacus at a, Fig. XIX., are actually insecure ; they may break off, 
 if great weight be laid upon them. This is the chief reason of the 
 ugliness of the form ; and the spurs in b are now no mere pledges 
 of apparent stability, but have very serious practical use in 
 supporting the angle of the abacus. If, even with the added 
 spur, the support seems insufficient, we may fill up the crannies 
 between the spurs and the bell, and we have the form c. 
 
 Thus a, though the germ and type of capitals, is itself (except 
 under some peculiar conditions) both ugly and insecure ; b is the 
 first type of capitals which carry light weight ; c, of capitals 
 which carry excessive weight. 
 
 § V. I fear, however, the reader may think he is going slightly 
 too fast, and may not like having the capital forced upon him 
 out of the cornice ; but would prefer inventing a capital for the 
 shaft itself, without reference to the cornice at all. We will do 
 so then ; though we shall come to the same result. 
 
 The shaft, it will be remembered, has to sustain the same 
 weight as the long piece of wall which was 
 concentrated into the shaft ; it is enabled 
 to do this both by its better form and better 
 knit materials ; and it can carry a greater 
 weight than the space at the top of it is 
 adapted to receive. The first point, there- 
 fore, is to expand this space as far as possible, 
 and that in a form more convenient than 
 the circle for the adjustment of the stones 
 above. In general the square is a more 
 convenient form than any other ; but the 
 hexagon or octagon is sometimes better 
 fitted for masses of work which divide in 
 
 Fig. xx. 
 
 [ 
 
 H 4 
 
104 IX. TIIE CAPITAL. construction. 
 
 six 01* eight directions. Then our first impulse would be to put 
 a square or hexagonal stone on the top of the shaft, projecting as 
 far beyond it as might be safely ventured; as at a, Fig. XX. 
 This is the abacus. Our next idea would be to put a conical 
 shaped stone beneath this abacus, to support its outer edge, as 
 at b. This is the bell. 
 
 § VI. Xow the entire treatment of the capital depends simply 
 on the manner in which this bell stone is prepared for fitting the 
 shaft below and the abacus above. Placed as at a, in Fig. XIX., 
 it gives us the simplest of possible forms ; with the spin's added, 
 as at 6, it gives the germ of the richest and most elaborate forms : 
 but there are two modes of treatment more dexterous than the 
 one, and less elaborate than the other, which are of the highest 
 possible importance, — modes in which the bell is brought to its 
 proper form by truncation. 
 
 § vn. Let d and /, Fig. XIX., be two bell-stones ; d is part of 
 a cone (a sugar-loaf upside down, with its point cut off) ; / part 
 of a four-sided pyramid. Then, assuming the abacus to be 
 square, d will already fit the shaft, but has to be chiselled to fit 
 the abacus ; / will already fit the abacus, but has to be chiselled 
 to fit the shaft. 
 
 From the broad end of d chop or chisel off, in four vertical 
 planes, as much as will leave its head an exact square. 
 The vertical cuttings will form curves on the sides of the cone 
 (curves of a curious kind, which the reader need not be troubled 
 to examine), and we shall have the form at e, which is the root 
 of the greater number of Norman capitals. 
 
 From / cut off the angles, beginning at the corners of the 
 square and widening the truncation downwards, so as to give the 
 form at g, where the base of the bell is an octagon, and its top 
 remains a square. A very slight rounding away of the angles of 
 the octagon at the base of g will enable it to fit the circular shaft 
 closely enough for all practical purposes, and this form, at g, is 
 the root of nearly all Lombardic capitals. 
 
 W, instead of a square, the head of the bell were hexagonal or 
 octagonal, the operation of cutting would be the same on each 
 
I ONSTBOCTION. 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 105 
 
 angle ; but there would be produced, of course, six or eight 
 curves on the sides of e, and twelve or sixteen sides to the base 
 ofg. 
 
 § vm. The truncations in e and g may of course be executed 
 on concave or convex forms of d and /; but e is usually worked 
 on a straight-sided bell, and the truncation of 
 g often becomes concave while the bell remains 
 straight ; for this simple reason, — that the sharp 
 points at the angles of g, being somewhat diffi- 
 cult to cut, and easily broken off, are usually 
 avoided by beginning the truncation a little way 
 down the side of the bell, and then recovering 
 the lost ground by a deeper cut inwards, as here, 
 Fig. XXI. This is the actual form of the capitals of the balus- 
 trades of St. Mark's : it is the root of all the Byzantine Arab 
 capitals, and of all the most beautiful capitals in the world, whose 
 function is to express lightness. 
 
 § IX. We have hitherto proceeded entirely on the assumption 
 that the form of cornice which was gathered together to produce 
 the capital was the root of cornices, a of Fig. V. But this, it will 
 be remembered, was said in § VI. of Chap. VI. to be especially 
 characteristic of southern work, and that in northern and wet 
 climates it took the form of a dripstone. 
 
 Accordingly, in the northern climates, the dripstone gathered 
 together forms a peculiar northern capital, commonly called the 
 Early English*, owing to its especial use in that style. 
 
 There would have been no absurdity in this, if shafts were 
 always to be exposed to the weather ; but in Gothic constructions 
 the most important shafts are in the inside of the building. The 
 dripstone sections of their capitals are therefore unnecessary and 
 ridiculous. 
 
 § X. They are, however, much worse than unnecessary. 
 The edge of a dripstone, being undercut, has no bearing power, 
 and the capital fails, therefore, in its own principal function ; and 
 
 * Appendix 18. : " Early English Capitals." 
 
100 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 besides this, the undercut contour admits of no distinctly visible 
 decoration ; it is, therefore, left utterly barren, and the capital 
 looks as if it had been turned in a lathe. The Early English 
 capital has, therefore, the three greatest faults that any design 
 can have : (1) it fails in its own proper purpose, that of support ; 
 (2) it is adapted to a purpose to which it can never be put, that 
 of keeping off rain ; (3) it cannot be decorated. 
 
 The Early English capital is, therefore, a barbarism of triple 
 grossness, and degrades the style in which it is found, otherwise 
 very noble, to one of second-rate order. 
 
 § XI. Dismissing, therefore, the Early English capital as deserv- 
 ing no place in our system, let us reassemble in one view the 
 forms Avhich have been legitimately developed, and which are to 
 become hereafter subjects of decoration. To the forms a, b, and 
 c, Fig. XIX., we must add the two simplest truncated forms e 
 and g, Fig. XIX., putting their abaci on them (as we considered 
 their contours in the bells only), and we shall have the five 
 forms now given in parallel perspective in Fig. XXII., which are 
 the roots of all good capitals existing or capable of existence, and 
 
 Fig. XXII. 
 
 whose variations, infinite and a thousand times infinite, are all 
 produced by introduction of various curvatures into their con- 
 tours, and the endless methods of decoration superinduced on 
 such curvatures. 
 
 § XII. There is, however, a kind of variation, also infinite, which 
 takes place in these radical forms, before they receive either cur- 
 vature or decoration. This is the variety of proportion borne 
 by the different lines of the capital to each other, and to the 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 107 
 
 shafts. This is a structural question, at present to be considered 
 as far as is possible. 
 
 § XIII. All the five capitals (which are indeed five orders with 
 legitimate distinction ; very different, however, from the five 
 orders as commonly understood,) may be represented by the 
 same profile, a section through the sides of a, i, d, and e, or 
 through the angles of c, Fig. XXII. This profile we will put on 
 the top of a shaft, as at A, Fig. XXIII. , which shaft we will sup- 
 Fig. XXIII. 
 
 pose of equal diameter above and below for the sake of greater 
 simplicity : in this simplest condition, however, relations of pro- 
 portion exist between five quantities, any one, or any two, or 
 any three, or any four of which may change, irrespective of the 
 others. These five quantities are : 
 
 1 . The height of the shaft, a b ; 
 
 2. Its diameter, be; 
 
 3. The length of slope of bell, b d ; 
 
 4. The inclination of this slope, or angle c b d ; 
 
 5. The depth of abacus, d e. 
 
 For every change in any one of these quantities we have a new 
 proportion of capital : five infinities, supposing change only in 
 one quantity at a time : infinity of infinities in the sum of pos- 
 sible changes. 
 
 It is, therefore, only possible to note the general laws of 
 
108 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 • ONSTRCCTION. 
 
 change ; every scale of pillar, and every weight laid upon it, 
 admitting, within certain limits, a variety, out of which the archi- 
 tect has his choice ; but yet fixing limits which the proportion 
 becomes ugly when it approaches, and dangerous when it exceeds. 
 But the inquiry into this subject is too difficult for the general 
 reader, and I shall content myself with proving four laws, easily 
 understood and generally applicable ; for proof of which if the 
 said reader care not, he may miss the next four paragraphs with- 
 out harm. 
 
 § xrw 1. The more slender the shaft, the greater, propor- 
 tionally, may be the projection of the abacus. For, looking back 
 to Fig. XXIII., let the height a b be fixed, the length d b, the 
 angle d b c, and the depth d e. Let the single quantity b c be 
 variable, let B be a capital and shaft which are found to be 
 perfectly safe in proportion to the weight they bear, and let the 
 weight be equally distributed over the whole of the abacus. 
 Then this weight may be represented by any number of equal 
 divisions, suppose four, as /, m, n, r, of brickwork above, of which 
 each division is one fourth of the whole weight ; and let this 
 weight be placed in the most trying way on the abacus, that is to 
 say, let the masses I and r be detached from m and ?i, and bear 
 with their full weight on the outside of the capital. We assume, in 
 B, that the width of abacus ef is twice as great as that of the 
 shaft, b c, and on these conditions we assume the capital to be safe. 
 
 But be is allowed to be variable. Let it become b 2 c 2 at C, 
 which is a length representing about the diameter of a shaft 
 containing half the substance of the shaft B, and, therefore, able 
 to sustain not more than half the weight sustained by B. But 
 the slope b d and depth d e remaining unchanged, we have the 
 capital of C, which we are to load with only half the weight of 
 /, i/i, n, r, i. e. with I and r alone. Therefore the weight of I and r, 
 now represented by the masses l 2 , r 2 , is distributed over the whole 
 of the capital. But the weight r was adequately supported by 
 the projecting piece of the first capital hfc: much more is it 
 now adequately supported by i h 2 fc 2 . Therefore, if the capital 
 of B was safe, that of C is more than safe. Now in B the length ef 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 109 
 
 was only twice be ; but in C, e 2 f 2 will be found more than twice 
 that of b 2 c-,. Therefore, the more slender the shaft, the greater 
 may be the proportional excess of the abacus over its diameter. 
 
 § XV. 2. The smaller the scale of the building, the greater 
 may be the excess of the abacus over the diameter of the shaft. 
 This principle requires, I think, no very lengthy proof: the 
 reader can understand at once that the cohesion and strength of 
 stone which can sustain a small projecting mass, will not sustain 
 a vast one overhanging in the same proportion. A bank even 
 of loose earth, six feet high, will sometimes overhang its base a 
 foot or two, as you may see any day in the gravelly banks of the 
 lanes of Hampstead : but make the bank of gravel, equally loose, 
 six hundred feet high, and see if you can get it to overhang a 
 hundred or two ! much more if there be weight above it in- 
 creased in the same proportion. Hence, let any capital be given, 
 whose projection is just safe, and no more, on its existing scale; 
 increase its proportions every way equally, though ever so little, 
 and it is unsafe ; diminish them equally, and it becomes safe in 
 the exact degree of the diminution. 
 
 Let, then, the quantity e d, and angle d b c, at A of 
 Fig. XXIIL, be invariable, and let the length db vary : then we 
 shall have such a series of forms as may be represented by a, b, c, 
 
 Fig. xxrv. 
 
 Fig. XXIV., of which a is a proportion for a colossal building, 
 b for a moderately sized building, while c could only be admitted 
 on a very small scale indeed. 
 
 § XVT. 3. The greater the excess of abacus, the steeper must be the 
 slope of the bell, the shaft diameter being constant. 
 
 This will evidently follow from the considerations in the last 
 
110 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Kg. XXV. 
 
 *^^> 
 
 paragraph ; supposing only that, instead of the scale of shaft and 
 capital varying together, the scale of the capital varies alone. 
 For it will then still be true, that, if the projection of the capital 
 be just safe on a given scale, as its excess over the shaft diameter 
 increases, the projection will be unsafe, if the slope of the bell 
 remain constant. But it may be rendered safe by making this 
 slope steeper, and so increasing its supporting power. 
 
 Thus let the capital a, Fig. XXV., be just safe. Then the 
 capital b, in which the slope is the same but 
 the excess greater, is unsafe. But the capital 
 c, in which, though the excess ecpials that of 
 b, the steepness of the supporting slope is in- 
 creased, will be as safe as b, and probably as 
 strong as a.* 
 
 § xvn. 4. The steeper the slope of the bell, the 
 thinner may be the abacus. 
 
 The use of the abacus is eminently to equa- 
 lise the pressure over the surface of the bell, 
 so that the weight may not by any accident 
 be directed exclusively upon its edges. In 
 proportion to the strength of these edges, 
 this function of the abacus is superseded, and 
 these edges are strong in proportion to the steepness of the 
 slope. Thus, in Fig. XXVI., the bell at a would carry weight 
 
 safely enough without any abacus ; but 
 that at c would not : it would probably 
 have its edges broken off. The abacus 
 superimposed might be on a very thin, 
 little more than formal, as at b; but on c 
 must be thick, as at d. 
 
 § XVin. These four rules are all that 
 are necessary for general criticism ; and 
 observe that these are only semi-im- 
 
 Fig. XXVI. 
 
 ^ 
 
 * In this case, the weight borne is supposed to increase as the abacus widens ; 
 the illustration would have been clearer if I had assumed the breadth of abacus 
 to be Constant, and that of the shaft to vary. 
 
obstruction. IX. THE CAPITAL. Ill 
 
 perative, — rules of permission, not of compulsion. Thus, Law 1. 
 asserts that the slender shaft may have greater excess of capital 
 than the thick shaft ; hut it need not, unless the architect 
 chooses ; his thick shafts must have small excess, but his slender 
 ones need not have large. So Law 2. says, that as the building 
 is smaller, the excess may be greater ; but it need not, for the 
 excess which is safe in the large is still safer in the small. So 
 Law 3. says that capitals of great excess must have steep slopes ; 
 but it does not say that capitals of small excess may not have 
 steep slopes also, if we choose. And lastly, Law 4. asserts the 
 necessity of the thick abacus for the shallow bell ; but the steep 
 bell may have a thick abacus also. 
 
 § XIX. It will be found, however, that in practice some con- 
 fession of these laws will always be useful, and especially of the 
 two first. The eye always requires, on a slender shaft, a more 
 spreading capital than it does on a massy one, and a bolder mass 
 of capital on a small scale than on a large. And, in the ap- 
 plication of the first rule, it is to be noted that a shaft becomes 
 slender either by diminution of diameter or increase of height ; 
 that either mode of change presupposes the weight above it 
 diminished, and requires an expansion of abacus. I know no 
 mode of spoiling a noble building more frequent in actual practice 
 than the imposition of flat and slightly expanded capitals on tall 
 shafts. 
 
 § XX. The reader must observe, also, that, in the demon- 
 stration of the four laws, I always assumed the weight above to 
 be given. By the alteration of this weight, therefore, the archi- 
 tect has it in his power to relieve, and therefore alter, the forms 
 of his capitals. By its various distribution on their centres or 
 edges, the slope of their bells and thickness of abaci will be 
 affected also ; so that he has countless expedients at his command 
 for the various treatment of his design. He can divide his 
 weights among more shafts ; he can throw them in different 
 places and different directions on the abaci ; he can alter slope 
 of bells or diameter of shafts ; he can use spurred or plain bells, 
 thin or thick abaci ; and all these changes admitting of infinity 
 
112 IX. THE CAPITAL. construction. 
 
 in their degrees, and infinity a thousand times told in their 
 relations : and all this without reference to decoration, merely 
 with the five forms of block capital ! 
 
 § xxi. In the harmony of these arrangements, in their fitness, 
 unity, and accuracy, lies the true proportion of every building, 
 — proportion utterly endless in its infinities of change, with un- 
 changed beauty. And yet this connexion of the frame of their 
 building into one harmony has, I believe, never been so much as 
 dreamed of by architects. It has been instinctively done in some 
 degree by many, empirically in some degree by many more ; 
 thoughtfully and thoroughly, I believe, by none. 
 
 § xxn. We have hitherto considered the abacus as necessarily 
 a separate stone from the bell : evidently, however, the strength 
 of the capital will be undiminished if both are cut out of one 
 block. This is actually the case in many capitals, especially 
 those on a small scale ; and in others the detached upper stone is 
 a mere representative of the abacus, and is much thinner than 
 the form of the capital requires, while the true abacus is united 
 with the bell, and concealed by its decoration, or made part of it. 
 
 § XXIII. Farther. We have hitherto considered bell and abacus 
 as both derived from the concentration of the cornice. But it 
 must at once occur to the reader, that the projection of the under 
 stone and the thickness of the upper, which are quite enough for 
 the work of the continuous cornice, may not be enough always, 
 or rather are seldom likely to be so, for the harder work of the 
 capital. Both may have to be deepened and expanded : but as 
 this would cause a want of harmony in the parts, when they 
 occur on the same level, it is better in such case to let the entire 
 cornice form the abacus of the capital, and to put a deep capital 
 bell beneath it. 
 
 § XXIV. The reader will understand both arrangements instantly 
 by two examples. Fig. XXVII. represents two windows, more 
 than usually beautiful examples of a very frequent Venetian 
 form. Here the deep cornice or string course which runs along 
 the wall of the house is quite strong enough for the work of the 
 capitals of the slender shafts: its own upper stone is therefore 
 
 / 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 
 
 113 
 
 Fig. XXVII. 
 
 also theirs ; its own lower stone, 
 by its revolution or concentration, 
 forms their bells : but to mark the 
 increased importance of its func- 
 tion in so doing, it receives decora- 
 tion, as the bell of the capital, which 
 it did not receive as the under stone 
 of the cornice. 
 
 In Fig. XXVIII., a little bit of 
 the church of Santa Fosca at Tor- 
 cello, the cornice or string course, 
 which goes round every part of the 
 church, is not strong enough to 
 form the capitals of the shafts. It 
 therefore forms their abaci only ; and 
 in order to mark the diminished im- 
 portance of its function, it ceases to receive, as the abacus of the 
 capital, the decoration which it received as the string course 
 
 of the wall. 
 
 This last arrange- 
 ment is of great fre- 
 quency in Venice, 
 occurring most cha- 
 racteristically in St. 
 Mark's : and in the 
 Gothic of St. John 
 and Paul we find 
 the two arrange- 
 ments beautifully 
 united, though in 
 great simplicity ; the 
 string courses of the walls form the capitals of the shafts of the 
 traceries, and the abaci of the vaulting shafts of the apse. 
 
 § xxv. We have hitherto spoken of capitals of circular shafts 
 only : those of square piers are more frequently formed by the 
 cornice only ; otherwise they are like those of circular piers, 
 
 i 
 
 Fig. XXVIII. 
 
Ill IX. THE CAPITAL. constbuctioh. 
 
 without the difficulty of reconciling the base of the bell with its 
 head. 
 
 § xxvi. ^'hen two or more shafts are grouped together, their 
 capitals are usually treated as separate, until they come into 
 actual contact. If there be any awkwardness in the junction, 
 it is concealed by the decoration, and one abacus serves, in most 
 cases, for all. The double group, Fig. XXVII., is the simplest 
 possible type of the arrangement. In the richer Northern Gothic 
 groups of eighteen or twenty shafts cluster together, and some- 
 times the smaller shafts crouch under the capitals of the larger, 
 and hide their heads in the crannies, with small nominal abaci 
 of their own, while the larger shafts carry the serviceable abacus 
 of the whole pier, as in the nave of Rouen. There is, however, 
 evident sacrifice of sound principle in this system, the smaller 
 abaci being of no use. They are the exact contrary of the rude 
 early abacus at Milan, given in Plate XVII. There one poor 
 abacus stretched itself out to do all the work: here there are idle 
 abaci getting up into corners and doing none. 
 
 § xxvn. Finally, we have considered the capital hitherto entirely 
 as an expansion of the bearing power of the shaft, supposing the 
 shaft composed of a single stone. But, evidently, the capital has 
 a function, if possible, yet more important, when the shaft is 
 composed of small masonry. It enables all that masonry to act 
 together, and to receive the pressure from above collectively and 
 with a single strength. And thus, considered merely as a 
 large stone set on the top of the shaft, it is a feature of the 
 highest architectural importance, irrespective of its expansion, 
 which indeed is, in some very noble capitals, exceedingly small. 
 And thus every large stone set at any important point to 
 reassemble the force of smaller masonry and prepare it for the 
 sustaining of weight, is a capital or " head " stone (the true 
 meaning of the word), whether it project or not. Thus at 6, in 
 Plate IV., the stones which support the thrust of the brickwork are 
 capitals, which have no projection at all ; and the large stones 
 in the window above are capitals projecting in one direction only. 
 
 § xxvill. The reader is now master of all he need know re- 
 
construction. IX. THE CAPITAL. 115 
 
 speeting construction of capitals; and from what has been laid 
 before him, must assuredly feel that there can never be any new 
 system of architectural forms invented ; but that all vertical 
 support must be, to the end of time, best obtained by shafts and 
 capitals. It has been so obtained by nearly every nation of 
 builders, with more or less refinement in the management of 
 the details ; and the later Gothic builders of the North stand 
 almost alone in their effort to dispense with the natural develop- 
 ment of the shaft, and banish the capital from their compositions. 
 
 They were gradually led into this error through a series of 
 steps which it is not here our business to trace. But they may 
 be generalised in a few words. 
 
 § XXIX. All classical architecture, and the Romanesque which 
 is legitimately descended from it, is composed of bold inde- 
 pendent shafts, plain or fluted, with bold detached capitals, 
 forming arcades or colonnades where they are needed ; and of 
 walls whose apertures are surrounded by courses of parallel fines 
 called mouldings, which are continuous round the apertures, and 
 have neither shafts nor capitals. The shaft system and moulding 
 system are entirely separate. 
 
 The Gothic architects confounded the two. They clustered the 
 shafts till they looked like a group of mouldings. They shod 
 and capitaled the mouldings till they looked like a group of 
 shafts. So that a pier became merely the side of a door or 
 window rolled up, and the side of the window a pier unrolled 
 (vide last Chapter, §XXX.), both being composed of a series of 
 small shafts, each with base and capital. The architect seemed 
 to have whole mats of shafts at his disposal, like the rush mats 
 which one puts under cream cheese. If he wanted a great pier 
 he rolled up the mat ; if he wanted the side of a door he spread 
 out the mat : and now the reader has to add to the other dis- 
 tinctions between the Egyptian and the Gothic shaft, already 
 noted in § xxvi. of Chap. VIII., this one more — the most im- 
 portant of all — that while the Egyptian rush cluster has only one 
 massive capital altogether, the Gothic rush mat has a separate 
 tiny capital to everv several rush. 
 
116 IX. THE CAPITAL. construction. 
 
 § XXX. The mats were gradually made of finer rushes, until 
 it became troublesome to give each rush its capital. In fact, 
 when the groups of shafts became excessively complicated, the 
 expansion of their small abaci was of no use : it was dispensed 
 with altogether, and the mouldings of pier and jamb ran up 
 continuously into the arches. 
 
 This condition, though in many respects faulty and false, is yet 
 the eminently characteristic state of Gothic : it is the definite 
 formation of it as a distinct style, owing no farther aid to 
 classical models ; and its lightness and complexity render it, 
 when well treated, and enriched with Flamboyant decoration, a 
 very glorious means of picturesque effect. It is, in fact, this 
 form of Gothic which commends itself most easily to the general 
 mind, and which has suggested the innumerable foolish theories 
 about the derivation of Gothic from tree trunks and avenues, 
 which have from time to time been brought forward by persons 
 ignorant of the history of architecture. ■ 
 
 § XXXI. When the sense of picturesqueness, as well as that 
 of justness and dignity, had been lost, the spring of the con- 
 tinuous mouldings was replaced by what Professor Willis calls 
 the Discontinuous impost ; which, being a barbarism of the 
 basest and most painful kind, and being to architecture what the 
 setting of a saw is to music, I shall not trouble the reader to 
 examine. For it is not in my plan to note for him all the 
 various conditions of error, but only to guide him to the appre- 
 ciation of the right ; and I only note even the true Continuous or 
 Flamboyant Gothic because this is redeemed by its beautiful 
 decoration, afterwards to be considered. For, as far as structure 
 is concerned, the moment the capital vanishes from the shaft, that 
 moment we are in error : all good Gothic has true capitals to 
 the shafts of its jambs and traceries, and all Gothic is debased the 
 instant the shaft vanishes. It matters not how slender, or how 
 small, or how low, the shaft may be : wherever there is indication 
 of concentrated vertical support, then the capital is a necessary 
 termination. I know how much Gothic, otherwise beautiful, this 
 sweeping principle condemns; but it condemns not altogether. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 IX. THE CAPITAL. 1 1 7 
 
 We may still take delight in its lovely proportions, its rich deco- 
 ration, or its elastic and reedy mouldings : but be assured, 
 wherever shafts, or any approximations to the forms of shafts, are 
 employed, for whatever office, or on whatever scale, be it in 
 jambs, or piers, or balustrades, or traceries, without capitals, 
 there is a defiance of the natural laws of construction ; and that, 
 wherever such examples are found in ancient buildings, they are 
 either the experiments of barbarism, or the commencements of 
 decline. 
 
 l 3 
 
118 
 
 CONSTBUCTIOK. 
 
 CHAPTEB X. 
 
 THE ARCH LINE. 
 
 § I. We have seen in the last section how our means of vertical 
 support may, for the sake of economy both of space and material, 
 be gathered into piers or shafts, and directed to the sustaining of 
 particular points. The next question is how to connect these 
 points or tops of shafts with each other, so as to be able to lay on 
 them a continuous roof. This the reader, as before, is to favour 
 me by finding out for himself, under these following conditions. 
 
 Let s, s, Fig. XXIX. (on next page), be two shafts, with their 
 capitals ready prepared for their work ; and a, b, b, and c, c, c, be 
 six stones of different sizes, one very long and large, and two 
 smaller, and three smaller still, of which the reader is to choose 
 which he likes best, in order to connect the tops of the shafts. 
 
 I suppose he will first try if he can lift the great stone a, and 
 if he can, he will put it very simply on the tops of the two 
 pillars, as at A. 
 
 Very well indeed : he has done already what a number of 
 Greek architects have been thought very clever for having done. 
 But suppose he cannot lift the great stone a, or suppose I will 
 not give it him, but only the two smaller stones at b, b ; he will 
 doubtless try to put them up, tilted against each other, as at d. 
 Very awkward this ; worse than card-house building. But if he 
 cuts off the corners of the stones, so as to make each of them of 
 the form e, they will stand up very securely, as at B. 
 
 But suppose he cannot lift even these less stones, but can raise 
 those at c, c, c. Then, cutting each of them into the form at <?, he 
 will doubtless set them up as at/. 
 
 § II. This last arrangement looks a little dangerous. Is there 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 X. THE ARCH LINE. 
 
 119 
 
 not a chance of the stone in the middle pushing the others out, 
 or tilting them up and aside, and slipping down itself between 
 
 Fig. XXIX. 
 
 o r? 
 
 '3 
 
 1 1 i 
 
 c 
 
 \ 7 
 
 
 m-i 
 
 them ? There is such a chance : and if, by somewhat altering 
 the form of the stones, we can diminish this chance, all the better. 
 I must say " we " now, for perhaps I may have to help the reader 
 a little. 
 
 The danger is, observe, that the midmost stone at / pushes 
 out the side ones : then if we can give the side ones such a shape 
 as that, left to themselves, they would fall heavily forward, they 
 will resist this push out by their weight, exactly in proportion to 
 
 I 4 
 
120 X- THE ARCH LINE. construction. 
 
 their own particular inclination or desire to tumble in. Take one 
 of them separately, standing up as at g ; it is just possible it may 
 stand up as it is, like the Tower of Pisa : but we want it to fall 
 forward. Suppose we cut away the parts that are shaded at h and 
 leave it as at i, it is very certain it cannot stand alone now, but 
 -will fall forward to our entire satisfaction. 
 
 Farther : the midmost stone at / is likely to be troublesome 
 chiefly by its weight, pushing down between the others ; the 
 more Ave lighten it the better : so we will cut it into exactly 
 the same shape as the side ones, chiselling away the shaded parts, 
 as at h. We shall then have all the three stones k, I, m, of the 
 same shape ; and now putting them together, we have, at C, what 
 the reader, I doubt not, will perceive at once to be a much 
 more satisfactory arrangement than that at/. 
 
 § ill. We have now got three arrangements ; in one using only 
 one piece of stone, in the second two, and in the third three. 
 The first arrangement has no particular name, except the " hori- 
 zontal:" but the single stone (or beam, it may be,) is called a 
 lintel ; the second arrangement is called a " Gable ; " the third an 
 " Arch." 
 
 We might have used pieces of wood instead of stone in all 
 these arrangements, with no difference in plan, so long as the 
 beams were kept loose, like the stones ; but as beams can be 
 securely nailed together at the ends, we need not trouble our- 
 selves so much about their shape or balance, and therefore the 
 plan at / is a peculiarly wooden construction (the reader will 
 doubtless recognise in it the profile of many a farm-house roof) : 
 and again, because beams are tough, and light, and long, as com- 
 pared with stones, they are admirably adapted for the construc- 
 tions at A and B, the plain lintel and gable, while that at C is, 
 for the most part, left to brick and stone. 
 
 § IV. But farther. The constructions, A, B, and C, though 
 very conveniently to be first considered as composed of one, two, 
 and three pieces, are by no means necessarily so. When we have 
 once cut the stones of the arch into a shape like that of k, 1, and 
 )/?, they will hold together, whatever their number, place, or size, 
 
I CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 X. THE ARCH LINE. 121 
 
 as at n ; and the great value of the arch is, that it permits small 
 stones to be used with safety instead of large ones, which are not 
 always to be had. Stones cut into the shape of k, I, and m, 
 Avhether they be short or long (I have drawn them all sizes at n 
 on purpose), are called Youssoirs ; this is a hard, ugly French 
 name ; but the reader will perhaps be kind enough to recollect it ; 
 it will save us both some trouble : and to make amends for this 
 infliction, I will relieve him of the term keystone. One voussoir 
 is as much a keystone as another ; only people usually call the 
 stone which is last put in the keystone ; and that one happens 
 generally to be at the top or middle of the arch. 
 
 § V. Not only the arch, but even the lintel, may be built of 
 many stones or bricks. The reader may see lintels built in this 
 way over most of the windows of our brick London houses, and 
 so also the gable : there are, therefore, two distinct questions re- 
 specting each arrangement ; — First, what is the line, or direction 
 of it, which gives it its strength ? and, secondly, what is the 
 manner of masonry of it, which gives it its consistence ? The 
 first of these I shall consider in this Chapter under the head of 
 the Arch Line, using the term arch as including all manner of 
 construction (though we shall have no trouble except about 
 curves) ; and in the next Chapter I shall consider the second, 
 under the head, Arch Masonry. 
 
 § VI. Now the arch line is the ghost or skeleton of the arch ; 
 or rather it is the spinal marrow of the arch, and the voussoirs 
 are the vertebrae, which keep it safe and sound, and clothe it. 
 This arch line the architect has first to conceive and shape in Lis 
 mind, as opposed to, or having to bear, certain forces which will 
 try to distort it this way and that ; and against which he is first 
 to direct and bend the line itself into as strong resistance as he 
 may, and then, with his voussoirs and what else he can, to guard 
 it, and help it, and keep it to its duty and in its shape. So 
 the arch line is the moral character of the arch, and the 
 adverse forces are its temptations ; and the voussoirs, and what 
 else we may help it with, are its armour and its motives to good 
 conduct. 
 
122 X. THE AECH LINE. constriction. 
 
 § VII. This moral character of the arch is called hy architects 
 its " Line of Resistance." There is a great deal of nicety in 
 calculating it with precision, just as there is sometimes in finding 
 out very precisely what is a man's true line of moral conduct : 
 but this, in arch morality and in man morality, is a very simple 
 and easily to be understood principle, — that if either arch or man 
 expose themselves to their special temptations or adverse forces, 
 outside of their voussoirs or proper and appointed armour, both 
 will fall. An arch whose line of resistance is in the middle of its 
 voussoirs is perfectly safe : in proportion as the said line runs near 
 the edge of its voussoirs, the arch is in danger, as the man is who 
 nears temptation ; and the moment the line of resistance emerges 
 out of the voussoirs the arch falls. 
 
 § vni. There are, therefore, properly speaking, two arch lines. 
 One is the visible direction or curve of the arch, which may 
 generally be considered as the under edge of its voussoirs, ami 
 which has often no more to do with the real stability of the arch, 
 than a man's apparent conduct has with his heart. The other 
 line, which is the line of resistance, or line of good behaviour, 
 may or may not be consistent with the outward and apparent 
 curves of the arch ; but if not, then the security of the arch 
 depends simply upon this, whether the voussoirs which assume or 
 pretend to the one line are wide enough to include the other. 
 
 § IX. Now when the reader is told that the line of resistance 
 varies with every change either in place or quantity of the weight 
 above the arch, he will see at once that we have no chance of 
 arranging arches by their moral characters : we can only take the 
 apparent arch line, or visible direction, as a ground of arrange- 
 ment. We shall consider the possible or probable forms or con- 
 tours of arches in the present Chapter, and in the succeeding one 
 the forms of voussoir and other help which may best fortify these 
 visible lines against every temptation to lose their consistency. 
 
 § X. Look back to Fig. XXIX. Evidently the abstract or 
 ghost line of the arrangement at A is a plain horizontal line, as 
 here at a, Fig. XXX. The abstract line of the arrangement at B, 
 Fig. XX IX, is composed of two straight lines set against each 
 
CONSTRICTION. 
 
 X. THE ARCH LINE. 123 
 
 other, as here at b. The abstract line of C, Fig. XXIX., is a 
 
 curve of some kind, not at 
 Fig. xxx. present determined, suppose c, 
 
 Fig. XXX. Then, as b is two 
 of the straight lines at a, set up 
 against each other, we may con- 
 ceive an arrangement, d, made 
 up of two of the curved lines 
 at c, set against each other. 
 This is called a pointed arch, 
 which is a contradiction in 
 terms : it ought to be called a curved gable ; but it must keep 
 the name it has got. 
 
 Now a, b, c, d, Fig. XXX., are the ghosts of the lintel, the gable, 
 the arch, and the pointed arch. With the poor lintel ghost we 
 need trouble ourselves no farther ; there are no changes in him : 
 but there is much variety in the other three, and the method of 
 their variety will be best discerned by studying b and d, as sub- 
 ordinate to and connected with the simple arch at c. 
 
 § XI. Many architects, especially the worst, have been very 
 curious in designing out of the way arches, — elliptical arches, 
 and four-centred arches, so called, and other singularities. The 
 good architects have generally been content, and we for the 
 present will be so, with God's arch, the arch of the rainbow 
 and of the apparent heaven, and which the sun shapes for us as it 
 sets and rises. Let us watch the sun for a moment as it climbs : 
 when it is a quarter up, it will give us the arch a, Fig. XXXI. ; 
 when it is half up, b, and when three quarters up, c. There will 
 be an infinite number of arches between these, but we will take 
 these as sufficient representatives of all. Then a is the low arch, 
 b the central or pure arch, c the high arch, and the rays of the 
 sun would have drawn for us their voussoirs. 
 
 § XII. We will take these several arches successively, and 
 fixing the top of each accurately, draw two right lines thence to 
 its base, d, e, f, Fig. XXXI. Then these lines give us the 
 relative gables of each of the arches ; d is the Italian or southern 
 gable, e the central gable, / the Gothic gable. 
 
124 X. THE ARCH LINE. construction. 
 
 Fig. XXXI. 
 
 § Xlll. We will again take the three arches with their gables in 
 succession, and on each of the sides of the gable, between it and 
 the arch, we will describe another arch, as at g, h, i. Then the 
 curves so described give the pointed arches belonging to each of 
 the round arches ; </, the flat pointed arch, h, the central pointed 
 arch, and i, the lancet pointed arch. 
 
 § XIV. If the radius with which these intermediate curves are 
 drawn be the base of /, the last is the equilateral pointed arch, 
 one of great importance in Gothic work. But between the gable 
 and circle, in all the three figures, there are an infinite number of 
 pointed arches, describable with different radii ; and the three 
 round arches, be it remembered, are themselves representatives of 
 an infinite number, passing from the flattest conceivable curve, 
 through the semicircle and horseshoe, up to the full circle. 
 
 The central and the last group are the most important. The 
 central round, or semicircle, is the Roman, the Byzantine, and 
 Norman arch ; and its relative pointed includes one wide branch 
 of Gothic. The horseshoe round is the Arabic and Moorish 
 arch, and its relative pointed includes the whole range of Arabic 
 and lancet, or Early English and French Gothics. I mean of 
 course by the relative pointed the entire group of which the 
 
CONSTRICTION. 
 
 X. THE ARCH LINE. 125 
 
 equilateral arch is the representative. Between it and the outer 
 horseshoe, as this latter rises higher, the reader will 
 find, on experiment, the great families of what may be 
 called the horseshoe pointed, — curves of the highest 
 importance, but which are all included, with English 
 lancet, under the term, relative pointed of the horse- 
 shoe arch. 
 § xv. The groups above described are all formed of circular 
 arcs, and include all truly useful and beautiful arches for ordinary 
 work. I believe that singular and complicated curves are made 
 use of in modern engineering, but with these the general reader 
 can have no concern : the Ponte della Trinita at Florence is the 
 most graceful instance I know of such structure ; the arch made 
 use of being very subtle, and approximating to the low ellipse ; 
 for which, in common work, a barbarous pointed arch, called 
 four-centred, and composed of bits of circles, is substituted by the 
 English builders. The high ellipse, I believe, exists in eastern 
 architecture. I have never myself met with it on a large scale ; 
 but it occurs in the niches of the later portions of the Ducal 
 palace at Venice, together with a singular hyperbolic arch, a in 
 Fig. XXXIII., to be described hereafter: with such caprices we 
 are not here concerned. 
 
 § XVI. We are, however, concerned to notice the absurdity of 
 another form of arch, which, with the four-centred, belongs to 
 the English perpendicular Gothic. 
 
 Taking the gable of any of the groups in Fig. XXXI., (suppose 
 the equilateral), here at b, in Fig. XXXIII., the dotted line repre- 
 
 Fig. XXXIII. 
 
 r I 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
 senting the relative pointed arch, we may evidently conceive an 
 arch formed by reversed curves on the inside of the gable, as 
 here shown by the inner curved lines. I imagine the reader by 
 this time knows enough of the nature of arches to understand 
 
12G X. THE ARCH LINE. construction . 
 
 that, whatever strength or stability was pained by the curve on 
 
 the outside of the gable, exactly so much is lost by curves on the 
 inside. The natural tendency of such an arch to dissolution by 
 its own mere weight renders it a feature of detestable ugliness, 
 wherever it occurs on a large scale. It is eminently characteristic 
 of Tudor work, and it is the profile of the Chinese roof; (I say 
 on a large scale, because this, as well as all other capricious 
 arches, may be made secure by their masonry when small, but 
 not otherwise). Some allowable modifications of it will be noticed 
 in the chapter on Roofs. 
 
 § XVII. There is only one more form of arch which we have to 
 notice. When the last described arch is used, not as the prin- 
 cipal arrangement, but as a mere heading to a common pointed 
 arch, we have the form c, Fig. XXXIII. Now this is better than 
 the entirely reversed arch for two reasons: first, less of the line 
 is weakened by reversing ; secondly, the double curve has a very 
 high aesthetic value, not existing in the mere segments of circles. 
 For these reasons arches of this kind are not only admissible, 
 but even of great desirableness, when their scale and masonry 
 render them secure, but above a certain scale they are altogether 
 barbarous; and, with the reversed Tudor arch, wantonly em- 
 ployed, are the characteristics of the worst and meanest schools 
 of architecture, past or present. 
 
 This double curve is called the Ogee ; it is the profile of many 
 German leaden roofs, of many Turkish domes (there more ex- 
 cusable, because associated and in sympathy with exquisitely 
 managed arches of the same line in the walls below), of Tudor 
 turrets, as in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, and it is at the bottom 
 or top of sundry other blunders all over the world. 
 
 § XVIII. The varieties of the ogee curve are infinite, as the 
 reversed portion of it may be engrafted on every other form of 
 arch, horseshoe, round, or pointed. Whatever is generally worthy 
 of note in these varieties, and in other arches of caprice, we shall 
 best discover by examining their masonry ; for it is by their good 
 masonry only that they are rendered either stable or beautiful. 
 To this question, then, let us address ourselves. 
 
IONSTRI CTIOV. 
 
 127 
 
 CHAPTER XT. 
 
 THE ARCH MASONRY. 
 
 § I. On the subject of the stability of arches, volumes have been 
 written, and volumes more are required. The reader will not, 
 therefore, expect from me any very complete explanation of its 
 conditions within the limits of a single chapter. But that which 
 is necessary for him to know is very simple and very easy ; and 
 yet, I believe, some part of it is very little known, or noticed. 
 
 We must first have a clear idea of what is meant by an arch. 
 It is a curved shell of firm materials, on whose back a burden is 
 to be laid of loose materials. So far as the materials above it 
 are not loose, but themselves hold together, the opening below 
 is not an arch, but an excavation. Note this difference very 
 carefully. If the King of Sardinia tunnels through the Mont 
 Cenis, as he proposes, he will not require to build a brick arch 
 under his tunnel to cany the weight of the Mont Cenis : that 
 would need scientific masonry indeed. The Mont Cenis will 
 carry itself, by its own cohesion, and a succession of invisible 
 granite arches, rather larger than the tunnel. But when 
 Mr. Brunei tunnelled the Thames bottom, he needed to build a 
 brick arch to carry the six or seven feet of mud and the weight 
 of water above. That is a type of all arches proper. 
 
 § II. Now arches, in practice, partake of the nature of the two. 
 So far as their masonry above is Mont-Cenisian, that is to say, 
 colossal in comparison of them, and granitic, so that the arch is 
 a mere hole in the rock substance of it, the form of the arch is 
 of no consequence whatever : it may be rounded, or lozenged, 
 or ogee'd, or anything else ; and in the noblest architecture 
 there is always some character of this kind given to the masonry. 
 It is independent enough not to care about the holes cut in it, 
 
128 XI. THE ARCH MASONRY. 
 
 < ONSTRUCTIOK. 
 
 and does not subside into them like sand. But the theory of 
 arches does not presume on any such condition of things : it 
 allows itself only the shell of the arch proper; the vertebras, 
 carrying their marrow of resistance ; and, above this shell, it 
 assumes the wall to be in a state of flux, bearing down on the 
 ai'ch, like water or sand, with its whole weight. And farther, 
 the problem which is to be solved by the arch builder is not 
 merely to carry this weight, but to carry it with the least 
 thickness of shell. It is easy to carry it by continually thickening 
 your voussoirs : if you have six feet depth of sand or gravel to 
 carry, and you choose to employ granite voussoirs six feet thick, 
 no question but your arch is safe enough. But it is perhaps 
 somewhat too costly : the thing to be done is to carry the sand or 
 gravel with brick voussoirs, six inches thick, or, at any rate, with 
 the least thickness of voussoir which will be safe ; and to do this 
 requires peculiar arrangement of the lines of the arch. There ai*e 
 many arrangements, useful all in their way, but we have only to 
 do, in the best architecture, with the simplest and most easily 
 understood. We have first to note those which regard the actual 
 shell of the arch, and then we shall give a few examples of the 
 superseding of such expedients by Mont-Cenisian masonry. 
 
 § ill. What we have to say will apply to all arches, but the 
 central pointed arch is the best for general illustration. Let «, 
 Plate III., be the shell of a pointed arch with loose loading above ; 
 and suppose you find that shell not quite thick enough; and 
 that the weight bears too heavily on the top of the arch, and is 
 likely to break it in : you proceed to thicken your shell, but need 
 you thicken it all equally ? Not so ; you would only waste your 
 good voussoirs. If you have any common sense you will thicken 
 it at the top, where a Mylodon's skull is thickened for the same 
 purpose (and some human skulls, I fancy), as at b. The pebbles 
 and gravel above will now shoot off it right and left, as the 
 bullets do off a cuirassier's breastplate, and will have no chance 
 of beating it in. 
 
 If still it be not strong enough, a farther addition may be 
 made as at c, DOW thickening the voussoirs a little at the base 
 
1 1 1 
 
 
 Anii ffldnirru 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XI. THE AECH MASONRY. L29 
 
 also. But as this may perhaps throw the arch inconveniently 
 high, or occasion a waste of voussoirs at the top, we may employ 
 another expedient. 
 
 § IV. I imagine the reader's common sense, if not his previous 
 knowledge, will enable him to understand that if the arch at a, 
 Plate III., burst in at the top, it must burst out at the sides. Set 
 up two pieces of pasteboard, edge to edge, and press them down 
 with your hand, and you will see them bend out at the sides. 
 Therefore, if you can keep the arch from starting out at the 
 points p, p, it cannot curve in at the top, put what weight on it 
 you will, unless by sheer crushing of the stones to fragments. 
 
 § v. Now you may keep the arch from starting out at p by 
 loading it at p, putting more weight upon it and against it at 
 that point ; and this, in practice, is the way it is usually done. 
 But we assume at present that the weight above is sand or 
 water, quite unmanageable, not to be directed to the points we 
 choose ; and in practice, it may sometimes happen that we cannot 
 put weight upon the arch at p. We may perhaps want an 
 opening above it, or it may be at the side of the building, and 
 many other circumstances may occur to hinder us. 
 
 § VI. But if we are not sure that we can put weight above it, 
 we are perfectly sure that we can hang weight under it. You 
 may always thicken your shell inside, and put the weight upon it 
 as at xx, in d, Plate III. Not much chance of its bursting out 
 at p, now, is there ? 
 
 § VIII. Whenever, therefore, an arch has to bear vertical pres- 
 sure, it Avill bear it better when its shell is shaped as at b or </, 
 than as at a : b and d are, therefore, the types of arches built to 
 resist vertical pressure, all over the world, and from the be- 
 ginning of architecture to its end. None others can be compared 
 with them : all are imperfect except these. 
 
 The added projections at x x, in d, are called Cusps, and they 
 are the very soul and life of the best northern Gothic ; yet never 
 thoroughly understood nor found in perfection, except in Italy, 
 the northern builders working often, even in the best times, with 
 the vulgar form at a. 
 
 K 
 
130 XI. THE ARCH MASONRY. construction. 
 
 The form at b is rarely found in the north : its perfection is in 
 the Lombardic Gothic ; and branches of it, good and bad ac- 
 cording to their use, occur in Saracenic work. 
 
 § Yin. The true and perfect cusp is single only. But it was 
 probably invented (by the Arabs?) not as a constructive, but a 
 decorative feature, in pure fantasy ; and in early northern work 
 it is only the application to the arch of the foliation, so called, of 
 penetrated spaces in stone surfaces, already enough explained in 
 the " Seven Lamps," Chap. III., p. 85. et seq. It is degraded in 
 dignity, and loses in usefulness, exactly in proportion to its 
 multiplication on the arch. In later architecture, especially 
 English Tudor, it is sunk into dotage, and becomes a simple 
 excrescence, a bit of stone pinched up out of the arch, as a cook 
 pinches the paste at the edge of a pie. 
 
 § IX. The depth and place of the cusp, that is to say, its exact 
 application to the shoulder of the curve of the arch, varies with 
 the direction of the weight to be sustained. I have spent more 
 than a month, and that in hard work too, in merely trying to 
 get the forms of cusps into perfect order: whereby the reader 
 may guess that I have not space to go into the subject now ; 
 but I shall hereafter give a few of the leading and most perfect 
 examples, with their measures and masonry. 
 
 § X. The reader now understands all that he need about the 
 shell of the arch, considered as an united piece of stone. 
 
 He has next to consider the shape of the voussoirs. This, as 
 much as is required, he will be able best to comprehend by a few 
 examples ; by which I shall be able also to illustrate, or rather 
 which will force me to illustrate, some of the methods of Mont- 
 Cenisian masonry, which were to be the second part of our 
 subject. 
 
 § XI. 1 and 2, Plate IV., are two cornices ; 1 from St. Antonio, 
 Padua ; 2, from the Cathedral of Sens. I want them for cornices ; 
 but I have put them in this plate because, though their arches 
 are filled up behind, and are in fact mere blocks of stone with 
 arches cut into their faces, they illustrate the constant masonry 
 of small arches, both in Italian and Northern Romanesque, but 
 
IV 
 
 
 !nii ffiasnnn) 
 
CONSTRICTION. 
 
 XI. THE ARCH MASONKY. 131 
 
 especially Italian, each arch being cut out of its own proper 
 block of stone : this is Mont-Cenisian enough, on a small scale. 
 
 3 is a window from Carnarvon Castle, and very primitive and 
 interesting in manner, — one of its arches being of one stone, 
 the other of two. And here we have an instance of a form of 
 arch which would be barbarous enough on a large scale, and of 
 many pieces ; but quaint and agreeable thus massively built. 
 
 4 is from a little belfry in a Swiss village above Vevay ; 
 one fancies the window of an absurd form, seen in the distance, 
 but one is pleased with it on seeing its masonry. It could hardly 
 be stronger. 
 
 § XII. These then are arches cut of one block. The next step 
 is to form them of two pieces, set together at the head of the 
 arch. 6, from the Eremitani, Padua, is very quaint and primi- 
 tive in manner: it is a curious church altogether, and has some 
 strange traceries cut out of single blocks. One is given in the 
 " Seven Lamps," Plate VII., in the left-hand corner at the 
 bottom. 
 
 7, from the Frari, Venice, very firm and fine, and admh'ably 
 decorated, as we shall see hereafter. 5, the simple two-pieced 
 construction, wrought with the most exquisite proportion and 
 precision of workmanship, as is everything else in the glorious 
 church to which it belongs, San Fermo of Verona. The addition 
 of the top piece, which completes the circle, does not affect the 
 plan of the beautiful arches, with their simple and perfect cusps ; 
 but it is highly curious, and serves to show how the idea of the 
 cusp rose out of mere foliation. The whole of the architecture 
 of this church may be characterised as exhibiting the maxima of 
 simplicity in construction, and perfection in workmanship, — a 
 rare unison ; for, in general, simple designs are rudely worked, 
 and as the builder perfects his execution, he complicates his 
 plan. Nearly all the arches of San Feimio are two-pieced. 
 
 § XHI. We have seen the construction with one and two pieces : 
 a and b, Fig. 8. Plate IV., are the general types of the con- 
 struction with three pieces, uncusped and cusped ; c and d with 
 five pieces, uncusped and cusped. Of these the three-pieced con- 
 
 K 2 
 
[32 XI. Till'. ARCH MASONRY. construction. 
 
 st ruction is of enormous importance, and must detain us some 
 time. The live-pieced is the three-pieced with a joint added on 
 each side, and is also of great importance. The four-pieced, 
 which is the two-pieced with added joints, rarely occurs, and 
 need not detain us. 
 
 § XIV. It will be remembered that in first working out the 
 principle of the arch, we composed the arch of three pieces. 
 Three is the smallest number which can exhibit the real principle 
 of arch masonry, and it may be considered as representative of 
 all arches built on that principle ; the one- and two-pieced arches 
 being microscopic Mont-Cenisian, mere caves in blocks of stone, 
 or gaps between two rocks leaning together. 
 
 But the three-pieced arch is properly representative of all ; 
 and the larger and more complicated constructions are merely 
 produced by keeping the central piece for what is called a 
 keystone, and putting additional joints at the sides. Now so 
 long as an arch is pure circular or pointed, it does not matter 
 how many joints or voussoirs you have, nor where the joints are ; 
 nay, you may joint your keystone itself, and make it two-pieced. 
 But if the arch be of any bizarre form, especially ogee, the 
 joints must be in particular places, and the masonry simple, or it 
 will not be thoroughly good and secure ; and the fine schools of 
 the ogee arch have only arisen in countries where it was the 
 custom to build arches of few pieces. 
 
 § XV. The typical pure pointed arch of Venice is a five-pieced 
 arch, with its stones in three orders of magnitude, the longest 
 being the lowest, as at b 2 , Plate III. If the arch be very large, a 
 fourth order of magnitude is added, as at a r The portals of the 
 palaces of Venice have one or other of these masonries, almost 
 without exception. Now, as one piece is added to make a larger 
 door, one piece is taken away to make a smaller one, or a window, 
 and the masonry type of the Venetian Gothic window is conse- 
 quently three-pieced, c 2 . 
 
 § XVI. The reader knows already where a cusp is useful. It is 
 wanted, lie will remember, to give weight to those side stones, and 
 draw them inwards against the thrust of the top stone. Take 
 
CONSTRUCTION. XI. Till. AKC1I MASONRY. 133 
 
 one of the side stones of i\ out for a moment, as at d. Now the 
 proper place of the cusp upon it varies with the weight which it 
 bears or requires ; but in practice this nicety is rarely observed ; 
 the place of the cusp is almost always determined by aesthetic 
 considerations, and it is evident that the variations in its place 
 may be infinite. Consider the cusp as a wave passing up the 
 side stone from its bottom to its top ; then you will have the 
 succession of forms from e to g, (Plate III.), with infinite 
 degrees of transition from each to each ; but of which you may 
 take e, /', and g, as representing three great families of cusped 
 arches. Use e for your side stones, and j~ou have an arch as that 
 at /; below, which may be called a down-cusped ai*ch. Use /for 
 the side stone, and you have i, which may be called a mid-cusped 
 arch. Use g, and you have k, an up-cusped arch. 
 
 § XVII. The reader will observe that I call the arch mid-cusped, 
 not when the cusp point is in the middle of the curve of the arch, 
 but when it is in the middle of the side piece, and also that 
 where the side pieces join the keystone there will be a change, 
 perhaps somewhat abrupt, in the curvature. 
 
 I have preferred to call the arch mid-cusped with respect to 
 its side piece than with respect to its own curve, because the 
 most beautiful Gothic arches in the world, those of the Lombard 
 Gothic, have, in all the instances I have examined, a form more 
 or less approximating to this mid-cusped one at i (Plate III.), but 
 having the curvature of the cusp carried up into the keystone, 
 as we shall see presently : where, however, the arch is built of 
 many voussoirs, a mid-cusped arch will mean one which has the 
 point of the cusp midway between its own base and apex. 
 
 The Gothic arch of Venice is almost invariably up-cusped, as 
 at h The reader may note that, in both down-cusped and up- 
 cusped arches, the piece of stone, added to form the cusp, is of 
 the shape of a scymitar, held down in the one case and up in the 
 other. 
 
 § XVTLL. Now, in the arches h, i, I; a slight modification has 
 been made in the form of the central piece, in order that it may 
 continue the curve of the cusp. This modification is not to bi 
 
 .v 3 
 
134 XI. THE ARCH MASONRY. 
 
 CONSTRl i llo.s. 
 
 given to it in practice without considerable nicety of workman- 
 ship ; and some curious results took place in Venice from this 
 difficulty. 
 
 At I (Plate III.) is the shape of the Venetian side stone, with 
 its cusp detached from the arch. Nothing can possibly be better 
 or more graceful, or have the weight better disposed in order to 
 cause it to nod forwards against the keystone, as above explained, 
 Ch. X. § li., where I developed the whole system of the arch from 
 three pieces, in order that the reader might now clearly see the 
 use of the weight of the cusp. 
 
 Now a Venetian Gothic palace has usually at least three stories ; 
 with perhaps ten or twelve windows in each story, and this on 
 two or three of its sides, requiring altogether some hundred to a 
 hundred and fifty side pieces. 
 
 I have no doubt, from observation of the way the windows are 
 set together, that the side pieces were carved in pairs, like hooks, 
 of which the keystones were to be the eyes ; that these side pieces 
 were ordered by the architect in the gross, and were used by him 
 sometimes for wider, sometimes for narrower windows ; bevelling 
 the two ends as required, fitting in keystones as he best could, 
 and now and then varying the arrangement by turning the side 
 pieces upside down. 
 
 There were various conveniences in this way of working, one 
 of the principal being that the side pieces with their cusps 
 were always cut to their complete form, and that no part of the 
 cusp was carried out into the keystone, which followed the curve 
 of the outer arch itself. The ornaments of the cusp might thus 
 be worked without any troublesome reference to the rest of the 
 arch. 
 
 § XIX. Now let us take a pair of side pieces, made to order, like 
 that at /, and see what we can make of them. We will try to fit 
 them first with a keystone which continues the curve of the outer 
 arch, as at m. This the reader assuredly thinks an ugly arch. 
 There are a great many of them in Venice, the ugliest things 
 there, and the Venetian builders quickly began to feel them so. 
 What could they do to better them ? The arch at m has a central 
 
construction. XI. THE ARCH MASONRY. 135 
 
 piece of the form r. Substitute for it a piece of the form s, and 
 we have the arch at n. 
 
 § XX. This arch at n is not so strong as that at m ; but, built of 
 good marble, and with its pieces of proper thickness, it is quite 
 strong enough for all practical purposes on a small scale. I have 
 examined at least two thousand windows of this kind and of the 
 other Venetian ogees, of which that at y (in which the plain side- 
 piece d is used instead of the cusped one) is the simplest ; and I 
 never found one, even in the most ruinous palaces (in which they 
 had had to sustain the distorted weight of falling walls) in which 
 the central piece was fissured; and this is the only danger to 
 which the window is exposed ; in other respects it is as strong 
 an arch as can be built. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the change from the r keystone to 
 the s keystone was instantaneous. It was a change wrought out 
 by many curious experiments, which we shall have to trace 
 hereafter, and to throw the resultant varieties of form into their 
 proper groups. 
 
 § XXI. One step more : I take a mid-cusped side piece in its 
 block form at t, with the bricks which load the back of it. 
 Now, as these bricks support it behind, and since, as far as the 
 use of the cusp is concerned, it matters not whether its weight 
 be in marble or bricks, there is nothing to hinder us from cutting 
 out some of the marble, as at u, and filling up the space with 
 bricks. ( Why we should take a fancy to do this, I do not pretend 
 to guess at present ; all I have to assert is, that, if the fancy 
 should strike us, there would be no harm in it.) Substituting 
 this side piece for the other in the window n, we have that at w, 
 which may, perhaps, be of some service to us afterwards : here 
 we have nothing more to do with it than to note that, thus built, 
 and properly backed by brickwork, it is just as strong and safe a 
 form as that at n ; but that this, as well as every variety of ogee 
 arch, depends entirely for its safety, fitness, and beauty on the 
 masonry which we have just analysed ; and that, built on a large 
 scale, and with many voussoirs, all such arches would be unsafe 
 and absurd in general architecture. Yet they may be used occa- 
 
 K 4 
 
13G XI. THE ARCH MASONRY. constrdction. 
 
 sionally for the sake of the exquisite beauty of which their rich 
 and fantastic varieties admit, and sometimes for the sake of 
 another merit, exactly the opposite of the constructional ones we 
 are at present examining, that they seem to stand by enchant- 
 ment. 
 
 § XXII. In the above reasonings, the inclination of the joints of 
 the voussoirs to the curves of the arch lias not been considered. 
 It is a question of much nicety, and which I have not been able 
 as yet fully to investigate : but the natural idea of the ar- 
 rangement of these lines (which in round arches are of course 
 perpendicular to the curve) would be that every voussoir should 
 have the lengths of its outer and inner arched surface in the 
 same proportion to each other. Either this actual law, or a 
 close approximation to it, is assm*edly enforced in the best Gothic 
 buildings. 
 
 § xxiii. I may sum up all that it is necessary for the reader to 
 keep in mind of the general laws connected with this subject, by 
 giving him an example of each of the two forms of the perfect 
 Gothic arch, uncusped and cusped, treated with the most simple 
 and magnificent masonry, and partly, in both cases, Mont- 
 Cenisian. 
 
 The first, Plate V., is a window from the Broletto of Como. 
 It shows, in its filling, first, the single-pieced arch, carried on 
 groups of four shafts, and a single slab of marble filling the 
 space above, and pierced with a quatrefoil (Mont-Cenisian, this), 
 while the mouldings above are each constructed with a separate 
 system of voussoirs, all of them shaped, I think, on the principle 
 above stated, § XXII., in alternate serpentine and marble ; the 
 outer arch being a noble example of the pure uncusped Gothic 
 construction, b of Plate III. 
 
 § XXIV. Fig. XXXIV. is the masonry of the side arch of, as far 
 as I know or am able to judge, the most perfect Gothic sepulchral 
 monument in the world, the foursquare canopy of the (nameless ?)* 
 
 * At least, I cannot find any account of it in Mallei's •■Verona," nor any 
 where else, to be depended upon. It is, I doubt not, a work of the beginning of 
 the thirteenth century. Vide Appendix 19.: " Tombs at St. Anastasia." 
 
ISB07S 
 
 Avrh Masourn. 
 
 BROI/LTTO OF COMO. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XI. THE ARCH MASONRY 
 
 137 
 
 tomb standing over the small cemetery gate of the Church of 
 St. Anastasia at Verona. I shall have frequent occasion to recur 
 
 Fie. xxxiv. 
 
 to this monument, and, I believe, shall be able sufficiently to 
 justify the terms in which I speak of it : meanwhile, I desire only 
 that the reader should observe the severity and simplicity of the 
 arch lines, the exquisiteby delicate suggestion of the ogee curve 
 in the apex, and chiefly the use of the cusp in giving inward 
 weight to the great pieces of stone on the flanks of the arch, and 
 preventing their thrust outwards .from being severely thrown on 
 the lowermost stones. The effect of this arrangement is, that the 
 whole massy canopy is sustained safely by four slender pillars 
 (as will be seen hereafter in the careful plate I hope to give of it), 
 these pillars being rather stoaclied than materially assisted against 
 
138 XI. THE ARCH MASONRY. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 the thrust, by iron bars, about an inch thick, connecting them at 
 the heads of the abaci ; a feature of peculiar importance in this 
 monument, inasmuch as we know it to be part of the original 
 construction, by a beautiful little Gothic wreathed pattern, like 
 one of the hems of garments of Fra Angelico, running along the 
 iron bar itself. So carefully, and so far, is the sj'stem of decoration 
 carried out in this pure and lovely monument, my most beloved 
 throughout all the length and breadth of Italy ; — chief, as I 
 think, among all the sepulchral marbles of a land of mourning. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 139 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ARCH LOAD. 
 
 Fig. XXXV. 
 
 § I. In the preceding enquiry we have always supposed either 
 that the load upon the arch was perfectly loose, as of gravel or 
 sand, or that it was Mont-Cenisian, and formed one mass with 
 the arch voussoirs, of more or less compactness. 
 
 In practice, the state is usually something between the two. 
 Over bridges and tunnels it sometimes approaches to the con- 
 dition of mere dust or yielding earth ; but in architecture it is 
 mostly firm masonry, not altogether acting with the voussoirs, 
 
 yet by no means bearing on them 
 with perfectly dead weight, but lock- 
 ing itself together above them, and 
 capable of being thrown into forms 
 which relieve them, in some degree, 
 from its pressure. 
 
 § II. It is evident that if we are to 
 place a continuous roof above the 
 line of arches, we must first fill up 
 the intervals between them on the 
 tops of the columns. We have at 
 present nothing granted us but the 
 bare masonry, as here at a, Fig. 
 XXXV., and we must fill up the 
 intervals between the semich'cle so 
 as to obtain a level line of support. 
 We may first do this simply as at b, 
 with plain mass of wall ; so laying 
 the roof on the top, which is the method of the pure Byzantine 
 
140 
 
 XII. THE ARCH LOAD. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Fig. XXXVI. 
 
 — 1 ; — ! — E 
 
 _ ! y 
 
 and Italian Romanesque. But if we find too much stress is thus 
 laid on the arches, we may introduce small second shafts on the 
 top of the great shaft, a, Fig. XXXVI., which may assist in 
 
 carrying the roof, conveying 
 great part of its weight at 
 once to the heads of the main 
 shafts, and relieving from its 
 pressure the centres of the 
 arches. 
 
 j in. The new shaft thus 
 introduced may either remain 
 lifted on the head of the great 
 shaft, or may be carried to 
 the ground in front of it, or 
 through it, b, Fig. XXX VI.; 
 in which latter case the main 
 shaft divides into two or more 
 minor shafts, and forms a 
 group with the shaft brought 
 down from above. 
 
 § IV. When this shaft, 
 brought from roof to ground, 
 is subordinate to the main 
 pier, and either is carried 
 down the face of it, or forms 
 no large part of the group, 
 the principle is Eomanesque 
 or Gothic, b, Fig. XXXVI. 
 When it becomes a bold 
 central shaft, and the main 
 pier splits into two minor shafts on its sides, the principle 
 is Classical or Palladian, e, Fig. XXXVI. Which latter ar- 
 rangement becomes absurd or unsatisfactory in proportion to 
 the sufficiency of the main shaft to carry the roof without the 
 help of the minor shafts or arch, which in many instances of 
 
 
CONSTRICTION. 
 
 XII. THE ARCH LOAD. 141 
 
 Palladia!! work look as if they might he removed without danger 
 to the building. 
 
 § v. The form a is a more pure Northern Gothic type than 
 even b, which is the connecting link between it and the classical 
 type. It is found chiefly in English and other northern Gothic, 
 and in early Lombardic, and is, I doubt not, derived as above 
 explained, Chap I. § XXVII. b is a general French Gothic and 
 French Romanesque form, as in great purity at Valence. 
 
 The small shafts of the forms a and b, as being northern, are 
 generally connected with steep vaulted roofs, and receive for that 
 reason the name of vaulting shafts. 
 
 § VI. Of all these forms b, Fig. XXXV., is the purest and most 
 sublime, expressing the power of the arch most distinctly. All 
 the others have some appearance of dovetailing and morticing of 
 timber rather than stonework ; nor have I ever yet seen a single 
 instance, quite satisfactory, of the management of the capital of 
 the main shaft, when it had either to sustain the base of the 
 vaulting shaft, as in a, or to suffer it to pass through it, as in b, 
 Fig. XXXVI. Nor is the bracket which frequently carries the 
 vaulting shaft in English work a fitting support for a portion of 
 the fabric which is at all events presumed to carry a considerable 
 part of the weight of the roof. 
 
 § vil. The triangular spaces on the flanks of the arch are called 
 Spandrils, and if the masonry of these should be found, in any of 
 its forms, too heavy for the arch, their weight may be diminished, 
 while their strength remains the same, by piercing them with 
 circular holes or lights. This is rarely necessary in ordinary 
 architecture, though sometimes of great use in bridges and iron 
 roofs, (a succession of such circles may be seen, for instance, in 
 the spandrils at the Euston Square station) ; but, from its con- 
 structional value, it becomes the best form in which to arrange 
 spandril decorations, as we shall see hereafter. 
 
 § vill. The height of the load above the arch is determined by 
 the needs of the building and possible length of the shaft ; but 
 with this we have at present nothing to do, for wc have per- 
 
142 XII. THE ARCH LOAD. 
 
 CONSTRlrTlOM. 
 
 formed the task which was set us. We have ascertained, as it 
 Avas required that we should in § VI. of Chap. III., (A), the con- 
 struction of walls; (B), that of piers; (C), that of piers with 
 lintels or arches prepared for roofing. We have next, therefore, 
 to examine (D) the structure of the roof. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 143 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ROOF. 
 
 § I. Hitherto our enquiry has been unembarrassed by any con- 
 siderations relating exclusively either to the exterior or interior 
 of buildings. But it can remain so no longer. As far as the 
 architect is concerned, one side of a wall is generally the same 
 as another ; but in the roof there are usually two distinct 
 divisions of the structure ; one, a shell, vault, or flat ceiling 
 internally visible, the other, an upper structure, built of timber, 
 to protect the lower; or of some different form, to support it. 
 Sometimes, indeed, the internally visible structure is the real 
 roof, and sometimes there are more than two divisions, as in 
 St. Paul's, where we have a central shell with a mask below and 
 above. Still it will be convenient to remember the distinction 
 between the part of the roof which is usually visible from within, 
 and whose only business is to stand strongly, and not fall in, 
 which I shall call the Roof Proper ; and, secondly, the upper 
 roof, which, being often partly supported by the lower, is not so 
 much concerned with its own stability as with the weather, and 
 is appointed to throw off snow, and get rid of rain, as fast as 
 possible, which I shall call the Roof Mask. 
 
 § II. It is, however, needless for me to engage the reader in the 
 discussion of the various methods of construction of Roofs Proper, 
 for this simple reason, that no person without long experience can 
 tell whether a roof be wisely constructed or not ; nor tell at all, 
 even with help of any amount of experience, without examination 
 of the several parts and bearings of it, very different from any 
 observation possible to the general critic: and more than this, 
 the enquiry would be useless to us in our Venetian studies, 
 where the roofs are either not contemporary with the buildings, 
 or flat, or else vaults of the simplest possible constructions, which 
 
144 XIII. THE ROOF. CONSTBUCTIOU. 
 
 have been admirably explained by ^'illis in his " Architecture of 
 the Middle Ages," Chap. VII., to which I may refer the reader 
 for all that it would be well for him to know respecting the 
 connexion of the different parts of the vault with the shafts. 
 He would also do well to read the passages on Tudor vaulting, 
 pp. 185 — 193, in Mr. Garbett's rudimentary Treatise on Design, 
 before alluded to.* I shall content myself therefore with noting 
 one or two points on which neither writer has had occasion to 
 touch, respecting the Roof Mask. 
 
 § III. It was said in § V. of Chapter III. that we should not 
 have occasion, in speaking of roof construction, to add materially 
 to the forms then suggested. The forms which we have to 
 add are only those resulting from the other curves of the arch 
 developed in the last chapter; that is to say, the various eastern 
 domes and cupolas arising out of the revolution of the horseshoe 
 and ogee curves, together with the well-known Chinese concave 
 roof. All these forms are of course purely decorative, the 
 bulging outline, or concave surface, being of no more use, or 
 rather of less, in throwing off snow or rain, than the ordinary 
 spire and gable; and it is rather curious, therefore, that all of 
 them, on a small scale, should have obtained so extensive use in 
 Germany and Switzerland, their native climate being that of the 
 east, where their purpose seems rather to concentrate light upon 
 their orbed surfaces. I much doubt their applicability, on a large 
 scale, to architecture of any admirable dignity: their chief charm 
 is, to the European eye, that of strangeness ; and it seems to me 
 possible that in the east the bulging form may be also delightful, 
 from the idea of its enclosing a volume of cool air. I enjoy them 
 in St. Mark's, chiefly because they increase the fantastic and 
 unreal character of St. Mark's Place ; and because they appear to 
 sympathise with an expression, common, I think, to all the 
 building's of that group, of a natural buoyancy, as if they floated 
 in the air or on the surface of the sea. But, assuredly, they are 
 not features to be recommended for imitation. f 
 
 ■ Appendix 17. 
 
 t I do nut speak of the trui dome, because I have not studied it.- construction 
 
'INSTRUCTION. 
 
 XIII. THE ROOF. 
 
 145 
 
 Fig. XXXVII. 
 
 § IV. One form, closely connected with the Chinese concave, is, 
 however, often constructively right,— the gable with an inward 
 
 angle, occurring with exquisitely pictu- 
 resque effect throughout the domestic 
 architecture of the north, especially 
 Germany and Switzerland ; the lower 
 slope being either an attached external 
 penthouse roof, for protection of the 
 wall, as in Fig. XXXVII., or else a 
 kind of buttress set on the angle of the 
 tower ; and in either case the roof 
 itself being a simple gable, continuous 
 beneath it. 
 
 § v. The true gable, as it is the 
 simplest and most natural, so I esteem 
 it the grandest of roofs ; whether rising in ridgy darkness, like a 
 grey slope of slaty mountains, over the precipitous walls of the 
 northern cathedrals, or stretched in burning breadth above the 
 white and square-set groups of the southern architecture. But 
 this difference between its slope in the northern and southern 
 structure is a matter of far greater importance than is commonly 
 supposed, and it is this to which I would especially direct the 
 reader's attention. 
 
 § vi. One main cause of it, the necessity of throwing off snow 
 in the north, has been a thousand times alluded to : another I do 
 not remember having seen noticed, namely, that rooms in a roof 
 are comfortably habitable in the north, which are painful sotto 
 piombi in Italy ; and that there is in wet climates a natural ten- 
 dency in all men to live as high as possible, out of the damp and 
 mist. These two causes, together with accessible quantities of 
 good timber, have induced in the north a general steep pitch of 
 
 enough to know at what largeness of scale it begins to be rather a tour de force 
 than a convenient or natural form of roof, and because the ordinary spectator's 
 choice among its various outlines must always be dependent on aesthetic con- 
 siderations only, and can in no wise be grounded on any conception of its 
 infinitely complicated structural principles. 
 
 L 
 
14G XIII. THE ROOF. CONSTKWCTION. 
 
 gable, which, when rounded or squared above a tower, becomes a 
 spire or turret ; and this feature, worked out with elaborate deco- 
 ration, is the key-note of the whole system of aspiration, so called, 
 which the German critics have so ingeniously and falsely ascribed 
 to a devotional sentiment pervading the Northern Gothic : I en- 
 tirely and boldly deny the whole theory, our cathedrals were for 
 the most part built by worldly people, who loved the world, and 
 would have gladly staid in it for ever ; whose best hope was the 
 escaping hell, which they thought to do by building cathedrals, 
 but who had very vague conceptions of Heaven in general, and 
 very feeble desires respecting their entrance therein ; and the 
 form of the spired cathedral has no more intentional reference to 
 Heaven, as distinguished from the flattened slope of the Greek 
 pediment, than the steep gable of a Norman house has, as dis- 
 tinguished from the flat roof of a Syrian one. We may now, 
 with ingenious pleasure, trace such symbolic characters in the 
 form ; we may now use it with such definite meaning ; but we 
 only prevent ourselves from all right understanding of history, 
 by attributing much influence to these poetical symbolisms in the 
 formation of a national style. The human race are, for the most 
 part, not to be moved by such silken cords ; and the chances of 
 damp in the cellar, or of loose tiles in the roof, have, unhappily, 
 much more to do with the fashions of a man's house building than 
 his ideas of celestial happiness or angelic virtue. Associations of 
 affection have far higher power, and forms which can be no 
 otherwise accounted for may often be explained by reference to 
 the natural features of the country, or to anything which habit 
 must have rendered familiar, and therefore delightful : but the 
 direct symbolisation of a sentiment is a weak motive with all 
 men, and far more so in the practical minds of the north than 
 among the early Christians, who were assuredly quite as heavenly- 
 minded, when they built basilicas, or cut conchas out of the 
 catacombs, as were ever the Norman barons or monks. 
 
 § vn. There is, however, in the north an animal activity which 
 materially aided the system of building begun in mere utility, — 
 an animal life, naturally expressed in erect work, as the languor 
 
CONSTRUCTION. XIII. THE ROOF. 147 
 
 of the south in reclining or level work. Imagine the difference 
 between the action of a man urging himself to his work in a snow 
 storm, and the inaction of one laid at his length on a sunny bank 
 among cicadas and fallen olives, and you will have the key to a 
 whole group of sympathies which were forcefully expressed in the 
 architecture of both ; remembering always that sleep would be 
 to the one luxury, to the other death. 
 
 § VIII. And to the force of this vital instinct we have farther 
 to add the influence of natural scenery ; and chiefly of the 
 groups and wildernesses of the tree which is to the German mind 
 what the olive or palm is to the southern, the spruce fir. The 
 eye which has once been habituated to the continual serration 
 of the pine forest, and to the multiplication of its infinite pin- 
 nacles, is not easily offended by the repetition of similar forms, 
 nor easily satisfied by the simplicity of flat or massive outlines. 
 Add to the influence of the pine, that of the poplar, more 
 especially in the valleys of France ; but think of the spruce 
 chiefly, and meditate on the difference of feeling with which the 
 Northman would be inspired by the frost-work wreathed upon its 
 glittering point, and the Italian by the dark green depth of sun- 
 shine on the broad table of the stone pine *, (and consider by the 
 way whether the spruce fir be a more heavenly-minded tree than 
 those dark canopies of the Mediterranean isles). 
 
 § IX. Circumstance and sentiment, therefore, aiding each other, 
 the steep roof becomes generally adopted, and delighted in, 
 throughout the north ; and then, with the gradual exaggeration 
 with which every pleasant idea is pursued by the human mind, 
 it is raised into all manner of peaks, and points, and ridges ; and 
 pinnacle after pinnacle is added on its flanks, and the walls 
 increased in height, in proportion, until Ave get indeed a very- 
 sublime mass, but one which has no more principle of religious 
 
 * I shall not be thought to have overrated the effect of forest scenery on the 
 nortlier>i mind ; but I was glad to hear a Spanish gentleman, the other day, 
 describing, together with his own, the regret which the peasants in his neigh- 
 bourhood had testified for the loss of a noble stone pine, one of the grandest in 
 Spain, which its proprietor had suffered to be cut down for small gain. He said 
 that the mere spot where it had grown was still popularly known as " El Pino." 
 
 l 2 
 
148 XIII. THE ROOF. CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 aspiration in it than a child's tower of cards. What is more, the 
 desire to build high is complicated with the peculiar love of the 
 grotesque* which is characteristic of the north, together with 
 especial delight in multiplication of small forms, as well as in 
 exaggerated points of shade and energy, and a certain degree of 
 consequent insensibility to perfect grace and quiet truthfulness ; 
 so that a northern architect could not feel the beauty of the 
 Elgin marbles, and there will always be (in those who have 
 devoted themselves to this particular school) a certain incapacity 
 to taste the finer characters of Greek art, or to understand Titian, 
 Tintoret, or Raphael : whereas among the Italian Gothic work- 
 men, this capacity was never lost, and Nino Pisano and Orcagna 
 could have understood the Theseus in an instant, and would have 
 received from it new life. There can be no question that theirs 
 was the greatest school, and carried out by the greatest men ; 
 and that while those who began with this school could perfectly 
 well feel Rouen Cathedral, those who study the Northern Gothic 
 remain in a narrowed field — one of small pinnacles, and dots, 
 and crockets, and twitched faces — and cannot comprehend the 
 meaning of a broad surface or a grand line. Nevertheless the 
 northern school is an admirable and delightful thing, but a lower 
 thing than the southern. The Gothic of the Ducal Palace of 
 Venice is in harmony with all that is grand in all the world: 
 that of the north is in harmony with the gi'otesque northern 
 spirit only. 
 
 § X. We are, however, beginning to lose sight of our roof 
 structure in its spirit, and must return to our text. As the 
 height of the walls increased, in sympathy with the rise of the 
 roof, while their thickness remained the same, it became more and 
 more necessary to support them by buttresses; but — and this is 
 another point that the reader must specially note — it is not the 
 steep roof mask which requires the buttress, but the vaulting 
 beneath it ; the roof mask being a mere wooden frame tied 
 together by cross timbers, and in small buildings often put 
 together on the ground, raised afterwards, and set on the walls 
 
 * Appendix 8. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. XIII. THE HOOF. 149 
 
 like a hat, bearing vertically upon them ; and farther, I believe 
 in most cases the northern vaulting requires its great array of 
 external buttress, not so much from any peculiar boldness in its 
 own forms, as from the greater comparative thinness and height 
 of the walls, and more determined throwing of the whole weight 
 of the roof on particular points. Now the connexion of the in- 
 terior framework (or true roof) with the buttress, at such points, 
 is not visible to the spectators from without ; but the relation of 
 the roof mask to the top of the wall which it protects, or from 
 which it springs, is perfectly visible ; and it is a point of so great 
 importance in the effect of the building, that it will be well 
 to make it a subject of distinct consideration in the following 
 Chapter. 
 
 i, 3 
 
150 
 
 I .INSTRUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE ROOF CORNICE. 
 
 § I. It will be remembered that in the Sixth Chapter we paused 
 (§ X.) at the point where the addition of brackets to the ordinary 
 wall cornice would have converted it into a structure proper for 
 sustaining a roof. Now the wall cornice was treated throughout 
 our enquiry (compare Chapter VII. § V.) as the capital of the wall, 
 and as forming, by its concentration, the capital of the shaft. 
 But we must not reason back from the capital to the cornice, 
 and suppose that an extension of the principles of the capital to 
 the whole length of the wall, will serve for the roof cornice ; for 
 all our conclusions respecting the capital were based on the 
 supposition of its being adapted to carry considerable weight 
 condensed on its abacus : but the roof cornice is, in most cases, 
 required rather to project boldly than to cany weight ; and 
 arrangements are therefore to be adopted for it which will secure 
 the projection of large surfaces without being calculated to resist 
 extraordinary pressure. This object is obtained by the use of 
 brackets at intervals, which are the peculiar distinction of the 
 roof cornice. 
 
 § n. Roof cornices are generally to be divided into two great 
 families : the first and simplest, those which are composed merely 
 by the projection of the edge of the roof mask over the wall, 
 sustained by such brackets or spurs as may be necessary ; the 
 second, those which provide a walk round the edge of the roof, 
 and which require, therefore, some stronger support, as well as 
 a considerable mass of building above or beside the roof mask, 
 and a parapet. These two families we shall consider in suc- 
 cession. 
 
 § in. 1. The Eaved Cornice. We may give it this name, as 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE. 151 
 
 represented in the simplest form by cottage eaves. It is used, 
 however, in bold projection, both in north, and south, and east ; 
 its use being, in the north, to throw the rain well away from the 
 wall of the building ; in the south, to give it shade ; and it is 
 ordinarily constructed of the ends of the timbers of the roof mask 
 (with their tiles or shingles continued to the edge of the cornice), 
 and sustained by spurs of timber. This is its most picturesque 
 and natural form ; not inconsistent with great splendour of ar- 
 chitecture in the mediaeval Italian domestic buildings, superb 
 in its mass of cast shadow, and giving rich effect to the streets 
 of Swiss towns, even when they have no other claim to interest. 
 A farther value is given to it by its waterspouts, for in order to 
 avoid loading it with weight of water in the gutter at the edge, 
 where it would be a strain on the fastenings of the pipe, 
 it has spouts of discharge at intervals of three or four feet, 
 — rows of magnificent leaden or iron dragons' heads, full of 
 delightful character, except to any person passing along the 
 middle of the street in a heavy shower. I have had my share 
 of their kindness in my time, but owe them no grudge ; on the 
 contrary, much gratitude for the delight of their fantastic out- 
 line on the calm blue sky, when they had no work to do but 
 to open their iron mouths and pant in the sunshine. 
 
 § IV. When, however, light is more valuable than shadow, or 
 when the architecture of the wall is too fair to be concealed, it 
 becomes necessary to draw the cornice into narrower limits; a 
 change of considerable importance, in that it permits the gutter, 
 instead of being of lead and hung to the edge of the cornice, to 
 be of stone, and supported by brackets in the wall, these brackets 
 becoming proper recipients of after decoration (and sometimes 
 associated with the stone channels of discharge, called gargoyles, 
 which belong, however, more properly to the other family of 
 cornices). The most perfect and beautiful example of this kind 
 of cornice is the Venetian, in which the rain from the tiles is 
 received in a stone gutter, supported by small brackets, delicately 
 moulded, and having its outer lower edge decorated with the 
 English dogtooth moulding, whose sharp zigzag mingles richly 
 
 i. 4 
 
L52 XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE. 
 
 CONSTBI I I l.iv. 
 
 with the curved edges of the tiling. I know no cornice more 
 beautiful in its extreme simplicity and serviceableness. 
 
 § V. The cornice of the Greek Doric is a condition of the same 
 kind, in which, however, there are no brackets, but useless 
 appendages hung to the bottom of the gutter (giving, however, 
 some impression of support as seen from a distance), and de- 
 corated with stone symbolisms of raindrops. The brackets are 
 not allowed, because they would interfere with the sculpture, 
 which in this architecture is put beneath the cornice ; and the 
 overhanging form of the gutter is nothing more than a vast 
 dripstone moulding, to keep the rain from such sculpture: its 
 decoration of guttas, seen in silver points against the shadow, is 
 pretty in feeling, -with a kind of continual refreshment and re- 
 membrance of rain in it ; but the whole arrangement is awkward 
 and meagre, and is only endurable when the eye is quickly drawn 
 away from it to sculpture. 
 
 g VI. In later cornices, invented for the Greek orders, and farther 
 developed by the Romans, the bracket appears in true importance, 
 though of barbarous and effeminate outline: and gorgeous 
 decorations are applied to it, and to the various horizontal 
 mouldings which it carries, some of them of great beauty, and 
 of the highest value to the mediaeval architects who imitated 
 them. But a singularly gross mistake was made in the distri- 
 bution of decoration on these rich cornices, (I do not know when 
 first, nor does it matter to me or to the reader,) namely, the 
 charging with ornament the under surface of the cornice between 
 the brackets, that is to say, the exact piece of the whole edifice, 
 from top to bottom, where ornament is least visible. I need 
 hardly say much respecting the wisdom of this procedure, 
 excusable only if the whole building were covered with ornament ; 
 but it is curious to see the way in which modern architects have 
 copied it, even when they had little enough ornament to spare. 
 For instance, I suppose few persons look at the Athenaaum Club- 
 house without feeling vexed at the meagreness and meanness 
 of the windows of the ground floor: if, however, they look up 
 under the cornice, and have good eyes, they will perceive that 
 
• "NMRrtTlON. 
 
 XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE. 1 53 
 
 the architect has reserved his decorations to put between the 
 brackets ; and by going up to the first floor and out on the 
 gallery, they may succeed in obtaining some glimpses of the 
 designs of the said decorations. 
 
 § VII. Such as they are, or were, these cornices were soon 
 considered essential parts of the " order " to which they belonged; 
 and the same wisdom which endeavoured to fix the proportions 
 of the orders, appointed also that no order should go without its 
 cornice. The reader has probably heard of the architectural 
 division of superstructure into architrave, frieze, and cornice ; 
 parts which have been appointed by great architects to all their 
 work, in the same spirit in which great rhetoricians have ordained 
 that every speech shall have an exordium, and narration, and 
 peroration. The reader will do well to consider that it may be 
 sometimes just as possible to carry a roof, and get rid of rain, 
 without such an arrangement, as it is to tell a plain fact with- 
 out an exordium or peroration : but he must very absolutely 
 consider that the architectural peroration or cornice is strictly 
 and sternly limited to the end of the wall's speech, — that is, 
 to the edge of the roof ; and that it has nothing whatever to do 
 with shafts nor the orders of them. And he will then be able 
 fully to enjoy the farther ordinance of the late Roman and 
 Renaissance architects, who, attaching it to the shaft as if it were 
 part of its shadow, and having to employ their shafts often in 
 places where they came not near the roof, forthwith cut the roof- 
 cornice to pieces, and attached a bit of it to every column ; 
 thenceforward to be carried by the unhappy shaft wherever it 
 went, in addition to any other work on which it might happen to 
 be employed. I do not recollect among any living beings, except 
 Renaissance architects, any instance of a parallel or comparable 
 stupidity : but one can imagine a savage getting hold of a piece 
 of one of our iron wire ropes, with its rings upon it at intervals 
 to bind it together, and pulling the wires asunder to apply them 
 to separate purposes ; but imagining there was magic in the ring 
 that bound them, and so cutting that to pieces also, and fastening 
 a little bit of it to every wire. 
 
154 XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE. 
 
 < O.NMRll TION. 
 
 § VIII. Thus much may serve us to know respecting the first 
 family of wall cornices. The second is immeasurably more 
 important, and includes the cornices of all the best buildings in 
 the world. It has derived its best form from mediaeval military 
 architecture, which imperatively required two things ; first, a 
 parapet which should permit sight and offence, and afford defence 
 at the same time ; and secondly, a projection bold enough to 
 enable the defenders to rake the bottom of the wall with falling 
 bodies ; projection which, if the wall happened to slope inwards, 
 required not to be small. The thoroughly magnificent forms of 
 cornice thus developed by necessity in military buildings, were 
 adopted, with more or less of boldness or distinctness, in domestic 
 architecture, according to the temper of the times and the cir- 
 cumstances of the individual — decisively in the baron's house, 
 imperfectly in the burgher's : gradually they found their way into 
 ecclesiastical architecture, under wise modifications in the early 
 cathedrals, with infinite absurdity in the imitations of them ; dimi- 
 nishing in size as their original purpose sank into a decorative 
 one, until we find battlements, two-and-a-quarter inches square, 
 decorating the gates of the Philanthropic Society. 
 
 § IX. There are, therefore, two distinct features in all cornices 
 of this kind ; first, the bracket, now become of enormous im- 
 portance and of most serious practical sendee ; the second, the 
 parapet : and these two features we shall con- 
 Fig, xxxviii. sider in succession, and, in so doing, shall 
 learn all that it is needful for us to know, 
 not only respecting cornices, but respecting 
 brackets in general, and balconies. 
 
 § X. 1. The Bracket. In the simplest form 
 of military cornice, the brackets are composed 
 of two or moi'e long stones, supporting each 
 other in gradually increasing projection, with 
 roughly rounded ends, Fig. XXXVIII., and 
 the parapet is simply a low wall carried on 
 the ends of these, leaving, of course, behind, 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE. 155 
 
 or within it, a hole between each bracket for the convenient 
 dejection of hot sand and lead. This form is best seen, I think, 
 in the old Scotch castles : it is very grand, but has a giddy 
 look, and one is afraid of the whole thing toppling off the wall. 
 The next step was to deepen the brackets, so as to get them 
 propped against a great depth of the main rampart, and to have 
 the inner ends of the stones held by a greater weight of that 
 main wall above ; while small arches were thrown from bracket 
 to bracket to carry the parapet wall more securely. This is the 
 most perfect form of cornice, completely satisfying the eye of its 
 security, giving full protection to the wall, and applicable to all 
 architecture, the interstices between the brackets being filled 
 up, when one does not want to throw boiling lead on any body 
 below, and the projection being always delightful, as giving 
 greater command and view of the building, from its angles, to 
 those walking on the rampart. And as, in military buildings, 
 there were usually towers at the angles (round which the 
 battlements swept) in order to flank the walls, so often, in the 
 translation into civil or ecclesiastical architecture, a small turret 
 remained at the angle, or a more bold projection of balcony, to 
 give larger prospect to those upon the rampart. This cornice, 
 perfect in all its parts, as arranged for ecclesiastical architecture, 
 and exquisitely decorated, is the one employed in the duomo 
 of Florence and campanile of Giotto, of which I have already 
 spoken as, I suppose, the most perfect architecture in the 
 world. 
 
 § XI. In less important positions and on smaller edifices, this 
 cornice diminishes in size, while it retains its arrangement, 
 and at last we find nothing but the spirit and form of it left ; 
 the real practical purpose having ceased, and arch, brackets and 
 all, being cut out of a single stone. Thus we find it used in 
 early buildings throughout the whole of the north and south of 
 Eui'ope, in forms sufficiently represented by the two examples 
 in Plate IV. : 1, from St. Antonio, Padua ; 2, from Sens in 
 France. 
 
156 
 
 XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Fig. XXXIX. 
 
 L 
 
 § XII. I wish, however, at present to fix the reader's attention 
 on the form of the bracket itself; a most important feature in 
 modern as well as ancient architecture. The 
 first idea of a bracket is that of a long stone or 
 piece of timber projecting from the wall, as a, 
 Fig. XXXIX., of which the strength depends on 
 the toughness of the stone or wood, and the sta- 
 bility on the weight of wall above it (unless it be 
 the end of a main beam). But let it lie supposed 
 that the structure at a, being of the required pro- 
 jection, is found too weak : then we may strengthen 
 it in one of three ways; (1) by putting a second 
 or third stone beneath it, as at b ; ( 2 ) by giving 
 it a spur, as at c; (3) by giving it a shaft and 
 another bracket below, d ; the great use of this 
 arrangement being that the lowermost bracket has 
 the help of the weight of the shaft-length of wall 
 jr" above its insertion, which is, of course, greater 
 than the weight of the small shaft : and then the 
 lower bracket may be farther helped by the structure at b or c. 
 
 § XIII. Of these structures, a and c are evidently adapted 
 especially for wooden buildings ; b and d for stone ones ; the last, 
 of course, susceptible of the richest decoration, and superbly 
 employed in the cornice of the cathedral of Monza : but all are 
 beautiful in their way, and are the means of, I think, 
 nearly half the picturesqueness and power of mediaeval 
 building ; the forms b and c being, of course, the 
 most frequent: a, when it occurs, being usually rounded 
 off, as at a, Fig. XL. ; b, also, as in Fig. XXXVIII., 
 or else itself composed of a single stone cut into the 
 form of the group b here, Fig. XL., or plain, as at 
 c, which is also the proper form of the brick bracket, 
 when stone is not to be had. The reader will at once 
 perceive that the form d is a barbarism (unless when 
 the scale is small and the weight to be carried ex- 
 ceedingly light ) : it is of course, therefore, a favourite form with 
 
 Fig. XL. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XIV. THE HOOF CORNICE. 157 
 
 the Renaissance architects ; and its introduction is one of the 
 first corruptions of the Venetian architecture. 
 
 § xrv. There is one point necessary to be noticed, though 
 bearing on decoration more than construction, before we leave 
 the subject of the bracket. The whole power of the construction 
 depends upon the stones being well let into the wall ; and the 
 first function of the decoration should be to give the idea of this 
 insertion, if possible; at all events, not to contradict this idea. 
 If the reader will glance at any of the brackets used in the 
 Fin- xli ordinary architecture of London, he will find them of 
 some such character as Fig. XLI. ; not a bad form 
 in itself, but exquisitely absurd in its curling lines, 
 which give the idea of some writhing suspended 
 tendril, instead of a stiff support, and by their careful 
 avoidance of the wall make the bracket look pinned 
 on, and in constant danger of sliding down. This is, 
 also, a Classical and Renaissance decoration. 
 
 § XV. 2. The Parapet. Its forms are fixed in military ar- 
 chitecture by the necessities of the art of war at the time of 
 building, and are always beautiful wherever they have been 
 really thus fixed ; delightful in the variety of their setting, and 
 in the quaint darkness of their shot-holes, and fantastic changes 
 of elevation and outline. Nothing is more remarkable than the 
 swiftly discerned difference between the masculine irregularity 
 of such true battlements, and the formal pitifulness of those 
 which are set on modern buildings to give them a military air, 
 — as on the jail at Edinburgh. 
 
 § xvi. Respecting the parapet for mere safeguard upon 
 buildings not military, there are just two fixed laws. It should 
 be pierced, otherwise it is not recognised from below for a 
 parapet at all, and it should not be in the form of a battlement, 
 especially in church architecture. 
 
 The most comfortable heading of a true parapet is a plain level 
 on which the arm can be rested, and along which it can glide. 
 Any j a g s or elevations are disagreeable ; the latter, as interrupting 
 the view and disturbing the eye, if they are higher than the arm 
 
158 XIV. THE HOOF CORNICE. construction. 
 
 the former, as opening some aspect of danger if they are much 
 lower ; and the inconvenience, therefore, of the battlemented 
 form, as well as the worse than absurdity, the bad feeling, of the 
 appliance of a military feature to a church, ought long ago to 
 have determined its rejection. Still (for the question of its 
 picturesque value is here so closely connected with that of its 
 practical use, that it is vain to endeavour to discuss it separately) 
 there is a certain agreeableness in the way in which the jagged 
 outline dovetails the shadow of the slated or leaded roof into the 
 top of the wall, which may make the use of the battlement 
 excusable where there is a difficulty in managing some unvai-ied 
 line, and where the expense of a pierced parapet cannot be 
 encountered : but remember always, that the value of the 
 battlement consists in its letting shadow into the light of the 
 wall, or vice versa, when it comes against light sky, letting the 
 light of the sky into the shade of the wall ; but that the actual 
 outline of the parapet itself, if the eye be arrested upon this, 
 instead of upon the alternation of shadow, is as ugly a, succession 
 of line as can by any possibility be invented. Therefore, the 
 battlemented parapet may only be used where this alternation of 
 shade is certain to be shown, under nearly all conditions of effect ; 
 and where the lines to be dealt with are on a scale which may 
 admit battlements of bold and manly size. The idea that a 
 battlement is an ornament anywhere, and that a miserable and 
 diminutive imitation of castellated outline will always serve to fill 
 up blanks and Gothicise unmanageable spaces, is one of the great 
 idiocies of the present day. A battlement is in its origin a piece 
 of Avail large enough to cover a man's bodj 7 , and however it may 
 be decorated, or pierced, or finessed away into traceries, as long 
 as so much of its outline is retained as to suggest its origin, so 
 Ions its size must remain undiminished. To crown a turret 
 six feet high with chopped battlements three inches wide, is 
 children's Gothic ; it is one of the paltry falsehoods for which 
 there is no excuse, and part of the system of using models of 
 architecture to decorate architecture, which we shall hereafter 
 note as one of the chief and most destructive follies of the 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XIV. THE ROOF COKNICE. 159 
 
 Renaissance * ; and in the present day the practice may be classed 
 as one which distinguishes the architects of whom there is no 
 hope, who have neither eye nor head for their work, and who 
 must pass their lives in vain struggles against the refractory 
 lines of their own buildings. 
 
 § XVII. As the only excuse for the battlemented parapet is its 
 alternation of shadow, so the only fault of the natural or level 
 parapet is its monotony of line. This is, however, in practice, 
 almost always broken by the pinnacles of the buttresses, and if 
 not, may be varied by the tracery of its penetrations. The 
 forms of these evidently admit every kind of change ; for a 
 stone parapet, however pierced, is sure to be strong enough for 
 its purpose of protection, and, as regards the strength of the 
 building in general, the lighter it is the better. More fantastic 
 forms may, therefore, be admitted in a parapet than in any other 
 architectural feature, and for most services, the Flamboyant para- 
 pets seem to me preferable to all others ; especially when the 
 leaden roofs set off by points of darkness the lace-like intricacy 
 of penetration. These, however, as well as the forms usually 
 given to Renaissance balustrades (of which, by the bye, the best 
 piece of criticism I know is the sketch in " David Copperfield " 
 of the personal appearance of the man who stole Jip), and the 
 other and finer forms invented by Paul Veronese in his archi- 
 tectural backgrounds, together with the pure columnar balustrade 
 of Venice, must be considered as altogether decorative features. 
 
 § xvm. So also are, of course, the jagged or crown-like finishings 
 of walls employed where no real parapet of protection is desired ; 
 originating in the defences of outworks and single walls : these are 
 
 * Not of Renaissance alone : the practice of modelling buildings on a minute 
 scale for niches and tabernacle-work has always been more or less admitted, and 
 I suppose authority for diminutive battlements might be gathered from the 
 Gothic of almost ever}' period, as well as for many other faults and mistakes : no 
 Gothic school having ever been thoroughly systematised or perfected, even in its 
 best times. But that a mistaken decoration sometimes occurs among a crowd of 
 noble ones, is no more an excuse for the habitual — far less, the exclusive — use. 
 of such a decoration, than the accidental or seeming misconstructions of a Greek 
 chorus are an excuse for a schoolboy's ungrammatical exercise. 
 
1GU XIV. THE ROOF CORNICE. cohstrbction. 
 
 used much in the east on walls surrounding unroofed courts. The 
 richest examples of such decoration are Arabian ; and from Cairo 
 they seem to have been brought to Venice. It is probable that 
 few of my readers, however familiar the general form of the 
 Ducal Palace may have been rendered to them by innumerable 
 drawings, have any distinct idea of its roof, owing to the staying 
 of the eye on its superb parapet, of which we shall give account 
 hereafter. In most of the Venetian cases the parapets which 
 surround roofing are very sufficient for protection, except that 
 the stones of which they are composed appear loose and infirm : 
 but their purpose is entirely decorative ; every wall, whether 
 detached or roofed, being indiscriminately fringed with Arabic 
 forms of parapet, more or less Gothicised, according to the 
 lateness of their date. 
 
 I think there is no other point of importance requiring illustra- 
 tion respecting the roof itself, or its cornice : but this Venetian 
 form of ornamental parapet connects itself curiously, at the angles 
 of nearly all the buildings on which it occurs, with the pinnacled 
 system of the north, founded on the structure of the buttress. 
 This, it will be remembered, is to be the subject of the fifth 
 division of our enquiry. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 161 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BUTTRESS. 
 
 § I. We have hitherto supposed ourselves concerned with the 
 support of vertical pressure only ; and the arch and roof have 
 been considered as forms of abstract strength, without reference 
 to the means by which their lateral pressure was to be resisted. 
 Few readers will need now to be reminded, that every arch or 
 gable not tied at its base by beams or bars, exercises a lateral 
 pressure upon the walls which sustain it, — pressure which 
 may, indeed, be met and sustained by increasing the thick- 
 ness of the wall or vertical piers, and which is in reality thus 
 met in most Italian buildings, but may, with less expenditure of 
 material, and with (perhaps) more graceful effect, be met by 
 some particular application of the provisions against lateral 
 pressure called Buttresses. These, therefore, we are next to 
 examine. 
 
 § - IL Buttresses are of many kinds, according to the character 
 and direction of the lateral forces they are intended to resist. 
 But their first broad division is into buttresses which meet and 
 break the force before it arrives at the wall, and buttresses which 
 stand on the lee side of the wall, and prop it against the force. 
 
 The lateral forces which walls have to sustain are of three 
 distinct kinds: dead weight, as of masonry or still water; moving 
 weight, as of wind or running water; and sudden concussion, as 
 of earthquakes, explosions, &c. 
 
 Clearly, dead weight can only be resisted by the buttress acting 
 as a prop ; for a buttress on the side of, or towards the weight, 
 would only add to its effect. This, then, forms the first great class 
 of buttressed architecture ; lateral thrusts, of roofing or arches. 
 
 M 
 
162 XV. THE BUTTRESS. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 being met by props of masonry outside — the thrust from within, 
 the prop without; or the crushing force of water on a ship's side 
 met by its cross timbers — the thrust here from without the wall, 
 the prop within. 
 
 Moving weight may, of course, be resisted by the prop on the 
 lee side of the wall, but is often more effectually met, on the 
 side which is attacked, by buttresses of peculiar forms, cunning 
 buttresses, which do not attempt to sustain the weight, but parry 
 it, and throw it off in directions clear of the wall. 
 
 Thirdly: concussions and vibratory motion, though in reality 
 only supported by the prop buttress, must be provided for by 
 buttresses on both sides of the wall, as their direction cannot be 
 foreseen, and is continually changing. 
 
 We shall briefly glance at these three systems of buttressing ; 
 but the two latter being of small importance to our present 
 purpose, may as well be dismissed first. 
 
 §lll. 1. Buttresses for guard against moving weight and set 
 towards the weight they resist. 
 
 The most familiar instance of this kind of buttress we have 
 in the sharp piers of a bridge, in the centre of a powerful 
 stream, which divide the current on their edges, and throw 
 it to each side under the arches. A ship's bow is a buttress 
 of the same kind, and so also the ridge of a breastplate, 
 both adding to the strength of it in resisting a cross blow, and 
 giving a better chance of a bullet glancing aside. In Switzerland, 
 projecting buttresses of this kind are often built round churches, 
 heading up hill, to divide and throw off the avalanches. The 
 various forms given to piers and harbour quays, and to the bases 
 of lighthouses, in order to meet the force of the waves, are all 
 conditions of this kind of buttress. But in works of ornamental 
 architecture such buttresses are of rare occurrence ; and I merely 
 name them in order to mark their place in our architectural 
 system, since in the investigation of our present subject we shall 
 not meet with a single example of them, unless sometimes the 
 angle of the foundation of a palace set against the sweep of the tide, 
 or the wooden piers of some canal bridge quivering in its current. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XV. THE BUTTRESS. 163 
 
 §IV. 2. Buttresses for guard against vibratory motion. 
 
 The whole formation of this kind of buttress resolves itself into 
 mere expansion of the base of the wall, so as to make it stand 
 steadier, as a man stands with his feet apart when he is likely 
 to lose his balance. This approach to a pyramidal form is also 
 of great use as a guard against the action of artillery ; that if a 
 stone or tier of stones be battered out of the lower portions of 
 the wall, the whole upper part may not topple over or crumble 
 down at once. Various forms of this buttress, sometimes ap- 
 plied to particular points of the wall, sometimes forming a great 
 sloping rampart along its base, are frequent in buildings of 
 countries exposed to earthcpiake. They give a peculiarly heavy 
 outline to much of the architecture of the kingdom of Naples, 
 and they are of the form in which strength and solidity are 
 first naturally sought, in the slope of the Egyptian wall. The 
 base of Guy's Tower at Warwick is a singularly bold example of 
 their military use ; and so, in general, bastion and rampart pro- 
 files, where, however, the object of stability against a shock is 
 complicated with that of sustaining weight of earth in the ram- 
 part behind. 
 
 § V. 3. Prop buttresses against dead weight. 
 
 This is the group with which we have principally to do ; 
 and a buttress of this kind acts in two ways, partly by its weight 
 and partly by its strength. It acts by its weight when its mass 
 is so great that the weight it sustains cannot stir it, but is lost 
 upon it, buried in it, and annihilated : neither the shape of 
 such a butti"ess nor the cohesion of its materials are of much 
 consecmence ; a heap of stones or sandbags, laid up against the 
 wall, will answer as well as a built and cemented mass. 
 
 But a buttress acting by its strength is not of mass sufficient 
 to resist the weight by mere inertia ; but it conveys the weight 
 through its body to something else which is so capable ; as, for 
 instance, a man leaning against a door with his hands, and 
 propping himself against the ground, conveys the force which 
 would open or close the door against him through his body to 
 the ground. A buttress acting in this way must be of perfectly 
 
164 XV. TIIE BUTTRESS. 
 
 i INSTRUCTION. 
 
 coherent materials, and so strong that though the weight to he 
 borne could easily move it, it cannot break it : this kind of 
 buttress may be called a conducting buttress. Practical]}', 
 however, the two modes of action are always in some sort 
 united. Again, the weight to be borne may either act generally 
 on the whole wall surface, or with excessive energy on particular 
 points : when it acts on the whole wall surface, the whole wall 
 is generally supported ; and the arrangement becomes a con- 
 tinuous rampart, as a dyke, or bank of reservoir. 
 
 § VI. It is, however, very seldom that lateral force in archi- 
 tecture is equally distributed. In most cases the weight of the 
 roof, or the force of any lateral thrust, are more or less confined 
 to certain points and directions. In an early state of archi- 
 tectural science this definiteness of direction is not yet clear, 
 and it is met by uncertain application of mass or strength in the 
 buttress, sometimes by mere thickening of the wall into square 
 piers, which are partly piers, partly buttresses, as in Norman keeps 
 and towers. But as science advances, the weight to be borne is 
 designedly and decisively thrown upon certain points ; the di- 
 rection and degree of the forces which are then received are 
 exactly calculated, and met by conducting buttresses of the 
 smallest possible dimensions ; themselves, in their turn, supported 
 by vertical buttresses acting by weight, and these perhaps, in 
 their turn, by another set of conducting buttresses : so that, in 
 the best examples of such ari'angements, the weight to be borne 
 may be considered as the shock of an electric fluid, which, by a 
 hundred different rods and channels, is divided and carried away 
 into the ground. 
 
 § VII. In order to give greater weight to the vertical buttress 
 piers which sustain the conducting buttresses, they are loaded 
 with pinnacles, which, however, are, I believe, in all the buildings 
 in which they become very prominent, merely decorative : they 
 are of some use, indeed, by their weight ; but if this were all for 
 which they Avere put thei'e, a few cubic feet of lead would much 
 more securely answer the purpose, without any danger from 
 exposure to wind. If the reader likes to ask any Gothic 
 
construction. XV. THE BUTTRESS. 165 
 
 architect with whom he may happen to be acquainted, to sub- 
 stitute a lump of lead for his pinnacles, he will see by the 
 expression of his face how far he considers the pinnacles decora- 
 tive members. In the work which seems to me the great type of 
 simple and masculine buttress structure, the apse of Beauvais, the 
 pinnacles are altogether insignificant, and are evidently added 
 just as exclusively to entertain the eye and lighten the aspect of 
 the buttress, as the slight shafts which are set on its angles ; while 
 in other very noble Gothic buildings the pinnacles are introduced 
 as niches for statues, without any reference to construction at all ; 
 and sometimes even, as in the tomb of Can Signorio at Verona, 
 on small piers detached from the main building. 
 
 § vill. I believe, therefore, that the development of the pinnacle 
 is merely a part of the general erectness and picturesqueness of 
 northern work above alluded to ; and that, if there had been no 
 other place for the pinnacles, the Gothic builders would have put 
 them on the tops of their arches (they often did on the tops of 
 gables and pediments), rather than not have had them ; but the 
 natural position of the pinnacle is, of course, where it adds to, 
 rather than diminishes, the stability of the building; that is to 
 say, on its main wall piers and the vertical piers of the buttresses. 
 And thus the edifice is surrounded at last by a complete com- 
 pany of detached piers and pinnacles, each sustaining an inclined 
 prop against the central wall, and looking something like a band 
 of giants holding it up with the butts of their lances. This 
 arrangement would imply the loss of an enormous space of 
 ground, but the intervals of the buttresses are usually walled 
 in below, and form minor chapels. 
 
 § IX. The science of this arrangement has made it the subject 
 of much enthusiastic declamation among the Gothic architects, 
 almost as unreasonable, in some respects, as the declamation of the 
 Renaissance architects respecting Greek structure. The fact is, 
 that the whole northern buttress system is based on the grand 
 requirement of tall windows and vast masses of light at the end 
 of the apse. In order to gain this quantity of light, the piers 
 between the windows are diminished in thickness until they are 
 
 M 3 
 
166 XV. THE BUTTRESS. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 far too weak to bear the roof, and then sustained by external 
 buttresses. In the Italian method the light is rather dreaded 
 than desired, and the wall is made wide enough between the 
 windows to bear the roof, and so left. In fact, the simplest 
 expression of the difference in the systems is, that a northern 
 apse is a southern one with its inter-fenestral piers set edgeways. 
 Thus, a, Fig. XLIL, is the general idea of the southern apse ; 
 
 Fi£. XLII. 
 
 c^ ^J 
 
 take it to pieces, and set all its piers edgeways, as at b, and you 
 have the northern one. You gain much light for the interior, 
 but you cut the exterior to pieces, and instead of a bold rounded 
 or polygonal surface, ready for any kind of decoration, you have 
 a series of dark and damp cells, which no device that I have 
 yet seen has succeeded in decorating in a perfectly satisfactory 
 manner. If the system be farther carried, and a second or third 
 order of buttresses be added, the real fact is that we have a 
 building standing on two or three rows of concentric piers, with 
 the roof off the whole of it except the central circle, and only 
 ribs left, to carry the weight of the bit of remaining roof in the 
 middle ; and after the eye has been accustomed to the bold and 
 simple rounding of the Italian apse, the skeleton character of the 
 disposition is painfully felt. After spending some months in 
 Venice, I thought Iiourges Cathedral looked exactly like a half- 
 built ship on its shores. It is useless, however, to dispute 
 respecting the merits of the two systems : both are noble in their 
 place ; the Northern decidedly the most scientific, or at least 
 involving the greatest display of science, the Italian the calmest 
 and purest, this having in it the sublimity of a calm heaven or 
 a windless noon, the other that of a mountain flank tormented 
 
construction. XV. THE BUTTRESS. 167 
 
 by the north wind, and withering into grisly furrows of alternate 
 chasm and crag. 
 
 § X. If I have succeeded in making the reader understand the 
 veritable action of the buttress, he will have no difficulty in 
 determining its fittest form. He has to deal with two distinct 
 kinds ; one, a narrow vertical pier, acting principally by its weight, 
 and crowned by a pinnacle ; the other, commonly called a Flying 
 buttress, a cross bar set from such a pier (when detached from 
 the building) against the main wall. This latter, then, is to be 
 considered as a mere prop or shore, and its use by the Gothic 
 architects might be illustrated by the supposition that we were to 
 build all our houses with walls too thin to stand without wooden 
 props outside, and then to substitute stone props for wooden ones. 
 I have some doubts of the real dignity of such a proceeding, but 
 at all events the merit of the form of the flying buttress depends 
 on its faithfully and visibly performing this somewhat humble 
 office ; it is, therefore, in its purity, a mere sloping bar of stone, 
 with an arch beneath it to carry its weight, that is to say, to pre- 
 vent the action of gravity from in any wise deflecting it, or causing 
 it to break downwards under the lateral thrust ; it is thus found 
 quite simple in Notre Dame of Paris, and in the Cathedral of 
 Beauvais, while at Cologne the sloping bars are pierced with 
 quatrefoils, and at Amiens with traceried arches. Both seem to 
 me effeminate and false in principle ; not, of course, that there 
 is any occasion to make the flying buttress heavy, if a light one 
 will answer the purpose ; but it seems as if some security were 
 sacrificed to ornament. At Amiens the arrangement is now seen 
 to great disadvantage, for the eai'ly traceries have been replaced 
 by base flamboyant ones, utterly weak and despicable. Of the 
 degradations of the original form which took place in after times, 
 I have spoken at p. 35. of the " Seven Lamps." 
 
 § XL The form of the common buttress must be familiar to 
 the eye of every readei', sloping if low, and thrown into succes- 
 sive steps if they are to be carried to any considerable height. 
 There is much dignity in them when they are of essential service ; 
 but, even in their best examples, their awkward angles are 
 
 M 4 
 
168 XV. THE BUTTRESS. 
 
 < "\STRI (TION. 
 
 among the least manageable features of the Northern Gothic, and 
 the whole organisation of its system was destroyed by their 
 unnecessary and lavish application on a diminished scale ; until 
 the buttress became actually confused with the shaft, and we 
 find strangely crystallised masses of diminutive buttress applied, 
 for merely vertical support, in the northern tabernacle work; 
 while in some recent copies of it the principle has been so 
 far distorted that the tiny buttressings look as if they carried 
 the superstructure on the points of their pinnacles, as in the 
 Cranmer memorial at Oxford. Indeed, in most modern Gothic, 
 the ai-chitects evidently consider buttresses as convenient breaks 
 of blank surface, and general apologies for deadness of wall. 
 They stand in the place of ideas, and I think are supposed also to 
 have something of the odour of sanctity about them ; otherwise 
 one hardly sees why a wai'ehouse seventy feet high should have 
 nothing of the kind, and a chapel, which one can just get into with 
 one's hat off, should have a bunch of them at every corner ; and 
 worse than this, they are even thought ornamental when they 
 can be of no possible use ; and these stupid penthouse out- 
 lines are forced upon the eye in every species of decoration : in 
 St. Margaret's Chapel, West Street, there are actually a couple of 
 buttresses at the end of every pew. 
 
 § XII. It is almost impossible, in consequence of these unwise 
 repetitions of it, to contemplate the buttress without some degree 
 of prejudice; and I look upon it as one of the most justifiable 
 causes of the unfortunate aversion with which many of our best 
 architects regard the Avhole Gothic school. It may, however, 
 always be regarded with respect, when its form is simple and its 
 service clear ; but no treason to Gothic can be greater than the 
 use of it in indolence or vanity, to enhance the intricacies of 
 structure, or occupy the vacuities of design. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 169 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FORM OF APERTURE. 
 
 § I. We have now, in order, examined the means of raising 
 walls and sustaining roofs, and we have finally to consider the 
 structure of the necessary apertures in the wall veil, the door and 
 window ; respecting which there are three main points to be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 1. The form of the aperture, i. e., its outline, its size, and the 
 
 forms of its sides. 
 
 2. The filling of the aperture, i. e., valves and glass, and their 
 
 holdings. 
 
 3. The protection of the aperture, and its appliances, {. e., 
 
 canopies, porches, and balconies. We shall examine these 
 in succession. 
 
 § II. 1. The form of the aperture : and first of doors. We will, 
 for the present, leave out of the question doors and gates in 
 unroofed walls, the forms of these being very arbitrary, and 
 confine ourselves to the consideration of doors of entrance into 
 roofed buildings. Such doors will, for the most part, be at, or 
 near, the base of the building; except when raised for purposes of 
 defence, as in the old Scotch border towers, and our own Martello 
 towers, or, as in Switzerland, to permit access in deep snow, or 
 when stairs are carried up outside the house for convenience or 
 magnificence. But in most cases, whether high or low, a door 
 may be assumed to be considerably lower than the apartments or 
 buildings into which it gives admission, and therefore to have 
 some height of wall above it, whose weight must be carried by 
 the heading of the door. It is clear, therefore, that the best 
 heading must be an arch, because the strongest, and that a 
 
170 XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 square-headed door must be wrong, unless under Mont Cenisian 
 masonry ; or else, unless the top of the door be the roof of 
 the building, as in low cottages. And a square-headed door 
 is just so much mere wrong and ugly than a connexion of main 
 shafts by lintels, as the weight of wall above the door is likely to 
 be greater than that above the main shafts. Thus, while I admit 
 the Greek general forms of temple to be admirable in their kind, 
 I think the Greek door always offensive and unmanageable. 
 
 § in. We have it also determined by necessity, that the 
 apertures shall be at least above a man's height, with perpen- 
 dicular sides (for sloping sides are evidently unnecessary, and 
 even inconvenient, therefore absurd) and level threshold ; and this 
 aperture we at present suppose simply cut through the wall 
 without any bevelling of the jambs. Such a door, wide enough 
 for two persons to pass each other easily, and with such fillings 
 or valves as we may hereafter find expedient, may be fit enough 
 for any building into which entrance is required neither often, nor 
 by many persons at a time. But when entrance and egress are 
 constant, or required by crowds, certain further modifications 
 must take place. 
 
 § IV. When entrance and egress are constant, it may be supposed 
 Fig. xliii. that the valves will be absent or unfas- 
 
 tened, — that people will be passing- 
 more quickly than when the entrance and 
 egress are unfrequent, and that the square 
 angles of the wall will be inconvenient to 
 such quick passers through. It is evident, 
 therefore, that what would be done in 
 time, for themselves, by the passing multitude, should be done for 
 them at once by the architect ; and that these angles, which would 
 be worn away by friction, should at once be bevelled off, or, as 
 it is called, splayed, and the most contracted part of the aperture 
 made as short as possible, so that the plan of the entrance should 
 become as at a, fig. XLIII. 
 
 § v. Farther. As persons on the outside may often approach 
 the door or depart from it, beside the building, so as to turn aside 
 
construction. XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. 171 
 
 as they enter or leave the door, and therefore touch its jamb, 
 but, on the inside, will in almost every case approach the door 
 or depart from it in the direct line of the entrance (people 
 generally walking forward when they enter a hall, court, or 
 chamber of any kind, and being forced to do so when they enter 
 a passage), it is evident that the bevelling may be very slight on 
 the inside, but should be large on the outside, so that the plan 
 of the aperture should become as at b, fig. XLIII. Farther, as 
 the bevelled wall cannot conveniently carry an unbevelled arch, 
 the door arch must be bevelled also, and the aperture, seen from 
 the outside, will have somewhat the aspect of a small cavern 
 diminishing towards the interior. 
 
 § VI. If, however, beside frequent entrance, entrance is required 
 for multitudes at the same time, the size of the aperture either 
 must be increased, or other apertures must be introduced. It 
 may, in some buildings, be optional with the architect whether he 
 shall give many small doors, or few large ones ; and in some, as 
 theatres, amphitheatres, and other places where the crowd are apt 
 to be impatient, many doors are by far the best arrangement of 
 the two. Often, however, the purposes of the building, as when 
 it is to be entered by processions, or where the crowd must 
 usually enter in one direction, require the large single entrance; 
 and (for here again the esthetic and structui'al laws cannot be 
 separated) the expression and harmony of the building require, 
 in nearly every case, an entrance of largeness proportioned to the 
 multitude which is to meet within. Nothing is more unseemly 
 than that a great multitude should find its way out and in, as 
 ants and wasps do, through holes ; and nothing more undignified 
 than the paltry doors of many of our English cathedrals, which 
 look as if they were made, not for the open egress, but for the 
 surreptitious drainage of a stagnant congregation. Besides, the 
 expression of the church door should lead us, as far as possible, 
 to desire at least the western entrance to be single, partly because 
 no man of right feeling would willingly lose the idea of unity and 
 fellowship in going up to worship, which is suggested by the vast 
 single entrance ; partly because it is at the entrance that the most 
 
172 XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 serious words of the building are always addressed, by its sculp- 
 tures or inscriptions, to the worshipper ; and it is well that these 
 words should be spoken to all at once, as by one great voice, not 
 broken up into weak repetitions over minor doors. 
 
 In practice the matter has been, I suppose, regulated almost 
 altogether by convenience, the western doors being single in small 
 churches, while in the larger the entrances become three or five, 
 the central door remaining always principal, in consequence of 
 the fine sense of composition which the mediaeval builders never 
 lost. These arrangements have formed the noblest buildings in 
 the world. Yet it is worth observing* how perfect in its 
 simplicity the single entrance may become, when it is treated 
 as in the Duomo and St. Zeno of Verona, and other such early 
 Lombard churches, having noble porches, and rich sculptures 
 grouped around the entrance. 
 
 § vir. However, whether the entrances be single, triple, or 
 manifold, it is a constant law that one shall be principal, and 
 all shall be of size in some degree proportioned to that of the 
 building. And this size is, of course, chiefly to be expressed in 
 width, that being the only useful dimension in a door (except for 
 pageantry, chairing of bishops and waving of banners, and other 
 such vanities, not, I hope, after this century, much to be regarded 
 in the building of Christian temples) ; but though the width is the 
 only necessary dimension, it is well to increase the height also in 
 some proportion to it, in order that there may be less weight of 
 wall above, resting on the increased span of the arch. This is, 
 however, so much the necessary result of the broad curve of the 
 
 * And worth questioning, also, whether the triple porch has not been as- 
 sociated witli Romanist views of mediatorship ; the Redeemer being represented 
 as presidin" over the central door only, and the lateral entrances being under 
 the protection of saints, while the Madonna almost always has one or both of the 
 transepts. But it would be wrong to press this, for, in nine cases out of ten, the 
 architect has been merely influenced in his placing of the statues by an artist's 
 desire of variety in their forms and dress ; and very naturally prefers putting a 
 canonisation over one door, a martyrdom over another, and an assumption over a 
 third, to repeating a crucifixion or a judgment above all. The architect's doctrine 
 is only, therefore, to be noted with indisputable reprobation when the Madonna 
 gets possession of the main door. 
 
cokstri ctiox. XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. 173 
 
 arch itself, that there is no structural necessity of elevating the 
 jamb ; and I believe that beautiful entrances might be made of 
 every span of arch, retaining the jamb at little more than a 
 man's height, until the sweep of the curves became so vast that 
 the small vertical line became a part of them, and one entered 
 into the temple as under a great rainbow. 
 
 § vin. On the other hand, the jamb may be elevated indefinitely, 
 so that the increasing entrance retains at least the proportion of 
 width it had originally ; say 4 ft. by 7 ft. 5 in. But a less propor- 
 tion of width than this has always a meagre, inhospitable, and un- 
 gainly look, except in militar)' architecture, where the narrowness 
 of the entrance is necessary, and its height adds to its grandeur, 
 as between the entrance towers of our British castles. This law 
 however, observe, applies only to true doors, not to the arches of 
 porches, which may be of any proportion, as of any number, being 
 in fact intercolumniations, not doors ; as in the noble example of 
 the west front of Peterboi'ough, which, in spite of the destructive 
 absurdity of its central arch being the narrowest, would still, if 
 the paltry porter's lodge, or gatehouse, or turnpike, or whatever 
 it is, were knocked out of the middle of it, be the noblest west 
 front in England. 
 
 § IX. Farther, and finally. In proportion to the height and 
 size of the building, and therefore to the size of its doors, will be 
 the thickness of its Avails, especially at the foundation, that is to 
 say, beside the doors ; and also in proportion to the numbers of a 
 crowd will be the unruliness and pressure of it. Hence, partly in 
 necessity and partly in prudence, the splaying or chamfering of 
 the jamb of the larger door will be deepened, and, if possible, 
 made at a larger angle for the large door than for the small one ; 
 so that the large door will always be encompassed by a visible 
 breadth of jamb proportioned to its own magnitude. The de- 
 corative value of this feature we shall see hereafter. 
 
 § x. The second kind of apertures we have to examine are 
 those of windows. 
 
 Window apei'tures are mainly of two kinds; those for outlook, 
 and those for inlet of light, many being for both purposes, and 
 
174 XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 either purpose, or both, combined in military architecture with 
 those of offence and defence. But all window apertures, as com- 
 pared with door apertures, have almost infinite licence of form 
 and size : they may be of any shape, from the slit or cross slit to 
 the circle* ; of any size, from the loophole of the castle to the 
 pillars of light of the cathedral apse. Yet, according to their 
 place and purpose, one or two laws of fitness hold respecting 
 them, which let us examine in the two classes of windows succes- 
 sively, but without reference to military architecture, which 
 here, as before, we may dismiss as a subject of separate science, 
 only noticing that windows, like all other features, are always 
 delightful, if not beautiful, when their position and shape have 
 indeed been thus necessarily determined, and that many of their 
 most picturesque forms have resulted from the requirements of 
 war. AVe should also find in military architecture the typical 
 forms of the two classes of outlet and inlet windows in their 
 utmost development ; the greatest sweep of sight and range of 
 shot on the one hand, and the fullest entry of light and air on 
 the other, being constantly required at the smallest possible aper- 
 tures. Our business, however, is to reason out the laws for our- 
 selves, not to take the examples as we find them. 
 
 § XI. 1. Outlook apertures. For these no general outline is de- 
 terminable by the necessities or conveniences of outlooking, ex- 
 cept only that the bottom or sill of the windows, at whatever 
 height, should be horizontal, for the convenience of leaning on it, 
 or standing on it if the window be to the ground. The form of 
 the upper part of the window is quite immaterial, for all win- 
 dows allow a greater range of sight when they are apjiroached 
 than that of the eye itself: it is the approachability of the 
 window, that is to say, the annihilation of the thickness of the 
 wall, which is the real point to be attended to. If, therefore, the 
 aperture be inaccessible, or so small that the thickness of the wall 
 
 * The arch heading is indeed the best where there is much incumbent weight, 
 but a window frequently has very little weight above it, especially when placed 
 high, and the arched form loses light in a low room : therefore the square-headed 
 window is admissible where the square-headed door is not. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. 175 
 
 cannot be entered, the wall is to be bevelled * on the outside, so 
 as to increase the range of sight as far as possible ; if the aperture 
 can be entered, then bevelled from the point to which entrance 
 is possible. The bevelling will, if possible, be in every direction, 
 that is to say, upwards at the top, outwards at the sides, and 
 downwards at the bottom, but essentially downwards ; the earth 
 and the doings upon it being the chief object in outlook windows, 
 except of observatories ; and where the object is a distinct and 
 special view downwards, it will be of advantage to shelter the eye 
 as far as possible from the rays of light coming from above, and 
 the head of the window may be left horizontal, or even the whole 
 aperture sloped outwards, as the slit in a letter-box is inwards. 
 
 The best windows for outlook are, of course, oriels and bow 
 windows, but these are not to be considered under the head of 
 apertures merely ; they are either balconies roofed and glazed, 
 and to be considered under the head of external appliances, or 
 they are each a story of an external semi-tower, having true 
 aperture windows on each side of it. 
 
 § XII. 2. Inlet windows. These windows may, of course, be of 
 any shape and size whatever, according to the other necessities of 
 the building, and the quantity and direction of light desired, their 
 purpose being now to throw it in streams on particular hues or 
 spots ; now to diffuse it everywhere ; sometimes to introduce it in 
 broad masses, tempered in strength, as in the cathedral coloured 
 window ; sometimes in starry showers of scattered brilliancy, like 
 the apertures in the roof of an Arabian bath : perhaps the most 
 beautiful of all forms being the rose, which has in it the unity of 
 both characters, and sympathy with that of the source of light 
 itself. It is noticeable, however, that while both the circle and 
 Fi „ . xliv. pointed oval are beautiful window forms, it would 
 be very painful to cut either of them in half and 
 connect them by vertical lines, as in Fig. XLIV. 
 J The reason is, I believe, that so treated, the upper 
 arch is not considered as connected with the lower, 
 
 * I do not like the sound of the word " splayed ;" I always shall use " bevelled" 
 instead. 
 
176 XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. construction. 
 
 and forming an entire figure, but as the ordinary arch roof of 
 the aperture, and the lower arch as an arch floor, equally un- 
 necessary and unnatural. Also, the elliptical oval is generally 
 an unsatisfactory form, because it gives the idea of useless trouble 
 in building it, though it occurs quaintly and pleasantly in the 
 dormer windows of France : I believe it is also objectionable 
 because it has an indeterminate, slippery look, like that of a 
 bubble rising through a fluid. It, and all elongated forms, are 
 still more objectionable placed horizontally, because this is the 
 weakest position they can structurally have ; that is to say, less 
 light is admitted, with greater loss of strength to the building, 
 than by any other form. If admissible anywhere, it is for the 
 sake of variety at the top of the building, as the flat parallelogram 
 sometimes not ungracefully in Italian Renaissance. 
 
 § XIII. The question of bevelling becomes a little more com- 
 plicated in the inlet than the outlook window, because the mass 
 or quantity of light admitted is often of more consequence than 
 its direction, and often vice versa ; and the outlook window is 
 supposed to be approachable, which is far from being always the 
 case with windows for light, so that the bevelling which in the 
 outlook window is chiefly to open range of sight, is in the inlet a 
 means not only of admitting the light in greater quantity, but of 
 directing it to the spot on which it is to fall. But, in general, 
 the bevelling of the one window will reverse that of the other ; 
 for, first, no natural light will strike on the inlet window from 
 beneath, unless reflected light, which is (I believe) injurious to 
 the health and the sight ; and thus, while in the outlook window 
 the outside bevel downwards is essential, in the inlet it would be 
 useless: and the sill is to be flat, if the window be on a level with 
 the spot it is to light ; and sloped downwards within, if above 
 it. Again, as the brightest rays of light are the steepest, the 
 outside bevel upwards is as essential in the roof of the inlet as 
 it was of small importance in that of the outlook window. 
 
 § XIV. On the horizontal section the aperture will expand in- 
 ternally, a somewhat larger number of rays being thus reflected 
 from the jambs; and the aperture being thus the smallest pos- 
 
i nwrmn'TioN. 
 
 XVI. FORM OF APERTURE. 177 
 
 sible outside, this is the favourite military form of inlet window, 
 always found in magnificent development in the thick walls of 
 mediaeval castles and convents. Its effect is tranquil, but cheer- 
 less and dungeon-like in its fullest development, owing to the 
 limitation of the range of sight in the outlook, which, if the 
 window be unapproachable, reduces it to a mere point of light. 
 A modified condition of it, with some combination of the outlook 
 form, is probably the best for domestic buildings in general 
 (which, however, in modern architecture, are unhappily so thin 
 walled, that the outline of the jambs becomes a matter almost 
 of indifference), it being generally noticeable that the depth 
 of recess which I have observed to be essential to nobility of 
 external effect has also a certain dignity of expression, as ap- 
 pearing to be intended rather to admit light to persons quietly 
 occupied in their homes, than to stimulate or favour the curiosity 
 of idleness. 
 
 N 
 
L78 
 
 OMSl in C HON. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 FILLING OF APERTURE. 
 
 § I. Thus far we have been concerned with the outline only of 
 the aperture : we were next, it will be remembered, to consider 
 the necessary modes of filling it with valves in the case of the 
 door, or with glass or tracery in that of the window. 
 
 1. Fillings of doors. We concluded, in the previous Chapter, 
 that doors in buildings of any importance or size should have 
 headings in the form of an arch. This is, however, the most 
 inconvenient form we could choose, as respects the fitting of the 
 valves of the doorway ; for the arch-shaped head of the valves 
 not only requires considerable nicety in fitting to the arch, but 
 adds largely to the weight of the door, — a double disadvantage, 
 straining the hinges and making it cumbersome in opening. And 
 this inconvenience is so much perceived by the eye, that a door- 
 valve with a pointed head is always a disagreeable object. It 
 becomes, therefore, a matter of true necessity so to arrange the 
 doorway as to admit of its being fitted with rectangular valves. 
 
 § II. Now, in determining the form of the aperture, we sup- 
 posed the jamb of the door to be of the utmost height required 
 for entrance. The extra height of the arch is unnecessary as an 
 opening, the arch being required for its strength only, not for 
 its elevation. There is, therefore, no reason why it should not 
 be barred across by a horizontal lintel, into which the valves 
 may be fitted, and the triangular or semicircular arched space 
 above the lintel may then be permanently closed, as we choose, 
 either with bars, or glass, or stone. 
 
 This is the form of all good doors, without exception, over the 
 whole world and in all ages, and no other can ever be invented. 
 
construction. XVII. TILLING OF APERTURE. 1 79 
 
 § ill. In the simplest doors the cross lintel is of wood only, 
 and glass or bars occupy the space above, a very frequent form 
 in Venice. In more elaborate doors the cross lintel is of stone, 
 and the filling sometimes of brick, sometimes of stone, very often 
 a grand single stone being used to close the entire space: the 
 space thus filled is called the Tympanum. In large doors the 
 cross lintel is too long to bear the great incumbent weight of 
 this stone filling without support ; it is, therefore, carried by a 
 pier in the centre ; and two valves are used, fitted to the rectan- 
 gular spaces on each side of the pier. In the most elaborate 
 examples of this condition, each of these secondary doorways has 
 an arch heading, a cross lintel, and a triangular filling or tym- 
 panum of its own, all subordinated to the main arch above. 
 
 § rv. 2. Fillings of windows. 
 
 When windows are large, and to be filled with glass, the 
 sheet of glass, however constructed, whether of large panes or 
 small fragments, requires the support of bars of some kind, 
 either of wood, metal, or stone. Wood is inapplicable on a large 
 scale, owing to its destructibility ; very fit for door- valves, which 
 can be easily refitted, and in which weight would be an in- 
 convenience, but very unfit for window-bars, which, if they 
 decayed, might let the whole window be blown in before their 
 decay was observed, and in which weight would be an advantage, 
 as offering more resistance to the wind. 
 
 Iron is, however, fit for window-bars, and there seems no 
 constructive reason why we should not have iron traceries, as 
 well as iron pillars, iron churches, and iron steeples. But I 
 have, in the " Seven Lamps," given reasons for not considering 
 such structures as architecture at all. 
 
 The window-bars must, therefore, be of stone, and of stone 
 only. 
 
 § V. The purpose of the window being always to let in as 
 much light, and command as much view, as possible, these bars 
 of stone are to be made as slender and as few as they can be, 
 consistently with their due strength. 
 
180 XVII. FILLING 0! APERTURE. cokstructioh. 
 
 Let it be required to support the breadth of glass, a b, 
 
 Fisr. XLV. The tendency of the 
 Fig. xlv. & _ J 
 
 glass sustaining any force, as of 
 wind from without, is to bend 
 into an arch inwards, in the 
 dotted line, and break in the 
 centre. It is to be supported, 
 therefore, by the bar put in its 
 centre, c. 
 
 15ut this central bar, c, may 
 not be enough, and the spaces a c, 
 c b, may still need support. The 
 next step will be to put two bars 
 instead of one, and divide the window into three spaces, as at d. 
 
 But tins may still not be enough, and the window may need 
 three bars. Now the greatest stress is always on the centre of 
 the window. If the three bars are equal in strength, as at e, 
 the central bar is either too slight for its work, or the lateral 
 bars too thick for theirs. Therefore, we must slightly increase 
 the thickness of the central bar, and diminish that of the lateral 
 ones, so as to obtain the arrangement at / h. If the window 
 enlarge farther, each of the spaces fg, g h, is treated as the 
 original space a b, and we have the groups of bars k and I. 
 
 So that, whatever the shape of the window, whatever the 
 direction and number of the bars, there are to be central or main 
 bars ; second bars subordinated to them ; third bars subordinated 
 to the second, and so on to the number required. This is called 
 the subordination of tracery, a system delightful to the eye and 
 mind, owing to its anatomical framing and unity, and to its 
 expression of the laws of good government in all fragile and 
 unstable things. All tracery, therefore, which is not subor- 
 dinated, is barbarous, in so far as this part of its structure is 
 concerned. 
 
 § vi. The next question will be the direction of the bars. The 
 reader will understand at once, without any laborious proof, that 
 a given area of glass, supported by its edges, is stronger in its 
 
CONSTRICTION. 
 
 XVII. FILLIXG OF Al'ERTUKE. 181 
 
 resistance to violence when it is arranged in a long strip or band 
 than in a square; and that, therefore, glass is generally to be 
 arranged, especially in windows on a large scale, in oblong areas : 
 and if the bars so dividing it be placed horizontally, they will 
 have less power of supporting themselves, and will need to 
 be thicker in consequence, than if placed vertically. As far, 
 therefore, as the form of the window permits, they are to be 
 vertical. 
 
 § VII. But even when so placed, they cannot be trusted to 
 support themselves beyond a certain height, but will need cross 
 bars to steady them. Cross bars of stone are, therefore, to be 
 introduced at necessary intervals, not to divide the glass, but 
 to support the upright stone bars. The glass is always to be 
 divided longitudinally as far as possible, and the upright bars 
 which divide it supported at proper intervals. However high 
 the window, it is almost impossible that it should require more 
 than two cross bars. 
 
 § vni. It may sometimes happen that when tall windows are 
 placed very close to each other for the sake of more light, the 
 masonry between them may stand in need, or at least be the 
 better of, some additional support. The cross bars of the 
 windows may then be thickened, in order to bond the inter- 
 mediate piers more strongly together, and if this thickness, appear 
 ungainly, it may be modified by decoration. 
 
 § IX. We have thus arrived at the idea of a vertical frame-work 
 of subordinated bars, supported by cross bars at the necessary 
 intervals, and the only remaining question is the method of 
 insertion into the aperture. Whatever its form, if we merely let 
 the ends of the bars into the voussoirs of its heading, the least 
 settlement of the masonry would distort the arch, or push up 
 some of its voussoirs, or break the window bars, or push them 
 aside. Evidently our object should be to connect the window 
 bars among themselves, so framing them together that they 
 may give the utmost possible degree of support to the whole 
 window head in case of any settlement. But we know how to 
 do this already : our window bars are nothing but small shafts. 
 
 N 3 
 
182 XVII. FILLING OF APERTURE 
 
 CONSTKOCTION. 
 
 Capital them ; throw small arches across between the smaller 
 bars, large arches over them between the larger bars, one com- 
 prehensive arch over the whole, or else a horizontal lintel, if the 
 window have a flat head ; and we have a complete system of 
 mutual support, independent of the aperture head, and } r et 
 assisting to sustain it, if need be. But we want the spandrils of 
 this arch system to be themselves as light, and to let as much 
 light through them, as possible : and we know already how to 
 pierce them, (Chap. XII. § vil.). We pierce them with circles; 
 and we have, if the circles are small and the stonework strong, the 
 traceries of Giotto and the Pisan school ; if the circles are as 
 large as possible and the bars slender, those which I have already 
 figured and described as the only perfect traceries of the 
 Northern Gothic* The varieties of their design arise partly 
 from the different size of window and consequent number of 
 bars ; partly from the different heights of their pointed arches, as 
 well as the various positions of the window head in relation to the 
 roof, rendering one or another arrangement better for dividing 
 the light, and partly from aesthetic and expressional requirements, 
 which, within certain limits, may be allowed a very important 
 influence : for the strength of the bars is ordinarily so much 
 greater than is absolutely necessary, that some portion of it may 
 be gracefully sacrificed to the attainment of variety in the plans 
 of tracery — a variety which, even within its severest limits, is 
 perfectly endless ; more especially in the pointed arch, the pro- 
 portion of the tracery being in the round arch necessarily more 
 fixed. 
 
 § X. The circular window furnishes an exception to the common 
 law, that the bars shall be vertical through the greater part of 
 their length : for if they were so, they could neither have secure 
 perpendicular footing, nor secure heading, their thrust being 
 perpendicular to the curve of the voussoirs only in the centre of 
 the window; therefore, a small circle, like the axle of a wheel, is 
 put into the centre of the window, large enough to give footing to 
 the necessary number of radiating bars ; and the bars are arranged 
 
 * " Seven Lamps," p. 53. 
 
construction. XVII. FILLING OF APERTURE. 183 
 
 as spokes, being all of course properly capitaled and arch-headed. 
 This is the best form of tracery for circular windows, naturally 
 enough called wheel windows when so filled. 
 
 § XI. Now, I wish the reader especially to observe that we have 
 arrived at these forms of perfect Gothic tracery without the 
 smallest reference to any practice of any school, or to any law of 
 authority whatever. They are forms having essentially nothing 
 whatever to do either with Goths or Greeks. They are eternal 
 forms, based on laws of gravity and cohesion ; and no better, nor 
 any others so good, will ever be invented, so long as the present 
 laws of gravity and cohesion subsist. 
 
 § XII. It does not at all follow that this group of forms owes 
 its origin to any such course of reasoning as that which has now 
 led us to it. On the contrary, there is not the smallest doubt 
 that tracery began, partly, in the grouping of windows together 
 (subsequently enclosed within a large arch*), and partly in the 
 fantastic penetrations of a single slab of stone under the arch, as 
 the circle in Plate V. above. The perfect form seems to have 
 been accidentally struck in passing from experiment on the one 
 side, to affectation on the other ; and it was so far from ever 
 becoming systematised, that I am aware of no type of tracery 
 for which a less decided preference is shown in the buildings in 
 which it exists. The early pierced traceries are multitudinous 
 and perfect in their kind, — the late Flamboyant, luxuriant in 
 detail, and lavish in quantity, — but the perfect forms exist in 
 comparatively few churches, generally in portions of the church 
 only, and are always connected, and that closely, either with the 
 massy forms out of which they have emerged, or with the ener- 
 vated types into which they are instantly to degenerate. 
 
 § XIII. Nor indeed are we to look upon them as in all points 
 superior to the more ancient examples. We have above con- 
 ducted our reasoning entirely on the supposition that a single 
 
 * On the north side of the nave of the cathedral of Lyons, there is an early 
 French window, presenting one of the usual groups of foliated arches and circles, 
 left, as it were, loose, without any enclosing curve. The effect is very painful. 
 This remarkable window is associated with others of the common form. 
 
 n 4 
 
184 XVII. FILLING OF ATERTURE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 aperture is given, which it is the object to fill with glass, dimi- 
 nishing the power of the light as little as possible. But there 
 are many cases, as in triforium and cloister lights, in which glazing 
 is not required; in which, therefore, the bars; if there be any, 
 must have some more important function than that of merely 
 holding glass, and in which their actual use is to give steadiness 
 and tone, as it were, to the arches and walls above and beside 
 them ; or to give the idea of protection to those who pass along 
 the triforium, and of seclusion to those who walk in the cloister. 
 Much thicker shafts, and more massy arches, may be properly em- 
 ployed in work of this kind ; and many groups of such tracery will 
 be found resolvable into true colonnades, with the arches in pairs, 
 or in triple or quadruple groups, and with small rosettes pierced 
 above them for light. All this is just as right in its place, as the 
 glass tracery is in its own function, and often much more grand. 
 But the same indulgence is not to be shown to the affectations 
 which succeeded the developed forms. Of these there are three 
 principal conditions : the Flamboyant of France, the Stump 
 tracery of Germany, and the Perpendicular of England. 
 
 § xrv. Of these the first arose, by the most delicate and 
 natural transitions, out of the perfect school. It was an en- 
 deavour to introduce more grace into its lines, and more change 
 into its combinations; and the aesthetic results are so beautiful 
 that for some time after the right road had been left, the aber- 
 ration was more to be admired than regretted. The final con- 
 ditions became fantastic and effeminate, but, in the country 
 where they had been invented, never lost their peculiar grace 
 until they were replaced by the Renaissance. The copies of the 
 school in England and Italy have all its faults and none of its 
 beauties ; in France, whatever it lost in method or in majesty, 
 it gained in fantasy : literally Flamboyant, it breathed away its 
 strength into the air ; but there is not more difference be- 
 tween the commonest doggrel that ever broke prose into unin- 
 telligibility, and the burning mystery of Coleridge, or spirituality 
 of Elizabeth Barrett, than there is between the dissolute dulness 
 of English Flamboyant, and the flaming undulations of the 
 
construction. XVII. FILLING OF APERTURE. 185 
 
 wreathed lines of delicate stone, that confuse themselves with the 
 clouds of every morning sky that brightens above the valley of 
 the Seine. 
 
 § XV. The second group of traceries, the intersectional or 
 German group, may be considered as including the entire range 
 of the absurd forms which were invented in order to display 
 dexterity in stone-cutting and ingenuity in construction. They 
 express the peculiar character of the German mind, which cuts 
 the frame of every truth joint from joint, in order to prove the 
 edge of its instruments ; and, in all cases, prefers a new or a 
 strange thought to a good one, and a subtle thought to a useful 
 one. The point and value of the German tracery consists prin- 
 cipally in turning the features of good traceries upside down, and 
 cutting them in two where they are properly continuous. To 
 destroy at once foundation and membership, and suspend every- 
 thing in the air, keeping out of sight, as far as possible, the 
 evidences of a beginning and the probabilities of an end, are the 
 main objects of German architecture, as of modern German 
 divinity. 
 
 § XVI. Tins school has, however, at least the merit of ingenuity. 
 Not so the English Perpendicular, though a very curious school 
 also in its way. In the course of the reasoning which led us to 
 the determination of the perfect Gothic tracery, we were induced 
 successively to reject certain methods of arrangement as weak, 
 dangerous, or disagreeable. Collect all these together, and prac- 
 tise them at once, and you have the English Perpendicular. 
 
 As thus. You find, in the first place (§ v.), that your tracery 
 bars are to be subordinated, less to greater ; so you take a group 
 of, suppose, eight, which you make all exactly equal, giving you 
 nine equal spaces in the window, as at A, Fig. XLYI. You 
 found, in the second place (§ VII.), that there was no occasion for 
 more than two cross bars ; so you take at least four or five (also 
 represented at A, Fig. XL VI.), also carefully equalised, and set 
 at equal spaces. You found, in the third place (§ Vlll.), that 
 these bars were to be strengthened, in order to support the main 
 piers ; you will therefore cut the ends off the uppermost, and the 
 
18G 
 
 XVII. FILLING OF APERTURE. 
 
 CONSTRICTION. 
 
 fourth into three pieces (as also at A). In the fourth place, you 
 found (§ IX.) that you were never to run a vertical bar into the 
 
 Fig. XLVI. 
 
 
 c / 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 i 
 
 b 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 arch head ; so you run them all into it (as at B, Fig. XLVI.) : 
 and this last arrangement will be useful in two ways, for it will 
 not only expose both the bars and the archivolt to an apparent 
 probability of every species of dislocation at any moment, but 
 it will provide you with two pleasing interstices at the flanks, in 
 the shape of carving-knives, a, b, which, by throwing across 
 the curves c, d, you may easily multiply into four; and these, 
 as you can put nothing into their sharp tops, will afford you a 
 more than usually rational excuse for a little bit of Germanism, 
 in filling them with arches upside down, <?, /. You will now 
 have left at your disposal two and forty similar interstices, 
 which, for the sake of variety, you will proceed to fill with two 
 and forty similar arches : and, as you were told that the moment 
 a bar received an arch heading, it was to be treated as a shaft and 
 capitalled, you will take care to give your bars no capitals nor 
 bases, but to run bars, foliations and all, well into each other, 
 after the fashion of cast-iron, as at C. You have still two tri- 
 angular spaces occurring in an important part of your window, 
 g g, which, as they are very conspicuous, and you cannot make 
 them uglier than they are, you will do wisely to let alone: — and 
 
construction. XVII. FILLING OF APERTURE. 187 
 
 you vail now have the west window of the cathedral of Win- 
 chester, a very perfect example of English Perpendicular. Nor 
 do I think that you can, on the whole, better the arrangement, 
 unless, perhaps, by adding buttresses to some of the bars, as is 
 done in the cathedral of Gloucester ; these buttresses bavins the 
 double advantage of darkening the window when seen from 
 within, and suggesting, when it is seen from without, the idea of 
 its being divided by two stout party walls, with a heavy thrust 
 against the glass. 
 
 § XVII. Thus far we have considered the plan of the tracery 
 only : we have lastly to note the conditions under which the glass 
 is to be attached to the bars ; and the sections of the bars them- 
 selves. 
 
 These bars we have seen, in the perfect form, are to become 
 shafts ; but, supposing the object to be the admission of as much 
 light as possible, it is clear that the thickness of the bar ought to 
 be chiefly in the depth of the window, and that by increasing the 
 depth of the bar we may diminish its breadth : clearly, therefore, 
 we should employ the double group of shafts, b of Fig. XIV., 
 setting it edgeways in the window : but as the glass would then 
 come between the two shafts, w r e must add a member into which 
 it is to be fitted, as at a, Fig. XLYIL, and uniting these three 
 Fi" xlvii members together in the simplest way, with a 
 
 # curved instead of a sharp recess behind the shafts, 
 we have the section b, the perfect, but simplest, 
 type of the main tracery bars in good Gothic. In 
 triforium and cloister tracery, which has no glass 
 to hold, the central member is omitted, and we have either the 
 pure double shaft, always the most graceful, or a single and more 
 massy shaft, which is the simpler and more usual form. 
 
 § xvm. Finally : there is an intermediate arrangement between 
 the glazed and the open tracery, that of the domestic traceries of 
 Venice. Peculiar conditions, hereafter to be described, require 
 the shafts of these traceries to become the main vertical supports 
 of the floors and walls. Their thickness is therefore enormous ; 
 and yet free egress is required between them (into balconies), 
 
188 XVII. FILLING OF APERTUKE. 
 
 ■ ONSTHl'l TION. 
 
 which is obtained hy doors in their lattice glazing. To prevent 
 the inconvenience and ugliness of driving the hinges and fasten- 
 ings of them into the shafts, and having the play of the doors in 
 the intervals, the entire glazing is thrown behind the pillars, and 
 attached to their abaci and bases with iron. It is thus securely 
 sustained by their massy bulk, and leaves their symmetry and 
 shade undisturbed. 
 
 § XIX. The depth at which the glass should be placed in 
 windows without traceries will generally be fixed by the forms 
 of their bevelling, the glass occupying the narrowest interval : but 
 when its position is not thus fixed, as in many London houses, it 
 is to be remembered that the deeper the glass is set (the wall 
 being of given thickness), the more light will enter, and the 
 clearer the prospect will be to a person sitting quietly in the 
 centre of the room ; on the contrary, the farther out the glass is 
 set, the more convenient the window will be for a person rising 
 and looking out of it. The one, therefore, is an arrangement for 
 the idle and curious, who care only about what is going on upon 
 the earth : the other for those who are willing to remain at rest, 
 so that they have free admission of the light of Heaven. This 
 might be noted as a curious expressional reason for the necessity 
 (of which no man of ordinary feeling would doubt for a moment) 
 of a deep recess in the window, on the outside, to all good or 
 architectural effect : still, as there is no reason why people should 
 be made idle by having it in their power to look out of window, 
 and as the slight increase of light or clearness of view in the 
 centre of a room, is more than balanced by the loss of space, and 
 the greater chill of the nearer glass and outside air, we can, I 
 tear, allege no other structural reason for the picturesque external 
 recess, than the expediency of a certain degree of protection, for 
 the glass, from the brightest glare of sunshine, and heaviest rush 
 of rain. 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PROTECTION OF APERTURE. 
 
 § I. We have hitherto considered the aperture as merely pierced 
 in the thickness of the walls ; and when its masonry is simple, 
 and the fillings of the aperture are unimportant, it may well re- 
 main so. But when the fillings are delicate and of value, as in 
 the case of coloured glass, finely wrought tracery, or sculpture, 
 such as we shall often find occupying the tympanum of door- 
 ways, some protection becomes necessary against the run of the 
 rain down the walls, and back by the bevel of the aperture to the 
 joints or surface of the fillings. 
 
 § II. The first and simplest mode of obtaining this is by chan- 
 nelling the jambs and arch head ; and this is the chief practical 
 service of aperture mouldings, which are otherwise entirely deco- 
 rative. But as this very decorative character renders them unfit to 
 be made channels for rain water, it is well to add some externa] 
 roofing to the aperture, which may protect it from the run of all 
 the rain, except that which necessarily beats into its own area. 
 This protection, in its most usual form, is a mere dripstone 
 moulding carried over or" round the head of the aperture. But 
 this is, in reality, only a contracted form of a true roof, projecting 
 from the wall over the aperture ; and all protections of apertures 
 whatsoever are to be conceived as portions of small roofs, at- 
 tached to the wall behind ; and supported by it, so long as 
 their scale admits of their being so with safety, and afterwards 
 in such manner as may be most expedient. The proper forms of 
 these, and modes of their support, are to be the subject of our 
 final enquiry. 
 
 § ill. Respecting their proper form we need not stay long in 
 
190 
 
 XVIII. PROTECTION OF APERTURE. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Fig. XLVIII. 
 
 doubt. A steep gable is evidently the best for 
 throwing off rain ; even a low gable being 
 better than a high arch. Flat roofs, there- 
 fore, may only be used when the nature of 
 the building renders the gable unsightly; as 
 when there is not room for it between the 
 stories ; or when the object is rather shade than 
 protection from rain, as often in verandahs and 
 balconies. But for general service the gable is 
 the proper and natural form, and may be taken 
 as representative of the rest. Then this gable 
 may either project unsupported from the wall, 
 a, Fig. XLVIII., or be carried by brackets or 
 spurs, b, or by walls or shafts, c, which shafts 
 or walls may themselves be, in windows, car- 
 ried on a sill ; and this, in its turn, supported by 
 brackets or spurs. We shall glance at the applications of each 
 of these forms in order. 
 
 § IV. There is not much variety in the case of the first, a, 
 Fio-. XLVIII. In the Cumberland and border cottages the door 
 is generally protected by two pieces of slate arranged in a gable, 
 giving the purest possible type of the first form. In elaborate 
 architecture such a projection hardly ever occurs, and in large 
 architecture cannot with safety occur, without brackets ; but by 
 cutting away the greater part of the projection, we shall arrive at 
 the idea of a plain gabled cornice, of which a perfect example will 
 be found in Plate VII. of the folio series. With this first complete 
 form we may associate the rude, single, projecting, pent-house 
 roof; imperfect, because either it must be level and the water 
 lodge lazily upon it, or throw off the drip upon the persons 
 
 entering. 
 
 § v. 2. b, Fig. XLVIII. This is a most beautiful and natural 
 type, and is found in all good architecture, from the highest to the 
 most humble : it is a frequent form of cottage door, more especially 
 when carried on spurs, being of peculiarly easy construction in 
 wood: as applied to large architecture, it can evidently be built, 
 
. oN-iTRIICTION. 
 
 XVIII. PROTECTION OF APERTURE. 
 
 191 
 
 Fig. xlix. in its boldest and simplest form, either 
 
 of wood only, or on a scale which will 
 admit of its sides being each a single 
 slab of stone. If so large as to re- 
 quire jointed masonry, the gabled 
 sides will evidently require support, 
 and an arch must be thrown across 
 under them, as in Fig. XLIX., from 
 Fiesole. 
 
 If we cut the projection gradually 
 down, we arrive at the common 
 Gothic gable dripstone carried on 
 small brackets, carved into bosses, heads, or some other orna- 
 mental form ; the sub-arch in such case being useless, is removed, 
 or coincides with the arch head of the aperture. 
 
 § VI. 3. c, Fig. XLVIII. Substituting walls or pillars for the 
 brackets, we may carry the projection as far out as we choose, 
 and form the perfect porch, either of the cottage or village church, 
 or of the cathedral. As we enlarge the structure, however, cer- 
 tain modifications of form become necessary, owing to the in- 
 creased boldness of the required supporting arch. For, as the 
 lower lines of the gable roof and of the arch cannot coincide, 
 we have necessarily above the shafts one of the two forms a or b, 
 in Fig. L., of which the latter is clearly the best, requiring less 
 
 Fig. L. 
 
 masonry and shorter roofing ; and when the arch becomes so 
 large as to cause a heavy lateral thrust, it may become necessary 
 to provide for its farther safety by pinnacles, c. 
 
192 XVIII. PROTECTION OF APERTURE. cokstbuction. 
 
 This last is the perfect type of aperture protection. None 
 other can ever be invented so good. It is that once employed 
 by Giotto in the cathedral of Florence, and torn down by the 
 proveditore, Benedetto Uguccione, to erect a Renaissance front 
 instead ; and another such has been destroyed, not long since, in 
 Venice, the porch of the church of St. Apollinare, also to put up 
 some Renaissance upholstery : for Renaissance, as if it were not 
 nuisance enough in the mere fact of its own existence, appears 
 invariably as a beast of prey, and founds itself on the ruin of all 
 that is best and noblest. Many such porches, however, happily 
 still exist in Italy, and are among its principal glories. 
 
 § VII. When porches of this kind, cai'ried by walls, are placed 
 close together, as in cases where there are many and large 
 entrances to a cathedral front, they would, in their general form, 
 leave deep and uncomfortable intervals, in which damp would 
 lodge and grass grow ; and there would be a painful feeling in 
 approaching the door in the midst of a crowd, as if some of them 
 might miss the real doors, and be driven into the intervals, and 
 embayed there. Clearly it will be a natural and right expedient, 
 in such cases, to open the walls of the porch wider, so that they 
 may correspond in slope, or nearly so, with the bevel of the door- 
 way, and either meet each other in the intervals, or have the said 
 intervals closed up with an intermediate Avail, so that nobody 
 may get embayed in them. The porches will thus be united, and 
 form one range of great open gulphs or caverns, ready to receive 
 all comers, and direct the current of the crowd into the narrower 
 entrances. As the lateral thrust of the arches is now met by 
 each other, the pinnacles, if there were any, must be removed, 
 and waterspouts placed between each arch to discharge the 
 double drainage of the gables. This is the form of all the noble 
 northern porches, without exception, best represented by that of 
 Rheims. 
 
 § VIII. Contracted conditions of the pinnacled porch are beauti- 
 fully used in the doors of the cathedral of Florence ; and the 
 entire arrangement, in its most perfect form, as adapted to 
 window protection and decoration, is applied by Giotto with in- 
 
construction. XVIII. PROTECTION OF APERTURE. 193 
 
 conceivable exquisiteness in the windows of the campanile ; those 
 of the cathedral itself being all of the same type. Various 
 singular and delightful conditions of it are applied in Italian 
 domestic architecture (in the Broletto of Monza very quaintly), 
 being associated with balconies for speaking to the people, and 
 passing into pulpits. In the north we glaze the sides of such 
 projections, and they become bow-windows, the shape of roofing 
 being then nearly immaterial and very fantastic, often a conical 
 cap. All these conditions of window protection, being for real 
 service, are endlessly delightful (and I believe the beauty of the 
 balcony, protected by an open canopy supported by light shafts, 
 never yet to have been properly worked out). But the Re- 
 naissance architects destroyed all of them, and introduced the 
 magnificent and witty Roman invention of a model of a Greek 
 pediment, with its cornices of monstrous thickness, bracketed up 
 above the window. The horizontal cornice of the pediment is 
 thus useless, and of course, therefore, retained ; the protection to 
 the head of the window being constructed on the principle of a 
 hat with its crown sewn up. But the deep and dark triangular 
 cavity thus obtained affords farther opportunity for putting 
 ornament out of sight, of which the Renaissance architects are 
 not slow to avail themselves. 
 
 A more rational condition is the complete pediment with a 
 couple of shafts, or pilasters, carried on a bracketed sill ; and the 
 windows of this kind, which have been well designed, are perhaps 
 the best things which the Renaissance schools have produced : 
 those of Whitehall ai'e, in their way, exceedingly beautiful ; and 
 those of the Palazzo Ricardi at Florence, in their simplicity and 
 sublimity, are scarcely unworthy of their reputed designer, 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SUTEEIMPOSITION. 
 
 § I. The reader has now some knowledge of every feature of all 
 possible architecture. Whatever the nature of the building 
 which may be submitted to his criticism, if it be an edifice at all, 
 if it be anything else than a mere heap of stones, like a pyramid 
 or breakwater, or than a large stone hewn into shape, like an 
 obelisk, it Avill be instantly and easily resolvable into some of the 
 parts which Ave have been hitherto considering: its pinnacles 
 will separate themselves into their small shafts and roofs ; its 
 supporting members into shafts and arches, or walls penetrated 
 by apertures of various shape, and supported by various kinds 
 of buttresses. Respecting each of these several features I am 
 certain that the reader feels himself prepared, by understanding 
 their plain function, to form something like a reasonable and 
 definite judgment, whether they be good or bad; and this right 
 judgment of parts will, in most cases, lead him to just reverence 
 or condemnation of the whole. 
 
 §ll. The various modes in which these parts are capable 
 of combination, and the merits of buildings of different form 
 and expression, are evidently not reducible into lists, nor to 
 be estimated by general laws. The nobility of each building 
 depends on its special fitness for its own purposes ; and these 
 purposes vary with every climate, every soil, and every national 
 custom : nay, there were never, probably, two edifices erected in 
 which some accidental difference of condition did not require 
 some difference of plan or of structure ; so that, respecting 
 plan and distribution of parts, I do not hope to collect any uni- 
 versal law of right ; but there are a few points necessary to be 
 noticed respecting the means by which height is attained in 
 
CONSTRICTION. 
 
 XIX. SUPER1MPOSITION. 195 
 
 buildings of various plans, and the expediency and methods of 
 super-imposition of one story or tier of architecture above ano- 
 ther. 
 
 § ill. For, in the preceding enquiry, I have always supposed 
 either that a single shaft would reach to the top of the building, or 
 that the farther height required might be added in plain wall above 
 the heads of the arches; whereas it may often be rather expe- 
 dient to complete the entire lower series of arches, or finish the 
 lower wall, with a bold stringcourse or cornice, and build another 
 series of shafts, or another wall, on the top of it. 
 
 § IV. This superimposition is seen in its simplest form in the 
 interior shafts of a Greek temple ; and it has been largely used in 
 nearly all countries where buildings have been meant for real 
 service. Outcry has often been raised against it, but the thing 
 is so sternly necessary that it has always forced itself into accept- 
 ance ; and it would, therefore, be merely losing time to refute 
 the arguments of those who have attempted its disparagement. 
 Thus far, however, they have reason on their side, that if a build- 
 ing can be kept in one grand mass, without sacrificing either its 
 visible or real adaptation to its objects, it is not well to divide it 
 into stories until it has reached proportions too large to be justly 
 measured by the eye. It ought then to be divided in order to 
 mark its bulk ; and decorative divisions are often possible, which 
 rather increase than destroy the expression of general unity. 
 
 § V. Superimposition, wisely practised, is of two kinds, directly 
 contrary to each other, of weight on lightness, and of lightness on 
 weight ; while the superimposition of weight on weight, or light- 
 ness on lightness, is nearly always wrong. 
 
 1. Weight on lightness: I do not say weight on weakness. 
 The superimposition of the human body on its limbs I call weight 
 on lightness : the superimposition of the branches on a tree trunk 
 I call lightness on weight : in both cases the support is fully 
 adequate to the work, the form of support being regulated by the 
 differences of requirement. Nothing in architecture is half so 
 painful as the apparent want of sufficient support when the 
 weight above is visibly passive : for all buildings are not passive ; 
 
 o 2 
 
196 XIX. SUPERIMl'OSITION. construction. 
 
 some seem to rise by their own strength, or float by their own 
 buoyancy ; a dome requires no visibility of support, one fancies 
 it supported by the air. But passive architecture without help 
 for its passiveness is unendurable. In a lately built house, 
 No. 86. in Oxford Street, three huge stone pillars in the second 
 story are carried apparently by the edges of three sheets of plate 
 glass in the first. I hardly know anything to match the painful- 
 ness of this and some other of our shop structures, in which the 
 iron-work is concealed ; nor, even when it is apparent, can the 
 eye ever feel satisfied of their security, when built, as at present, 
 with fifty or sixty feet of wall above a rod of iron not the width 
 of this page. 
 
 § VI. The proper forms of this superimposition of weight on 
 lightness have arisen, for the most part, from the necessity or 
 desirableness, in many situations, of elevating the inhabited por- 
 tions of buildings considerably above the ground level, especially 
 those exposed to damp or inundation, and the consequent aban- 
 donment of the ground story as unserviceable, or else the sur- 
 render of it to public purposes. Thus, in many market and 
 town houses, the ground story is left open as a general place of 
 sheltered resort, and the enclosed apartments raised on pillars. 
 In almost all warm countries the luxury, almost the necessity, of 
 arcades to protect the passengers from the sun, and the desirable- 
 ness of large space in the rooms above, lead to the same con- 
 struction. Throughout the Venetian islet group, the houses 
 seem to have been thus, in the first instance, universally built ; 
 all the older palaces appearing to have had the rez de chaussee 
 perfectly open, the upper parts of the palace being sustained on 
 magnificent arches, and the smaller houses sustained in the same 
 manner on wooden piers, still retained in many of the cortiles, 
 and exhibited characteristically throughout the main street of 
 Murano. As ground became more valuable and house-room more 
 scarce, these ground-floors were enclosed with wall veils between 
 the original shafts, and so remain ; but the type of the structure 
 of the entire city is given in the Ducal Palace. 
 
 § vil. To this kind of superimposition we owe the most pic- 
 
construction. XIX. SUrERIMPOSITION. 197 
 
 turesque street effects throughout the world, and the most grace- 
 ful, as well as the most grotesque, buildings, from the many- 
 shafted fantasy of the Alhambra (a building as beautiful in dis- 
 position as it is base in ornamentation) to the four-legged 
 stolidity of the Swiss Chalet* : nor these only, but great part of 
 the effect of our cathedrals, in which, necessarily, the close tri- 
 forium and clerestory walls are superimposed on the nave piers ; 
 perhaps with most majesty where with greatest simplicity, as in 
 the old basilican types, and the noble cathedral of Pisa. 
 
 § vill. In order to the delightful ness and security of all such ar- 
 rangements, this law must be observed : — that in proportion to the 
 height of wall above them, the shafts are to be short. You may 
 take your given height of wall, and turn any quantity of that 
 wall into shaft that you like ; but you must not turn it all into 
 tall shafts, and then put more wall above. Thus, having a house 
 five stories high, you may turn the lower story into shafts, and 
 leave the four stories in wall ; or the two lower stories into 
 shafts, and leave three in wall ; but, whatever you add to the 
 shaft, you must take from the wall. Then also, of course, the 
 shorter the shaft the thicker will be its proportionate, if not its 
 actual, diameter. In the Ducal Palace of Venice the shortest 
 shafts are always the thickest. f 
 
 § IX. The second kind of superimposition, lightness on weight, 
 is, in its most necessary use, of stories of houses one upon 
 another, where, of course, wall veil is required in the lower 
 ones, and has to support wall veil above, aided by as much of 
 shaft structure as is attainable within the given limits. The 
 greatest, if not the only, merit of the Roman and Renaissance 
 Venetian architects is their graceful management of this kind 
 of superimposition ; sometimes of complete courses of external 
 
 * I have spent much of my life among the Alps ; but I never pass, without 
 some feeling of new surprise, the Chalet, standing on its four pegs (each 
 topped with a flat stone), balanced in the fury of Alpine winds. It is not, per- 
 haps, generally known that the chief use of the arrangement is not so much to 
 raise the building above the snow, as to get a draught of wind beneath it, which 
 may prevent the drift from rising against its sides. 
 
 t Appendix 20. : " Shafts of the Ducal Palace." 
 
 o 3 
 
198 XIX. SUPERIMPOSITION. 
 
 rOXSTBl'CTIOX. 
 
 arches and shafts one above the other ; sometimes of apertures 
 with intermediate cornices at the levels of the floors, and large 
 shafts from top to bottom of the building ; always observing 
 that the upper stories shall be at once lighter and richer than the 
 lower ones. The entire value of such buildings depends upon 
 the perfect and easy expression of the relative strength of the 
 stories, and the unity obtained by the varieties of their propor- 
 tions, while yet the fact of superimposition and separation by 
 floors is frankly told. 
 
 § X. In churches and other buildings in which there is no 
 separation by floors, another kind of pure shaft superimposition 
 is often used, in order to enable the builder to avail himself of 
 short and slender shafts. It has been noted that these are 
 often easily attainable, and of precious materials, when shafts 
 large enough and strong enough to do the work at once, could 
 not be obtained except at unjustifiable expense, and of coarse 
 stone. The architect has then no choice but to arrange his 
 work in successive stories; either frankly completing the arch 
 work and cornice of each, and beginning a new story above it, 
 which is the honester and nobler way, or else tying the stories 
 together by supplementary shafts from floor to roof, — the general 
 practice of the Northern Gothic, and one which, unless most 
 gracefully managed, gives the look of a scaffolding, with cross- 
 poles tied to its uprights, to the whole clerestory wall. The best 
 method is that which avoids all chance of the upright shafts being 
 supposed continuous, by increasing their number and changing 
 their places in the upper stories, so that the whole work branches 
 from the ground like a tree. This is the superimposition of the 
 Byzantine and the Pisan Romanesque ; the most beautiful ex- 
 amples of it being, I think, the Southern portico of St. Mark's, the 
 church of S. Giovanni at Pistoja, and the apse of the cathedral 
 of Pisa. In Renaissance work the two principles are equally 
 distinct, though the shafts are (I think) always one above the 
 other. The reader may see one of the best examples of the 
 separately superimposed story in Whitehall (and another far 
 inferior in St. Paul's), and by turning himself round at White- 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XIX. SOTERIMrOSITION. 199 
 
 hall may compare with it the system of connecting shafts in the 
 Treasury ; though this is a singularly bad example, the window 
 cornices of the first floor being like shelves in a cupboard, and 
 cutting the mass of the building in two, in spite of the pillars. 
 
 § XI. But this superimposition of lightness on weight is still 
 more distinctly the system of many buildings of the kind which 
 I have above called Architecture of Position, that is to say, 
 architecture of which the greater part is intended merely to 
 keep something in a peculiar position ; as in light-houses, and 
 many towers and belfries. The subject of spire and tower 
 architecture, however, is so interesting and extensive, that I 
 have thoughts of writing a detached essay upon it, and, at all 
 events, cannot enter upon it here : but this much is enough for 
 the reader to note for our present purpose, that, although many 
 towers do in reality stand on piers or shafts, as the central 
 towers of cathedrals, yet the expression of all of them, and the 
 real structure of the best and strongest, are the elevation of 
 gradually diminishing weight on massy or even solid foundation. 
 Nevertheless, since the tower is in its origin a building for 
 strength of defence, and faithfulness of watch, rather than 
 splendour of aspect, its true expression is of just so much 
 diminution of weight upwards as may be necessary to its fully 
 balanced strength, not a jot more. There must be no light- 
 headedness in your noble tower : impregnable foundation, wrath- 
 ful crest, with the vizor down, and the dark vigilance seen 
 through the clefts of it ; not the filigree crown or embroidered 
 cap. No towers are so grand as the square browed ones, with 
 massy cornices and rent battlements : next to these come the 
 fantastic towers, with their various forms of steep roof ; the best, 
 not the cone, but the plain gable thrown very high ; last of all in 
 my mind (of good towers), those with spires or crowns, though 
 these, of course, are fittest for ecclesiastical purposes, and capable 
 of the richest ornament. The paltry four or eight pinnacled 
 things we cab 1 towers in England (as in York Minster), are mere 
 confectioner's Gothic, and not worth classing. 
 
 § XII. But, in all of them, this I believe to be a point of chief 
 
 o 4 
 
200 XIX. SUTERIMPOSITION. construction. 
 
 necessity, — that they shall seem to stand, and shall verily stand, 
 in their own strength ; not by help of buttresses nor artful 
 balancings on this side and on that. Your noble tower must 
 need no help, must be sustained by no crutches, must give place 
 to no suspicion of decrepitude. Its office may be to withstand 
 war, look forth for tidings, or to point to heaven : but it must 
 have in its own walls the strength to do this ; it is to be itself a 
 bulwark, not to be sustained by other bulwarks ; to rise and look 
 forth, " the tower of Lebanon that looketh toward Damascus," 
 like a stern sentinel, not like a child held up in its nurse's 
 arms. A tower may, indeed, have a kind of buttress, a projection, 
 or subordinate tower at each of its angles ; but these are to its 
 main body like the satellites to a shaft, joined with its strength, 
 and associated in its uprightness, part of the tower itself: exactly 
 in the proportion in which they lose their massive unity with its 
 body, and assume the form of true buttress walls set on its angles, 
 the tower loses its dignity. 
 
 § XIII. These two characters, then, are common to all noble 
 towers, however otherwise different in purpose or feature, — the 
 first, that they rise from massive foundation to lighter summits, 
 frowning with battlements perhaps, but yet evidently more pierced 
 and thinner in wall than beneath, and, in most ecclesiastical ex- 
 amples, divided into rich open work : the second, that whatever 
 the form of the tower, it shall not appear to stand by help of 
 buttresses. It follows from the first condition, as indeed it would 
 have followed from ordinary aesthetic requirements, that we shall 
 have continual variation in the arrangements of the stories, and 
 the larger number of apertures towards the top, — a condition 
 exquisitely carried out in the old Lombardic towers, in which, 
 however small they may be, the number of apertures is always 
 regularly increased towards the summit ; generally one window 
 in the lowest stories, two in the second, then three, five, and six ; 
 often, also, one, two, four, and six, with beautiful symmetries 
 of placing, not at present to our purpose. We may sufficiently 
 exemplify the general laws of tower building by placing side by 
 side, drawn to the same scale, a mediaeval tower, in which most 
 
£x. 
 
 tiiii iiui win i 
 
 Tvpt-i of Toroerg. 
 
 
CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 XIX. SUPERIJirOSITIOX. 201 
 
 of them are simply and unaffectedly observed, and one of our 
 own modern towers, in which every one of them is violated in 
 small space, convenient for comparison. (Plate VI.) 
 
 § xrv. The old tower is that of St. Mark's at Venice, not a 
 very perfect example, for its top is Renaissance, but as good 
 Renaissance as there is in Venice ; and it is fit for our present 
 purpose, because it owes none of its effect to ornament. It is built 
 as simply as it well can be to answer its purpose : no buttresses ; 
 no external features whatever, except some huts at the base, and 
 the loggia, afterwards built, which, on purpose, I have not drawn ; 
 one bold square mass of brickwork ; double walls, with an as- 
 cending inclined plane between them, with apertures as small 
 as possible, and these only in necessary places, giving just the 
 light required for ascending the stair or slope, not a ray more ; 
 and the weight of the whole relieved only by the double pilasters 
 on the sides, sustaining small arches at the top of the mass, each 
 decorated with the scallop or cockle shell, presently to be noticed as 
 frequent in Renaissance ornament, and here, for once, thoroughly 
 well applied. Then, when the necessary height is reached, the 
 belfry is left open, as in the ordinary Romanesque campanile, 
 only the shafts more slender, but severe and simple, and the 
 whole crowned by as much spire as the tower would carry, to 
 render it more serviceable as a landmark. The arrangement is 
 repeated in numberless campaniles throughout Italy. 
 
 § XV. The one beside it is one of those of the lately built 
 college at Edinburgh. I have not taken it as worse than many 
 others (just as I have not taken the St. Mark's tower as better 
 than many others) ; but it happens to compress our British 
 system of tower building into small space. The Venetian tower 
 rises 350 feet *, and has no buttresses, though built of brick ; the 
 British tower rises 121 feet, and is built of stone, but is sup- 
 
 * I have taken Professor Willis's estimate ; there being discrepancy among 
 various statements. I did not take the trouble to measure the height myself, 
 the building being one which does not come within the range of our future 
 inquiries ; and its exact dimensions, even here, are of no importance as respects 
 the question at issue. 
 
202 XIX. SUPERIMPOSITION. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 posed to be incapable of standing without two huge buttresses 
 on each angle. The St. Mark's tower has a high sloping roof, 
 but carries it simply, requiring no pinnacles at its angles ; the 
 British tower has no visible roof, but has four pinnacles for mere 
 ornament. The Venetian tower has its lightest part at the top, 
 and is massy at the base ; the British tower has its lightest 
 part at the base, and shuts up its windows into a mere arrow- 
 slit at the top. What the tower was built for at all must 
 therefore, it seems to me, remain a mystery to every beholder ; 
 for surely no studious inhabitant of its upper chambers will be 
 conceived to be pursuing his employments by the light of the 
 single chink on each side ; and, had it been intended for a belfry, 
 the sound of its bells would have been as effectually prevented 
 from getting out, as the light from getting in. 
 
 § xvi. In connexion with the subject of towers and of super- 
 imposition, one other feature, not conveniently to be omitted 
 from our house-building, requires a moment's notice, — the 
 staircase. 
 
 In modern houses it can hardly be considered an architectural 
 feature, and is nearly always an ugly one, from its being appa- 
 rently without support. And here I may not unfitly note the 
 important distinction, which perhaps ought to have been dwelt 
 upon in some places before now, between the marvellous and 
 the perilous in apparent construction. There are many edifices 
 which are awful or admirable in their height, and lightness, and 
 boldness of form, respecting which, nevertheless, we have no fear 
 that they should fall. Many a mighty dome and aerial aisle and 
 arch may seem to stand, as I said, by miracle, but by stedfast 
 miracle notwithstanding ; there is no fear that the miracle should 
 cease. We have a sense of inherent power in them, or, at all 
 events, of concealed and mysterious provision for their safety. 
 But in leaning towers, as of Pisa or Bologna, and in much minor 
 architecture, passive architecture, of modern times, we feel that 
 there is but a chance between the building and destruction ; 
 that there is no miraculous life in it, which animates it into 
 security, but an obstinate, perhaps vain, resistance to imme- 
 
construction. XIX. SUPERIMrOSITION. 203 
 
 cliate danger. The appearance of this is often as strong in 
 small things as in large ; in the sounding-boards of pulpits, for 
 instance, when sustained by a single pillar behind them, so that 
 one is in dread, during the whole sermon, of the preacher bein" - 
 crushed if a single nail should give way ; and again, the modern 
 geometrical unsupported staircase. There is great disadvantage, 
 also, in the arrangement of this latter, when room is of value ; 
 and excessive ungracefulness in its awkward divisions of the 
 passage walls, or windows. In media3val architecture, where 
 there was need of room, the staircase was spiral, and enclosed 
 generally in an exterior tower, which added infinitely to the 
 picturesque effect of the building ; nor was the stair itself steeper 
 nor less commodious than the ordinary compressed straight stair- 
 case of a modern dwelling-house. Many of the richest towers of 
 domestic architecture owe their origin to this arrangement. In 
 Italy the staircase is often in the open air, surrounding the in- 
 terior court of the house, and giving access to its various gal- 
 leries or loggias : in this case it is almost always supported by 
 bold shafts and arches, and forms a most interesting additional 
 feature of the cortile, but presents no peculiarity of construction 
 requiring our present examination. 
 
 AVe may here, therefore, close our inquiries into the subject of 
 construction ; nor must the reader be dissatisfied with the sim- 
 plicity or apparent barrenness of their present results. He will 
 find, when he begins to apply them, that they are of more value 
 than they now seem ; but I have studiously avoided letting myself 
 be drawn into any intricate question, because I wished to ask 
 from the reader only so much attention as it seemed that even 
 the most indifferent would not be unwilling to pay to a subject 
 which is hourly becoming of greater practical interest. Evidently 
 it would have been altogether beside the purpose of this essay to 
 have entered deeply into the abstract science, or closely into the 
 mechanical detail, of construction : both have been illustrated by 
 writers far more capable of doing so than I, and may be studied 
 at the reader's discretion ; all that has been here endeavoured was 
 the leading him to appeal to something like definite principle, and 
 
204 XIX. SUPEIUMPOSITION. constriction. 
 
 refer to the easily intelligible laws of convenience and necessity, 
 whenever he found his judgment likely to be overborne by 
 authority on the one hand, or dazzled by novelty on the other. 
 If he has time to do more, and to follow out in all their brilliancy 
 the mechanical inventions of the great engineers and architects of 
 the day, I, in some sort, envy him, but must part company with 
 him : for my way lies not along the viaduct, but doAvn the quiet 
 valley which its arches cross, nor through the tunnel, but up the 
 hill-side which its cavern darkens, to see what gifts Nature will 
 give us, and with what imagery she will fill our thoughts, that 
 the stones we have ranged in rude order may now be touched 
 with life ; nor lose for ever, in their hewn nakedness, the voices 
 they had of old, when the valley streamlet eddied round them in 
 palpitating light, and the winds of the hill-side shook over them 
 the shadows of the fern. 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 205 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 
 
 § I. We enter now on the second division of our subject. We 
 have no more to do with heavy stones and hard lines ; we are 
 going to be happy : to look round in the world and discover (in 
 a serious manner always however, and under a sense of responsi- 
 bility) what we like best in it, and to enjoy the same at our 
 leisure : to gather it, examine it, fasten all we can of it into im- 
 perishable forms, and put it where we may see it for ever. 
 
 This it is to decorate architecture. 
 
 § n. There are, thei'efore, three steps in the process : first, to 
 find out in a grave manner what we like best; secondly, to put 
 as much of this as we can (which is little enough) into form; 
 thirdly, to put this formed abstraction into a proper place. 
 
 And we have now, therefore, to make these three inquiries in 
 succession : first, what we like, or what is the right material of 
 ornament ; then how we are to present it, or its right treatment ; 
 then, where Ave are to put it, or its right place. I think I can 
 answer that first inquiry in this Chapter, the second inquiry in 
 the next Chapter, and the third I shall answer in a more diffusive 
 manner, by taking up in succession the several parts of archi- 
 tecture above distinguished, and rapidly noting the kind of 
 ornament fittest for each. 
 
 § ill. I said in Chapter II. § XIV., that all noble ornamentation 
 was the expression of man's delight in God's work. This implied 
 that there was an ignoble ornamentation, which was the expression 
 of man's delight in his oicn. There is such a school, chiefly 
 degraded classic and Renaissance, in which the ornament is com- 
 posed of imitations of things made by man. I think, before 
 inquiring what we like best of God's work, we had better get 
 
206 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 rid of all this imitation of man's, and be quite sure we do not 
 like that. 
 
 § IV. We shall rapidly glance, then, at the material of decoration 
 hence derived. And now I cannot, as I before have done re- 
 specting construction, convince the reader of one thing being 
 wrong, and another right. I have confessed as much again and 
 again ; I am now only to make appeal to him, and cross-question 
 him, whether he really does like things or not. If he likes the 
 ornament on the base of the column of the Place Vendome, com- 
 posed of Wellington boots and laced frock coats, I cannot help it ; 
 I can only say I differ from him, and don't like it. And if, 
 therefore, I speak dictatorially, and say this is base, or degraded, 
 or ugly, I mean only that I believe men of the longest experience 
 in the matter would either think it so, or would be prevented 
 from thinking it so only by some morbid condition of their minds ; 
 and I believe that the reader, if he examine himself candidly, will 
 usually agree in my statements. 
 
 § v. The subjects of ornament found in man's work may pro- 
 perly fall into four heads : 1. Instruments of art, agriculture, and 
 war; armour, and dress; 2. Drapery; 3. Shipping; 4. Architec- 
 ture itself. 
 
 1. Instruments, armour, and dress. 
 
 The custom of raising trophies on pillars, and of dedicating 
 arms in temples, appears to have first suggested the idea of 
 employing them as the subjects of sculptural ornament : thence- 
 forward, this abuse has been chiefly characteristic of classical 
 architecture, whether true or Renaissance. Armour is a noble 
 thing in its proper service and subordination to the body; so is 
 an animal's hide, on its back ; but a heap of cast skins, or of shed 
 armour, is alike unworthy of all regard or imitation. We owe 
 much true sublimity, and more of delightful picturesqueness, to 
 the introduction of armour both in painting and sculpture : in 
 poetry it is better still,— Homer's undressed Achilles is less 
 o-rand than his crested and shielded Achilles, though Phidias 
 would rather have had him naked : in all mediaeval painting, arms, 
 like all other parts of costume, are treated with exquisite care and 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 207 
 
 delight ; in the designs of Leonardo, Raffaelle, and Perugino, the 
 
 armour sometimes becomes almost too conspicuous from the rich 
 
 and endless invention bestowed upon it ; while Titian and Rubens 
 
 seek in its flash, what the Milanese and Perugian sought in its 
 
 form, sometimes subordinating heroism to the light of the steel, 
 
 while the great designers wearied themselves in its elaborate fancy. 
 
 But all this labour was given to the living, not the dead 
 
 armour; to the shell with its animal in it, not the cast shell 
 
 of the beach ; and even so, it was introduced more sparingly by 
 
 the good sculptors than the good painters ; for the former felt, 
 
 and with justice, that the painter had the power of conquering 
 
 the over prominence of costume by the expression and colour of 
 
 the countenance, and that by the darkness of the eye, and glow of 
 
 the cheek, he could always conquer the gloom and the flash of the 
 
 mail ; but they could hardly, by any boldness or energy of the 
 
 marble features, conquer the forwardness and conspicuousness of 
 
 the sharp armorial forms. Their armed figures were therefore 
 
 almost always subordinate, their principal figures draped or 
 
 naked, and their choice of subject was much influenced by this 
 
 feeling of necessity. But the Renaissance sculptors displayed 
 
 the love of a Camilla for the mere crest and plume. Paltry 
 
 and false alike in every feeling of their narrowed minds, they 
 
 attached themselves, not only to costume without the person, 
 
 but to the pettiest details of the costume itself. They could not 
 
 describe Achilles, but they could describe his shield; a shield like 
 
 those of dedicated spoil, without a handle, never to be waved 
 
 in the face of war. And then we have helmets and lances, 
 
 banners and swords, sometimes with men to hold them, sometimes 
 
 without ; but always chiselled with a tailor-like love of the chasing 
 
 or the embroidery, — show helmets of the stage, no Vulcan work on 
 
 them, no heavy hammer strokes, no Etna fire in the metal of them, 
 
 nothing but pasteboard crests and high feathers. And these, cast 
 
 together in disorderly heaps, or grinning vacantly over keystones, 
 
 form one of the leading; decorations of Renaissance architecture, 
 
 and that one of the best ; for helmets and lances, however loosely 
 
 laid, are better than violins, and pipes, and books of music, which 
 
208 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 
 
 DETORATION. 
 
 were another of the Palladian and Sansovinian sources of ornament. 
 Supported by ancient authority, the abuse soon became a matter 
 of pride, and since it was easy to copy a heap of cast clothes, but 
 difficult to manage an arranged design of human figures, the 
 indolence of architects came to the aid of their affectation, until 
 by the moderns Ave find the practice carried out to its most 
 interesting results, and, as above noted, a large pair of boots 
 occupying the principal place in the bas-reliefs on the base of the 
 Colonne A'endoine. 
 
 § VI. A less offensive, because singularly grotesque, example of 
 the abuse at its height, occurs in the Hotel des Invalides, Avhere 
 the dormer windows are suits of armour down to the bottom of 
 the corslet, crowned by the helmet, and with the window in the 
 middle of the breast. 
 
 Instruments of agriculture and the arts are of less frequent 
 occurrence, except in hieroglyphics and other work, where they 
 are not employed as ornaments, but represented for the sake of 
 accurate knowledge, or as symbols. Wherever they have purpose 
 of this kind, they are of course perfectly right ; but they are then 
 part of the building's conversation, not conducive to its beaut}'. 
 The French have managed, with great dexterity, the repre- 
 sentation of the machinery for the elevation of their Luxor obelisk, 
 now sculptured on its base. 
 
 § VII. 2. Drapery. I have already spoken of the error of 
 introducing drapery, as such, for ornament, in the " Seven 
 Lamps." I may here note a curious instance of the abuse in the 
 church of the Jesuiti at Venice (Renaissance). On first entering 
 you suppose that the church, being in a poor quarter of the city, 
 has been somewhat meanly decorated by heavy green and white 
 curtains of an ordinary upholsterer's pattern : on looking closer, 
 they are discovered to be of marble, with the green pattern inlaid. 
 Another remarkable instance is in a piece of not altogether 
 unworthy architecture at Paris (Rue Rivoli), where the columns 
 are supposed to be decorated by images of handkerchiefs tied in 
 a stout knot round the middle of them. This shrewd invention 
 bids fair to become a new order. Multitudes of massy curtains 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 209 
 
 and various upholstery, more or less in imitation of that of the 
 drawing-room, are carved and gilt, in wood or stone, about the 
 altars and other theatrical portions of Romanist churches ; but 
 from these coarse and senseless vulgarities we may well turn, in 
 all haste, to note, with respect as well as regret, one of the errors 
 of the great school of Niccolo Pisano, — an error so full of feeling as 
 to be sometimes all but redeemed, and altogether forgiven,— the 
 sculpture, namely, of curtains around the recumbent statues upon 
 tombs, curtains which angels are represented as withdrawing, to 
 gaze upon the faces of those who are at rest. For some time 
 the idea was simply and slightly expressed, and though there 
 was always a painfulness in finding the shafts of stone, which 
 were felt to be the real supporters of the canopy, represented 
 as of yielding drapery, yet the beauty of the angelic figures, 
 and the tenderness of the thought, disarmed all animadversion. 
 But the scholars of the Pisani, as usual, caricatured when they 
 were unable to invent ; and the quiet curtained canopy became 
 a huge marble tent, with a pole in the centre of it. Thus 
 vulgarised, the idea itself soon disappeared, to make room for 
 urns, torches, and weepers, and the other modern parapher- 
 nalia of the churchyard. 
 
 § VIII. 3. Shipping. I have allowed this kind of subject to form 
 a separate head, owing to the importance of rostra in Roman 
 decoration, and to the continual occurrence of naval subjects in 
 modern monumental bas-relief. Mr. Fergusson says, somewhat 
 doubtfully, that he perceives a " kind of beauty " in a ship : I 
 say, without any manner of doubt, that a ship is one of the loveliest 
 tilings man ever made, and one of the noblest ; nor do I know 
 any lines, out of divine work, so lovely as those of the head of a 
 ship, or even as the sweep of the timbers of a small boat, not a 
 race boat, a mere floating chisel, but a broad, strong, sea boat, able 
 to breast a wave and break it : and yet, with all this beauty, ships 
 cannot be made subjects of sculpture. No one pauses in parti- 
 cular delight beneath the pediments of the Admiralty; nor does 
 scenery of shipping ever become prominent in bas-relief without 
 destroying it: witness the base of the Nelson pillar. It may be, 
 
210 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 and must be sometimes, introduced in severe subordination to 
 the figure subject, but just enough to indicate the scene ; sketched 
 in the lightest lines on the background ; never with any attempt 
 at realisation, never with any equality to the force of the figures, 
 unless the whole purpose of the subject be picturesque. I shall 
 explain this exception presently, in speaking of imitative archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 § IX. There is one piece of a ship's fittings, however, which 
 may be thought to have obtained acceptance as a constant ele- 
 ment of architectural ornament, — the cable: it is not, however, 
 the cable itself, but its abstract form, a group of twisted lines 
 (which a cable only exhibits in common with many natural 
 objects), which is indeed beautiful as an ornament. Make the 
 resemblance complete, give to the stone the threads and character 
 of the cable, and you may, perhaps, regard the sculpture with 
 curiosity, but never more with admiration. Consider the effect 
 of the base of the statue of King William IV. at the end of 
 London Bridge. 
 
 § x. 4. Architecture itself. The erroneous use of armour, or 
 dress, or instruments, or shipping, as decorative subject, is almost 
 exclusively confined to bad architecture — Roman or Renaissance. 
 But the false use of architecture itself, as an ornament of archi- 
 tecture is conspicuous even in the media?val work of the best 
 times, and is a grievous fault in some of its noblest examples. 
 
 It is, therefore, of great importance to note exactly at what 
 point this abuse begins, and in what it consists. 
 
 § XI. In all bas-relief, architecture may be introduced as an 
 explanation of the scene in which the figures act ; but with more or 
 less prominence in the inverse ratio of the importance of the figures. 
 
 The metaphysical reason of this is, that where the figures are 
 of great value and beauty, the mind is supposed to be engaged 
 wholly with them ; and it is an impertinence to disturb its con- 
 templation of them by any minor features whatever. As the 
 figures become of less value, and are regai'ded with less intensity, 
 accessary subjects may be introduced, such as the thoughts may 
 have leisure for. 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 211 
 
 Thus, if the figures be as large as life, and complete statues, it 
 is gross vulgarity to carve a temple above them, or distribute them 
 over sculptured rocks, or lead them up steps into pyramids: I need 
 hardly instance Canova's works *, and the Dutch pulpit groups, 
 ■with fishermen, boats, and nets, in the midst of church naves. 
 
 If the figures be in bas-relief, though as large as life, the scene 
 may be explained by lightly traced outlines : this is admirably 
 done in the Ninevite marbles. 
 
 If the figures be in bas-relief, or even alto-relievo, but less 
 than life, and if their purpose is rather to enrich a space and 
 produce picturesque shadows, than to draw the thoughts en- 
 tirely to themselves, the scenery in which they act may become 
 prominent. The most exquisite examples of this treatment are 
 the gates of Ghiberti. What would that Madonna of the Annun- 
 ciation be, without the little shi'ine into which she shrinks back? 
 But all mediaeval work is full of delightful examples of the 
 same kind of treatment : the gates of hell and of paradise are 
 important pieces, both of explanation and effect, in all early 
 representations of the last judgment, or of the descent into Hades. 
 The keys of St. Peter, and the crushing flat of the devil under 
 his own door, when it is beaten in, would haixlly be understood 
 without the respective gateways above. The best of all the later 
 capitals of the Ducal Palace of Venice depends for great part of 
 its value on the richness of a small campanile, which is pointed 
 to proudly by a small emperor in a turned-up hat, who, the 
 legend informs us, is " Numa Pompilio, imperador, edifichador di 
 tempi e chiese." 
 
 § XII. Shipping may be introduced, or rich fancy of vestments, 
 crowns, and ornaments, exactly on the same conditions as archi- 
 tecture ; and if the reader will look back to my definition of the 
 picturesque in the " Seven Lamps," he will see why I said, above, 
 that they might only be prominent when the purpose of the 
 subject was partly picturesque; that is to say, when the mind 
 is intended to derive part of its enjoyment from the parasitical 
 
 * The admiration of Canova I hold to be one of the most deadly symptoms in 
 the civilisation of the upper classes in the present century. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 qualities or accidents of the thing, not from the heart of the 
 thing itself. 
 
 And thus, -while we must regret the flapping sails in the death 
 of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, we may yet most heartily enjoy 
 the sculpture of a storm in one of the bas-reliefs of the tomb of 
 St. Pietro Martire in the church of St. Eustorgio at Milan, where 
 the grouping of the figures is most fancifully complicated by the 
 under-cut cordasre of the vessel. 
 
 § xill. In all these instances, however, observe that the per- 
 mission to represent the human work as an ornament, is con- 
 ditional on its being necessary to the representation of a scene, or 
 explanation of an action. On no terms whatever could any such 
 subject be independently admissible. 
 
 Observe, thei'efore, the use of manufacture as ornament is — 
 
 1. With heroic figure sculpture, not admissible at all. 
 
 2. With picturesque figure sculpture, admissible in the degree 
 
 of its picturesqueness. 
 
 3. Without figure sculpture, not admissible at all. 
 
 So also in painting : Michael Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel, 
 would not have willingly painted a dress of figured damask 
 or of watered satin : his was heroic painting, not admitting 
 accessaries. 
 
 Tintoret, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Vandyck, would be 
 very sorry to part with their figured stuffs and lustrous silks; 
 and sorry, observe, exactly in the degree of their picturesque 
 feeling. Should not we also be sorry to have Bishop Ambrose 
 without his vest, in that picture of the National Gallery ? 
 
 But I think Vandyck would not have liked, on the otlier hand, 
 the vest without the bishop. I much doubt if Titian or Veronese 
 would have enjoyed going into Waterloo House, and making 
 studies of dresses upon the counter. 
 
 ;• xiv. So, therefore, finally, neither architecture nor any other 
 human work is admissible as an ornament, except in subordination 
 to figure subject. And this law is grossly and painfully violated 
 by those curious examples of Gothic, both early and late, in the 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 213 
 
 north, (but late, I think, exclusively, in Italy,) in which the minor 
 features of the architecture were composed of small models of 
 the larger : examples which led the way to a series of abuses 
 materially affecting the life, strength, and nobleness of the Northern 
 Gothic, — abuses which no Ninevite, nor Egyptian, nor Greek, nor 
 Byzantine, nor Italian of the earlier ages, would have endured 
 for an instant, and which strike me with renewed surprise 
 whenever I pass beneath a portal of thirteenth century Northern 
 Gothic, associated as they ai*e with manifestations of exquisite 
 feeling and power in other directions. The porches of Bourges, 
 Amiens, Notre Dame of Paris, and Notre Dame of Dijon, may be 
 noted as conspicuous in error : small models of feudal towers 
 with diminutive windows and battlements, of cathedral spires 
 with scaly pinnacles, mixed with temple pediments and non- 
 descript edifices of every kind, are crowded together over the 
 recess of the niche into a confused fool's cap for the saint below. 
 Italian Gothic is almost entirely free from the taint of this bar- 
 barism until the Renaissance period, when it becomes rampant in 
 the cathedral of Como and Certosa of Pavia ; and at Venice we 
 find the Renaissance churches decorated with models of fortifi- 
 cations like those in the Repository at Woolwich, or inlaid with 
 mock arcades in pseudo-perspective, copied from gardeners' 
 paintings at the ends of conservatories. 
 
 § XV. I conclude, then, with the reader's leave, that all ornament 
 is base which takes for its subject human work, that it is utterly 
 base, — painful to every rightly-toned mind, without perhaps im- 
 mediate sense of the reason, but for a reason palpable enough 
 when we do think of it. For to carve our own work, and set it 
 up for admh-ation, is a miserable self-complacency, a contentment 
 in our own wretched doings, when we might have been looking 
 at God's doings. And all noble ornament is the exact reverse 
 of this. It is the expression of man's delight in God's work. 
 
 § xvi. For observe, the function of ornament is to make you 
 happy. Now in what are you rightly happy ? Not in thinking 
 of what you have done yourself ; not in your own pride ; not 
 your own birth ; not in your own being, or your own will, but 
 
 V 3 
 
214 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. decohatio.v. 
 
 in looking at God ; watching what He does, what He is ; and 
 obeying His law, and yielding yourself to His will. 
 
 5Tou are to be made happy by ornaments; therefore they must 
 be the expression of all this. Not copies of your own handiwork ; 
 not boastings of your own grandeur ; not heraldries ; not king's 
 arms, nor any creature's arms, but God's arm, seen in His work. 
 Not manifestation of your delight in your own laws, or your 
 own liberties, or your own inventions; but in divine laws, constant, 
 daily, common laws; — not Composite laws, nor Doric laws, nor 
 laws of the five orders, but of the Ten Commandments. 
 
 § XVII. Then the proper material of ornament will be whatever 
 God has created ; and its proper treatment, that which seems in 
 accordance with or symbolical of His laws. And, for material, we 
 shall therefore have, first, the abstract lines which are most 
 frequent in nature ; and then, from lower to higher, the whole 
 range of systematised inorganic and organic forms. We shall 
 rapidly glance in order at their kinds ; and, however absurd 
 the elemental division of inorganic matter by the ancients may 
 seem to the modern chemist, it is one so grand and simple for 
 arrangements of external appearances, that I shall here follow it ; 
 noticing first, after abstract lines, the imitable forms of the four 
 elements, of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, and then those of animal 
 organisms. It may be convenient to the reader to have the order 
 stated in a clear succession at first, thus : — 
 
 1. Abstract lines. 
 
 2. Forms of Earth (Crystals). 
 
 3. Forms of Water (Waves). 
 
 4. Forms of Fire (Flames and Kays). 
 
 5. Forms of Air (Clouds). 
 
 6. (Organic forms.) Shells. 
 
 7. Fish. 
 
 8. Reptiles and insects. 
 
 9. Vegetation (A). Stems and Trunks. 
 
 10. Vegetation (B). Foliage. 
 
 11. Birds. 
 
 12. Mammalian animals and Man. 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 215 
 
 It may be objected that clouds are a form of moisture, not of 
 air. They are, however, a perfect expression of aerial states and 
 currents, and may sufficiently well stand for the element they 
 move in. And I have put vegetation apparently somewhat out 
 of its place, owing to its vast importance as a means of decoration, 
 and its constant association with birds and men. 
 
 § xvin. 1. Abstract lines. I have not with lines named also 
 shades and colours, for this evident reason, that there are no such 
 tilings as abstract shadows, irrespective of the forms which exhibit 
 them, and distinguished in their own nature from each other; and 
 that the arrangement of shadows, in greater or less quantity, or 
 in certain harmonical successions, is an affair of treatment, not of 
 selection. And when we use abstract colours, we are in fact 
 using a part of nature herself, — using a quality of her light, 
 correspondent with that of the air, to carry sound ; and the ar- 
 rangement of colour in harmonious masses is again a matter 
 of treatment, not selection. Yet even in this separate art of 
 colouring, as referred to architecture, it is very notable that the 
 best tints are always those of natural stones. These can hardly be 
 wrong ; I think I never yet saw an offensive introduction of the 
 natural colours of marble and precious stones, unless in small 
 mosaics, and in one or two glaring instances of the resolute deter- 
 mination to produce something ugly at any cost. On the other 
 hand, I have most assuredly never yet seen a painted building, 
 ancient or modern, which seemed to me quite right. 
 
 § xix. Our first constituents of ornament will therefore be 
 abstract lines, that is to say, the most frequent contours of 
 natural objects, transferred to architectural forms when it is not 
 right or possible to render such forms distinctly imitative. For 
 instance, the line or curve of the edge of a leaf may be accurately 
 given to the edge of a stone, without rendering the stone in the 
 least like a leaf, or suggestive of a leaf ; and this the more fully, 
 because the lines of nature are alike in all her works ; simpler or 
 richer in combination, but the same in character ; and when they 
 are taken out of their combinations it is impossible to say from 
 which of her works they have been borrowed, their universal 
 
 P 4 
 
216 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. decoration; 
 
 property being that of ever-varying curvature in the most subtle 
 and subdued transitions, with peculiar expressions of motion, 
 elasticity, or dependence, which I have already insisted upon at 
 some length in the chapters on typical beauty in " [Modern 
 Painters." But, that the reader may here be able to compare 
 them for himself as deduced from different sources, I have drawn, 
 as accurately as I can, on the opposite plate, some ten or eleven 
 lines from natural forms of very different substances and scale : 
 the first, a b, is, in the original, I think, the most beautiful simple 
 curve I have ever seen in my life ; it is a curve about three 
 quarters of a mile long, formed by the surface of a small glacier 
 of the second order, on a spur of the Aiguille de Blaitiere (Cha- 
 mouni). I have merely outlined the crags on the right of it, to 
 show their sympathy and united action with the curve of the 
 glacier, which is of course entirely dependent on their opposition 
 to its descent ; softened, however, into unity by the snow, which 
 rarely melts on this high glacier surface. 
 
 The line d c is some mile and a half or two miles long ; it is 
 part of the flank of the chain of the Dent d'Oche above the lake 
 of Geneva, one or two of the lines of the higher and more distant 
 ranges being given in combination with it. 
 
 h is a line about four feet long, a branch of spruce fir. I have 
 taken this tree because it is commonly supposed to be stiff and 
 ungraceful; its outer sprays are, however, more noble in their 
 sweep than almost any that I know : but this fragment is seen at 
 great disadvantage, because placed upside down in order that the 
 reader may compare its curvatures with c d, eg, and ih, which 
 are all mountain lines ; eg, about five hundred feet of the southern 
 edge of the Matterhorn ; ik, the entire slope of the Aiguille 
 Bouchard, from its summit into the valley of Chamouni, a line 
 some three miles long ; I m is the line of the side of a willow leaf 
 traced by laying the leaf on the paper ; n o, one of the innumer- 
 able groups of curves at the lip of a paper Nautilus; p, a spiral, 
 traced on the paper round a Serpula ; q r, the leaf of the Alisma 
 Plantago with its interior ribs, real size ; s t, the side of a bay- 
 leaf; uw, of a salvia leaf: and it is to be carefully noted that 
 these last curves, being never intended by nature to be seen 
 
H 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 217 
 
 singly, are more heavy and less agreeable than any of the others 
 which would be seen as independent lines. But all agree in their 
 character of changeful curvature, the mountain and glacier lines 
 only excelling the rest in delicacy and richness of transition. 
 
 § XX. Why lines of this kind are beautiful, I endeavoured to 
 show in the " Modern Painters ; " but one point, there omitted, may 
 be mentioned here, — that almost all these lines are expressive of 
 action or force of some kind, while the circle is a line of limitation 
 or support. In leafage they mark the forces of its growth and 
 expansion, but some among the most beautiful of them are 
 described by bodies variously in motion, or subjected to force ; as 
 by pi'ojectiles in the air, by the particles of water in a gentle 
 current, by planets in motion in an orbit, by their satellites, if 
 the actual path of the satellite in space be considered instead of 
 its relation to the planet ; by boats, or birds, turning in the water 
 or air, by clouds in various action upon the wind, by sails in 
 the curvatures they assume under its force, and by thousands of 
 other objects moving or bearing force. In the Alisma leaf, q r, 
 the lines through its body, which are of peculiar beauty, mark 
 the different expansions of its fibres, and are, I think, exactly the 
 same as those which would be traced by the currents of a river 
 entering a lake of the shape of the leaf, at the end where the stalk 
 is, and passing out at its point. Circular curves, on the contrary, 
 are always, I think, curves of limitation or support ; that is to 
 say, curves of perfect rest. The cylindrical curve round the stem 
 of a plant binds its fibres together ; while the ascent of the stem 
 is in lines of various curvature : so the curve of the horizon and 
 of the apparent heaven, of the rainbow, &c. : and though the 
 reader might imagine that the circular orbit of any moving body, 
 or the curve described by a sling, was a curve of motion, he 
 should observe that the circular character is given to the curve 
 not by the motion, but by the confinement : the circle is the 
 consequence not of the energy of the body, but of its being 
 forbidden to leave the centre ; and whenever the whirling or 
 circular motion can be fully impressed on it we obtain instant 
 balance and rest with respect to the centre of the circle. 
 
 Hence the peculiar fitness of the circular curve as a sign of 
 
218 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT, decoration. 
 
 rest, and security of support, in arches ; while the other curves, 
 belonging especially to action, are to be used in the more active 
 architectural features — the hand and foot (the capital and base), 
 and in all minor ornaments ; more freely in proportion to their 
 independence of structural conditions. 
 
 § XXI. We need not, however, hope to be able to imitate, in 
 general work, any of the subtly combined curvatures of nature's 
 highest designing: on the contrary, their extreme refinement 
 renders them unfit for coarse service or material. Lines which 
 are lovely in the pearly film of the Nautilus shell, are lost in the 
 grey roughness of stone ; and those which are sublime in the blue 
 of far away hills, are weak in the substance of incumbent marble. 
 Of all the graceful lines assembled on Plate VII., we shall do 
 well to be content with two of the simplest. We will take one 
 mountain line (e, g) and one leaf line (u, ic), or rather fragments 
 of them, for we shall perhaps not want them all. I will mark 
 off from u w the little bit x y, and from eg the piece ef; both 
 which appear to me likely to be serviceable : and if hereafter we 
 need the help of any abstract lines, we will see what we can do 
 with these only. 
 
 § xxn. 2. Forms of Earth (Crystals). It may be asked why I 
 do not say rocks or mountains? Simply, because the nobility of 
 these depends, first, on their scale, and, secondly, on accident. 
 Their scale cannot be represented, nor their accident system- 
 atised. No sculptor can in the least imitate the peculiar cha- 
 racter of accidental fracture : he can obey or exhibit the laws of 
 nature, but he cannot copy the felicity of her fancies, nor follow 
 the steps of her fury. The very glory of a mountain is in the 
 revolutions which raised it into power, and the forces which 
 are striking it into ruin. But we want no cold and careful 
 imitation of catastrophe; no calculated mockery of convul- 
 sion ; no delicate reconnni'iulation of ruin. We are to follow 
 the labour of Nature, but not her disturbance ; to imitate what 
 she has deliberately ordained *, not what she has violently 
 
 * Tims above, I adduced for the architect's imitation the appointed stories and 
 beds of the Matterhorn, not its irregular forms of crag or fissure. 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 219 
 
 suffered, or strangely permitted. The only uses, therefore, of 
 rock form which are wise in the architect, are its actual intro- 
 duction (by leaving untouched such blocks as are meant for 
 rough service), and that noble use of the general examples of 
 mountain structure of which I have often heretofore spoken. 
 Imitations of rock form have, for the most part, been confined 
 to periods of degraded feeling and to architectural toys or pieces 
 of dramatic effect, — the Calvaries and holy sepulchres of Ro- 
 manism, or the grottoes and fountains of English gardens. They 
 were, however, not unfrequent in mediaeval bas-reliefs ; very 
 curiously and elaborately treated by Ghiberti on the doors of 
 Florence, and in religious sculpture necessarily introduced where- 
 ever the life of the anchorite was to be expressed. They were 
 rarely introduced as of ornamental character, but for particular 
 service and expression ; we shall see an interesting example in 
 the Ducal Palace at Venice. 
 
 § XXlll. But against crystalline form, which is the completely 
 systematised natural structure of the earth, none of these ob- 
 jections hold good, and, accordingly, it is an endless element of 
 decoration, where higher conditions of structure cannot be re- 
 presented. The four-sided pyramid, perhaps the most frequent 
 of all natural crystals, is called in architecture a dogtooth ; its 
 use is quite limitless, and always beautiful : the cube and rhomb 
 are almost equally frequent in chequers and dentils ; and all 
 mouldings of the middle Gothic are little more than repre- 
 sentations of the canaliculated crystals of the beryl, and such 
 other minerals : 
 
 § XXIV. Not knowingly. I do not suppose a single hint was 
 ever actually taken from mineral form ; not even by the Arabs in 
 their stalactite pendants and vaults : all that I mean to allege is, 
 that beautiful ornament, wherever found, or however invented, 
 is always either an intentional or unintentional copy of some 
 constant natural form ; and that in this particular instance, the 
 pleasure we have in these geometrical figures of our own in- 
 vention, is dependent for all its acuteness on the natural tendency 
 impressed on us by our Creator to love the forms into which the 
 
220 XX. THE MATEKIAL OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 earth He gave us to tread, and out of which He formed our 
 bodies, knit itself as it was separated from the deep. 
 
 § XXV. 3. Forms of Water (Waves). 
 
 The reasons which prevent rocks from being used for orna- 
 ment repress still more forcibly the portraiture of the sea. Yet 
 the constant necessity of introducing some representation of 
 water in order to explain the scene of events, or as a sacred, 
 symbol, has forced the sculptors of all ages to the invention of 
 some type or letter for it, if not an actual imitation. We find 
 every degree of conventionalism or of naturalism in these types, 
 the earlier being, for the most part, thoughtful symbols ; the 
 later, awkward attempts at portraiture.* The most conventional 
 of all types is the Egyptian zigzag, preserved in the astronomical 
 sign of Aquarius ; but every nation, with any capacities of 
 thought, has given, in some of its work, the same great definition 
 of open water, as " an undulatory thing with fish in it." I say 
 open water, because inland nations have a totally different con- 
 ception of the element. Imagine for an instant the different 
 feelings of an husbandman whose hut is built by the Rhine or 
 the Po, and who sees, day by day, the same giddy succession of 
 silent power, the same opaque, thick, whirling, irresistible, laby- 
 rinth of rushing lines and twisted eddies, coiling themselves into 
 serpentine race by the reedy banks, in omne volubilis aevum, — 
 and the image of the sea in the mind of the fisher upon the rocks 
 of Ithaca, or by the Straits of Sicily, who sees how, day by day, 
 the morning winds come coursing to the shore, every breath of 
 them with a green wave rearing before it; clear, crisp, ringing, 
 merry-minded waves, that fall over and over each other, laughing 
 like children as they near the beach, and at last clash them- 
 selves all into dust of crystal over the dazzling sweeps of sand. 
 Fancy the difference of the image of water in those two minds, 
 and then compare the sculpture of the coiling eddies of the 
 Tigris and its reedy branches in those slabs of Nineveh, with 
 the crested curls of the Greek sea on the coins of Camerina or 
 
 * Appendix 21. : "Ancient Representations of Water." 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF OHNAMENT. 221 
 
 Tarentum. But both agree in the undulatory lines, either of the 
 currents or the surface, and in the introduction of fish as ex- 
 planatory of the meaning of those lines (so also the Egyptians in 
 their frescos, with most elaborate realisation of the fish). There 
 is a very curious instance on a Greek mirror in the British 
 Museum, representing Orion on the sea ; and multitudes of ex- 
 amples with dolphins on the Greek vases : the type is preserved 
 without alteration in mediaeval painting and sculpture. The sea 
 in that Greek mirror (at least 400 b. c), in the mosaics of 
 Torcello and St. Mark's, on the font of St. Frediano at Lucca, 
 on the gate of the fortress of St. Michael's Mount in Normandy, 
 on the Bayeux tapestry, and on the capitals of the Ducal Palace 
 at Venice (under Arion on his dolphin), is represented in a 
 manner absolutely identical. Giotto, in the frescoes of Avignon, 
 has, with his usual strong feeling for naturalism, given the best 
 example I remember, in painting, of the unity of the conventional 
 system with direct imitation, and that both in sea and river ; 
 giving in pure blue colour the coiling whirlpool of the stream, 
 and the curled crest of the breaker. But in all early sculptural 
 examples, both imitation and decorative effect are subordinate to 
 easily understood symbolical language ; the undulatory lines are 
 often valuable as an enrichment of surface, but are rarely of any 
 studied gracefulness. One of the best examples I know of their 
 expressive arrangement is around some figures in a spandril at 
 Bourges, representing figures sinking in deep sea (the deluge) : 
 the waved lines yield beneath the bodies and wildly lave the ed^e 
 of the moulding, two birds, as if to mark the reverse of all order 
 of nature, lowest of all sunk in the depth of them. In later 
 times of debasement, water began to be represented with its 
 waves, foam, &c, as on the Vendramin tomb at Venice, above 
 cited ; but even there, without any definite ornamental purpose, 
 the sculptor meant partly to explain a story, partly to display 
 dexterity of chiselling, but not to produce beautiful forms, 
 pleasant to the eye. The imitation is vapid and joyless, and it. 
 has often been matter of surprise to me that sculptors, so fond of 
 exhibiting their skill, should have suffered this imitation to fall 
 
222 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 so short, and remain so cold, — should not have taken more pains 
 to curl the waves clearly, to edge them sharply, and to express, 
 by drillholes or other artifices, the character of foam. I think 
 in one of the Antwerp churches something of this kind is clone in 
 wood, but in general it is rare. 
 
 § xxvr. 4. Foi'ins of Fire (Flames and Rays). If neither 
 the sea nor the rock can be imaged, still less the devouring 
 fire. It has been symbolised by radiation both in painting 
 and sculpture, for the most part in the latter very unsuc- 
 cessfully. It was suggested to me, not long ago *, that the 
 zigzag decorations of Norman architects were typical of light 
 springing from the half-set orb of the sun ; the resemblance to 
 the ordinary sun type is indeed remarkable, but I believe acci- 
 dental. I shall give, in my large plates, two curious instances 
 of radiation in brick ornament above arches, but I think these 
 also without any very luminous intention. The imitations of fire 
 in the torches of Cupicls and genii, and burning in tops of urns, 
 which attest and represent the mephitic inspirations of the seven- 
 teenth century in most London churches, and in monuments all 
 over civilised Europe, together with the gilded rays of Romanist 
 altars, may be left to such mercy as the reader is inclined to 
 show them. 
 
 § XXVII. 5. Forms of Air (Clouds). Hardly more manageable 
 than flames, and of no ornamental use, their majesty being in 
 scale and colour, and inimitable in marble. They are lightly 
 traced in much of the cinque cento sculpture ; very boldly and 
 grandly in the strange Last Judgment in the porch of St. Maclou 
 at Rouen, described in the " Seven Lamps." But the most 
 elaborate imitations are altogether of recent date, arranged in 
 concretions like flattened sacks, forty or fifty feet above the 
 altars of continental churches, mixed with the gilded truncheons 
 intended for sunbeams above alluded to. 
 
 § XXVill. 6. Shells. I place these lowest in the scale (after 
 inorganic forms) as being moulds or coats of organism; not 
 
 * By the friend to whom I owe Appendix 21. 
 
becobation. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 223 
 
 themselves organic. The sense of this, and of their being mere 
 emptinesses and deserted houses, must always prevent them, 
 however beautiful in their lines, from being largely used in 
 ornamentation. It is better to take the line and leave the shell. 
 One form indeed, that of the cockle, has been in all ages used 
 as the decoration of half domes, which were named conchas from 
 their shell form ; and I believe the wrinkled lip of the cockle, so 
 used, to have been the origin, in some parts of Europe at least, of 
 the exuberant foliation of the round arch. The scallop also is a 
 pretty radiant form, and mingles well with other symbols when it 
 is needed. The crab is always as delightful as a grotesque, for 
 here we suppose the beast inside the shell ; and he sustains his 
 part in a lively manner among the other signs of the zodiac, with 
 the scorpion ; or scattered upon sculptured shores, as beside the 
 Bronze Boar of Florence. We shall find him in a basket at 
 Venice, at the base of one of the Piazzetta shafts. 
 
 § xxix. 7. Fish. These, as beautiful in their forms as they 
 are familiar to our sight, while their interest is increased by their 
 symbolic meaning, are of great value as material of ornament. 
 Love of the picturesque has generally induced a choice of some 
 supple form with scaly body and lashing tail, but the simplest 
 fish form is largely employed in mediaeval work. We shall find 
 the plain oval body and sharp head of the Thunny constantly at 
 Venice; and the fish used in the expression of sea-water, or 
 water generally, are always plain bodied creatures in the best 
 mediaeval sculpture. The Greek type of the dolphin, however, 
 sometimes but slightly exaggerated from the real outline of the 
 Delphinus Delphis*, is one of the most picturesque of animal 
 forms ; and the action of its slow revolving plunge is admirably 
 caught upon the surface sea represented in Greek vases. 
 
 § xxx. 8. Reptiles and Insects. The forms of the serpent and 
 lizard exhibit almost every element of beauty and horror in 
 
 * One is glad to hear from Cuvier, that though dolphins in general are "les 
 plus carnassiers, et, proportion gardee avec leur taille, les plus cruels de l'ordre ;" 
 yet that in the Delphinus Delphis, " toute l'organisation de son cerveau annonce 
 quhl ne doit pas etre depourvu de la docilite qu'ils" (les anciens) " lui attribuaient." 
 
224: XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 strange combination ; the horror, -which in an imitation is felt 
 only as a pleasurable excitement, has rendered them favourite 
 subjects in all periods of art ; and the unity of both lizard and 
 gerpent in the ideal dragon, the most picturesque and powerful 
 of all animal forms, and of peculiar symbolical interest to the 
 Christian mind, is perhaps the principal of all the materials of 
 mediaeval picturesque sculpture. By the best sculptors it is 
 always used with this symbolic meaning, by the cinque cento 
 sculptors as an ornament merely. The best and most natural 
 representations of mere viper or snake are to be found interlaced 
 among their confused groups of meaningless objects. The real 
 power and horror of the snake-head has, however, been rarely 
 reached. I shall give one example from A'erona of the twelfth 
 century. 
 
 Other less powerful reptile forms are not unfrequent. Small 
 frogs, lizards, and snails almost always enliven the foregrounds 
 and leafage of good sculpture. The tortoise is less usually 
 employed in groups. Beetles are chiefly mystic and colossal. 
 Various insects, like everything else in the world, occur in cinque 
 cento work ; grasshoppers most frequently. We shall see on the 
 Ducal Palace at Venice an interesting use of the bee. 
 
 § xxxi. 9. Branches and stems of Trees. I arrange these 
 under a separate head ; because, while the forms of leafage 
 belong to all architecture, and ought to be employed in it 
 always, those of the branch and stem belong to a peculiarly imi- 
 tative and luxuriant architecture, and are only applicable at 
 times. Pagan sculptors seem to have perceived little beauty in 
 the stems of trees; they were little else than timber to them; and 
 they preferred the rigid and monstrous triglyph, or the fluted 
 column, to a broken bough or gnarled trunk. But with Christian 
 knowledge came a peculiar regard for the forms of vegetation, 
 from the root upwards. The actual representation of entire trees 
 required in many Scripture subjects, — as in the most frequent 
 of Old Testament subjects, the Fall; and again in the Drunken- 
 ness of Noah, the Garden Agony, and many others, familiarised 
 the sculptors of bas-relief to the beauty of forms before unknown; 
 
decorateon. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 225 
 
 while the symbolical name given to Christ by the Prophets, " the 
 Branch," and the frequent expressions referring to this image 
 throughout every scriptural description of conversion, gave an 
 especial interest in the Christian mind to this portion of vege- 
 tative structure. For some time, nevertheless, the sculpture 
 of trees was confined to bas-relief; but it at last affected even 
 the treatment of the main shafts in Lombard Gothic buildings, 
 — as in the western facade of Genoa, where two of the shafts 
 are represented as gnarled trunks : and as bas-relief itself became 
 more boldly introduced, so did tree sculpture, until we find the 
 writhed and knotted stems of the vine and fig used for angle 
 shafts on the Doge's Palace, and entire oaks and apple-trees 
 forming, roots and all, the principal decorative sculptures of the 
 Scala tombs at Verona. It was then discovered to be more easy 
 to carve branches than leaves ; and, much helped by the frequent 
 employment in later Gothic of the " Tree of Jesse " for traceries 
 and other purposes, the system reached full development in a 
 perfect thicket of twigs, which form the richest portion of the 
 decoration of the porches of Beauvais. It had now been carried 
 to its richest extreme ; men wearied of it and abandoned it, and, 
 like all other natural and beautiful things, it was ostracised by 
 the mob of Renaissance architects. But it is interesting to 
 observe how the human mind, in its acceptance of this feature of 
 ornament, proceeded from the ground, and followed, as it were, 
 the natural growth of the tree. It began with the rude and 
 solid trunk, as at Genoa ; then the branches shot out, and became 
 loaded with leaves ; autumn came, the leaves were shed, and the 
 eye was directed to the extremities of the delicate branches; — 
 the Renaissance frosts came, and all perished. 
 
 § xxxn. 10. Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit. It is necessary to 
 consider these as separated from the stems ; not only, as above 
 noted, because their separate use marks another school of archi- 
 tecture, but because they are the only organic structures which are 
 capable of being so treated, and intended to be so, without strong 
 effort of imagination. To pull animals to pieces, and use their 
 paws for feet of furniture, or their heads for terminations of rods 
 
 Q 
 
226 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. mscohatiom. 
 
 and shafts, is usually the characteristic of feelingless schools ; the 
 greatest men like their animals whole. The head may, indeed, 
 be so managed as to look emergent from the stone, rather than 
 fastened to it; and wherever there is throughout the architecture 
 any expression of sternness or severity (severity in its literal 
 sense (as in Romans, xi. 22.), such divisions of the living form 
 may be permitted ; still, you cannot cut an animal to pieces 
 as you can gather a flower or a leaf. These were intended for 
 our gathering, and for our constant delight : wherever men exist 
 in a perfectly civilised and healthy state, they have vegetation 
 around them ; wherever their state approaches that of innocence 
 or perfectness, it approaches that of Paradise, — it is a dressing of 
 garden. And, therefore, where nothing else can be used for orna- 
 ment, vegetation may ; vegetation in any form, however frag- 
 mentary, however abstracted. A single leaf laid upon the angle 
 of a stone, or the mere form or framework of the leaf drawn upon 
 it, or the mere shadow and ghost of the leaf, — the hollow " foil" 
 cut out of it, — possesses a charm which nothing else can replace ; 
 a charm not exciting, nor demanding laborious thought or sym- 
 pathy, but perfectly simple, peaceful, and satisfying. 
 
 § xxxiii. The full recognition of leaf forms, as the general 
 source of subordinate decoration, is one of the chief charac- 
 teristics of Christian architecture ; but the two roots of leaf 
 ornament are the Greek acanthus, and the Egyptian lotus.* 
 The dry land and the river thus each contributed their part ; and 
 all the florid capitals of the richest Northern Gothic on the one 
 hand, and the arrowy lines of the severe Lombardic capitals on the 
 other, are founded on these two gifts of the dust of Greece and 
 the waves of the Nile. The leaf which is, I believe, called the 
 Persepolitan water-leaf, is to be associated with the lotus flower 
 and stem, as the origin of our noblest types of simple capital ; 
 and it is to be noted that the florid leaves of the dry land are 
 
 * Vide Wilkinson, vol. v., woodcut No. 478, fig. 8. The tamarisk appears 
 afterwards to have given the idea of a subdivision of leaf more pure and quaint 
 than that of the acanthus. Of late our botanists have discovered, in the " Victoria 
 regia" (supposing its blossom reversed), another strangely beautiful type of what 
 we may perhaps hereafter find it convenient to call Lily capitals. 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 227 
 
 used most by the Northern architects, while the water leaves are 
 gathered for their ornaments by the parched builders of the 
 Desert. 
 
 § XXXIV. Fruit is, for the most part, more valuable in colour 
 than form ; nothing is more beautiful as a subject of sculpture on 
 a tree ; but, gathered and put in baskets, it is quite possible to 
 have too much of it. We shall find it so used very dextrously 
 on the Ducal Palace of Venice, there with a meaning which 
 rendered it right and necessary ; but the Renaissance architects 
 address themselves to spectators who care for nothing but 
 feasting, and suppose that clusters of pears and pineapples are 
 visions of which their imagination can never weary, and above 
 which it will never care to rise. I am no advocate for image- 
 worship, as I believe the reader will elsewhere sufficiently find ; 
 but I am very sure that the Protestantism of London would have 
 found itself quite as secure in a cathedral decorated with statues 
 of good men, as in one hung round with bunches of ribston 
 pippins. 
 
 § XXXV. 11. Birds. The perfect and simple grace of bird form, 
 in general, has rendered it a favourite subject with early sculptors, 
 and with those schools which loved form more than action ; but 
 the difficulty of expressing action, where the muscular markings 
 are concealed, has limited the use of it in later art. Half the 
 ornament, at least, in Byzantine architecture, and a third of that 
 of Lombardic, is composed of birds, either pecking at fruit or 
 flowers, or standing on either side of a flower or vase, or alone, 
 as genei'ally the symbolical peacock. But how much of our 
 general sense of grace or power of motion, of serenity, peaceful- 
 ness, and spirituality, we owe to these creatures, it is impossible 
 to conceive ; their wings supplying us with almost the only means 
 of representation of spiritual motion which we possess, and with 
 an ornamental form of which the eye is never weary, however 
 meaninglessly or endlessly repeated ; whether in utter isolation, 
 or associated with the bodies of the lizard, the horse, the lion, 
 or the man. The heads of the birds of prey are always beautiful, 
 and used as the richest ornaments in all ages. 
 
228 XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT, decoration. 
 
 § XXXVI. 1 2. Quadrupeds and Men. Of quadrupeds the horse 
 lias received an elevation into the primal rank of sculptural 
 subject, owing to his association with men. The full value of 
 other quadruped forms has hardly been perceived, or worked for, 
 in late sculpture ; and the want of science is more felt in these 
 subjects than in any other branches of early work. The greatest 
 richness of quadruped ornament is found in the hunting sculpture 
 of the Lombards ; but rudely treated, (the most noble examples 
 of treatment being the lions of Egypt, the Ninevite bulls, and the 
 mediaeval griffins). Quadrupeds of course form the noblest 
 subjects of ornament next to the human form ; this latter, the 
 chief subject of sculpture, being sometimes the end of architecture 
 rather than its decoration. 
 
 We have thus completed the list of the materials of archi- 
 tectural decoration, and the reader may be assured that no effort 
 has ever been successful to draw elements of beauty from any 
 other sources than these. Such an effort was once resolutely 
 made. It was contrary to the religion of the Arab to introduce 
 any animal form into his ornament ; but although all the radiance 
 of colour, all the refinements of proportion, and all the intricacies 
 of geometrical design were open to him, he could not produce 
 any noble work without an abstracticm of the forms of leafage, to 
 be used in his capitals, and made the ground plan of his chased 
 ornament. But I have above noted that colouring is an entirely 
 distinct and independent art ; and in the " Seven Lamps " we 
 saw that this art had most power when practised in arrange- 
 ments of simple geometrical form : the Arab, therefore, lay 
 under no disadvantage in colouring, and he had all the noble 
 elements of constructive and proportional beauty at his command : 
 he might not imitate the sea-shell, but he could build the dome. 
 The imitation of radiance by the variegated voussoir, the ex- 
 pression of the sweep of the desert by the barred red lines upon 
 the wall, the starred inshedding of light through his vaulted roof, 
 and all the endless fantasy of abstract line *, were still in the 
 
 * Appendix 22. : " Arabian Ornamentation." 
 
decoration. XX. THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT. 229 
 
 power of his ardent and fantastic spirit. Much he achieved ; and 
 yet, in the effort of his overtaxed invention, restrained from its 
 proper food, he made his architecture a glittering vacillation of 
 undisciplined enchantment, and left the lustre of its edifices to 
 wither like a startling dream, whose beauty we may indeed feel, 
 and whose instruction we may receive, but must smile at its in- 
 consistency, and mourn over its evanescence. 
 
 « s 
 
230 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 
 
 § I. We now know where we are to look for subjects of decoration. 
 The next question is, as the reader must remember, how to treat 
 or express these subjects. 
 
 There are evidently two branches of treatment : the first being 
 the expression, or rendering to the eye and mind, of the thing 
 itself; and the second, the arrangement of the things so expressed : 
 both of these being quite distinct from the placing of the orna- 
 ment in proper parts of the building. For instance, suppose we 
 take a vine-leaf for our subject. The first question is, how to 
 cut the vine-leaf ? Shall we cut its ribs and notches on the edge, 
 or only its general outline ? and so on. Then, how to arrange 
 the vine-leaves when we have them ; whether symmetrically, or 
 at random ; or unsymmetrically, yet within certain limits ? All 
 these I call questions of treatment. Then, whether the vine- 
 leaves so arranged are to be set on the capital of a pillar or on 
 its shaft, I call a question of place. 
 
 § II. So, then, the questions of mere treatment are twofold : 
 how to express, and how to arrange. And expression is to the 
 mind or to the sight. Therefore, the inquiry becomes really 
 threefold : — 
 
 1. How ornament is to be expressed with reference to the 
 mind. 
 
 2. How ornament is to be expressed with reference to the sight. 
 
 3. How ornament is to be arranged with reference to both. 
 
 § III. (1.) How is ornament to be treated with reference to the 
 mind ? 
 
 If, to produce a good or beautiful ornament, it were only 
 
MSCoSation. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 231 
 
 necessary to produce a perfect piece of sculpture, and if a well- 
 cut group of flowers or animals were indeed an ornament where- 
 ever it might be placed, the work of the architect would be 
 comparatively easy. Sculpture and architecture Avould become 
 separate arts : and the architect would order so many pieces of 
 such subject and size as he needed, without troubling himself 
 with any questions but those of disposition and proportion. But 
 this is not so. No perfect piece either of ■painting or sculpture is 
 an architectural ornament at all, except in that vague sense in 
 which any beautiful thing is said to ornament the place it is in. 
 Thus Ave say that pictures ornament a room ; but we should not 
 thank an architect who told us that his design, to be complete, 
 required a Titian to be put in one corner of it, and a Velasquez 
 in the other ; and it is just as unreasonable to call perfect sculp- 
 ture, niched in, or encrusted on a building, a portion of the 
 ornament of that building, as it would be to hang pictures by 
 way of ornament on the outside of it. It is very possible that 
 the sculptured work ma} r be harmoniously associated with the 
 building, or the building executed with reference to it ; but in 
 this latter case the architecture is subordinate to the sculpture, 
 as in the Medicean chapel, and I believe also in the Parthenon. 
 And so far from the perfection of the work conducing to its 
 ornamental purpose, we may say, with entire security, that its 
 perfection, in some degree, unfits it for its purpose, and that no 
 absolutely complete sculpture can be decoratively right. We have 
 a familiar instance in the flower-work of St. Paul's, Avhich is pro- 
 bably, in the abstract, as perfect flower sculpture as could be pro- 
 duced at the time ; and which is just as rational an ornament of 
 the building as so many valuable Van Huysums, framed and 
 glazed, and hung up over each window. 
 
 § IV. The especial condition of true ornament is, that it be 
 beautiful in its place, and nowhere else, and that it aid the effect 
 of every portion of the building over which it has influence ; that 
 it does not, by its richness, make other parts bald, or, by its de- 
 licacy, make other parts coarse. Every one of its qualities has 
 reference to its place and use : and it is fitted for its service by 
 
 Q 4 
 
232 XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 what would be faults and deficiencies if it had no especial duty. 
 Ornament, the servant, is often formal, where sculpture, the 
 master, would have been free ; the servant is often silent where 
 the master would have been eloquent; or hurried, where the 
 master would have been serene. 
 
 § V. How far this subordination is in different situations to be 
 expressed, or how far it may be surrendered, and ornament, the 
 servant, be permitted to have independent will ; and by what 
 means the subordination is best to be expressed when it is 
 required, are by far the most difficult questions I have ever tried 
 to work out respecting any branch of art ; for, in many of the 
 examples to which I look as authoritative in their majesty of 
 effect, it is almost impossible to say whether the abstraction or 
 imperfection of the sculpture was owing to the choice, or the 
 incapacity, of the workman; and if to the latter, how far the result 
 of fortunate incapacity can be imitated by prudent self-restraint. 
 The reader, I think, will understand this at once by considering 
 the effect of the illuminations of an old missal. In their bold 
 rejection of all principles of perspective, light and shade, and 
 drawing, they are infinitely more ornamental to the page, owing 
 to the vivid opposition of their bright colours and quaint lines, 
 than if they had been drawn by Da Vinci himself: and so the 
 Arena chapel is far more brightly decorated by the archaic frescoes 
 of Giotto, than the Stanze of the Vatican are by those of Raffaelle. 
 But how far it is possible to recur to such archaicism, or to make 
 up for it by any voluntary abandonment of power, I cannot as yet 
 venture in any wise to determine. 
 
 § VI. So, on the other hand, in many instances of finished 
 work in which I find most to regret or to reprobate, I can hardly 
 distinguish what is erroneous in principle from what is vulgar in 
 execution. For instance, in most Romanesque churches of Italy, 
 the porches are guarded by gigantic animals, lions or griffins, of 
 admirable severity of design ; yet, in many cases, of so rude 
 workmanship, that it can hardly be determined how much of this 
 severity was intentional, — how much involuntary: in the cathe- 
 dral of Genoa two modern lions have, in imitation of this ancient 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 233 
 
 custom, been placed on the steps of its west front ; and the 
 Italian sculptor, thinking himself a marvellous great man because 
 he knew what lions were really like, has copied them, in the me- 
 nagerie, with great success, and produced two hairy and well- 
 whiskered beasts, as like to real lions as he could possibly cut 
 them. One wishes them back in the menagerie for his pains ; 
 but it is impossible to say how far the offence of their presence is 
 owing to the mere stupidity and vulgarity of the sculpture, and 
 how far we might have been delighted with a realisation, carried 
 to nearly the same length by Ghiberti or Michael Angelo. (I say 
 nearly, because neither Ghiberti nor Michael Angelo would ever 
 have attempted, or permitted, entire realisation, even in inde- 
 pendent sculpture.) 
 
 § VII. In spite of these embarrassments, however, some few cer- 
 tainties may be marked in the treatment of past architecture, and 
 secure conclusions deduced for future practice. There is first, 
 for instance, the assuredly intended and resolute abstraction of 
 the Ninevite and Egyptian sculptors. The men who cut those 
 granite lions in the Egyptian room of the British Museum, and 
 who carved the calm faces of those Ninevite kings, knew much 
 more, both of lions and kings, than they chose to express. Then 
 there is the Greek system, in which the human sculpture is 
 perfect, the architecture and animal sculpture is subordinate to 
 it, and the architectural ornament severely subordinated to this 
 again, so as to be composed of little more than abstract lines : and, 
 finally, there is the peculiarly mediaeval system, in which the 
 inferior details are carried to as great or greater imitative 
 perfection as the higher sculpture ; and the subordination is 
 chiefly effected by symmetries of arrangement, and quaintnesses 
 of treatment, respecting which it is difficult to say how far they 
 resulted from intention, and how far from incapacity. 
 
 § vill. Now of these systems, the Ninevite and Egyptian are 
 altogether opposed to modern habits of thought and action ; they 
 are sculptures evidently executed under absolute authorities, 
 physical and mental, such as cannot at present exist. The Greek 
 system presupposes the possession of a Phidias : it is ridiculous 
 
234 XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 to talk of building in the Greek manner ; you may build a 
 Greek shell or box, such as the Greek intended to contain 
 sculpture, but. you have not the sculpture to put in it. Find 
 your Phidias first, and your new Phidias will very soon settle 
 all your architectural difficulties in very unexpected ways in- 
 deed ; but until you find him, do not think yourselves architects 
 while you go on copying those poor subordinations, and se- 
 condary and tertiary orders of ornament, which the Greek put 
 on the shell of his sculpture. Some of them, beads, and dentils, 
 and such like, are as good as they can be for their work, and 
 you may use them for subordinate work still ; but they are 
 nothing to be proud of, especially when you did not invent 
 them : and others of them are mistakes and impertinences in the 
 Greek himself, such as his so-called honeysuckle ornaments and 
 others, in which there is a starched and dull suggestion of 
 vegetable form, and yet no real resemblance nor life, for the 
 conditions of them result from his own conceit of himself, and 
 ignorance of the physical sciences, and want of relish for common 
 nature, and vain fancy that he could improve everything he 
 touched, and that he honoured it by taking it into his service : 
 by freedom from which conceits the true Christian architecture is 
 distinguished, — not by points to its arches. 
 
 § IX. There remains, therefore, only the mediaeval system, in 
 which I think, generally, more completion is permitted (though 
 this often because more was possible) in the inferior than in the 
 higher portions of ornamental subject. Leaves, and birds, and 
 lizards are realised, or nearly so ; men and quadrupeds forma- 
 lised. For, observe, the smaller and inferior subject remains sub- 
 ordinate, however richly finished ; but the human sculpture can 
 only be subordinate by being imperfect. The realisation is, how- 
 ever, in all cases, dangerous except under most skilful manage- 
 ment, and the abstraction, if true and noble, is almost always more 
 delightful.* 
 
 § X. What, then, is noble abstraction ? It is taking first the 
 essential elements of the thing to be represented, then the rest in 
 
 * Vide " Seven Lamps," Cliap IV. § 34. 
 
vm 
 
 
 
 Dsrorrrfion In* Dt$R$. 
 
 I'AI X/./.O DEI BAIKUKI RARTECIPAZZI . 
 
decohatiox. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 235 
 
 the order of importance (so that wherever we pause we shall 
 always have obtained more than we leave behind), and using any 
 expedient to impress what we want upon the mind, without 
 caring about the mere literal accuracy of such expedient. 
 Suppose, for instance, we have to represent a peacock : now a 
 peacock has a graceful neck, so has a swan ; it has a high crest, 
 so has a cockatoo ; it has a long tail, so has a bird of Paradise. 
 But the whole spirit and power of peacock is in those eyes of 
 the tail. It is true, the argus pheasant, and one or two more 
 birds, have something like them, but nothing for a moment 
 comparable to them in brilliancy : express the gleaming of the 
 blue eyes through the plumage, and you have nearly all you want 
 of peacock, but without this, nothing ; and yet those eyes are not 
 in relief; a rigidly true sculpture of a peacock's form could have 
 no eyes, — nothing but feathers. Here, then, enters the strata- 
 gem of sculpture ; you must cut the eyes in relief, somehow or 
 another ; see how it is done in the peacock on the opposite page ; 
 it is so done by nearly all the Byzantine sculptors : this par- 
 ticular peacock is meant to be seen at some distance (how far off 
 I know not, for it is an interpolation in the building where it 
 occurs, of which more hereafter), but at all events at a distance 
 of thirty or forty feet ; I have put it close to you that you may 
 see plainly the rude rings and rods which stand for the eyes and 
 quills, but at the just distance their effect is perfect. 
 
 § XI. And the simplicity of the means here employed may help 
 us, both to some clear understanding of the spirit of Ninevite 
 and Egyptian work, and to some perception of the kind of enfan- 
 tillage or archaicism to which it may be possible, even in days of 
 advanced science, legitimately to return. The architect has no 
 right, as we said before, to require of us a picture of Titian's in 
 order to complete his design ; neither has he the right to calculate 
 on the co-operation of perfect sculptors, in subordinate capacities. 
 Far from this ; his business is to dispense with such aid altogether, 
 and to devise such a sj'stem of ornament as shall be capable of 
 execution by uninventive and even unintelligent workmen ; for 
 supposing that he required noble sculpture for his ornament, how 
 
23G XXI. TREATMENT OF OttXAMENT. decoration. 
 
 far would this at once limit the number and the scale of possible 
 buildings ? Architecture is the work of nations ; but we cannot 
 have nations of great sculptors. Every house in every street of 
 every city ought to be good architecture, but we cannot have 
 Flaxman or Thorwaldsen at work upon it : nor, even if we chose 
 only to devote ourselves to our public buildings, could the mass 
 and majesty of them be great, if we required all to be executed by 
 great men ; greatness is not to be had in the required quantity. 
 Giotto may design a campanile, but he cannot carve it ; he can 
 only carve one or two of the bas-reliefs at the base of it. And 
 with every increase of your fastidiousness in the execution of your 
 ornament, you diminish the possible number and grandeur of your 
 buildings. Do not think you can educate your workmen, or that 
 the demand for perfection Avill increase the supply : educated im- 
 becility and finessed foolishness are the worst of all imbecilities 
 and foolishnesses ; and there is no free-trade measure which will 
 ever lower the price of brains, — there is no California of common 
 sense. Exactly in the degree in which you require your decoration 
 to be wrought by thoughtful men, you diminish the extent and 
 number of architectural works. Your business as an architect, is 
 to calculate only on the co-operation of inferior men, to think for 
 them, and to indicate for them such expressions of your thoughts 
 as the weakest capacity can comprehend and the feeblest hand 
 can execute. This is the definition of the purest architectural 
 abstractions. They are the deep and laborious thoughts of the 
 greatest men, put into such easy letters that they can be written 
 by the simplest. They are expressions of the mind of manhood 
 by the hands of childhood. 
 
 § XII. And now suppose one of those old Ninevite or Egyptian 
 builders, with a couple of thousand men — mud-bred, onion-eating 
 creatures — under him, to be set to work, like so many ants, on 
 his temple sculptures. What is he to do with them ? He can put 
 them through a granitic exercise of current hand ; he can teach 
 them all how to curl hair thoroughly into croche-cceurs, as you 
 teach a bench of school-boys how to shape pothooks ; he can teach 
 them all how to draw long eyes and straight noses, and how to 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 237 
 
 copy accurately certain well-defined lines. Then he fits his own 
 great design to their capacities ; he takes out of king, or lion, or 
 god, as much as was expressible by croche-coeurs and granitic 
 pothooks ; he throws this into noble forms of his own imagining, 
 and having mapped out their lines so that there can be no possi- 
 bility of error, sets his two thousand men to work upon them, 
 with a will, and so many onions a day. 
 
 § xill. I said those times cannot now return. We have, with 
 Christianity, recognised the individual value of every soul ; and 
 there is no intelligence so feeble but that its single ray may in 
 some sort contribute to the general light. This is the glory of 
 Gothic architecture, that every jot and tittle, every point and niche 
 of it, affords room, fuel, and focus for individual fire. But you 
 cease to acknowledge this, and you refuse to accept the help of 
 the lesser mind, if you require the work to be all executed in a 
 great manner. Your business is to think out all of it nobly, to 
 dictate the expression of it as far as your dictation can assist the 
 less elevated intelligence ; then to leave this, aided and taught 
 as far as may be, to its own simple act and effort ; and to rejoice 
 in its simplicity if not in its power, and in its vitality if not in 
 its science. 
 
 § XIV. We have, then, three orders of ornament, classed 
 according to the degrees of correspondence of the executive and 
 conceptive minds. We have the servile ornament, in which the 
 executive is absolutely subjected to the inventive, — the ornament 
 of the great Eastern nations, more especially Hamite, and all 
 pre-Christian, yet thoroughly noble in its submissiveness. Then 
 we have the mediaeval system, in which the mind of the inferior 
 workman is recognised, and has full room for action, but is 
 guided and ennobled by the ruling mind. This is the truly 
 Christian and only perfect system. Finally, we have ornaments 
 expressing the endeavour to equalise the executive and inventive, 
 — endeavour which is Renaissance and revolutionary, and de- 
 structive of all noble architecture. 
 
 § XV. Thus far, then, of the incompleteness or simplicity of 
 execution necessary in architectural ornament, as referred to the 
 
238 XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 mind. Next we have to consider that which is required when it 
 is referred to the sight, and the various modifications of treatment 
 which are rendered necessary by the variation of its distance from 
 the eye. I say necessary : not merely expedient or economical. 
 It is foolish to carve what is to be seen forty feet off with the 
 delicacy which the eye demands within two yards; not merely 
 because such delicacy is lost in the distance, but because it is a 
 great deal worse than lost: — the delicate work has actually worse 
 effect in the distance than rough work. This is a fact well known 
 to painters, and, for the most part, acknowledged by the critics of 
 painting, namely, that there is a certain distance for which a 
 picture is painted; and that the finish, which is delightful if that 
 distance be small, is actually injurious if the distance be great : 
 and, moreover, that there is a particular method of handling 
 which none but consummate artists reach, which has its effect at 
 the intended distance, and is altogether hieroglyphical and unin- 
 telligible at any other. This, I say, is acknowledged in painting, 
 but it is not practically acknowledged in architecture ; nor until 
 my attention was specially directed to it, had I myself any idea 
 of the care with which this great question was studied by the 
 mediaeval architects. On my first careful examination of the 
 capitals of the upper arcade of the Ducal Palace at Venice, I was 
 induced, by their singular inferiority of Workmanship, to suppose 
 them posterior to those of the lower arcade. It was not till I 
 discovered that some of those which I thought the worst above, 
 were the best when seen from below, that I obtained the key to 
 this marvellous system of adaptation ; a system which I afterwards 
 found carried out in every building of the great times which I had 
 opportunity of examining. 
 
 § XVI. There are two distinct modes in which this adaptation 
 is effected. In the first, the same designs which are delicately 
 worked when near the eye, are rudely cut, and have far fewer 
 details when they are removed from it. In this method it is not 
 always easy to distinguish economy from skill, or slovenliness 
 from science. But, in the second method, a different kind of 
 design is adopted, composed of fewer parts and of simpler lines, 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 239 
 
 and this is cut with exquisite precision. This is of course the 
 higher method, and the more satisfactory proof of purpose ; but 
 an equal degree of imperfection is found in both kinds when 
 they are seen close: in the first, a bald execution of a perfect 
 design ; in the second, a baldness of design with perfect exe- 
 cution. And in these very imperfections lies the admirableness 
 of the ornament. 
 
 § XVII. It may be asked whether, in advocating this adaptation 
 to the distance of the eye, I obey my adopted rule of observance 
 of natural law. Are not all natural things, it may be asked, as 
 lovely near as far away ? Nay, not so. Look at the clouds, and 
 watch the delicate sculpture of their alabaster sides, and the 
 rounded lustre of their magnificent rolling. They were meant to 
 be beheld far away ; they were shaped for their place, high above 
 your head ; approach them, and they fuse into vague mists, or 
 whirl away in fierce fragments of thunderous vapour. Look 
 at the crest of the Alp, from the far-away plains over which 
 its light is cast, whence human souls have communion with it 
 by their myriads. The child looks up to it in the dawn, and 
 the husbandman in the burden and heat of the day, and the 
 old man in the going down of the sun, and it is to them all as the 
 celestial city on the world's horizon ; dyed with the depth of 
 heaven, and clothed with the calm of eternity. There was it set, 
 for holy dominion, by Him who marked for the sun his journey, 
 and bade the moon know her going down. It was built for its 
 place in the far-off sky ; approach it, and, as the sound of the voice 
 of man dies away about its foundation, and the tide of human 
 life, shallowed upon the vast aerial shore, is at last met by the 
 Eternal " Here shall thy waves be stayed," the glory of its aspect 
 fades into blanched fearfulness; its purple walls are rent into 
 grisly rocks, its silver fretwork saddened into wasting snow; the 
 storm-brands of ages are on its breast, the ashes of its own ruin 
 lie solemnly on its white raiment. 
 
 Nor in such instances as these alone, though, strangely enough, 
 the discrepancy between apparent and actual beauty is greater in 
 proportion to the unapproachableness of the object, is the law 
 
240 XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT; 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 observed. For every distance from the eye there is a peculiar 
 kind of beauty, or a different system of lines of form ; the sight 
 of that beauty is reserved for that distance, and for that alone. 
 If you approach nearer, that kind of beauty is lost, and another 
 succeeds, to be disorganised and reduced to strange and incom- 
 prehensible means and appliances in its turn. If vou desire to 
 perceive the great harmonies of the form of a rockv mountain, 
 you must not ascend upon its sides. All is there disorder and 
 accident, or seems so ; sudden starts of its shattered beds hither 
 and thither ; ugly struggles of unexpected strength from under 
 the ground ; fallen fragments, toppling one over another into 
 more helpless fall. Retire from it, and, as your eye commands it 
 more and more, as you see the ruined mountain world with a 
 wider glance, behold ! dim sympathies begin to busy themselves in 
 the disjointed mass ; line binds itself into stealthy fellowship with 
 line ; group by group, the helpless fragments gather themselves 
 into ordered companies; new captains of hosts and masses of 
 battalions become visible, one by one, and far away answers of 
 foot to foot, and of bone to bone, until the powerless chaos is seen 
 risen up with girded loins, and not one piece of all the unre- 
 garded heap could now be spared from the mystic whole. 
 
 5 XVIII. Now it is indeed true that where nature loses one 
 kind of beautv, as you approach it, she substitutes another; this 
 is worthy of her infinite power: and, as we shall see, art can 
 sometimes follow her even in doing this ; but all I insist upon at 
 present is, that the several effects of nature are each worked with 
 means referred to a particular distance, and producing their 
 effect at that distance only. Take a singular and marked in- 
 stance : When the sun rises behind a ridge of pines, and those 
 pines are seen from a distance of a mile or two, against his light, 
 the whole form of the tree, trunk, branches, and all, becomes one 
 frostwork of intensely brilliant silver, which is relieved against 
 the clear sky like a burning fringe, for some distance on either 
 side of the sun.* Xow suppose that a person who had never 
 
 * Shakspeare and Wordsworth (I think they only) have noticed this. Shak- 
 speare, in Richard II. : — 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 241 
 
 seen pines were, for the first time in his life, to see them under 
 this strange aspect, and, reasoning as to the means by which such 
 effect could be produced, laboriously to approach the eastern 
 ridge, how would he be amazed to find that the fiery spectres 
 had been produced by trees with swarthy and grey trunks, and 
 dark green leaves ! We, in our simplicity, if we had been 
 required to produce such an appearance, should have built up 
 trees of chased silver, with trunks of glass, and then been 
 grievously amazed to find that, at two miles off, neither silver nor 
 glass were any more visible ; but nature knew better, and pre- 
 pared for her fairy work with the strong branches and dark 
 leaves, in her own mysterious way. 
 
 § XIX. Now this is exactly what you have to do with your 
 good ornament. It may be that it is capable of being ap- 
 proached, as well as likely to be seen far away, and then it ought 
 to have microscopic qualities, as the pine leaves have, which will 
 bear approach. But your calculation of its purpose is for a 
 glory to be produced at a given distance ; it may be here, or may 
 be there, but it is a given distance ; and the excellence of the 
 ornament depends upon its fitting that distance, and being seen 
 better there than anywhere else, and having a particular function 
 and form which it can only discharge and assume there. You 
 are never to say that ornament has great merit because " you 
 cannot see the beauty of it here ; " but, it has great merit because 
 " you can see its beauty here only. 11 And to give it this merit 
 is just about as difficult a task as I could well set you. I have 
 above noted the two ways in which it is done : the one, being 
 merely rough cutting, may be passed over ; the other, which is 
 scientific alteration of design, falls, itself, into two great branches, 
 Simplification and Emphasis. 
 
 " But when, from under this terrestrial ball, 
 He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines." 
 
 And Wordsworth, in one of his minor poems, on leaving Italy : 
 
 " My thoughts become bright like yon edging of pines 
 On the steep's lofty verge — how it blackened the air! 
 But, touched from behind by the sun, it now shines 
 With threads that seem part of his own silver hair." 
 
 R 
 
242 XXI. TREATMENT OF OKNAMENT. dbcobatios. 
 
 A word or two is necessary on each of these heads. 
 
 § XX. When an ornamental work is intended to be seen near, 
 if its composition be indeed fine, the subdued and delicate 
 portions of the design lead to, and unite, the energetic parts, 
 and those energetic parts form with the rest a whole, in which 
 their own immediate relations to each other are not perceived. 
 Remove this design to a distance, and the connecting delicacies 
 vanish, the energies alone remain, now either disconnected 
 altogether, or assuming with each other new relations, which, not 
 having been intended by the designer, will probably be painful. 
 There is a like, and a moi-e palpable, effect, in the retirement of a 
 band of music in which the instruments are of very unequal 
 powers ; the fluting and fifeing expire, the drumming remains, 
 and that in a painful arrangement, as demanding something 
 which is unheard. In like manner, as the designer at arm's 
 length removes or elevates his work, fine gradations, and 
 roundings, and incidents, vanish, and a totally unexpected ar- 
 rangement is established between the remainder of the markings, 
 certainly confused, and in all probability painful. 
 
 § xxi. The art of architectural design is therefore, first, the 
 preparation for this beforehand, the rejection of all the delicate 
 passages as worse than useless, and the fixing the thought upon 
 the arrangement of the features which will remain visible far 
 away. Nor does this always imply a diminution of resource ; for, 
 while it may be assumed as a law that fine modulation of surface 
 in light becomes quickly invisible as the object retires, there are 
 a softness and mystery given to the harder markings, which 
 enable them to be safely used as media of expression. There 
 is an exquisite example of this use, in the head of the Adam 
 of the Ducal Palace. It is only at the height of 17 or 18 feet 
 above the eye ; nevertheless, the sculptor felt it was no use to 
 trouble himself about drawing the corners of the mouth, or the 
 lines of the lips, delicately, at that distance ; his object has been 
 to mark them clearly, and to prevent accidental shadows from 
 concealing them, or altering their expression. The lips are cut 
 thin and sharp, so that their line cannot be mistaken, and a 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 243 
 
 good deep drill-hole struck into the angle of the mouth ; the 
 eye is anxious and questioning, and one is surprised, from below, 
 to perceive a kind of darkness in the iris of it, neither like 
 colour, nor like a circular furrow. The expedient can only be 
 discovered by ascending to the level of the head ; it is one 
 which would have been quite inadmissible except in distant 
 work, six drilhholes cut into the iris, round a central one for 
 the pupil. 
 
 § XXII. By just calculation, like this, of the means at our 
 disposal, by beautiful arrangement of the prominent features, and 
 by choice of different subjects for different places, choosing the 
 bi'oadest forms for the farthest distance, it is possible to give 
 the impression, not only of perfection, but of an exquisite deli- 
 cacy, to the most distant ornament. And this is the true sign of 
 the right having been done, and the utmost possible power attained : 
 — The spectator should be satisfied to stay in his place, feeling 
 the decoration, wherever it may be, equally rich, full, and lovely : 
 not desiring to climb the steeples in order to examine it, but 
 sure that he has it all, where he is. Perhaps the capitals of the 
 cathedral of Genoa are the best instances of absolute perfection 
 in this kind : seen from below, they appear as rich as the 
 frosted silver of the Strada degli Orefici ; and the nearer you 
 approach them, the less delicate they seem. 
 
 § XXIII. This is, however, not the only mode, though the best, 
 in which ornament is adapted for distance. The other is empha- 
 sis, — the unnatural insisting upon explanatory lines, where the 
 subject would otherwise become unintelligible. It is to be re- 
 membered that, by a deep and narrow incision, an architect has 
 the power, at least in sunshine, of drawing a black line on stone, 
 just as vigorously as it can be drawn with chalk on grey paper ; 
 and that he may thus, wherever and in the degree that he chooses, 
 substitute chalk sketching for sculpture. They are curiously 
 mingled by the Romans. The bas-reliefs on the Arc d'Orange 
 are small, and would be confused, though in bold relief, if they 
 depended for intelligibility on the relief only ; but each figure is 
 outlined by a strong incision at its edge into the background, and 
 
 B 2 
 
244 XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. decokation. 
 
 all the ornaments on the armour are simply drawn with incised 
 lines, and not cut out at all A similar use of lines is made by 
 the Gothic nations in all their early sculpture, and with delicious 
 effect. Now, to draw a mere pattern — as, for instance, the 
 bearings of a shield — with these simple incisions, would, I suppose, 
 occupy an able sculptor twenty minutes or half an hour ; and the 
 pattern is then clearly seen, under all circumstances of light and 
 shade ; there can be no mistake about it, and no missing it. To 
 carve out the bearings in due and finished relief would occupy a 
 long summer's day, and the results would be feeble and indecipher- 
 able in the best lights, and in some lights totally and hopelessly 
 invisible, ignored, non-existent. Now the Renaissance architects, 
 and our modern ones, despise the simple expedient of the rough 
 Roman or barbarian. They do not care to be understood. They 
 care only to speak finely, and be thought great orators, if one 
 could only hear them. So I leave you to choose between the old 
 men, who took minutes to tell things plainly, and the modern men, 
 who take days to tell them unintelligibly. 
 
 § XXIV. All expedients of this kind, both of simplification and 
 energy, for the expression of details at a distance where their 
 actual forms would have been invisible, but more especially this 
 linear method, I shall call Proutism; for the greatest master of 
 the art in modern times has been Samuel Prout. He actually 
 takes up buildings of the later times in which the ornament has 
 been too refined for its place, and translates it into the energised 
 linear ornament of earlier art: and to this power of taking the 
 life and essence of decoration, and putting it into a perfectly in- 
 telligible form, when its own fulness would have been confused, 
 is owing r^ the especial power of his drawings. Nothing can be 
 more closely analogous than the method with which an old Lom- 
 bard uses his chisel, and that with which Prout uses the reed-pen ; 
 and we shall see presently farther correspondence in their feeling 
 about the enrichment of luminous surfaces. 
 
 § xxv. Now, all that has been hitherto said refers to ornament 
 whose distance is fixed, or nearly so; as when it is at any 
 considerable height from the ground, supposing the spectator to 
 desire to see it, and to get as near it as he can. But the dis- 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 245 
 
 tance of ornament is never fixed to the general spectator. The 
 tower of a cathedral is bound to look -well, ten miles off, or five 
 miles, or half a mile, or within fifty yards. The ornaments of 
 its top have fixed distances, compared with those of its base ; 
 but quite unfixed distances in their relation to the great world : 
 and the ornaments of the base have no fixed distance at all. 
 They are bound to look well from the other side of the cathedral 
 close, and to look equally well, or better, as we enter the cathe- 
 dral door. How are we to manage this ? 
 
 § XXVI. As nature manages it. I said above, § XVII., that for 
 every distance from the eye there was a different system of form 
 in all natural objects : this is to be so then in architecture. The 
 lesser ornament is to be grafted on the greater, and third or 
 fourth orders of ornaments upon this again, as need may be, until 
 we reach the limits of possible sight ; each order of ornament 
 being adapted for a different distance : first, for example, the 
 great masses, — the buttresses and stories and black windows and 
 broad cornices of the tower, which give it make, and organism, 
 as it rises over the horizon, half a score of miles away : then the 
 traceries and shafts and pinnacles, which give it richness as we 
 approach : then the niches and statues and knops and flowers, 
 which Ave can only see when we stand beneath it. At this 
 third order of ornament, we may pause, in the upper portions ; 
 but on the roofs of the niches, and the robes of the statues, and 
 the rolls of the mouldings, comes a fourth order of ornament, as 
 delicate as the eye can follow, when any of these features may be 
 approached. 
 
 § XXVII. All good ornamentation is thus arborescent, as it were, 
 one class of it branching out of another and sustained by it ; 
 and its nobility consists in this, that whatever order or class of 
 it we may be contemplating, we shall find it subordinated to a 
 greater, simpler, and more powerful ; and if we then contemplate 
 the greater order, we shall find it again subordinated to a 
 greater still; until the greatest can only be quite grasped by 
 retiring to the limits of distance commanding it. 
 
 And if this subordination be not complete, the ornament is 
 
 R 3 
 
246 XXI. TREATMENT OE ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 bad : if the figurings and chasings and borderings of a dress be 
 not subordinated to the folds of it, — if the folds are not subor- 
 dinate to the action and mass of the figure, — if this action and 
 mass not to the divisions of the recesses and shafts among which 
 it stands, — if these not to the shadows of the great arches and 
 buttresses of the whole building, in each case there is error ; 
 much more if all be contending with each other and striving for 
 attention at the same time. 
 
 § xxvill. It is nevertheless evident, that, however perfect this 
 distribution, there cannot be orders adapted to every distance of 
 the spectator. Between the ranks of ornament there must always 
 be a bold separation ; and there must be many intermediate dis- 
 tances, where we are too far off to see the lesser rank clearly, and 
 yet too near to grasp the next higher rank wholly : and at all 
 these distances the spectator will feel himself ill-placed, and will 
 desire to go nearer or farther away. This must be the case in all 
 noble work, natural or artificial. It is exactly the same with 
 respect to Rouen cathedral or the Mont Blanc. We like to see 
 them from the other side of the Seine, or of the lake of Geneva ; 
 from the Marche" aux Fleurs, or the Valley of Chamouni ; 
 from the parapets of the apse, or the crags of the Montagne de 
 la Cote : but there are intermediate distances which dissatisfy us 
 in either case, and from which one is in haste either to advance 
 or to retire. 
 
 § XXIX. Directly opposed to this ordered, disciplined, well 
 officered, and variously ranked ornament, this tj'pe of divine, and 
 therefore of all good human government, is the democratic orna- 
 ment, in which all is equally influential, and has equal office and 
 authority ; that is to say, none of it any office nor authority, but 
 a life of continual struggle for independence and notoriety, or of 
 gambling for chance regards. The English perpendicular work 
 is by far the worst of this kind that I know ; its main idea, or 
 decimal fraction of an idea, being to cover its walls with dull, 
 successive, eternity of reticulation, to fill with equal foils the equal 
 interstices between the equal bars, and charge the interminable 
 blanks with statues and rosettes, invisible at a distance, and 
 uninteresting near. 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 2 1 7 
 
 The early Loinbardic, Veronese, and Norman work is the 
 exact reverse of this ; being divided first into large masses, and 
 these masses covered with minute chasing and surface work, 
 which fill them with interest, and yet do not disturb nor divide 
 their greatness. The lights are kept broad and bright, and yet 
 are found on near approach to be charged with intricate design. 
 This, again, is a part of the great system of treatment which I 
 shall hereafter call "Proutism;" much of what is thought 
 mannerism and imperfection in Prout's work, being the result of 
 his determined resolution that minor details shall never break 
 up his large masses of light. 
 
 § XXX. Such are the main principles to be observed in the 
 adaptation of ornament to the sight. We have lastly to inquire 
 by what method, and in what quantities, the ornament, thus 
 adapted to mental contemplation, and prepared for its physical 
 position, may most wisely be arranged. I think the method 
 ought first to be considered, and the quantity last ; for the 
 adviseable quantity depends upon the method. 
 
 § xxxi. It was said above, that the proper treatment or 
 arrangement of ornament was that which expressed the laws and 
 ways of Deity. Now, the subordination of visible orders to each 
 other, just noted, is one expression of these. But there may also 
 — must also — be a subordination and obedience of the parts of 
 each order to some visible law, out of itself, but having reference 
 to itself only (not to any upper order) : some law which shall 
 not oppress, but guide, limit, and sustain. 
 
 In the tenth chapter of the second volume of " Modern 
 Painters," the reader will find that I traced one part of the 
 beauty of God's creation to the expression of a se(/"-restrained 
 liberty : that is to say, the image of that perfection of divine 
 action, which, though free to woi'k in arbitrary methods, works 
 always in consistent methods, called by us Laws. 
 
 Now, correspondingly, we find that when these natural objects 
 are to become subjects of the art of man, their perfect treatment 
 is an image of the perfection of human action: a voluntary 
 submission to divine law. 
 
 R 4 
 
248 XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. decoration. 
 
 It was suggested to me but lately, by the friend to whose 
 originality of thought I have before expressed my obligations, 
 Mr. Newton, that the Greek pediment, with its enclosed sculptures, 
 represented to the Greek mind the law of Fate, confining human 
 action within limits not to be overpassed. I do not believe the 
 Greeks ever distinctly thought of this ; but the instinct of all the 
 human race, since the world began, agrees in some expression of 
 such limitation as one of the first necessities of good ornament. * 
 And this expression is heightened, rather than diminished, when 
 some portion of the design slightly breaks the law to which the 
 rest is subjected : it is like expressing the use of miracles in the 
 divine government ; or, perhaps, in slighter degrees, the relaxing 
 of a law, generally imperative, in compliance with some more 
 imperative need — the hungering of David. How eagerly this 
 special infringement of a general law was sometimes sought by 
 the mediaeval workmen, I shall be frequently able to point out 
 to the reader ; but I remember just now a most curious instance, 
 in an archivolt of a house in the Corte del Remer, close to the 
 Rialto, at Venice. It is composed of a wreath of flower-work — a 
 constant Byzantine design — with an animal in each coil ; the 
 whole enclosed between two fillets. Each animal, leaping or 
 eating, scratching or biting, is kept nevertheless strictly within 
 its coil, and between the fillets. Not the shake of an ear, not the 
 tip of a tail, overpasses this appointed fine, through a series of 
 some five-and-twenty or thirty animals ; until, on a sudden, and 
 by mutual consent, two little beasts (not looking, for the rest, 
 more rampant than the others), one on each side, lay their small 
 paws across the enclosing fillet at exactly the same point of its 
 course, and thus break the continuity of its line. Two ears of 
 corn, or leaves, do the same thing in the mouldings round the 
 northern door of the Baptistery at Florence. 
 
 § XXXII. Observe, however, and this is of the utmost possible 
 importance, that the value of this t}pe does not consist in the 
 
 * Some valuable remarks on this subject will be found in a notice of the " Seven 
 Lamps" in the British Quarterly for August, 1849. I think, however, the writer 
 attaches too great importance to one out of many ornamental necessities. 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 249 
 
 mere shutting of the ornament into a certain space, but in the 
 acknowledgment by the ornament of the fitness of the limitation ; 
 — of its own perfect willingness to submit to it; nay, of a predis- 
 position in itself to fall into the ordained form, without any direct 
 expression of the command to do so ; an anticipation of the 
 authority, and an instant and willing submission to it, in every 
 fibre and spray: not merely willing, but hajjpy submission, as 
 being pleased rather than vexed to have so beautiful a law 
 suggested to it, and one which to follow is so justly in accord- 
 ance with its own nature. You must not cut out a branch of 
 hawthorn as it grows, and rule a triangle round it, and suppose 
 that it is then submitted to law. Not a bit of it. It is only put 
 in a cage, and will look as if it must get out, for its life, or wither 
 in the confinement. But the spirit of triangle must be put into 
 the hawthorn. It must suck in isoscelesism with its sap. Thorn 
 and blossom, leaf and spray, must grow with an awful sense of 
 triangular necessity upon them, for the guidance of which they are 
 to be thankful, and to grow all the stronger and more gloriously. 
 And though there may be a transgression here and there, and an 
 adaptation to some other need, or a reaching forth to some other 
 end, greater even than the triangle, yet this liberty is to be 
 always accepted under a solemn sense of special permission ; and 
 when the full form is reached and the entire submission expressed, 
 and every blossom has a thrilling sense of its responsibility down 
 into its tiniest stamen, you may take your terminal line away 
 if you will. No need for it any more. The commandment is 
 written on the heart of the thing. 
 
 § xxxm. Then, besides this obedience to external law, there 
 is the obedience to internal headship, which constitutes the unity 
 of ornament, of which I think enough has been said for my 
 present purpose in the chapter on Unity in the second vol. of 
 " Modern Painters." But I hardly know whether to arrange as 
 an expression of a divine law, or a representation of a physical 
 fact, the alternation of shade with light which, in ecmal succession, 
 forms one of the chief elements of continuous ornament, and in 
 some peculiar ones, such as dentils and billet mouldings, is the 
 
250 XXI. TREATMENT OF ORXAMENT. decoration. 
 
 source of their only charm. The opposition of good and evil, the 
 antagonism of the entire human system (so ably worked out by 
 Lord Lindsay), the alternation of labour with rest, the mingling 
 of life with death, or the actual physical fact of the division of 
 light from darkness, and of the falling and rising of night and 
 day, are all typified or represented by these chains of shade and 
 light, of which the eye never wearies, though their true meaning 
 may never occur to the thoughts. 
 
 § XXXIV. The next question respecting the arrangement of 
 ornament is one closely connected also with its quantity. The 
 system of creation is one in which " God's creatures leap not, but 
 express a feast, where all the guests sit close, and nothing wants." 
 It is also a feast, where there is nothing redundant. So, then, in 
 distributing our ornament, there must never be any sense of gap 
 or blank, neither any sense of there being a single member, or 
 fragment of a member, which could be spared. Whatever has 
 nothing to do, whatever could go without being missed, is not 
 ornament •, it is deformity and encumbrance. Away with it. 
 And, on the other hand, care must be taken either to diffuse 
 the ornament which we permit, in due relation over the whole 
 building, or so to concentrate it, as never to leave a sense of 
 its having got into knots, and curdled upon some points, and 
 left the rest of the building whey. It is very difficult to give 
 the rules, or analyse the feelings, which should direct us in this 
 matter: for some shafts may be carved and others left un- 
 finished, and that with advantage ; some windows may be jewelled 
 like Aladdin's, and one left plain, and still with advantage; the 
 door or doors, or a single turret, or the whole western facade of 
 a church, or the apse or transept, may be made special subjects 
 of decoration, and the rest left plain, and still sometimes with 
 advantage. But in all such cases there is either sign of that 
 feeling which I advocated in the First Chapter of the " Seven 
 Lamps," the desire of rather doing some portion of the building 
 as we would have it, and leaving the rest plain, than doing the 
 whole imperfectly ; or else there is choice made of some im- 
 portant feature, to which, as more honourable than the rest, 
 the decoration i^ confined. The evil is when, without system, 
 
decoration. XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT. 251 
 
 and without preference of the nobler members, the ornament 
 alternates between sickly luxuriance and sudden blankness. In 
 many of our Scotch and English abbeys, especially Melrose, this 
 is painfully felt ; but the worst instance I have ever seen is the 
 window in the side of the arch under the Wellington statue, 
 next St. George's Hospital. In the first place, a window has 
 no business there at all ; in the second, the bars of the window 
 are not the proper place for decoration, especially wavy deco- 
 ration, which one instantly fancies of cast iron ; in the third, 
 the richness of the ornament is a mere patch and eruption upon 
 the wall, and one hardly knows whether to be most irritated at 
 the affectation of severity in the rest, or at the vain luxuriance 
 of the dissolute parallelogram. 
 
 § xxxv. Finally, as regards quantity of ornament, I have al- 
 ready said, again and again, you cannot have too much if it be 
 good ; that is, if it be thoroughly united and harmonised by the 
 laws hitherto insisted upon. But you may easily have too much, 
 if you have more than you have sense to manage. For with every 
 added order of ornament increases the difficulty of discipline. It 
 is exactly the same as in war ; you cannot, as an abstract la \\\ 
 have too many soldiers, but you may easily have more than the 
 country is able to sustain, or than your generalship is competent to 
 command. And every regiment which you cannot manage will, 
 on the day of battle, be in your way, and encumber the move- 
 ments it is not in disposition to sustain. 
 
 § xxxvi. As an architect, therefore, you are modestly to measure 
 your capacity of governing ornament. Remember, its essence, — its 
 being ornament at all, consists in its being governed. Lose your 
 authority over it, let it command you, or lead you, or dictate to 
 you in any wise, and it is an offence, an incumbrance, and a dis- 
 honour. And it is always ready to do this ; wild to get the bit 
 in its teeth, and rush forth on its own devices. Measure, there- 
 fore, your strength ; and as long as there is no chance of mutiny, 
 add soldier to soldier, battalion to battalion ; but be assured that 
 all are heartily in the cause, and that there is not one of whose 
 position you are ignorant, or whose service you could spare. 
 
252 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE ANGLE. 
 
 § I. We have now examined the treatment and specific kinds of 
 ornament at our command. We have lastly to note the fittest 
 places for their disposal. Not but that all kinds of ornament are 
 used in all places ; but there are some parts of the building, 
 which, without ornament, are more painful than others, and 
 some which wear ornament more gracefully than others ; so that, 
 although an able architect will always be finding out some new 
 and unexpected modes of decoration, and fitting his ornament 
 into wonderful places where it is least expected, there are, never- 
 theless, one or two general laws which may be noted respecting 
 every one of the parts of a building, laws not (excej)t a few) 
 imperative, like those of construction, but yet generally expe- 
 dient, and good to be understood, if it were only that we might 
 enjoy the brilliant methods in Avhich they are sometimes broken. 
 I shall note, however, only a few of the simplest ; to trace them 
 into their ramifications, and class in due order the known or 
 possible methods of decoration for each part of a building, would 
 alone recmire a large volume, and be, I think, a somewhat 
 useless work ; for there is often a high pleasure in the very 
 unexpectedness of the ornament, which would be destroyed by 
 too elaborate an arrangement of its kinds. 
 
 § II. I think that the reader must, by this time, so thoroughly 
 understand the connection of the parts of a building, that I may 
 class together, in treating of decoration, several parts which I kept 
 separate in speaking of construction. Thus, I shall put under 
 one head (a) the base of the wall and of the shaft ; then (b) the 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXII. THE ANGLE. 253 
 
 wall veil and shaft itself; then (c) the cornice and capital; then 
 (d) the jamb and archivolt, including the arches both over shafts 
 and apertures, and the jambs of apertures, which are closely con- 
 nected with their archivolts ; finally (e) the roof, including the 
 real roof, and the minor roofs or gables of pinnacles and arches. 
 I think, under these divisions, all may be arranged which is 
 necessary to be generally stated ; for tracery decorations or 
 aperture fillings are but smaller forms of application of the arch, 
 and the cusps are merely smaller spandrils ; while buttresses have, 
 as far as I know, no specific ornament. The best are those 
 which have least ; and the little they have resolves itself into 
 pinnacles, which are common to other portions of the building, 
 or into small shafts, arches, and niches, of still more general 
 applicability. We shall therefore have only five divisions to 
 examine in succession, from foundation to roof. 
 
 § LU. But in the decoration of these several parts, certain 
 minor conditions of ornament occur which are of perfectly 
 general application. For instance, whether in archivolts, jambs, 
 or buttresses, or in square piers, or at the extremity of the entire 
 building, we necessarily have the awkward (moral or archi- 
 tectural) feature, the corner. How to turn a corner gracefully 
 becomes, therefore, a perfectly general question ; to be examined 
 without reference to any particular part of the edifice. 
 
 § IV. Again, the furrows and ridges by which bars of parallel 
 light and shade are obtained, whether these are employed in 
 arches, or jambs, or bases, or cornices, must of necessity present 
 
 one or more of six 
 forms : square pro- 
 jection, a (Fig. LI.), 
 ~ or square recess, b, 
 
 sharp projection, c, 
 or sharp recess, d, curved projection, e, or curved recess, /. 
 What odd curves the projection or recess may assume, or how 
 these different conditions may be mixed and run into one an- 
 other, is not our present business. We note only the six distinct 
 kinds or types. 
 
 Fig LI. 
 
254 XXII. THE ANGLE. 
 
 HECORATION. 
 
 Now, when these ridges or furrows are on a small scale 
 they often themselves constitute all the ornament required for 
 larger features, and are left smooth cut ; but on a very lai'ge 
 scale they are apt to become insipid, and they require a sub-orna- 
 ment of their own, the consideration of which is, of course, in 
 great part, general, and irrespective of the place held by the 
 mouldings in the building itself: which consideration I think we 
 had better undertake first of all. 
 
 § v. Rut before we come to particular examination of these 
 minor forms, let us see how far we can simplify it. Look back 
 to Fig. LI., above. There are distinguished in it six forms of 
 moulding. Of these, c is nothing but a small corner ; but, for 
 convenience sake, it is better to call it an edge, and to consider 
 its decoration together with that of the member «, which is 
 called a fillet ; while r, which I shall call a roll (because I do 
 not choose to assume that it shall be only of the semicircular 
 section here given), is also best considered together with its 
 relative recess, /; and because the shape of a recess is of no 
 great consequence, I shall class all the three l'ecesses together, 
 and we shall thus have only three subjects for separate con- 
 sideration : — 
 
 1. The Angle. 
 
 2. The Edge and Fillet. 
 
 3. The Ptoll and Recess 
 
 § vi. There are two other general forms which may probably 
 occur to the reader's mind, namely, the ridge (as of a roof), 
 which is a corner laid on its back, or sloping, — a supine corner, 
 decorated in a very different manner from a stiff upright corner : 
 and the point, which is a concentrated corner, and has wonder- 
 fully elaborate decorations all to its insignificant self, finials, and 
 spikes, and I know not what more. Rut both these conditions 
 are so closely connected with roofs (even the cusp finial being a 
 kind of pendant to a small roof), that I think it better to class 
 them and their ornament under the head of roof decoration, to- 
 gether with the whole tribe of crockets and bosses ; so that we 
 
decoration. XXII. THE ANGLE. 255 
 
 shall be here concerned only with the three subjects above dis- 
 tinguished : and, first, the corner or Angle. 
 
 § VII. The mathematician knows there are many kinds of 
 angles ; but the one we have principally to deal with now, is that 
 which the reader may very easily conceive as the corner of a 
 square house, or square anything. It is of course the one of 
 most frequent occurrence ; and its treatment, once understood, 
 may, with slight modification, be referred to other corners, 
 sharper or blunter, or with curved sides. 
 
 § vill. Evidently the first and roughest idea which would 
 occur to any one who found a corner troublesome, would be to 
 cut it off. This is a very summary and tyrannical proceeding, 
 somewhat barbarous, yet advisable if nothing else can be done : 
 an amputated corner is said to be chamfered. It can, however, 
 evidently be cut off in three ways: 1. with a concave cut, a; 
 
 2. with a straight cut, b; 3. with a 
 
 Fig. LIT. -,-,. t tt 
 
 convex cut, c, rig. Lll. 
 
 The first two methods, the most 
 violent and summary, have the ap- 
 parent disadvantage that we get by 
 them, — two corners instead of one ; 
 much milder corners, however, and with a different light and 
 shade between them ; so that both methods are often very ex- 
 pedient. You may see the straight chamfer (b) on most lamp- 
 posts, and pillars at railway stations, it being the easiest to cut : 
 the concave chamfer requires more care, and occurs generally in 
 well finished but simple architecture, — very beautifully in the 
 small arches of the Broletto of Como, Plate V. ; and the straight 
 chamfer in architecture of every kind, very constantly in Norman 
 cornices and arches, as in fig. 2, Plate IV., at Sens. 
 
 § IX. The third, or convex chamfer, as it is the gentlest mode 
 of treatment, so (as in medicine and morals) it is very generally 
 the best. For while the two other methods produce two corners 
 instead of one, this gentle chamfer does verily get rid of the 
 corner altogether, and substitutes a soft curve in its place. 
 
 But it has, in the form above given, this grave disadvantage, 
 
256 
 
 XXII. THE ANGLE. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 that it looks as if the corner had been rubbed or worn off, 
 blunted by time and weather, and in want of sharpening again. 
 A great deal often depends, and in such a case as this, everything 
 depends, on the Voluntariness of the ornament. The work of time 
 is beautiful on surfaces, but not on edges intended to be sharp. 
 Even if we needed them blunt, we should not like them blunt on 
 compulsion ; so, to show that the bluntness is our own ordaining, 
 we will put a slight incised line to mark off the rounding, and 
 show that it goes no farther than we choose. We shall thus have 
 the section a, Fig. LIII. ; and this mode of turning an angle is 
 
 Fig. LIII. 
 
 one of the very best ever invented. By enlarging and deepening 
 the incision, we get in succession the forms b, c, d ; and by 
 describing a small equal arc on each of the sloping lines of these 
 figures, we get e, /, g, h. 
 
 § X. I do not know whether these mouldings are called by 
 architects chamfers or beads ; but I think bead a bad word for 
 a continuous moulding, and the proper sense of the word chamfer 
 is fixed by Spenser as descriptive not merely of truncation, but 
 of trench or furrow : — 
 
 " Tho gin you, fond flies, the cold to scorn, 
 And, crowing in pipes made of green corn, 
 You thinken to be lords of the year ; 
 But eft when ye count you freed from fear, 
 Comes the breme winter with chamfred brows, 
 Full of wrinkles and frosty furrows." 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXLI. THE ANGLE. 
 
 257 
 
 Fig. LIV. 
 
 m 
 
 mr 
 
 So I shall call the above mouldings beaded chamfers, when 
 there is any chance of confusion with the plain chamfer, a or b, 
 of Fig. LII. : and when there is no such chance, I shall use the 
 word chamfer only. 
 
 § XI. Of those above given, b is the constant chamfer of Venice, 
 and a of Verona ; a being the grandest and best, and having a 
 
 peculiar precision and quaintness 
 of effect about it. I found it 
 twice in Venice, used on the sharp 
 angle, as at a and b, Fig. LIV., 
 a being from the angle of a house 
 on the Rio San Zulian, and b 
 from the windoAvs of the church 
 of San Stefano. 
 
 § XII. There is, however, evi- 
 dently another variety of the 
 chamfers, / and g, Fig. LIIL, 
 formed by an unbroken curve 
 instead of two curves, as c, Fig. 
 LIV. ; and when this, or the 
 e J chamfer d, Fig. LIIL, is large, 
 
 it is impossible to say whether they have been derived from 
 the incised angle, or from small shafts set in a nook, as at e, 
 Fig. LIV., or in the hollow of the curved chamfer, as d, Fig. 
 LIV. In general, however, the shallow chamfers, a, b, e, and /, 
 Fig. LIIL, are peculiar to southern work ; and may be assumed 
 to have been derived from the incised angle, while the deep 
 chamfers, c, d, g, h, are characteristic of northern work, and may 
 be partly derived or imitated from the angle shaft ; while, with 
 the usual extravagance of the northern architects, they are cut 
 deeper and deeper until we arrive at the condition /, Fig. LIV., 
 which is the favourite chamfer at Bourges and Bayeux, and in 
 other good French work. 
 
 ~x 
 
 I have placed in the Appendix* 
 
 a figure belonging to this 
 
 * Appendix 23. : " Varieties of Chamfer." 
 S 
 
258 XXII. THE ANGLE. decoration. 
 
 subject, but which cannot interest the general reader, showing 
 the number of possible chamfers with a roll moulding of given 
 size. 
 
 § XIII. If we take the plain chamfer, b, of Fig. LI I., on a large 
 scale, as at a, Fig. LV., and bead both its edges, cutting 
 away the parts there shaded, we shall have a form much used in 
 richly decorated Gothic, both in England and Italy. It might 
 be more simply described as the chamfer a of Fig. LIL, with an 
 „ T ,, incision on each edge • but 
 
 Fig. LV. ° 
 
 the part here shaded is often 
 worked into ornamental forms, 
 not being entirely cut away. 
 4^ ;■' ; § XIV. Many other mould- 
 
 ^ ings, which at first sight ap- 
 pear very elaborate, are nothing 
 more than a chamfer, with a 
 series of small echoes of it on each side, dying away with a ripple 
 on the surface of the wall, as in b, Fig. LV., from Coutances : 
 (observe, here the white part is the solid stone, the shade is cut 
 away). 
 
 Chamfers of this kind are used on a small scale and in delicate 
 work : the coarse chamfers are found on all scales : / and g, 
 Fig. LIIL, in Venice, form the great angles of almost every 
 Gothic palace ; the roll being a foot or a foot and a half round, 
 and treated as a shaft, with a capital and fresh base at every 
 story, while the stones of which it is composed form alternate 
 quoins in the brick-work beyond the chamfer curve. I need 
 hardly say how much nobler this arrangement is than a common 
 cpioined angle ; it gives a finish to the aspect of the whole pile 
 attainable in no other way. And thus much may serve concerning 
 angle decoration by chamfer. 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE EDGE AND FILLET. 
 
 § I. The decoration of the angle by various forms of chamfer and 
 bead, as above described, is the quietest method we can employ ; 
 too quiet, when great energy is to be given to the moulding, and 
 impossible, when, instead of a bold angle, we have to deal with a 
 small projecting edge, like c in Fig. LI. In such cases we may 
 employ a decoration, far ruder and easier in its simplest conditions 
 than the bead, far more effective when not used in too great 
 profusion ; and of which the complete developments are the 
 source of mouldings at once the most picturesque and most 
 serviceable which the Gothic builders invented. 
 
 § n. The gunwales of the Venetian heavy barges being liable to 
 somewhat rough collision with each other, and with the walls of 
 the streets, are generally protected by a piece of timber, which pro- 
 jects in the form of the fillet, a, Fig. LI. ; but which, like all other 
 fillets, may, if we so choose, be considered as composed of two 
 angles or edges, which the natural and most wholesome love of the 
 Venetian boatmen for ornament, otherwise strikingly evidenced 
 by their painted sails and glittering flag-vanes, will not suffer 
 to remain wholly undecorated. The rough service of these 
 timbers, however, will not admit of rich ornament, and the boat- 
 builder usually contents himself with cutting a series of notches 
 in each edge, one series alternating with the other, as represented 
 at 1, Plate IX. 
 
 § in. In that simple ornament, not as confined to Venetian 
 boats, but as representative of a general human instinct to hack 
 at an edge, demonstrated by all school-boys and all idle possessors 
 of penknives or other cutting instruments on both sides of the 
 Atlantic; — in that rude Venetian gunwale, I saj 7 , is the germ of 
 all the ornament which has touched, with its rich successions of 
 
 s 2 
 
2G0 XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 
 
 DECOR \TION. 
 
 angular shadow, the portals and archivolts of nearly every early 
 building of importance, from the North Cape to the Straits of 
 Messina. Nor are the modifications of the first suggestion intri- 
 cate. All that is generic in their character may be seen on 
 Plate IX. at a glance. 
 
 § IV. Taking a piece of stone instead of timber, and enlarging 
 the notches, until they meet each other, we have the condition 2, 
 which is a moulding from the tomb of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, 
 in St. Mark's. Now, considering this moulding as composed of 
 two decorated edges, each edge will be reduced, by the meeting of 
 the notches, to a series of four-sided pyramids, (as marked off by 
 the dotted lines), which, the notches here being shallow, will be 
 shallow pyramids ; but by deepening the notches, we get them as 
 at 3, with the profile a, more or less steep. This moulding I shall 
 always call " the plain dogtooth ;" it is used in profusion in the 
 Venetian and Veronese Gothic, generally set with its front to the 
 spectator, as here at 3 ; but its effect may be much varied by 
 placing it obliquely, (4, and profile as at b) ; or with one side 
 horizontal, (5, and profile c). Of these three conditions, 3 and 5 
 are exactly the same in reality, only differently placed ; but in 
 4 the pyramid is obtuse, and the inclination of its base variable, 
 the upper side of it being always kept vertical. It is compara- 
 tively rare. Of the three, the last, 5, is far the most brilliant in 
 effect, giving in the distance a zigzag form to the high light on 
 it, and a full sharp shadow below. The use of this shadow is 
 sufficiently seen by fig. 7 in this plate, (the arch on the left, 
 the number beneath it), in which these levelled dogteeth, with a 
 small interval between each, are employed to set off by their 
 vigour the delicacy of floral ornament above. This arch is the 
 side of a niche from the tomb of Can Signorio della Scala, at 
 Verona ; and the value, as well as the distant expression of its 
 dogtooth, may be seen by referring to Prout's beautiful drawing 
 of this tomb in his " Sketches in France and Italy." I have before 
 observed that this artist never fails of seizing the true and leading 
 expression of whatever he touches : he has made this ornament 
 the leading feature of the niche, expressing it, as in distance it is 
 only expressible, by a zigzag. 
 
IX . 
 
 c 
 
 
 •>o ' 
 
 i^y 1 -^- 
 
 
 XT,, 
 
 J C Anmt age" 
 
 Oil ftp .1 >i-r urn Ha n . 
 
decoration. XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 2ljl 
 
 § v. The reader may perhaps be surprised at my speaking so 
 highly of this drawing, if he take the pains to compare Prout's 
 symbolism of the work on the niche with the facts as they 
 stand here in Plate IX. But the truth is that Prout has ren- 
 dered the effect of the monument on the mind of the passer-by ; — 
 the effect it was intended to have on every man who turned the 
 corner of the street beneath it : and in this sense there is actually 
 more truth and likeness * in Prout's translation than in my fac- 
 simile, made diligently by peering into the details from a ladder. 
 I do not say that all the symbolism in Prout's sketch is the best 
 possible ; but it is the best which any architectural draughtsman 
 has yet invented ; and in its application to special subjects it 
 always shows curious internal evidence that the sketch has been 
 made on the spot, and that the artist tried to draw what he saw, 
 not to invent an attractive subject. I shall notice other instances 
 of this hereafter. 
 
 § VI. The dogtooth, employed in this simple form, is, however, 
 rather a foil for other ornament, than itself a satisfactory or 
 generally available decoration. It is, however, easy to enrich it 
 as we choose : taking up its simple form at 3, and describing the 
 arcs marked by the dotted lines upon its sides, and cutting a 
 small triangular cavity between them, we shall leave its ridges 
 somewhat rudely representative of four leaves, as at 8, which is 
 the section and front view of one of the Venetian stone cornices 
 described above, Chap. XIV., § rv., the figure 8 being here put 
 in the hollow of the gutter. The dogtooth is put on the outer 
 lower truncation, and is actually in position as fig. 5 ; but being 
 always looked up to, is to the spectator as 3, and always rich 
 and effective. The dogteeth are perhaps most frequently ex- 
 panded to the width of fig. 9. 
 
 § VII. As in nearly all other ornaments previously described, 
 so in this, — we have only to deepen the Italian cutting, and 
 we shall get the Northern type. If we make the original pyra- 
 
 * I do not here speak of artistical merits, but the play of the light among the 
 lower shafts is also singularly beautiful in this sketch of Prout's, and the cha- 
 racter of the wild and broken leaves, half dead, on the stone of the foreground. 
 
262 XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 mid somewhat steeper, and instead of lightly incising, cut it 
 through, so as to have the leaves held only by their points to the 
 base, we shall have the English dogtooth ; somewhat vulgar in 
 its piquancy, when compared with French mouldings of a similar 
 kind.* It occurs, I think, on one house in Venice, in the Campo 
 St. Polo ; but the ordinary moulding, with light incisions, is fre- 
 quent in archivolts and architraves, as well as in the roof cornices. 
 
 § vni. This being the simplest treatment of the pyramid, 
 fig. 10, from the refectory of Wenlock Abbey, is an example of 
 the simplest decoration of the recesses or inward angles between 
 the pyramids ; that is to say, of a simple hacked edge like one of 
 those in fig. 2, the cuts being taken up and decorated instead 
 of the points. Each is worked into a small trefoiled arch, with 
 an incision round it to mark its outline, and another slight in- 
 cision above, expressing the angle of the first cutting. I said 
 that the teeth in fig. 7 had in distance the effect of a zigzag : in 
 fig. 10 this zigzag effect is seized upon and developed, but with the 
 easiest and roughest work ; the angular incision being a mere 
 limiting line, like that described in § IX. of the last chapter. But 
 hence the farther steps to every condition of Norman ornament 
 are self-evident. I do not say that all of them arose from deve- 
 lopment of the dogtooth in this manner, many being quite inde- 
 pendent inventions and uses of zigzag lines ; still, they may all 
 be referred to this simple type as their root and representative, 
 that is to say, the mere hack of the Venetian gunwale, with a 
 limiting line following the resultant zigzag. 
 
 § IX. Fig. 11 is a singular and much more artificial condition, 
 cast in brick, from the church of the Frari, and given here only 
 for future reference. Fig. 12, resulting from a fillet with the 
 cuts on each of its edges interrupted by a bar, is a frequent Vene- 
 tian moulding, and of great value ; but the plain or leaved dog- 
 teeth have been the favourites, and that to such a degree, that 
 even the Renaissance architects took them up ; and the best bit 
 of Renaissance design in Venice, the side of the Ducal Palace 
 next the Bridge of Sighs, owes great part of its splendour to its 
 
 * Vide the " Seven Lamps," p. 122. 
 
decoration. XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 263 
 
 foundation, faced with large flat dogteeth, each about a foot wide 
 in the base, with their points truncated, and alternating with 
 cavities which are their own negatives or casts. 
 
 § X. One other form of the dogtooth is of great importance in 
 northern architecture, that produced by oblique cuts slightly 
 curved, as in the margin, Fig. LVI. It is susceptible 
 Fig. lvl Q £ ^ e mog £ f an tastic and endless decoration ; each of 
 the resulting leaves being, in the early porches of 
 Rouen and Lisieux, hollowed out and worked into 
 branching tracery : and at Bourges, for distant effect, 
 worked into plain leaves, or bold bony processes with 
 knobs at the points, and near the spectator, into 
 ci'ouching demons and broad winged owls, and other 
 fancies and intricacies, innumerable and inexpres- 
 sible. 
 
 § XI. Thus much is enough to be noted respecting 
 edge decoration. We were next to consider the fillet. 
 Professor Willis has noticed an ornament, which he has called 
 the Venetian dentil, as " the most universal ornament in its own 
 district that ever I met with ; " but has not noticed the reason 
 for its frequency. It is nevertheless highly interesting. 
 
 The whole early architecture of Venice is architecture of incrus- 
 tation : this has not been enough noticed in its peculiar relation 
 to that of the r°st of Italy. There is, indeed, much incrusted 
 architecture throughout Italy, in elaborate ecclesiastical work, 
 but there is more which is frankly of brick, or thoroughly of 
 stone. But the Venetian habitually incrusted his work with 
 nacre ; he built his houses, even the meanest, as if he had been 
 a shell-fish, — roughly inside, mother-of-pearl on the surface : he 
 was content, perforce, to gather the clay of the Brenta banks, 
 and bake it into brick for his substance of wall ; but he overlaid 
 it with the wealth of ocean, with the most precious foreign 
 marbles. You might fancy early Venice one wilderness of 
 brick, which a petrifying sea had beaten upon till it coated it 
 with marble: at first a dark city — washed white by the sea foam. 
 And I told you before that it was also a city of shafts and 
 
 s 4 
 
204 
 
 XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 § xii. In Fig. LVII. I 
 stilted arches: the one on 
 
 Fig. LVII. 
 
 arches, and that its dwellings were raised upon continuous 
 arcades, among which the sea waves wandered. Hence the 
 thoughts of its builders were early and constantly directed to the 
 incrustation of arches. 
 
 have given two of these Byzantine 
 the right, a, as they now too often 
 appear, in its bare brickwork ; 
 that on the left, with its ala- 
 baster covering, literally marble 
 defensive armour, rivetted to- 
 gether in pieces, which follow 
 the contours of the building. 
 Now, on the wall, these pieces 
 are mere flat slabs cut to the arch outline ; but under the soflit of 
 the arch the marble mail is curved, often cut singularly thin, like 
 bent tiles, and fitted together so that the pieces would sustain each 
 other even without rivets. It is of course desirable that this thin 
 sub-arch of marble should project enough to sustain the facing of 
 the wall ; and the reader will see, in Fig. LVII., that its edge 
 forms a kind of narrow band round the arch (b), a band which the 
 least enrichment would render a valuable decorative feature. Now 
 this band is, of course, if the soffit-pieces project a little beyond 
 the face of the wall-pieces, a mere fillet, like the wooden gunwale 
 in Plate IX. ; and the question is, how to enrich it most wisely. 
 It might easily have been dogtoothed, but the Byzantine ar- 
 chitects had not invented the dogtooth, and would not have used 
 it here, if they had ; for the dogtooth cannot be employed alone, 
 especially on so principal an angle as this of the main arches, 
 without giving to the whole building a peculiar look, which I can 
 no otherwise describe than as being, to the eye, exactly what 
 untempered acid is to the tongue. The mere dogtooth is an acid 
 moulding, and can only be used in certain mingling with others, 
 to give them piquancy ; never alone. What, then, will be the next 
 easiest method of giving interest to the fillet ? 
 
 § xm. Simply to make the incisions square instead of sharp, 
 and to leave equal intervals of the square edge between them. 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 
 
 265 
 
 Fig. LVIII. 
 
 Fig. LVIII. is one of the curved pieces of 
 arch armour, with its edge thus treated ; one 
 side only being done at the bottom, to show 
 the simplicity and ease of the Avork. This 
 ornament gives force and interest to the edge 
 of the arch, without in the least diminishing 
 its quietness. Nothing was ever, nor could be 
 ever invented, fitter for its purpose, or more 
 easily cut. From the arch it therefore found 
 its way into every position where the edge of 
 a piece of stone projected, and became, from 
 its constancy of occurrence in the latest 
 Gothic as well as the earliest Byzantine, most 
 truly deserving of the name of the " Venetian 
 Dentil." Its complete intention is now, how- 
 ever, only to be seen in the pictures of Gentile 
 Bellini and Vittor Carpaccio ; for, like most 
 of the rest of the mouldings of Venetian 
 buildings, it was always either gilded or painted — often both, 
 gold being laid on the faces of the dentils, and their recesses 
 coloured alternately red and blue. 
 
 § XIV. Observe, however, that the reason above given for the 
 universality of this ornament was by no means the reason of its 
 invention. The Venetian dentil is a particular application (con- 
 sequent on the incrusted character of Venetian architecture) of 
 the general idea of dentil, which had been originally given by the 
 Greeks, and realised both by them and by the Byzantines in many 
 laborious forms, long before there was need of them for arch 
 armour ; and the lower half of Plate IX. will give some idea of 
 the conditions which occur in the Romanesque of Venice, dis- 
 tinctly derived from the classical dentil ;. and of the gradual 
 transition to the more convenient and simple type, the run- 
 ning-hand dentil, which afterwards became the characteristic of 
 Venetian Gothic. No. 13.* is the common dentiled cornice, 
 
 ' The sections of all the mouldings are given on the right of each ; the part 
 which is constantly solid being shaded, and that which is cut into dentils left in 
 open line. 
 
266 XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 which occurs repeatedly in St. Mark's ; and, as late as the 
 thirteenth century, a reduplication of it forming the abaci of the 
 capitals of the Piazzetta shafts. Fig. 15 is perhaps an earlier 
 type ; perhaps only one of more careless workmanship, from a 
 Byzantine ruin in the Rio di Ca' Foscari : and it is interesting 
 to compare it with fig. 14 from the cathedral of Yienne, in 
 South France. Fig. 17, from St. Mark's, and 18, from the apse 
 of Murano, are two very early examples, in which the future 
 true Venetian dentil is already developed in method of execution, 
 though the object is still only to imitate the classical one ; and a 
 rude imitation of the bead is joined with it in fig. 17. No. 16 
 indicates two examples of experimental forms : the uppermost 
 from the tomb of Mastino della Scala, at Verona ; the lower from 
 a door in Venice, I bebeve, of the thirteenth century : 1 9 is a 
 more frequent arrangement, chiefly found in cast brick, and 
 connecting the dentils with the dogteeth : 20 is a form intro- 
 duced richly in the later Gothic, but of rare occurrence until 
 the latter half of the thirteenth century. I shall call it the 
 gabled dentil. It is found in the greatest profusion in sepulchral 
 Gothic, associated with several slight variations from the usual 
 dentil type, of which No. 21, from the tomb of Pietro Cornaro, 
 may serve as an example. 
 
 § XV. All the forms given in Plate IX. are of not unfrequent 
 occurrence : varying much in size and depth, according to the 
 expression of the work in which they occur ; generally increasing 
 in size in late work (the earliest dentils are seldom more than an 
 inch or an inch and a half long : the fully developed dentil of the 
 later Gothic is often as much as four or five in length, by one 
 and a half in breadth) ; but they are all somewhat rare, compared 
 to the true or armour dentil, above described. On the other 
 hand, there are one or two unique conditions, which will be 
 noted in the buildings where they occur.* The Ducal Palace 
 
 * As, however, we shall not probably be led either to Bergamo or Bologna, I 
 may mention here a curiously rich use of the dentil, entirely covering the foliation 
 and tracery of a niche on the outside of the duomo of Bergamo ; and a roll, en- 
 tirely incrusted, as the handle of a mace often is with nails, witli massy dogteeth 
 or nail-heads, on the door of the Pepoli palace of Bologna. 
 
decoration. XXIII. THE EDGE AND FILLET. 267 
 
 furnishes three anomalies in the arch, dogtooth, and dentil : it 
 has a hyperbolic arch, as noted above, Chap. X., § XV. ; it has a 
 double-fanged dogtooth in the rings of the spiral shafts on its 
 angles ; and, finally, it has a dentil with concave sides, of which 
 the section and two of the blocks, real size, are given in Plate 
 XIV. The labour of obtaining this difficult profile has, however, 
 been thrown away ; for the effect of the dentil at ten feet 
 distance is exactly the same as that of the usual form : and the 
 reader may consider the dogtooth and dentil in that plate as 
 fairly representing the common use of them in the Venetian 
 Gothic. 
 
 § XVI. I am aware of no other form of fillet decoration requiring 
 notice : in the Northern Gothic, the fillet is employed chiefly to 
 give severity or flatness to mouldings supposed to be too much 
 rounded, and is therefore generally plain. It is itself an ugly 
 moulding, and, when thus employed, is merely a foil for others, 
 of which, however, it at last usurped the place, and became 
 one of the most painful features in the debased Gothic both of 
 Italy and the North. 
 
268 
 
 DEI OB VI M\. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE ROLL AND RECESS. 
 
 § I. I have classed these two means of architectural effect 
 together, because the one is in most cases the negative of the 
 other, and is used to relieve it exactly as shadow relieves light ; 
 recess alternating with roll, not only in lateral, but in successive 
 order ; not merely side by side with each other, but interrupted 
 the one by the otber in their own lines. A recess itself has 
 properly no decoration ; but its depth gives value to the de- 
 coration which flanks, encloses, or interrupts it, and the form 
 which interrupts it best is the roll. 
 
 § II. I use the word roll generally for any mouldings which 
 present to the eye somewhat the appearance of being cylin- 
 drical, and look like round rods. When upright, they are in 
 appearance, if not in fact, small shafts ; and are a kind of bent 
 shaft, even when used in archivolts and traceries; — when hori- 
 zontal, they confuse themselves with cornices, and are, in fact, 
 generally to be considered as the best means of drawing an archi- 
 tectural line in any direction, the soft curve of their side obtaining 
 some shadow at nearly all times of the day, and that more tender 
 and grateful to the eye than can be obtained either by an incision 
 or by any other form of projection. 
 
 § LTI. Their decorative power is, however, too slight for rich 
 work, and they frequently require, like the angle and the fillet, to 
 be rendered interesting by subdivision or minor ornament of their 
 own. When the roll is small, this is effected, exactly as in the 
 case of the fillet, by cutting pieces out of it ; giving in the 
 simplest results what is called the Xorman billet moulding : and 
 when the cuts are given in couples, and the pieces rounded into 
 spheres and almonds, we have the ordinary Greek bead, both of 
 
i>rr oration. 
 
 XXIV. THE BOLL AND RECESS. 269 
 
 them too well known to require illustration. The Norman billet 
 we shall not meet with in Venice ; the bead constantly occurs in 
 Byzantine, and of course in Renaissance work. In Plate IX., 
 fig. 17, there is a remarkable example of its early treatment, 
 where the cuts in it are left sharp. 
 
 § IV. But the roll, if it be of any size, deserves better treat- 
 ment. Its rounded surface is too beautifnl to be cut away in 
 notches ; and it is rather to be covered with flat chasing or 
 inlaid patterns. Thus ornamented, it gradually blends itself 
 with the true shaft, both in the Romanesque work of the North, 
 and in the Italian connected schools ; and the patterns used for 
 it are those used for shaft decoration in general. 
 
 § V. But, as alternating with the recess, it has a decoration 
 peculiar to itself. We have often, in the preceding chapters, 
 noted the fondness of the Northern builders for deep shade and 
 hollowness in their mouldings ; and in the second chapter of the 
 " Seven Lamps," the changes are described which reduced the 
 massive roll mouldings of the early Gothic to a series of recesses, 
 separated by bars of light. The shape of these recesses is at 
 present a matter of no importance to us : it was, indeed, endlessly 
 varied ; but needlessly, for the value of a recess is in its dark- 
 ness, and its darkness disguises its form. But it was not in mere 
 wanton indulgence of their love of shade that the Flamboyant 
 builders deepened the furrows of their mouldings : they had 
 found a means of decorating those furrows as rich as it was 
 expressive, and the entire framework of their architecture was 
 designed with a view to the effect of this decoration ; where the 
 ornament ceases, the framework is meagre and mean : but the 
 ornament is, in the best examples of the style, unceasing. 
 
 § VI. It is, in fact, an ornament formed by the ghosts or 
 anatomies of the old shafts, left in the furrows which had 
 taken their place. Every here and there, a fragment of a roll or 
 shaft is left in the recess or furrow ; — a billet-moulding on a huge 
 scale, but a billet-moulding reduced to a skeleton ; for the frag- 
 ments of roll are cut hollow, and worked into mere entanglement 
 of stony fibres, with the gloom of the recess shown through 
 
270 XXIV. THE ROLL AND RECESS. decoration. 
 
 them. These ghost rolls, forming sometimes pedestals, sometimes 
 canopies, sometimes covering the whole recess with an arch of 
 tracery, beneath which it runs like a tunnel, are the peculiar 
 decorations of the Flamboyant Gothic. 
 
 § VII. Now observe, in all kinds of decoration, we must keep 
 carefully under separate heads, the consideration of the changes 
 wrought in the mere physical form, and in the intellectual pur- 
 pose, of ornament. The relations of the canopy to the statue it 
 shelters, are to be considered altogether distinctly from those of 
 the canopy to the building which it decorates. In its earliest 
 conditions the canopy is partly confused with representations of 
 miniature architecture : it is sometimes a small temple or gate- 
 way, sometimes an honorary addition to the pomp of a saint, a 
 covering to his throne, or to his shrine ; and this canopy is often 
 expressed in bas-relief (as in painting), without much reference 
 to the great requirements of the building. At other times it is 
 a real protection to the statue, and is enlarged into a complete 
 pinnacle, carried on proper shafts, and boldly roofed. But in the 
 late northern system the canopies are neither expressive nor pro- 
 tective. They are a kind of stone lace-work, required for the 
 ornamentation of the building, for which the statues are often 
 little more than an excuse, and of which the physical character 
 is, as above described, that of ghosts of departed shafts. 
 
 § vin. There is, of course, much rich tabernacle work which 
 will not come literally under this head, much which is straggling 
 or flat in its plan, connecting itself gradually with the ordinary 
 forms of independent shrines and tombs ; but the general idea of 
 all tabernacle work is marked in the common phrase of a " niche," 
 that is to say, a hollow intended for a statue, and crowned by a 
 canopy ; and this niche decoration only reaches its full develop- 
 ment when the Flamboyant hollows are cut deepest, and when 
 the manner and spirit of sculpture had so much lost their purity 
 and intensity that it became desirable to draw the eye away from 
 the statue to its covering, so that at last the canopy became the 
 more important of the two, and is itself so beautiful that we are 
 often contented with architecture from which profanity has 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXIV. THE ROLL ANT) RECESS. 271 
 
 struck the statues, if only the canopies are left ; and consequently, 
 in our modern ingenuity, even set up canopies where we have no 
 intention of setting statues. 
 
 § IX. It is a pity that thus we have no really noble example of 
 the effect of the statue in the recesses of architecture ; for the 
 Flamboyant recess was not so much a preparation for it as a 
 gulf which swallowed it up. When statues were most earnestly 
 designed, they were thrust forward in all kinds of places, often in 
 front of the pillars, as at Amiens, awkwardly enough, but with 
 manly respect to the purpose of the figures. The Flamboyant 
 hollows yawned at their sides, the statues fell back into them, 
 and nearly disappeared, and a flash of flame in the shape of a 
 canopy rose as they expired. 
 
 § X. I do not feel myself capable at present of speaking with 
 perfect justice of this niche ornament of the north, my late 
 studies in Italy having somewhat destroyed my sympathies with 
 it. But I once loved it intensely, and will not say anything to 
 depreciate it now, save only this, that while I have studied long 
 at Abbeville, without in the least finding that it made me care 
 less for Verona, I never remained long in Verona without feeling 
 some doubt of the nobility of Abbeville 
 
 § XI. Recess decoration by leaf mouldings is constantly and 
 beautifully associated in the north with niche decoration, but 
 requires no special notice, the recess in such cases being used 
 merely to give value to the leafage by its gloom, and the 
 difference between such conditions and those of the south being 
 merely, that in the one the leaves are laid across a hollow, and 
 in the other over a solid surface ; but in neither of the schools 
 exclusively so, each in some degree intermingling the method of 
 the other. 
 
 § XII. Finally, the recess decoration by the ball flower is very 
 definite and characteristic, found, I believe, chiefly in English 
 work. It consists merely in leaving a small boss or sphere, fixed, 
 as it were, at intervals in the hollows ; such bosses being after- 
 wards carved into roses, or other ornamental forms, and some- 
 times lifted quite up out of the hollow, on projecting processes, like 
 
272 XXIV. THE ROLL AND RECESS. decoration. 
 
 vertebra}, so as to make them more conspicuous, as throughout 
 the decoration of the cathedral of Bourges. 
 
 The value of this ornament is chiefly in the spotted character 
 which it gives to the lines of mouldings seen from a distance. It 
 is very rich and delightful when not used in excess ; but it would 
 satiate and weary the eye if it were ever used in general archi- 
 tecture. The spire of Salisbury, and of St. Mary's at Oxford, are 
 agreeable as isolated masses ; but if an entire street were built 
 with this spotty decoration at every casement, we could not 
 traverse it to the end without disgust. It is only another 
 example of the constant aim at piquancy of effect which cha- 
 racterised the northern builders ; an ingenious but somewhat 
 vulgar effort to give interest to their grey masses of coarse stone, 
 without overtaxing their powers either of invention or execution. 
 We will thank them for it without blame or praise, and pass on. 
 
DECORATION - . 
 
 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE BASE. 
 
 § I. We know now as much as is needful respecting the methods 
 of minor and universal decoration, which were distinguished in 
 Chapter XXII., § ni., from the ornament which has special 
 relation to particular parts. This local ornament, which, it will 
 be remembered, we arranged in § n. of the same chapter under 
 five heads, we have next, under those heads, to consider. And, 
 first, the ornament of the bases, both of walls and shafts. 
 
 It was noticed in our account of the divisions of a wall, that 
 there was something in those divisions like the beginning, the 
 several courses, and the close of a human life. And as, in all well- 
 conducted lives, the hard work, and roughing, and gaining of 
 strength comes first, the honour or decoration in certain inter- 
 vals during their course, but most of all in their close, so, 
 in general, the base of a wall, which is its beginning of labour, 
 will bear least decoration, its body more, especially those epochs 
 of rest called its string courses ; but its crown or cornice most 
 of all. Still, in some buildings, all these are decorated richly, 
 though the last most ; and in others, when the base is well protected 
 and yet conspicuous, it may properly receive even more decoration 
 than other parts. 
 
 § n. Now, the main things to be expressed in a base are its 
 levelness and evenness. We cannot do better than construct the 
 several members of the base, as developed in Fig. II., p. 54., 
 each of a differently coloured marble, so as to produce marked 
 level bars of colour all along the foundation. This is exquisitely 
 clone in all the Italian elaborate wall bases ; that of St. Anastasia 
 at Verona is one of the most perfect existing, for play of colour ; 
 that of Giotto's campanile is on the whole the most beautifully 
 finished. Then, on the vertical portions, a, i, c, we may put what 
 
 T 
 
274 XXV. THE BASE. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 patterns in mosaic we please, so that they be not too rich ; but if 
 we choose rather to have sculpture (or must have it for want of 
 stones to inlay), then observe that all sculpture on bases must be 
 in panels, or it will soon be worn away, and that a plain panelling 
 is often good without any other ornament. The member b, which 
 in St. Mark's is subordinate, and c, which is expanded into a seat, 
 are both of them decorated with simple but exquisitely-finished 
 panelling, in red and white or green and white marble ; and the 
 member e is in bases of this kind very valuable, as an expression 
 of a firm beginning of the substance of the wall itself. This 
 member has been of no service to us hitherto, and was unnoticed 
 in the chapters on construction ; but it was expressed in the 
 figure of the wall base, on account of its great value when the 
 foundation is of stone and the wall of brick (coated or not). In 
 such cases it is always better to add the course e, above the slope of 
 the base, than abruptly to begin the common masonry of the wall. 
 
 § HI. It is, however, with the member d, or X b, that we are most 
 seriously concerned ; for this being the essential feature of all bases, 
 and the true preparation for the wall or shaft, it is most necessary 
 that here, if anywhere, we should have full expression of levelness 
 and precision ; and farther, that, if possible, the eye should not 
 be suffered to rest on the points of junction of the stones, which 
 would give an effect of instability. Both these objects are ac- 
 complished by attracting the eye to two rolls, separated by a deep 
 hollow, in the member d itself. The bold projections of their 
 mouldings entirely prevent the attention from being drawn to the 
 joints of the masonry, and besides form a simple but beautifully 
 connected group of bars of shadow, which express, in their perfect 
 parallelism, the absolute levelness of the foundation. 
 
 § rv. I need hardly give any perspective drawing of an arrange- 
 ment which must be perfectly familiar to the reader, as occurring 
 under nearly every column of the too numerous classical buildings 
 all over Europe. But I may name the base of the Bank of England 
 as furnishing a very simple instance of the group, with a square 
 instead of a rounded hollow, both forming the base of the wall, 
 and gathering into that of the shafts as they occur; while the bases 
 
X 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 9 LO II 12 13 14 
 
 15 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 Hi 
 
 ProFifFB i : i : Bii 1 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXV. THE BASE. 
 
 275 
 
 of the pillars of the facade of the British Museum are as good 
 examples as the reader can study on a larger scale. 
 
 § V. I believe this group of mouldings -was first invented by the 
 Greeks, and it has never been materially improved, as far as its 
 peculiar purpose is concerned*; the classical attempts at its vari- 
 ation being the ugliest : one, the using a single roll of larger size, 
 as may be seen in the Duke of York's column, which therefore 
 looks as if it stood on a large sausage, (the Monument has the 
 same base, but more concealed by pedestal decoration) : another, 
 the using two rolls without the intermediate cavetto, — a condition 
 hardly less awkward, and which may be studied to advantage in 
 the wall and shaft bases of the Athenaeum Club-house : and another, 
 the introduction of what are called fillets between the rolls, as 
 may be seen in the pillars of Hanover Chapel, Regent Street, 
 which look, in consequence, as if they were standing upon a pile 
 of pewter collection-plates. But the only successful changes have 
 been mediaeval ; and their nature will be at once understood by 
 a glance at the varieties given on the opposite page. It will be 
 well first to give the buildings in which they occur, in order. 
 
 9. 
 10. 
 
 li. 
 
 12. 
 13. 
 
 Santa Fosca, Torcello. 
 
 North transept, St. Mark's, Venice. 
 
 Nave, Torcello. 
 
 Nave, Torcello. 
 
 South transept, St. Mark's. 
 
 Northern portico, upper shafts, St. 
 
 Mark's. 
 Another of the same group. 
 Cortile of St. Arabrogio, Milan. 
 Nave-shafts, St. Michele, Pavia. 
 Outside wall base, St. Mark's, 
 
 Venice. 
 Fondaco de' Turchi, Venice. 
 Nave, Vienne, France. 
 Fondaco de' Turchi, Venice. 
 
 14. Ca' Giustiniani, Venice. 
 
 15. Byzantine fragment, Venice. 
 
 16. St. Mark's, upper colonnade. 
 
 17. Ducal Palace, Venice (windows). 
 
 18. Ca' Falier, Venice. 
 
 19. St. Zeno, Verona. 
 
 20. San Stefano, Venice. 
 
 21. Ducal Palace, Venice (windows). 
 
 22. Nave, Salisbury. 
 
 23. Santa Fosca, Torcello. 
 
 24. Nave, Lyons Cathedral. 
 
 25. Notre Dame, Dijon. 
 
 26. Nave, Bourges Cathedral. 
 
 27. Nave, Mortain (Normandy). 
 
 28. Nave, Rouen Cathedral. 
 
 * Another most important reason for the peculiar sufficiency and value of this 
 base, especially as opposed to the bulging forms of the single or double roll, 
 without the cavetto, has been suggested by the writer of the Essay on the Esthe- 
 tics of Gothic Architecture in the British Quarterly for August, 1849: — "The 
 Attic base recedes at the point where, if it suffered from superincumbent weight, 
 it would bulge out." 
 
276 XXV. THE BASE. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 § VI. Eighteen out of the twenty-eight varieties are Venetian, 
 being bases to which I shall have need of future reference ; but 
 the interspersed examples, 8, 9, 12, and 19, from Milan, Pavia, 
 Vienne (France), and Verona, show the exactly correspondent 
 conditions of the Romanesque base at the period, throughout the 
 centre of Europe. The last five examples show the changes 
 effected by the French Gothic architects: the Salisbury base (22) 
 I have only introduced to show its dulness and vulgarity beside 
 them ; and 23, from Torcello, for a special reason, in that 
 place. 
 
 § VII. The reader will observe that the two bases, 8 and 9, 
 from the two most important Lombardic churches of Italy, 
 St. Ambrogio of Milan and St. Michele of Pavia, mark the 
 character of the barbaric base founded on pure Roman models, 
 sometimes approximating to such models very closely ; and the 
 varieties 10, 11, 13, 16 are Byzantine types, also founded on 
 Roman models. But in the bases 1 to 7 inclusive, and, still 
 more characteristically, in 23 below, there is evidently an original 
 element, a tendency to use the fillet and hollow instead of the 
 roll, which is eminently Gothic ; which in the base 3 reminds 
 one even of Flamboyant conditions, and is excessively remarkable 
 as occurring in Italian work certainly not later than the tenth 
 century, taking even the date of the last rebuilding of the 
 Duomo of Torcello, though I am strongly inclined to consider 
 these bases portions of the original church. And I have there- 
 fore put the base 23 among the Gothic group to which it has so 
 strong relationship, though, on the last supposition, five cen- 
 turies older than the earliest of the five terminal examples ; and 
 it is still more remarkable because it reverses the usual treat- 
 ment of the lower roll, which is in general a tolerably accurate 
 test of the age of a base, in the degree of its projection. Thus, 
 in the examples 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, the lower roll is hardly 
 rounded at all, and diametrically opposed to the late Gothic 
 conditions, 24 to 28, in which it advances gradually, like a 
 wave preparing to break, and at last is actually seen curling 
 over with the long-backed rush of surf upon the shore. Yet 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXV. THE BASE. 277 
 
 the Torcello base resembles these Gothic ones both in expansion 
 beneath and in depth of cavetto above. 
 
 § Vlll. There can be no question of the ineffable superiority of 
 these Gothic bases, in grace of profile, to any ever invented by the 
 ancients. But thev have all two great faults : They seem, in the 
 first place, to have been designed without sufficient reference to 
 the necessity of their being usually seen from above ; their grace 
 of profile cannot be estimated when so seen, and their excessive 
 expansion gives them an appearance of flatness and separation 
 from the shaft, as if they had splashed out under its pressure : 
 in the second place, their cavetto is so deeply cut that it has the 
 appearance of a black fissure between the members of the base ; 
 and in the Lyons and Bourges shafts, 24 and 26, it is impossible 
 to conquer the idea suggested by it, that the two stones above 
 and below have been intended to join close, but that some pebbles 
 have got in and kept them from fitting ; one is always expecting 
 the pebbles to be crushed, and the shaft to settle into its place 
 with a thunder-clap. 
 
 § IX. For these reasons, I said that the profile of the pure 
 classic base had hardly been materially improved ; but the 
 various conditions of it are beautiful or commonplace, in pro- 
 portion to the variety of proportion among their lines and the 
 delicacy of their curvatures ; that is to say, the expression of 
 characters like those of the abstract lines in Plate VII. 
 
 The five best profiles in Plate X. are 10, 17, 19, 20, 21 ; 10 
 is peculiarly beautiful in the opposition between the bold pro- 
 jection of its upper roll, and the delicate leafy curvature of its 
 lower; and this and 21 may be taken as nearly perfect t)-pes, 
 the one of the steep, the other of the expansive basic profiles. 
 The characters of all, however, are so dependent upon their 
 place and expression, that it is unfair to judge them thus 
 separately ; and the precision of curvature is a matter of so 
 small consequence in general effect, that we need not here pursue 
 the subject farther. 
 
 § x. We have thus far, however, considered only the lines of 
 moulding in the member Xb, whether of wall or shaft base. But 
 
 T 3 
 
278 
 
 XXV. THE BASE. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 Fig. LIX. 
 
 the reader will remember that 
 in our best shaft base, in Fig. 
 XII. (p. 75.), certain props or 
 spurs were applied to the slope 
 of Xb; but now that Xb is di- 
 vided into these delicate mould- 
 ings, we cannot conveniently 
 apply the spur to its irregular 
 profile ; we must be content to 
 set it against the lower roll. 
 Let the upper edge of this 
 lower roll be the curved line 
 here, a, d, e, b, Fig. LIX., and 
 c the angle of the square plinth projecting beneath it. Then the 
 spur, applied as we saw in Chap. VII., will be of some such 
 form as the triangle c e cl, Fig. LIX. 
 
 § XI. Now it has just been stated that it is of small importance 
 whether the abstract lines of the profile of a base moulding be 
 fine or not, because we rarely stoop down to look at them. But 
 this triangular spur is nearly always seen from above, and the 
 eye is drawn to it as one of the most important features of the 
 whole base ; therefore it is a point of immediate necessity to 
 substitute for its harsh right lines (c d, c e) some curve of noble 
 abstract character. 
 
 § xn. I mentioned, in speaking of the line of the salvia leaf 
 at p. 218., that I had marked off the portion of it, x y, because 
 I thought it likely to be generally useful to us afterwards ; and 
 I promised the reader that as he had built, so he should decorate 
 his edifice at his own free will. If, therefore, he likes the above 
 triangular spur, c d e, by all means let him keep it ; but if he be 
 on the whole dissatisfied with it, I may be permitted, perhaps, 
 to advise him to set to work like a tapestry bee, to cut off the 
 little bit of line of salvia leaf x y, and try how he can best 
 substitute it for the awkward lines c d, c e. He may try it any 
 way that he likes ; but if he puts the salvia curvature inside the 
 present lines, he will find the spur looks weak, and I think he 
 
XI 
 
 
 Pfans of Shsp5 
 
DECORATIOX. 
 
 XXV. THE BASE. 
 
 279 
 
 will determine at last on placing it as I have done at c d, c e, 
 Fig. LX. (If the reader will be at the pains to transfer the 
 
 Fig. LX. 
 
 salvia leaf line with tracing paper, he will find it accurately used 
 in this figure.) Then I merely add an outer circular line to 
 represent the outer swell of the roll against which the spur is 
 set, and I put another such spur to the opposite corner of the 
 square, and we have the half base, Fig. LX., which is a general 
 type of the best Gothic bases in existence, being very nearly 
 that of the upper shafts of the Ducal Palace of Venice. In those 
 shafts the quadrant a b, or the upper edge of the lower roll, is 
 2 feet If inches round, and the base of the spur, d e, is 10 
 inches ; the line d e being therefore to a b as 10 to 25§. In 
 Fig. LX. it is as 10 to 24, the measurement being easier and the 
 type somewhat more generally representative of the best, i. e. 
 broadest, spurs of Italian Gothic. 
 
 § xin. Now, the reader is to remember, there is nothing magical 
 in salvia leaves : the line I take from them happened merely to 
 fall conveniently on the page, and might as well have been taken 
 from anything else ; it is simply its character of gradated curva- 
 ture which fits it for our use. On Plate XL, opposite, I have 
 given plans of the spurs and quadrants of twelve Italian and 
 three Northern bases; these latter, (13) from Bourges, (14) 
 from Lyons, (15) from Kouen, are given merely to show the 
 Northern disposition to break up bounding lines, and lose 
 
 T 4 
 
280 XXV. THE BASE. 
 
 DECORATION - . 
 
 breadth in picturesqueness. These Northern bases look the 
 prettiest in this plate, because this variation of the outline 
 is nearly all the ornament they have, being cut very rudely ; 
 but the Italian bases above them are merely prepared by 
 their simple outlines for far richer decoration at the next step, 
 as we shall see presently. The Northern bases are to be noted 
 also for another grand error : the projection of the roll beyond 
 the square plinth, of which the corner is seen, in various degrees 
 of advancement, in the three examples. 13 is the base whose 
 profile is No. 26 in Plate X. ; 14 is 24 in the same plate ; and 
 15 is 28. 
 
 § XIV. The Italian bases are the following ; all, except 7 and 
 
 10, being Venetian : 1 and 2, upper colonnade, St. Mark's ; 3, Ca' 
 Falier ; 4, lower colonnade, and 5, transept, St. Mark's ; 6, from 
 the church of St. John and Paul ; 7, from the tomb near St. 
 Anastasia, Verona, described above (p. 137.); 8 and 9, Fondaco 
 de' Turchi, Venice; 10, tomb of Can Mastino della Scala, Verona; 
 
 11, San Stefano, Venice; 12, Ducal Palace, Venice, upper 
 colonnade. The Nos. 3, 8, 9, 11 are the bases whose profiles 
 are respectively Nos. 18, 11, 13, and 20 in Plate X. The flat 
 surfaces of the basic plinths are here shaded ; and in the lower 
 corner of the square occupied by each quadrant is put, also 
 shaded, the central profile of each spur, from its root at the roll 
 of the base to its point; those of Nos. 1 and 2 being conjectural, 
 for their spurs were so rude and ugly, that I took no note of 
 their profiles : but they would probably be as here given. As 
 these bases, though here, for the sake of comparison, reduced 
 within squares of equal size, in reality belong to shafts of very 
 different size, 9 being some six or seven inches in diameter, and 
 6, three or four feet, the proportionate size of the roll varies 
 accordingly, being largest, as in 9, where the base is smallest ; 
 and in 6 and 1 1 the leaf profile is given on a larger scale than 
 the plan, or its character could not have been exhibited. 
 
 § XV. Now, in all these spurs, the reader will observe that the 
 narrowest are for the most part the earliest. No. 2, from the 
 upper colonnade of St. Mark's, is the only instance I ever saw of 
 
XII. 
 
 I)?ro ration of Bai8rf. 
 
DECORATION'. 
 
 XXV. THE BASE. 281 
 
 the double spur, as transitive between the square and octagon 
 plinth ; the truncated form, 1, is also rare, and very ugly. 
 Nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 are the general conditions of the 
 Byzantine spur ; 8 is a very rare form of plan in Byzantine 
 work, but proved to be so by its rude level profile ; while 7, on 
 the contrary, Byzantine in plan, is eminently Gothic in the 
 profile. 9 to 12 are from formed Gothic buildings, equally 
 refined in their profile and plan. 
 
 § XVI. The character of the profile is indeed much altered by 
 the accidental nature of the surface decoration ; but the im- 
 portance of the broad difference between the raised and flat 
 profile will be felt on glancing at the examples 1 to 6 in Plate 
 XII. The three upper examples are the Romanesque types, 
 which occur as parallels with the Byzantine types, 1 to 3 of 
 Plate XI. Their plans would be nearly the same ; but instead of 
 resembling flat leaves, they are literally spurs, or claws, as high 
 as they are broad ; and the third, from St. Michele of Pavia, 
 appears to be intended to have its resemblance to a claw enforced 
 by the transverse fillet. 1 is from St. Ambrogio, Milan ; 2 from 
 Yienne, France. The 4th type, Plate XII., almost like the 
 extremity of a man's foot, is a Byzantine form (perhaps worn on 
 the edges), from the nave of St. Mark's ; and the two next show 
 the unity of the two principles, forming the perfect Italian Gothic 
 types, — 5, from the tomb of Can Signorio della Scala, Verona; 
 6, from San Stefano, Venice (the base 11 of Plate XL in per- 
 spective). The two other bases, 10 and 12 of Plate XL, are 
 conditions of the same kind, showing the varieties of rise and fall 
 in exquisite modulation ; the 10th, a type more frequent at 
 Verona than Venice, in which the spur profile overlaps the roll, 
 instead of rising out of it, and seems to hold it down, as if it 
 were a ring held by sockets. This is a character found both in 
 early and late work: a kind of band, or fillet, appears to hold, 
 and even compress, the centre of the roll in the base of one of the 
 crypt shafts of St. Peter's, Oxford, which has also spurs at its 
 angles ; and long bands flow over the base of the angle shaft of 
 the Ducal Palace of Venice, next the Porta della Carta. 
 
XXV. TUX BASE. 
 
 ri-iAT: s. 
 
 j xvii. When the main contours of the base are once deter- 
 mined, its decoration is as easy as it is infinite. I have merely 
 
 :i. in Plate XII., three examples to which I shall need to 
 refer, hereafter. Xo. 9 is a very early and curious one : the deco- 
 ration of the base 6 in Plate XI.. representing a leaf turned over 
 and flattened down; or, rather, the idea of the turned It 
 
 - v.- ell as could be managed on the flat contour of the 
 spur. Then 10 is the perfect, but simplest possible development 
 of the same idea, from the earliest bases of the upper colonnade 
 of the Ducal Palace, that is to say, the bases of the sea facade ; 
 and 7 and 8 are its lateral profile and transverse section. 
 Finally. 1 1 and 12 are two of the spurs of the later shafts of the 
 same colonnade on the Piazzetta side ( Xo. 12 of Plate XI.). 
 Xo. 11 occurs on one of these shafts only, and is singularly 
 beautiful. I suspect it to be earner than the other, which is the 
 characteristic base of the rest of th - s, and already shows the 
 loose, sensual, ungoverned character of fifteenth century orna- 
 ment in the dissoluteness of its rolling. 
 
 " ? xvm. I merely give these as examples ready to my hand, and 
 necessarv for future reference ; not as in anywise representative 
 of the variety of the Italian treatment of the general contour, far 
 less of the endless caprices of the Xorth. The most beautiful 
 base I ever saw, on the whole, is a Byzantine one in the Baptistery 
 of St. Mark's, in which the spur profile approximates to that of 
 Xo. 10 in Plate XL : but it is formed by a cherub, who sw 
 downwards on the wing. His two wings, as they half close, 
 form the upper pan of the spur, and the rise of it in the front 
 is formed by exactly the action of Alichino, swooping on the 
 pitch lake; '• quei drizzo. volando, suso il petto." But it re- 
 quires noble management to confine such a fancy within such 
 liniits. The greater number of the best bases are formed of 
 leaves ; and the reader may amuse himself as he will by end- 
 less inventions of them, from types which he may gather among 
 the weeds at the nearest roadside. The value of the vegetable 
 form is especially here, as above noted, Chap. XX., § xxxn., 
 
 capability of unity with the mass of the base, and of being 
 
DECORATION. XXV. THE BASE. 2S3 
 
 suggested by few lines ; none but the Northern Gothic archi- 
 tects were able to introduce entire animal forms in this position 
 with perfect success. There is a beautiful instance at the north 
 door of the west front of Kouen ; a lizard pausing and curling him- 
 self round a little in the angle ; one expects him the next instant 
 to lash round the shaft and vanish : and we may with advantage 
 compare this base with those of the Renaissance Scuola di San 
 Rocco* at Venice, in which the architect, imitating the mediaeval 
 bases, which he did not understand, has put an elephant, four 
 inches high, in the same position. 
 
 § xix. I have not in this chapter spoken at all of the profiles 
 which are given in Northern architecture to the projections of 
 the lower members of the base, b and c in Fig. II., nor of the 
 methods in which both these, and the rolls of the mouldings in 
 Plate X., are decorated, especially in Roman architecture, with 
 superadded chainwork or chasing of various patterns. Of the 
 first I have not spoken, because I shall have no occasion to allude 
 to them in the following essay ; nor of the second, because I con- 
 sider them barbarisms. Decorated rolls, and decorated ogee 
 profiles, such, for instance, as the base of the Arc de l'Etoile, at 
 Paris, are among the richest and farthest refinements of decorative 
 appliances ; and they ought always to be reserved for jambs, 
 cornices, and archivolts : if you begin with them in the base, you 
 have no power of refining your decoration as you ascend, and, 
 which is still worse, you put your most delicate work on the 
 jutting portions of the foundation, — the very portions which 
 are most exposed to abrasion. The best expression of a base 
 is that of stern endurance, — the look of being able to bear 
 roughing; or, if the whole building is so delicate that no one 
 can be expected to treat even its base with unkindnessf, then 
 at least the expression of quiet, prefatory simplicity. The angle 
 spur may receive such decoration as we have seen, because 
 
 * I have put in Appendix 24., "Benaissance Bases," my memorandum written 
 respecting this building on the spot. But the reader had better delay referring 
 to it, until we have completed our examination of ornaments in shafts and capitals. 
 
 f Appendix 25. : " Komanist Decoration of Bases." 
 
284 XXV. THE BASE. decoration. 
 
 it is one of the most important features in the whole building ; 
 and the eye is always so attracted to it that it cannot be 
 in rich architecture left altogether blank ; the eye is stayed 
 upon it by its position, but glides, and ought to glide, along 
 the basic rolls to take measurement of their length : and even 
 with all this added fitness, the ornament of the basic spur is 
 best, in the long run, when it is boldest and simplest. The base 
 above described, § xviii., as the most beautiful I ever saw, was 
 not for that reason the best I ever saw : beautiful in its place, in 
 a quiet corner of a Baptistery sheeted with jasper and alabaster, 
 it would have been utterly wrong, nay, even offensive, if used in 
 sterner work, or repeated along a whole colonnade. The base 
 No. 10 of Plate XII. is the richest with which I was ever perfectly 
 satisfied for general service; and the basic spurs of the building 
 which I have named as the best Gothic monument in the world, 
 (p. 137.), have no ornament upon them whatever. The adap- 
 tation, therefore, of rich cornice and roll mouldings to the level 
 and ordinary lines of bases, whether of walls or shafts, I hold 
 to be one of the worst barbarisms which the Roman and Re- 
 naissance architects ever committed ; and that nothing can 
 afterwards redeem the effeminacy and vulgarity of the buildings 
 in which it prominently takes place. 
 
 § XX. 1 have also passed over, without present notice, the 
 fantastic bases formed by couchant animals, which sustain many 
 Lombardic shafts. The pillars they support have independent 
 bases of the ordinary kind ; and the animal form beneath is less 
 to be considered as a true base (though often exquisitely combined 
 with it, as in the shaft on the south-west angle of the cathedral 
 of Genoa) than as a piece of sculpture, otherwise necessary to the 
 nobility of the building, and deriving its value from its special 
 positive fulfilment of expressional purposes, with which we have 
 here no concern. As the embodiment of a wild superstition, and 
 the representation of supernatural powers, their appeal to the 
 imagination sets at utter defiance all judgment based on ordinary 
 canons of law ; and the magnificence of their treatment atones, in 
 nearly every case, for the extravagance of their conception. I 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXV. THE BASE. 285 
 
 should not admit this appeal to the imagination, if it had heen 
 made by a nation in whom the powers of body and mind had 
 been languid ; but by the Lombard, strong in all the realities of 
 human life, we need not fear being led astray : the visions of a 
 distempered fancy are not indeed permitted to replace the truth, 
 or set aside the laws of science : but the imagination which is 
 thoroughly under the command of the intelligent will *, has a 
 dominion indiscernible by science, and illimitable bylaw; and we 
 may acknowledge the authority of the Loinbardic gryphons in 
 the mere splendour of their presence, without thinking idolatry an 
 excuse for mechanical misconstruction, or dreading to be called 
 upon, in other cases, to admire a systemless architecture, because 
 it may happen to have sprung from an irrational religion. 
 
 * In all the wildness of the Loinbardic fancy (described in Appendix 8.), 
 this command of the will over its action is as distinct as it is stern. The fancy 
 is, in the early work of the nation, visibly diseased; but never the will, nor the 
 reason. 
 
286 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT. 
 
 § I. No subject has been more open ground of dispute among 
 architects than the decoration of the wall veil, because no deco- 
 ration appeared naturally to grow out of its construction ; nor 
 could any curvatures be given to its surface large enough to 
 produce much impression on the eye. It has become, therefore, 
 a kind of general field for experiments of various effects of surface 
 ornament, or has been altogether abandoned to the mosaicist and 
 fresco painter. But we may perhaps conclude, from what "was 
 advanced in the Fifth Chapter, that there is one kind of decoration 
 Avhich will, indeed, naturally follow on its construction. For it 
 is perfectly natural that the different kinds of stone used in its 
 successive courses should be of different colours ; and there are 
 many associations and analogies which metaphysically justify the 
 introduction of horizontal bands of colour, or of light and shade. 
 They are, in the first place, a kind of expression of the growth 
 or age of the wall, like the rings in the wood of a tree ; then 
 they are a farther symbol of the alternation of light and darkness, 
 which was above noted as the source of the charm of many 
 inferior mouldings : again, they are valuable as an expression of 
 horizontal space to the imagination, space of which the conception is 
 opposed, and gives more effect by its opposition, to the enclosing 
 power of the wall itself, (this I spoke of as probably the great 
 charm of these horizontal bars to the Arabian mind) : and again 
 they arc valuable in their suggestion of the natural courses of 
 rocks, and beds of the earth itself. And to all these powerful 
 imaginative reasons we have to add the merely ocular charm of 
 interlineal opposition of colour ; a charm so great, that all the best 
 colourists, without a single exception, depend upon it for the 
 most piquant of their pictorial effects, some vigorous mass of 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT. 287 
 
 alternate stripes or bars of colour being made central in all their 
 richest arrangements. The whole system of Tintoret's great 
 picture of the Miracle of St. Mark is poised on the bars of blue, 
 which cross the white turban of the executioner. 
 
 § II. There are, therefore, no ornaments more deeply sug- 
 gestive in their simplicity than these alternate bars of horizontal 
 colours ; nor do I know any buildings more noble than those of 
 the Pisan Eomanesque, in which they are habitually employed ; 
 and certainly none so graceful, so attractive, so enduringly de- 
 lightful in their nobleness. Yet, of this pure and graceful orna- 
 mentation, Professor Willis says, " a practice more destructive of 
 architectural grandeur can hardly be conceived : " and modern 
 architects have substituted for it the ingenious ornament of which 
 the reader has had one specimen above, Fig. III., p. 60, and with 
 which half the large buildings in London are disfigured, or else 
 traversed by mere straight lines, as, for instance, the back of the 
 Bank. The lines on the Bank may, perhaps, be considered typical 
 of accounts ; but in general the walls, if left destitute of them, 
 would have been as much fairer than the walls charged with 
 them, as a sheet of white paper is than the leaf of a ledger. But 
 that the reader may have free liberty of judgment in this matter, 
 I place two examples of the old and the Renaissance ornament 
 side by side on the opposite page. That on the right is Roman- 
 esque, from St. Pietro of Pistoja ; that on the left, modern 
 English, from the Arthur Club-house, St. James's Street. 
 
 § ill. But why, it will be asked, should the lines which mark 
 the division of the stones be wrong when they are chiselled, and 
 right when they are marked by colour ? First, because the colour 
 separation is a natural one. You build with different kinds of 
 stone, of which, probably, one is more costly than another ; which 
 latter, as you cannot construct your building of it entirely, you 
 arrange in conspicuous bars. But the chiselling of the stones is a 
 wilful throwing away of time and labour in defacing the building : 
 it costs much to hew one of those monstrous blocks into shape ; 
 and, when it is done, the building is weaker than it was before, by 
 just as much stone as has been cut away from its joints. And, 
 
288 XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 secondly, because, as I have repeatedly urged, straight lines are 
 ugly things as lines, but admirable as limits of coloured spaces ; 
 and the joints of the stones, which are painful in proportion to 
 their regularity, if drawn as lines, are perfectly agreeable when 
 marked by variations of hue. 
 
 § IV. What is true of the divisions of stones by chiselling, is 
 equally true of divisions of bricks by pointing. Nor, of course, is 
 the mere horizontal bar the only arrangement in which the colours 
 of brickwork or masonry can be gracefully disposed. It is rather 
 one which can only be employed with advantage when the courses 
 of stone are deep and bold. When the masonry is small, it is better 
 to throw its colours into chequered patterns. We shall have 
 several interesting examples to study in Venice besides the well- 
 known one of the Ducal Palace. The town of Moulins, in France, 
 is one of the most remarkable on this side the Alps for its 
 chequered patterns in bricks. The church of Christchurch, 
 Streatham, lately built, though spoiled by many grievous errors, 
 (the ironwork in the campanile being the grossest), yet affords 
 the inhabitants of the district a means of obtaining some idea 
 of the variety of effects which are possible with no other material 
 than brick. 
 
 § v. We have yet to notice another effort of the Renaissance 
 architects to adorn the blank spaces of their walls by what is 
 called Rustication. There is sometimes an obscure trace of the 
 remains of the imitation of something organic in this kind of 
 work. In some of the better French eighteenth century buildings 
 it has a distinctly floral character, like a final degradation of 
 Flamboyant leafage ; and some of our modern English architects 
 appear to have taken the decayed teeth of elephants for their 
 type; but, for the most part, it resembles nothing so much as 
 worm casts ; nor these with any precision. If it did, it would not 
 bring it within the sphere of our properly imitative ornament- 
 ation. I thought it unnecessary to warn the reader that he was not 
 to copy forms of refuse or corruption ; and that, while he might 
 legitimately take the worm or the reptile for a subject of imitation, 
 he was not to study the worm cast or coprolite. 
 
decoration. XXVI. THE WALL' VEIL AND SHAFT. 289 
 
 § VI. It is, however, I believe, sometimes supposed that rus- 
 tication gives an appearance of solidity to foundation stones. Not 
 so ; at least to any one who knows the look of a hard stone. You 
 may, by rustication, make your good marble or granite look like 
 wet slime, honeycombed by sand-eels, or like half-baked tufo 
 covered with slow exudation of stalactite, or like rotten claystone 
 coated with concretions of its own mud ; but not like the stones 
 of which the hard world is built. Do not think that Nature 
 rusticates her foundations. Smooth sheets of rock, glistening like 
 sea waves, and that ring under the hammer like a brazen bell, — 
 that is her preparation for first stories. She does rusticate some- 
 times : crumbly sandstones, with their ripple-marks filled with 
 red mud ; dusty limestones, which the rains wash into laby- 
 rinthine cavities; spongy lavas, which the volcano blast drags 
 hither and thither into ropy coils and bubbling hollows ; — these 
 she rusticates, indeed, when she wants to make oyster-shells and 
 magnesia of them ; but not when she needs to lay foundations 
 with them. Then she seeks the polished surface and iron heart, 
 not rough looks and incoherent substance. 
 
 § VII. Of the richer modes of wall decoration it is impossible 
 to institute any general comparison ; they are quite infinite, from 
 mere inlaid geometrical figures up to incrustations of elaborate 
 bas-relief. The architect has perhaps more licence in them, and 
 more power of producing good effect with rude design than in 
 any other features of the building ; the chequer and hatchet 
 work of the Normans and the rude bas-reliefs of the Lombards 
 being almost as satisfactory as the delicate panelling and mosaic 
 of the Duomo of Florence. But this is to be noted of all good 
 wall ornament, that it retains the expression of firm and massive 
 substance, and of broad surface, and that architecture instantly 
 declined when linear design was substituted for massive, and the 
 sense of weight of wall was lost in a wilderness of upright or 
 undulating rods. Of the richest and most delicate wall veil 
 decoration by inlaid work, as practised in Italy from the twelfth 
 to the fifteenth century, I have given the reader two character- 
 istic examples in Plates XX. and XXI. 
 
 IT 
 
290 XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT. decoration. 
 
 § VIII. There are, however, three spaces in which the wall veil, 
 peculiarly limited in shape, was always felt to be fitted for sur- 
 face decoration of the most elaborate kind ; and in these spaces 
 are found the most majestic instances of its treatment, even 
 Fi j XI to late periods. One of these 
 
 is the spandril space, or the 
 filling between any two arches, 
 commonly of the shape a, 
 Fig. LXI. ; the half of which, 
 or the flank filling of any 
 arch, is called a spandril. In Chapter XVII., on Filling of 
 Apertures, the reader will find another of these spaces noted, 
 called the tympanum, and commonly of the form b, Fig. LXI.: 
 and finally, in Chapter XVIII. , he will find the third space 
 described, that between an arch and its protecting gable, ap- 
 proximating generally to the form c, Fig. LXI. 
 
 § IX. The methods of treating these spaces might alone furnish 
 subject for three very interesting essays ; but I shall only note 
 the most essential points respecting them. 
 
 (1.) The Spandril. It was observed in Chapter XII., that this 
 portion of the arch load might frequently be lightened with great 
 advantage by piercing it with a circle, or with a group of circles ; 
 and the roof of the Euston Square railroad station was adduced 
 as an example. One of the spandril decorations of Bayeux 
 Cathedral is given in the " Seven Lamps," Plate VII. fig. 4. 
 It is little more than one of these Euston Square spandrils, with 
 its circles foliated. 
 
 Sometimes the circle is entirely pierced ; at other times it is 
 merely suggested by a mosaic or light tracery on the wall 
 surface, as in the plate opposite, which is one of the spandrils of 
 the Ducal Palace at Venice. It was evidently intended that all 
 the spandrils of this building should be decorated in this manner, 
 but only two of them seem to have been completed.* 
 
 § X. The other modes of spandril filling may be broadly reduced 
 to four heads. 1. Free figure sculpture, as in the Chapter-house 
 
 * Vide end of Appendix 20. 
 

decoration. XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT. 291 
 
 of Salisbury, and very superbly along the west front of Bourges, 
 the best Gothic spandrils I know. 2. Radiated foliage, more or 
 less referred to the centre, or to the bottom of the spandril for its 
 origin; single figures with expanded wings often answering the 
 same purpose. 3. Trefoils; and 4., ordinary wall decoration 
 continued into the spandril space, as in Plate XIII., above, from 
 St. Pietro at Pistoja, and in Westminster Abbey. The Renaissance 
 architects introduced spandril fillings composed of colossal human 
 figures reclining on the sides of the arch, in precarious lassitude ; 
 but these cannot come under the head of wall veil decoration. 
 
 § XI. (2.) The Tympanum. It was noted that, in Gothic ar- 
 chitecture, this is for the most part a detached slab of stone, 
 having no constructional relation to the rest of the building. 
 The plan of its sculpture is therefore quite arbitrary ; and, as it 
 is generally in a conspicuous position, near the eye, and above 
 the entrance, it is almost always charged with a series of rich 
 figure sculptures, solemn in feeling and consecutive in subject. 
 It occupies in Christian sacred edifices very nearly the position 
 of the pediment in Greek sculpture. This latter is itself a kind 
 of tympanum, and charged with sculpture in the same manner. 
 
 § XII. (3.) The Gable. The same principles apply to it which 
 have been noted respecting the spandril, with one more of some 
 importance. The chief difficulty in treating a gable lies in the 
 excessive sharpness of its upper point. It may, indeed, on its 
 outside apex, receive a finial ; but the meeting of the inside lines 
 of its terminal mouldings is necessai'ily both harsh and con- 
 spicuous, unless artificially concealed. The most beautiful victory 
 I have ever seen obtained over this difficulty was by placing a 
 sharp shield, its point, as usual, downwards, at the apex of the 
 gable, which exactly reversed the offensive lines, yet without 
 actually breaking them ; the gable being completed behind the 
 shield. The same thing is done in the Northern and Southern 
 Gothic : in the porches of Abbeville and the tombs of Verona. 
 
 § Xill. I believe there is little else to be noted of general laws of 
 ornament respecting the wall veil. AVe have next to consider 
 its concentration in the shaft. 
 
 v 2 
 
292 XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT, 
 
 DECOB M l&S. 
 
 Now the principal beauty of a shaft is its perfect proportion to 
 its work, — its exact expression of necessary strength. If this 
 has been truly attained, it will hardly need, in some cases hardly 
 bear, more decoration than is given to it by its own rounding and 
 taper curvatures ; for, if we cut ornaments in intaglio on its 
 surface, we weaken it ; if we leave them in relief, we overcharge 
 it, and the sweep of the line from its base to its summit, though 
 deduced in Chap. VIII., from necessities of construction, is already 
 one of gradated curvature, and of high decorative value. 
 
 § xiy. It is, however, carefully to be noted, that decorations 
 are admissible on colossal and on diminutive shafts, which are 
 wrong upon those of middle size. For, when the shaft is enor- 
 mous, incisions or sculpture on its sides (unless colossal also), do 
 not materially interfere with the sweep of its curve, nor diminish 
 the efficiency of its sustaining mass. And if it be diminutive, its 
 sustaining function is comparatively of so small importance, the 
 injurious results of failure so much less, and the relative strength 
 and cohesion of its mass so much greater, that it may be suf- 
 fered in extravagancies of ornament or outline which would be 
 unendurable in a shaft of middle size, and impossible in one of 
 colossal. Thus, the shafts drawn in Plate XIII., of the "Seven 
 Lamps," though given as examples of extravagance, are yet 
 pleasing in the general effect of the arcade they support : being 
 each some six or seven feet high. But they would have been 
 monstrous, as well as unsafe, if they had been sixty or seventy. 
 
 § XV. Therefore, to determine the general rule for shaft deco- 
 ration, we must ascertain the proportions representative of the 
 mean bulk of shafts: they might easily be calculated from a suf- 
 ficient number of examples, but it may perhaps be assumed, for 
 our present general purpose, that the mean standard would be of 
 some twenty feet in height, by eight or nine in circumference: 
 then this will be the size on which decoration is most difficult 
 and dangerous: and shafts become more and more fit subjects 
 for decoration, as they rise farther above or fall farther beneath 
 it, until very small and very vast shafts will both be found to 
 look blank unless they receive some chasing or imagery : blank. 
 
decoration. XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT. 293 
 
 whether they support a chair or table on the one side, or sustain 
 a village on the ridge of an Egyptian architrave on the other. 
 
 § XVI. Of the various ornamentation of colossal shafts, there are 
 no examples so noble as the Egyptian ; these the reader can study 
 in Mr. Robert's work on Egypt nearly as well, I imagine, as if he 
 were beneath their shadow, one of their chief merits, as examples 
 of method, being the perfect decision and visibility of their designs 
 at the necessary distance : contrast with these the incrustations 
 of bas-relief on the Trajan pillar, much interfering with the 
 smooth lines of the shaft, and yet themselves untraceable, if not 
 invisible. 
 
 xvn. On shafts of middle size, the only ornament which has 
 ever been accepted as right, is the Doric fluting, which, indeed, 
 gave the effect of a succession of unequal lines of shade, but lost 
 much of the repose of the cylindrical gradation. The Corinthian 
 fluting, which is a mean multiplication and deepening of the 
 Doric, with a square instead of a sharp ridge between each 
 hollow, destroyed the serenity of the shaft altogether, and is 
 always rigid and meagre. Both are, in fact, wrong in principle ; 
 they are an elaborate Aveakening* of the shaft, exactly opposed 
 (as above shown) to the ribbed form, which is the result of a 
 gi'oup of shafts bound together, and which is especially beautiful 
 when special service is given to each member. 
 
 § xvni. On shafts of inferior size, every species of decoration 
 may be wisely lavished, and in any quantity, so only that the 
 form of the shaft be clearly visible. This I hold to be absolutely 
 essential, and that barbarism begins wherever the sculpture is 
 either so bossy, or so deeply cut, as to break the contour of 
 the shaft, or compromise its solidity. Thus, in Plate XXL (Ap- 
 pendix 8.), the richly sculptured shaft of the lower story has lost 
 its dignity and definite function, and become a shapeless mass, 
 injurious to the symmetry of the building, though of some value 
 as adding to its imaginative and fantastic character. Had all the 
 shafts been like it, the facade would have been entirely spoiled ; 
 the inlaid pattern, on the contrary, which is used on the shortest 
 
 • Villi', however, their defence in the Essay above quoted, p. 27-3. 
 
 u 3 
 
294 XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AHD SHAFT, decoratioh. 
 
 shaft of the upper story, adds to its preciousness without inter- 
 fering with its purpose, and is every way delightful, as are all 
 the inlaid shaft ornaments of this noble church, (another example 
 of them is given in Plate XII. of the "Seven Lamps"). The 
 same ride would condemn the Caryatid ; which 1 entirely agree 
 with Mr. Fergusson in thinking (both for this and other reasons) 
 one of the chief errors of the Greek schools ; and, more decisively 
 still, the Renaissance inventions of shaft ornament, almost too 
 absurd and too monstrous to be seriously noticed, which consist 
 in leaving square blocks between the cylinder joints, as in the 
 portico of No. 1. Regent Street, and many other buddings in 
 London ; or in rusticating portions of the shafts, or wrapping 
 fleeces about them, as at the entrance of Burlington House, in 
 Piccadilly ; or tying drapery round them in knots, as in the new 
 buildings above noticed (Chap. XX. § vii.), at Paris. But, 
 within the limits thus defined, there is no feature capable of 
 richer decoration than the shaft ; the most beautiful examples 
 of all I have seen, are the slender pillars, encrusted with ara- 
 besques, which flank the portals of the Baptistery and Duomo at 
 Pisa, and some others of the Pisan and Lucchese churches ; but 
 the varieties of sculpture and inlaying, with which the small 
 Romanesque shafts, whether Italian or Northern, are adorned 
 when they occupy important positions, are quite endless, and 
 nearly all admirable. Mr. Digby Wyatt has given a beautiful 
 example of inlaid work so employed, from the cloisters of the 
 Lateran, in his work on early mosaic ; an example which unites 
 the surface decoration of the shaft with the adoption of the spiral 
 contour. This latter is often all the decoration which is needed, and 
 none can be more beautiful ; it has been spoken against, like many 
 other good and lovely things, because it has been too often used in 
 extravagant degrees, like the well-known twisting of the pillars in 
 Raffaelle's " Beautiful gate.'' But that extravagant condition was 
 a Renaissance barbarism : the old Romanesque builders kept their 
 spirals slight and pure ; often, as in the example from St. Zeno, 
 in Plate XVII. below, giving only half a turn from the base of 
 tli" shaft to its head, and nearly always observing what I hold 
 
DECOBATION. 
 
 XXVI. THE WALL VEIL AND SHAFT. 
 
 295 
 
 Fig. LXII. 
 
 to be an imperative law, that no twisted shaft shall be single, but 
 composed of at least two distinct members, twined with each 
 
 other. I suppose they followed their own 
 right feeling in doing this, and had never 
 studied natural shafts ; but the type they 
 might have followed was caught by one of 
 the few great painters who were not af- 
 fected by the evil influence of the fifteenth 
 century, Benozzo Gozzoli, who, in the 
 frescoes of the Ricardi Palace, among 
 stems of trees for the most part as ver- 
 tical as stone shafts, has suddenly intro- 
 duced one of the shape given in Fig. LXII. 
 Many forest trees present, in their acci- 
 dental contortions, types of most compli- 
 cated spiral shafts, the plan being originally of a grouped shaft 
 rising from several roots ; nor, indeed, will the reader ever find 
 models for every kind of shaft decoration, so graceful or so 
 gorgeous, as he will find in the great forest aisle, where the 
 strength of the earth itself seems to rise from the roots into 
 the vaulting ; but the shaft surface, barred as it expands with 
 rings of ebony and silver, is fretted with traceries of ivy, marbled 
 with purple moss, veined with grey lichen, and tesselated, by the 
 rays of the rolling heaven, with flitting fancies of blue shadow 
 and burning gold. 
 
 ti 4 
 
296 jii:coration. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 
 
 § I. There are no features to which the attention of architects 
 has been more laboriously directed, in all ages, than these 
 crowning members of the wall and shaft ; and it would be vain 
 to endeavour, within any moderate limits, to give the reader any 
 idea of the various kinds of admirable decoration which have 
 been invented for them. But, in proportion to the effort and 
 straining of the fancy, have been the extravagances into which 
 it has occasionally fallen ; and while it is utterly impossible 
 severally to enumerate the instances either of its success or its 
 error, it is very possible to note the limits of the one and the 
 causes of the other. This is all that we shall attempt in the 
 present chapter, tracing first for ourselves, as in previous in- 
 stances, the natural channels by which invention is here to be 
 directed or confined, and afterwards remarking the places where, 
 in real practice, it has broken bounds. 
 
 § n. The reader remembers, I hope, the main points respecting 
 the cornice and capital, established above in the Chapters on 
 Construction. Of these I must, however, recapitulate thus 
 much : — 
 
 1. That both the cornice and capital are, with reference to the 
 slope of their profile or bell, to be divided into two great orders ; 
 in one of which the ornament is convex, and in the other con- 
 cave. (Ch. VI., § V.) 
 
 2. That the capital, with reference to the method of twisting 
 the cornice round to construct it, and to unite the circular shaft 
 with the square abacus, falls into five general forms, represented 
 in Fig. XXII. p. 106. 
 
 3. That the most elaborate capitals were formed by true or 
 
X V 
 
 GnrnirF PrnFifFB 
 
decoration. XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 297 
 
 simple capitals with a common cornice added above their abacus. 
 (Ch. IX., § xxrv.) 
 
 We have then, in considering decoration, first to observe the 
 treatment of the two great orders of the cornice ; then their 
 gathering into the five of the capital ; then the addition of the 
 secondary cornice to the capital when formed. 
 
 § III. The two great orders or families of cornice were above 
 distinguished in Fig. V., p. 63. ; and it was mentioned in the 
 same place that a third family arose from their combination. 
 We must deal with the two great opposed groups first. 
 
 They were distinguished in Fig. V. by circular curves drawn 
 on opposite sides of the same line. But we now know that in 
 these smaller features the circle is usually the least interesting 
 curve that we can use ; and that it will be well, since the capital 
 and cornice are both active in their expi-ession, to use some of 
 the more abstract natural lines. We will go back, therefore, to 
 our old friend the salvia leaf ; and taking the same piece of it we 
 had before, x y, Plate VII., we will apply it to the cornice line; 
 first within it, giving the concave cornice, then without, giving 
 the convex cornice. In all the figures, «, b, c, d, Plate XV., the 
 dotted line is at the same slope, and represents an average 
 profile of the roof of cornices (a, Fig. V., p. 63.) ; the curve of 
 the salvia leaf is applied to it in each case, first with its roundest 
 curvature up, then with its roundest curvature down ; and we 
 have thus the two varieties, a and b, of the concave family, and 
 c and rf, of the convex family. 
 
 § IV. These four profiles will represent all the simple cornices 
 in the world ; represent them, I mean, as central types : for in 
 any of the profiles an infinite number of slopes may be given to 
 the dotted line of the root (which in these four figures is always 
 at the same angle) ; and on each of these innumerable slopes an 
 innumerable variety of curves may be fitted, from every leaf in 
 the forest, and every shell on the shore, and every movement of 
 the human fingers and fancy ; therefore, if the reader wishes to 
 obtain something like a numerical representation of the number 
 of possible and beautiful cornices which may be based upon 
 
298 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 these four types or roots, and among which the architect has 
 leave to choose according to the circumstances of his building 
 and the method of its composition, let him set down a figure 1 to 
 begin with, and write ciphers after it as fast as he can, without 
 stopping, for an hour. 
 
 § v. None of the types are, however, found in perfection of cur- 
 vature, except in the best work. Very often cornices are worked 
 with circular segments, (with a noble, massive effect, for instance, 
 in St. Michele of Lucca), or witli rude approximation to finer 
 curvature, especially a, Plate XV., which occurs often so small as 
 to render it useless to take much pains upon its curve. It occurs 
 perfectly pure in the condition represented by 1 of the series 
 1 — 6, in Plate XV., on many of the Byzantine and early Gothic 
 buildings of Venice ; in more developed form it becomes the pro- 
 file of the bell of the capital in the later Venetian Gothic, and in 
 much of the best Northern Gothic. It also represents the Co- 
 rinthian capita], in which the curvature is taken from the bell to 
 be added in some excess to the nodding leaves. It is the most 
 graceful of all simple profiles of cornice and capital. 
 
 § VI. b is a much rarer and less manageable type ; for this 
 evident reason, that while a is the natural condition of a line 
 rooted and strong beneath, but bent out by superincumbent 
 weight, or nodding over in freedom, b is yielding at the base and 
 rigid at the summit. It has, however, some exquisite uses, espe- 
 cially in combination, as the reader may see by glancing in ad- 
 vance at the inner line of the profile 14 in Plate XV. 
 
 § VII. c is the leading convex or Doric type, as a is the leading 
 concave or Corinthian. Its relation to the best Greek Doric is 
 exactly what the relation of a is to the Corinthian ; that is to 
 say, the curvature must be taken from the straighter limb of the 
 curve and added to the bolder bend, giving it a sudden turn in- 
 wards (as in the Corinthian a nod outwards), as the reader may 
 see in the capital of the Parthenon in the British Museum, where 
 the lower limb of the curve is all l>i/t a right line.* But these 
 
 * In very early Doric it was an absolute right line : and that capital is there- 
 fore derived from the pure cornice root, represented by the dotted line. 
 
DECORATION. XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 290 
 
 Doric and Corinthian lines are mere varieties of the great families 
 which are represented by the central lines a and c, including not 
 only the Doric capital, but all the small cornices formed by a 
 slight increase of the curve of c, which are of so frequent occur- 
 rence in Greek ornaments. 
 
 § vhi. d is the Christian Doric, which T said (Chap. I. § XX.) 
 was invented to replace the antique ; it is the representative of 
 the great Byzantine and Norman families of convex cornice and 
 capital, and, next to the profile a, the most important of the 
 four, being the best profile for the convex capital, as a is for the 
 concave ; a being the best expression of an elastic line inserted 
 vertically in the shaft, and d of an elastic line inserted horizon- 
 tally and rising to meet vertical pressure. 
 
 If the reader will glance at the arrangements of boughs of trees, 
 he will find them commonly dividing into these two families, a 
 and d : they rise out of the trunk and nod from it as a, or they 
 spring with sudden curvature out from it, and rise into sympathy 
 with it, as at d ; but they only accidentally display tendencies to 
 the lines b or c. Boughs which fall as they spring from the tree 
 also desci'ibe the curve d in the plurality of instances, but re- 
 versed in arrangement ; their junction with the stem being at the 
 top of it, their sprays bending out into rounder curvature. 
 
 § IX. These then being the two primal groups, we have next to 
 note the combined group, formed by the concave and convex lines 
 joined in various proportions of curvature, so as to form together 
 the reversed or ogee curve, represented in one of its most beau- 
 tiful states by the glacier line a, on Plate VII. I would rather 
 have taken this line than any other to have formed my third 
 group of cornices by, but as it is too large, and almost too 
 delicate, we will take instead that of the Matterhorn side, ef, 
 Plate VII. For uniformity's sake I keep the slope of the dotted 
 line the same as in the primal forms ; and applying this Matter- 
 horn curve in its four relative positions to that line, I have the 
 types of the four cornices or capitals of the third family, e, f, g, h, 
 on Plate XV. 
 
 These are, however, general types only thus far, that their line 
 
300 XXVII. THE CORNICE AXU CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 is composed of one short and one long curve, and that they repre- 
 sent the four conditions of treatment of every such line ; namely, 
 the longest curve concave in e and /, and convex in g and h ; and 
 the point of contrary flexure set high in e andg, and low in / and h. 
 The relative depth of the arcs, or nature of their curvature, can- 
 not be taken into consideration without a complexity of system 
 which my space does not admit. 
 
 Of the four types thus constituted, e and /are of great import- 
 ance; the other two are rarely used, having an appearance of 
 weakness in consequence of the shortest curve being concave : the 
 profiles e and /, when used for cornices, have usually a fuller 
 sweep and somewhat greater equality between the branches of 
 the curve ; but those here given are better representatives of the 
 structure applicable to capitals and cornices indifferently. 
 
 § X. Very often, in the farther treatment of the profiles e or/, 
 another limb is added to their curve in order to join it to the 
 upper or lower members of the cornice or capital. I do not 
 consider this addition as forming another family of cornices, 
 because the leading and effective part of the curve is in these, 
 as in the others, the single ogee ; and the added bend is merely a 
 less abrupt termination of it above or below : still this group is of 
 so °reat importance in the richer kinds of ornamentation that we 
 must have it sufficiently represented. We shall obtain a type 
 of it by merely continuing the line of the Matterhorn side, of 
 which before we took only a fragment. The entire line e to g on 
 Plate VII. is evidently composed of three curves of unequal 
 lengths, which if we call the shortest 1, the intermediate one 2, 
 and the longest 3, are there arranged in the order 1, 3, 2, counting 
 upwards. But evidently we might also have had the arrange- 
 ments 1 2, 3, and 2, 1, 3, giving us three distinct lines, altogether 
 independent of position, which being applied to one general dotted 
 slope will each give four cornices, or twelve altogether. Of these 
 the six most important are those which have the shortest curve 
 convex : they are given in light relief from k to p, Plate XV., 
 and, by turning the page upside down, the other six will be seen 
 in dark relief, only the little upright bits of shadow at the bottom 
 
i. ..oration. XXVIT. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 301 
 
 are not to be considered as parts of them, being only admitted 
 in order to give the complete profile of the more important 
 cornices in light. 
 
 § XI. In these types, as in e and /, the only general condition 
 is, that their line shall be composed of three curves of different 
 lengths and different arrangements (the depth of arcs and 
 radius of curvatures being unconsidered). They are arranged in 
 three couples, each couple being two positions of the same entire 
 line ; so that numbering the component curves in order of 
 magnitude and counting upwards, they will read — 
 
 k 1, 2, 3, 
 
 I 3, 2, 1, 
 m 1, 3, 2, 
 
 n 2, 3, 1, 
 
 o 2, I, 3, 
 p 3, 1, 2. 
 
 to and n, which are the Matterhorn line, are the most beautiful 
 and important of all the twelve; k and / the next; o and p 
 are used only for certain conditions of flower carving on the 
 surface. The reverses (dark) of k and I are also of considerable 
 service ; the other four hardly ever used in good work. 
 
 § xir. If we were to add a fourth curve to the component series, 
 we should have forty-eight more cornices : but there is no use in 
 pursuing the system further, as such arrangements ai'e very rare 
 and easily resolved into the simpler types with certain arbitrary 
 additions fitted to their special place ; and, in most cases, 
 distinctly sepai'ate from the main curve, as in the inner line of 
 No. 14, which is a form of the type e, the longest curve, i. e. the 
 lowest, having deepest curvature, and each limb opposed by a 
 short contrary curve at its extremities, the convex limb by a 
 concave, the concave by a convex. 
 
 s; xni. Such, then, are the great families of profile lines into 
 which all cornices and capitals may be divided; but their best 
 examples unite two such profiles in a mode which we cannot 
 understand till we consider the further ornament with which the 
 
302 XXVir. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 profiles are charged. And in doing this we must, for the sake of. 
 clearness, consider, first the nature of the designs themselves, and 
 next the mode of cutting them. 
 
 § XIV. In Plate XVI., opposite, I have thrown together a few 
 of the most characteristic mediaeval examples of the treatment 
 of the simplest cornice profiles : the uppermest, a, is the pure root 
 of cornices from St. Mark's. The second, d, is the Christian Doric 
 cornice, here lettered d in order to avoid confusion, its profile 
 being d of Plate XV. in bold development, and here seen on 
 the left-hand side, truly drawn, though filled up with the 
 ornament to show the mode in which the angle is turned. This 
 is also from St. Mark's. The third, b, is b of Plate XV., the 
 pattern being inlaid in black because its office was in the interior 
 of St. Mark's, where it was too dark to see sculptured ornament 
 at the required distance. (The other two simple profiles, a and c 
 of Plate XV., would be decorated in the same manner, but 
 require no example here, for the profile a is of so frequent 
 occurrence that it will have a page to itself alone in the next 
 volume ; and c may be seen over nearly every shop in London, 
 being that of the common Greek egg cornice.) The fourth, e in 
 Plate XVI., is a transitional cornice, passing from Byzantine into 
 Venetian Gothic : / is a fully developed A'enetian Gothic cornice 
 founded on Byzantine traditions ; and g the perfect Lombardic- 
 Gothic cornice, founded on the Pisan Romanesque traditions, and 
 strongly marked with the noblest Northern element, the Lombardic 
 vitality restrained by classical models. I consider it a perfect 
 cornice, and of the highest order. 
 
 § XV. Now in the design of this series of ornaments there are 
 two main points to be noted ; the first, that they all, except b, 
 are distinctly rooted in the lower part of the cornice, and spring 
 to the top. This arrangement is constant in all the best cornices 
 and capitals ; and it is essential to the exj>ression of the sup- 
 porting power of both. It is exactly opposed to the system 
 of running cornices and banded* capitals, in which the ornament 
 
 ' The word banded is used by Professor Willis in a different sense; which I 
 would respect, by applying it in his sense- always to the Impost, and in mine to 
 
XVI 
 
 
 Camiff Dworaftan. 
 
decoration. XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 303 
 
 flows along them horizontally, or is twined round them, as the 
 mouldings are in the early English capital, and the foliage in 
 many decorated ones. Such cornices have arisen from a mistaken 
 appliance of the running ornaments, which are proper to archi- 
 volts, jambs, &c, to the features which have definite functions 
 of support. A tendril may nobly follow the outline of an arch, 
 but must not creep along a cornice, nor swathe or bandage a 
 capital ; it is essential to the expression of these features that 
 their ornament should have an elastic and upward spring ; and as 
 the proper profile for the curve is that of a tree bough, as we saw 
 above, so the proper arrangement of its farther ornament is that 
 which best expresses rooted and ascendant strength like that of 
 foliage. 
 
 There are certain very interesting exceptions to the rule (we 
 shall see a curious one presently) ; and in the carrying out of the 
 rule itself, we may see constant licences taken by the o-reat 
 designers, and momentary violations of it, like those above spoken 
 of, respecting other ornamental laws — violations which are for 
 our refreshment, and for increase of delight in the general observ- 
 ance ; and this is one of the peculiar beauties of the cornice g, which, 
 rooting itself in strong central clusters, suffers some of its leaves 
 to fall languidly aside, as the drooping outer leaves of a natural 
 cluster do so often ; but at the very instant that it does this, in 
 order that it may not lose any of its expression of strength, a fruit- 
 stalk is thrown up above the languid leaves, absolutely vertical 
 as much stiffer and stronger than the rest of the plant as the 
 falling leaves are weaker. Cover this with your fino-er and the 
 cornice falls to jneces, like a bouquet which has been untied. 
 
 § XVl. There are some instances in which, though the real 
 arrangement is that of a running stem, throwing off leaves up 
 and down, the positions of the leaves give nearly as much 
 elasticity and organisation to the cornice, as if they had been 
 rightly rooted ; and others, like b, where the reversed portion of 
 the ornament is lost in the shade, and the general expression of 
 
 the capital itself. (This note is not for the general reader, who need not trouble 
 himself about the matter.) 
 
304 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. i>i:. oration. 
 
 strength is got by the lower member. This cornice will, never- 
 theless, be felt at once to be inferior to the rest ; and though we 
 may often be called upon to admire designs of these kinds, which 
 would have been exquisite if not thus misplaced, the reader will 
 find that they are both of rare occurrence, and significative of 
 declining style ; while the greater mass of the banded capitals are 
 heavy and valueless, mere aggregations of confused sculpture, 
 swathed round the extremity of the shaft, as if one had dipped it 
 into a mass of melted ornament, as the glass-blower does his 
 blow-pipe into the metal, and brought up a quantity adhering 
 glutinously to its extremity. "We have many capitals of this 
 kind in England: some of the worst and heaviest in the choir of 
 York. The later capitals of the Italian Gothic have the same 
 kind of effect, but owing to another cause ; for their structure is 
 quite pure, and based on the Corinthian type : and it is the 
 branching form of the heads of the leaves which destroys the 
 effect of their organisation. On the other hand, some of the 
 Italian cornices which are actually composed by running ten- 
 drils, throwing off leaves into oval interstices, are so massive 
 in their treatment, and so marked and firm in their vertical and 
 arched lines, that they are nearly as suggestive of support as if 
 they had been arranged on the rooted system. A cornice of this 
 kind is used in St. Michele of Lucca (Plate VI. in the " Seven 
 Lamps," and XXI. here), and witli exquisite propriety, for that 
 cornice is at once a crown to the story beneath it and a 
 foundation to that which is above it, and therefore unites the 
 strength and elasticity of the lines proper to the cornice with the 
 submission and prostration of those proper to the foundation. 
 
 § xvii. This, then, is the first point needing general notice in 
 the designs in Plate XVI. The second is the difference between 
 the freedom of the Northern and the sophistication of the classical 
 cornices, in connection with what has been advanced in Appen- 
 dix 8. The cornices, a, d, and A, are of the same date, but they 
 show a singular difference in the workman's temper: that at b 
 is a simple copy of a classical mosaic ; and many carved cornices 
 occur, associated with it, which are. in like manner, mere copies 
 
decoration. XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 305 
 
 of the Greek and Roman ogg and arrow mouldings. But the 
 cornices a and d are copies of nothing of the kind ; the idea of 
 them lias indeed been taken from the Greek honeysuckle orna- 
 ment, but the chiselling of them is in no wise either Greek, or 
 Byzantine, in temper. The Byzantines were languid copyists : 
 this work is as energetic as it is original; energetic, not in the 
 quantity of work, but the spirit of it : an indolent man, forced 
 into toil, may cover large spaces with evidence of his feeble action, 
 or accumulate his dulness into rich aggregation of trouble, but 
 it is gathered weariness still. The man who cut those two 
 uppermost cornices had no time to spare; did as much cornice 
 as he could in half an hour ; but would not endure the slightest 
 trace of error in a curve, or of bluntness in an edp-e. His work 
 is absolutely unreproveable ; keen, and true, as Nature's own ; his 
 entire force is in it, and fixed on seeing that every line of it shall 
 be sharp and right : the faithful energy is in him : we shall see 
 something come of that cornice : The fellow who inlaid the other 
 (b), will stay where he is for ever; and when he has "inlaid one 
 leaf up, will inlay another down, — and so undulate up and down 
 to all eternit}- : but the man of a and d will cut his way forward, 
 or there is no truth in handicrafts, nor stubbornness in stone. 
 
 § XVIII. But there is something else noticeable in those two 
 cornices, besides the energy of them : as opposed either to b, or 
 the Greek honeysuckle or egg patterns, they are natural designs. 
 The Greek egg and arrow cornice is a nonsense cornice, very noble 
 in its lines, but utterly absurd in meaning. Arrows have had 
 nothing to do with eggs (at least since Leda's time), neither are 
 the so-called arrows like arrows, nor the eggs like eggs, nor the 
 honeysuckles like honeysuckles; they are all conventionalised into 
 a monotonous successiveness of nothing, — pleasant to the eye, 
 useless to the thought. But those Christian cornices are, as 
 far as may be, suggestive ; there is not the tenth of the work in 
 them that there is in the Greek arrows, but, as far as that work 
 will go, it has consistent intention ; with the fewest possible 
 incisions, and those of the easiest shape, they suggest the true 
 image, of clusters of leaves, each leaf with its central depression 
 
 x 
 
30G XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. decobation. 
 
 from root to point, and that distinctly visible at almost any dis- 
 tance from the eye, and in almost any light. 
 
 § XIX. Here, then, are two great new elements visible ; energy 
 and naturalism: — Life, with submission to the laws of God, and 
 love of His woi-ks ; this is Christianity, dealing with her classical 
 models. Now look back to what I said in Chap. I. § XX. of this 
 dealing of hers, and invention of the new Doric line; then to 
 what is above stated (§ vill.) respecting that new Doric, and the 
 boughs of trees ; and now to the evidence in the cutting of the 
 leaves on the same Doric section, and see how the whole is 
 beginning to come together. 
 
 § XX. We said that something would come of these two cornices, 
 a and d. In c and / we see that something has come of them : 
 e is also from St. Mark's, and one of the earliest examples in Venice 
 of the transition from the Byzantine to the Gothic cornice. It is 
 already singularly developed ; flowers have been added between 
 the clusters of leaves, and the leaves themselves curled over : 
 and observe the well-directed thought of the sculptor in this 
 curling ; — the old incisions are retained below, and their excessive 
 rigidity is one of the pi'oofs of the earliness of the cornice ; but 
 those incisions now stand for the under surface of the leaf; and 
 behold, when it turns over, on the top of it you see true ribs. Look 
 at the upper and under surface of a cabbage-leaf, and see what 
 quick steps we are making. 
 
 § xxi. The fifth example (/) was cut in 1347; it is from the 
 tomb of Marco Giustiniani, in the church of St. John and Paul, 
 and it exhibits the character of the central Venetian Gothic fully 
 developed. The lines are all now soft and undulatory, though 
 elastic ; the sharp incisions have become deeply-gathered folds ; 
 the hollow of the leaf is expressed completely beneath, and its 
 edges are touched with light, and incised into several lobes, and 
 their ribs delicately drawn above. (The flower between is only 
 accidentally absent; it occurs in most cornices of the time.) 
 
 But in both these cornices the reader will notice that while 
 the naturalism of the sculpture is steadily on the increase, the 
 classical formalism is still retained. The leaves are accurately 
 
decoration-. XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 307 
 
 numbered, and sternly set in their places ; they are leaves in 
 office, and dare not stir nor wave. They have the shapes of 
 leaves, but not the functions ; " having the form of knowledge, 
 but denying the power thereof." What is the meaning of this ? 
 
 § xxn. Look back to the xxxnird paragraph of the first chap- 
 ter, and you will see the meaning of it. Those cornices are 
 the Venetian Ecclesiastical Gothic ; the Christian element strug- 
 gling with the Formalism of the Papacy, — the Papacy being 
 entirely heathen in all its principles. That officialism of the 
 leaves and their ribs means Apostolic succession, and I don't 
 know how much more, and is already preparing for the transition 
 to old Heathenism again, and the Renaissance.* 
 
 § XX1H. Now look to the last cornice (g). That is Protest- 
 antism, — a slight touch of Dissent, hardly amounting to schism, 
 in those falling leaves, but true life in the whole of it. The 
 forms all broken through, and sent heaven knows where, but the 
 root held fast ; and the strong sap in the branches ; and, best of 
 all, good fruit ripening and opening straight towards heaven, and 
 in the face of it, even though some of the leaves lie in the dust. 
 
 Now, observe. The cornice / represents Heathenism and 
 Papistry, animated by the mingling of Christianity and nature. 
 The good in it, the life of it, the veracity and liberty of it, such 
 as it has, are Protestantism in its heart ; the rigidity and sap- 
 lessness are the Romanism of it. It is the mind of Fra Angelico 
 in the monk's dress, — Christianity before the Reformation. The 
 cornice g has the Lombardic life element in its fulness, with 
 only some colour and shape of Classicalism mingled with it — the 
 
 * The Renaissance period being one of return to formalism on the one side, 
 of utter licentiousness on the other, so that sometimes, as here, I have to declare 
 its lifelessness, at other times (Chap. XXV., § xvu.) its lasciviousness. There 
 is, of course, no contradiction in this : but the reader might well ask how I knew 
 the change from the base 11 to the base 12, in Plate XII., to be one from tempe- 
 rance to luxury; and that from the cornice/to the cornice g, in Plate XVI., to 
 be one from formalism to vitality. I know it, both by certain internal evidences, 
 on which I shall have to dwell at length hereafter, and by the context of the 
 works of the time. But the outward signs might in both ornaments be the same, 
 distinguishable only as signs of opposite tendencies by the event of both. The 
 blush of shame cannot always be told from the blush of indignation. 
 
 x 2 
 
308 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 good of Classicalism ; as much method and Formalism as are 
 consistent with life, and fitting for it: The continence within 
 certain border lines, the unity at the root, the simplicity of the 
 great profile, — all these are the healthy classical elements 
 retained : the rest is reformation, new strength, and recovered 
 liberty. 
 
 § xxrv. There is one more point about it especially noticeable. 
 The leaves are thoroughly natural in their general character, but 
 they are of no particular species ; and after being something like 
 cabbage-leaves in the beginning, one of them suddenly becomes 
 an ivy-leaf in the end. Now I don't know what to say of this. 
 I know it, indeed, to be a classical character; — it is eminently 
 characteristic of Southern work ; and markedly distinctive of it 
 from the Northern ornament, which would have been oak, or 
 ivy, or apple, but not anything, nor two things in one. It is, I 
 repeat, a clearly classical element ; but whether a good or bad 
 element, I am not sure ; — whether it is the last trace of Centaurism 
 and other monstrosity dying away ; or whether it has a figurative 
 purpose, legitimate in architecture (though never in painting), 
 and has been rightly retained by the Christian sculptor, to ex- 
 press the working of that spirit which grafts one nature upon 
 another, and discerns a law in its members warrino; against the 
 law of its mind. 
 
 § XXV. These, then, being the points most noticeable in the spirit 
 both of the designs and the chiselling, we have now to return 
 to the question proposed in § xm., and observe the modifications 
 of form of profile which resulted from the changing contours of 
 the leafage ; for up to § xni., we had, as usual, considered the 
 possible conditions of form in the abstract; — the modes in which 
 they have been derived from each other in actual practice require 
 to be followed in their turn. How the Greek Doric or Greek 
 ogee cornices were invented is not easy to determine, and, fortu- 
 nately, is little to our present purpose ; for the mediaeval ogee 
 cornices have an independent development of their own, from the 
 first type of the concave cornice, a in Plate XV. 
 
 § xxvi. That cornice occurs, in the simplest work, perfectly 
 
DECORATION'. 
 
 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 309 
 
 pure, but in finished work it was quickly felt that there was a 
 Fig Lxm. meagreness in its junction with the 
 
 wall beneath it, where it was set as 
 here at a, Fig. LXIIL, which could 
 only be conquered by concealing such 
 junction in a bar of shadow. There 
 were two ways of getting this bar ; 
 one by a projecting roll at the foot 
 of the cornice (b, Fig. LXIIL), the other by slipping the whole 
 cornice a little forward (c, Fig. LXIIL). From these two methods 
 arise two groups of cornices and capitals, which we shall pursue 
 in succession. 
 
 § xxvn. First group. With the roll at the base, (b, Fig. 
 LXIIL). The chain of its succession is represented from 1 to 
 6, in Plate XY. : 1 and 2 are the steps already gained, as in 
 Fig. LXIII; and in them the profile of cornice used is a of 
 Plate XV., or a refined condition of b of Fig. V., p. 63. above. 
 Now, keeping the same refined profile, substitute the condition of 
 it, / of Fig. V. (and there accounted for), above the roll here, and 
 you have 3, Plate XV. This superadded abacus was instantly 
 felt to be harsh in its projecting angle ; but you know what to do 
 with an angle when it is harsh. Use your simplest chamfer on it 
 (a or b, Fig. LIIL, page 256. above), but on the visible side only, 
 and you have fig. 4, Plate XV., (the top stone being made deeper 
 that you may have room to chamfer it). Now this fig. 4 is the 
 profile of Lombardic and Venetian early capitals and cornices, by 
 tens of thousands ; and it continues into the late Venetian Gothic, 
 with this only difference, that as time advances, the vertical line 
 at the top of the original cornice begins to slope outwards, and 
 through a series of years rises like the hazel wand in the hand of 
 a diviner: — but how slowly! a stone dial which marches but 45 
 degrees in three centuries, and through the intermediate condition 
 5 arrives at 6, and so stays. 
 
 In tracing this chain I have kept all the profiles of the same 
 height in order to make the comparison more easy; the depth 
 chosen is about intermediate between that which is customary 
 
 x 3 
 
310 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL, decoratio.n. 
 
 in cornices on the one hand, which are often a little shorter, and 
 capitals on the other, which are often a little deeper.* And it is 
 to be noted that the profiles 5 and 6 establish themselves in 
 capitals chiefly, while 4 is retained in cornices to the latest times. 
 § XXVni. Second group (c, Fig. LXIIL). If the lower angle, 
 which was quickly felt to be hard, be rounded off, we have the 
 
 Rg.LXIV. form a > Fi S- LXIV - The front of the 
 
 curved line is then decorated, as we have 
 seen ; and the termination of the decorated 
 surface marked by an incision, as in an 
 ordinary chamfer, as at b here. This I be- 
 lieve to have been the simple origin of most 
 of the Venetian ogee cornices ; but they 
 are farther complicated by the curves given to the leafage which 
 flows over them. In the ordinary Greek cornices, and in a and 
 d of Plate XVI., the decoration is incised from the outside profile, 
 without any suggestion of an interior surface of a different contour. 
 But in the leaf cornices which follow, the decoration is repre- 
 sented as overlaid on one of the early profiles, and has another 
 outside contour of its own ; which is, indeed, the true profile of 
 the cornice, but beneath which, more or less, the simpler profile is 
 seen or suggested, which terminates all the incisions of the chisel. 
 This under profile will often be found to be some condition of the 
 type a or b, Fig. LXIV. ; and the leaf profile to be another ogee 
 with its fullest curve up instead of down, lapping over the cornice 
 edge above, so that the entire profile may be considered as made 
 up of two ogee curves laid, like packed herrings, head to tail. 
 
 * The reader must always remember that a cornice, in becoming a capital, 
 must, if not originally bold and deep, have depth added to its profile, in order to 
 reach the just proportion of the lower member of the shaft head ; and that there- 
 fore the small Greek egg cornices are utterly incapable of becoming capitals till they 
 have totally changed their form and depth. The Renaissance architects, who never 
 obtained hold of a right principle but they made it worse than a wrong one by 
 misapplication, caught the idea of turning the cornice into a capital, but did not 
 comprehend the necessity of the accompanying change of depth. Hence we have 
 pilaster heads formed of small egg cornices, and that meanest of all mean heads of 
 shafts, the coarse Roman Doric profile, chopped into a small egg and arrow mould- 
 ing, both which may be seen disfiguring hall' the buildings in London. 
 
decoration. XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 311 
 
 Figures 8 and 9 of Plate XV. exemplify this arrangement. 
 Fig 7 is a heavier contour, doubtless composed in the same 
 manner, but of which I had not marked the innermost profile, 
 and which I have given here only to complete the series which, 
 from 7 to 12 inclusive, exemplifies the gradual restriction of the 
 leaf outline, from its boldest projection in the cornice to its most 
 modest service in the capital. This change, however, is not one 
 which indicates difference of age, but merely of office and position : 
 the cornice 7 is from the tomb of the Doge Andrea Dandolo 
 (1350) in St. Mark's, 8 from a canopy over a door of about the 
 same period, 9 from the tomb of the Dogaressa Agnese Venier 
 (1411), 10 from that of Pietro Cornaro (1361)*, and 11 from 
 that of Andrea Morosini (1347), all in the church of San Giov. 
 and Paolo, all these being cornice profiles ; and, finally, 12 from 
 a capital of the Ducal Palace, of fourteenth century work. 
 
 § XXIX. Now the reader will doubtless notice that in the three 
 examples, 10 to 12, the leaf has a different contour from that of 
 7, 8, or 9. This difference is peculiarly significant. I have 
 always desired that the reader should theoretically consider the 
 capital as a concentration of the cornice ; but in practice it often 
 happens that the cornice is, on the contrary, an unrolled capital ; 
 and one of the richest early forms of the Byzantine cornice (not 
 given in Plate XV., because its separate character and importance 
 require examination apart) is nothing more than an unrolled con- 
 tinuation of the lower range of acanthus leaves on the Corinthian 
 capital. From this cornice others appear to have been derived, 
 like e in Plate XVI., in which the acanthus outline has become 
 confused with that of the honeysuckle, and the rosette of the 
 centre of the Corinthian capital introduced between them ; and 
 thus their forms approach more and more to those derived from 
 the cornice itself. Now if the leaf has the contour of 10, 11, or 
 12, Plate XV., the profile is either actually of a capital, or of a 
 cornice derived from a capital ; while, if the leaf have the 
 contour of 7 or 8, the profile is either actually of a cornice or of 
 
 * I have taken these dates roughly from Selvatico ; their absolute accuracy, to 
 within a year or two, is here of no importance. 
 
 x 4 
 
312 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 ;i capital derived from a cornice. Where the Byzantines use the 
 acanthus, the Lombards use the Persepolitan water-leaf; but the 
 connection of the cornices and capitals is exactly the same. 
 
 § XXX. Thus far, however, we have considered the characters 
 of profile which are common to the cornice and capital both. We 
 have now to note what farther decorative features or peculiarities 
 belong to the capital itself, or result from the theoretical ga- 
 thering of the one into the other. 
 
 Look back to Fig. XXII. , p. 106. The five types there given, 
 represented the five different methods of concentration of the 
 root of cornices, a of Fig. V. Now, as many profiles of cornices 
 as were developed in Plate XV. from this cornice root, there 
 represented by the dotted slope, so many may be applied to each of 
 the five types in Fig. XXII., — applied simply in a and b, but 
 with farther modifications, necessitated by their truncations or 
 spurs, in c, d, and e. 
 
 Then, these cornice profiles having been so applied in such 
 length and slope as is proper for capitals, the farther condition 
 comes into effect described in Chapter IX. § XXIV., and any one 
 of the cornices in Plate XV. may become the abacus of a capital 
 formed out of any other, or out of itself. The infinity of forms 
 thus resultant cannot, as may well be supposed, be exhibited or 
 catalogued in the space at present permitted to us ; but the reader, 
 once master of the principle, will easily be able to investigate for 
 himself the syntax of all examples that may occur to him, and I 
 shall only here, as a kind of exercise, put before him a few of 
 those which he will meet with most frequently in his Venetian 
 enquiries, or which illustrate points, not hitherto touched upon, 
 in the disposition of the abacus. 
 
 § XXXI. In Plate XVII. the capital at the top, on the left hand, 
 is the rudest possible gathering of the plain Christian Doric 
 cornice, d of Plate XV. The shaft is octagonal, and the capital 
 is not cut to fit it, but is square at the base ; and the curve of its 
 profile projects on two of its sides more than on the other two, 
 so as to make the abacus oblong, in order to carry an oblong mass 
 of brickwork, dividing one of the upper lights of a Lombard 
 
XVII. 
 
 
 C liO U 1 ' 
 
decoration. XXVII. TIIE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 313 
 
 campanile at Milan. The awkward stretching of the brickwork, 
 to do what the capital ought to have done, is very remarkable. 
 There is here no second superimposed abacus. 
 
 § XXXII. The figure on the right hand, at the top, shows the 
 simple but perfect fulfilment of all the requirements in which 
 the first example fails. The mass of brickwork to be carried is 
 exactly the same in size and shape ; but instead of being trusted 
 to a single shaft, it has two of smaller area (compare Chap. VIII. 
 § Xlll.) and all the expansion necessary is now gracefully attained 
 by their united capitals, hewn out of one stone. Take the section 
 of these capitals through their angle, and nothing can be simpler 
 or purer ; it is composed of 2, in Plate XV., used for the capital 
 itself, with c of Fig. LXIIL used for the abacus; the reader 
 could hardly have a neater little bit of syntax for a first lesson. 
 If the section be taken through the side of the bell, the capital 
 profile is the root of cornices, a of Fig. V., with the added roll. 
 This capital is somewhat remarkable in having its sides perfectly 
 straight, some slight curvature being usual on so bold a scale ; 
 but it is all the better as a first example, the method of reduction 
 being of order d, in Fig. XXII. p. 106., and with a concave cut, 
 as in Fig. XXI. p. 105. These two capitals are from the cloister 
 of the duomo of Verona. 
 
 § xxxiii. The lowermost figure in Plate XVII. represents an 
 excmisitely finished example of the same type, from St. Zeno of 
 Verona. Above, at 2, in Plate II., the plan of the shafts was 
 given, but I inadvertently reversed their position : in com- 
 paring that plan with Plate XVII., Plate II. must be held 
 upside down. The capitals, with the band connecting them, are 
 all cut out of one block : their profile is an adaptation of 4 of 
 Plate XV., with a plain headstone superimposed. Their method 
 of reduction is that of order d in Fig. XXIL, but the peculiarity 
 of treatment of their truncation is highly interesting. Fig. LXV. 
 represents the plans of the capitals at the base, the shaded parts 
 being the bells; the open line, the roll with its connecting band. 
 The bell of the one, it will be seen, is the exact reverse of that of 
 the other : the angle truncations are, in both, curved horizontally 
 
314 
 
 XXVII. THE C0KNICE AND CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 Fiir. LXV. 
 
 as well as uprightly ; but their curve is convex in the one, and 
 in the other concave. Plate XVII. will show the effect of 
 both, with the farther incisions, to the same depth, on the flank of 
 the one with the concave truncation, which join with the rest 
 of its singularly bold and keen execution in giving the impression 
 of its rather having been cloven into its form by the sweeps of 
 a sword, than by the dull travail of a chisel. Its workman was 
 proud of it, as well he might be : he has written his name upon 
 its front (I would that more of his fellows had been as kindly 
 vain), and the goodly stone proclaims for ever, adaminus de 
 
 SANCTO GIORGIO ME FECIT. 
 
 § xxxiv. The reader will easily understand that the graceful- 
 ness of this kind of truncation, as he sees it in Plate XVII., 
 soon suggested the idea of reducing it to vegetable outline, and 
 laying four healing leaves, as it were, upon the wounds which 
 the sword had made. These four leaves, on the truncations of 
 the capital, correspond to the four leaves which we saw, in like 
 manner, extend themselves over the spurs of the base, and, as 
 they increase in delicacy of execution, form one of the most 
 lovely groups of capitals which the Gothic workmen ever in- 
 vented ; represented by two perfect types in the capitals of the 
 Piazzetta columns of Venice. But this pure group is an isolated 
 one ; it remains in the first simplicity of its conception far into 
 the thirteenth century, while around it rise up a crowd of other 
 forms, imitative of the old Corinthian, and in which other and 
 
DECORATION. XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 315 
 
 younger leaves spring up in luxuriant growth among the primal 
 lour. The varieties of their grouping we shall enumerate here- 
 after : one general characteristic of them all must be noted here. 
 
 § XXXV. The reader has been told repeatedly * that there are 
 two, and only two, real orders of capitals, originally represented 
 by the Corinthian and the Doric ; and distinguished by the 
 concave or convex contours of their bells, as shown by the 
 dotted lines at e, Fig. V., p. 63. And hitherto, respecting the 
 capital, we have been exclusively concerned with the methods in 
 which these two families of simple contours have gathered them- 
 selves together, and obtained reconciliation to the abacus above, 
 and the shaft below. But the last paragraph introduces us to 
 the surface ornament disposed upon these, in the chiselling of 
 which the characters described above, § xxvill., which are but 
 feebly marked in the cornice, boldly distinguish and divide the 
 families of the capital. 
 
 § xxxvi. AVhatever the nature of the ornament be, it must 
 clearly have relief of some kind, and must present projecting 
 surfaces separated by incisions. But it is a very material question 
 whether the contour, hitherto broadly considered as that of the 
 entire bell, shall be that of the outside of the projecting and 
 relieved ornaments, or of the bottoms of the incisions which 
 divide them ; whether, that is to say, we shall first cut out the 
 bell of our capital quite smooth, and then cut farther into it, with 
 incisions, which shall leave ornamental forms in relief, or whether, 
 in originally cutting the contour of the bell, we shall leave 
 projecting bits of stone, which we may afterwards work into the 
 relieved ornament. 
 
 § XXXVII. Now, look back to Fig. V., p. 63. Clearly, if to 
 ornament the already hollowed profile, b, we cut deep incisions 
 into it, we shall so far weaken it at the top, that it will nearly 
 lose all its supporting power. Clearly, also, if to ornament the 
 already bulging profile c we were to leave projecting pieces of 
 stone outside of it, we should nearly destroy all its relation to the 
 original sloping line X, and produce an unseemly and ponderous 
 
 * Chap. I. ^ xix., Appendix 7. : and Chap. VI. § y. 
 
316 XXVII. THE COKNICE AND CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 mass, hardly recognizable as a cornice profile. It is evident, on 
 the other hand, that we can afford to cut into this profile without 
 Pear of destroying its strength, and thai we can afford to leave 
 projections outside of the other, without fear of destroying its 
 lightness. Such is, accordingly, the natural disposition of the 
 sculpture, and the two great families of capitals are therefore 
 distinguished, not merely by their concave and convex contours, 
 but by the ornamentation being left outside the bell of the one, 
 and cut into the bell of the other; so that, in either case, the 
 ornamental portions will fall between the '/<>//, </ lines at -, Fig. V.. 
 and the pointed oval, or vesica piscis, which is traced by them, 
 may be called the Limit of ornamentation. 
 
 § xxxvill. Several distinctions in the quantity and style of the 
 ornament must instantly follow from this great distinction in its 
 position. First, in its quantity. For, observe : since in the Doric 
 profile, c, of Fig. V., the contour itself is to be composed of the 
 surface of the ornamentation, this ornamentation must be close 
 and united enough to form, or at least suggest, a continuous 
 surface : it must, therefore, be rich in quantity and close in 
 aggregation ; otherwise it will destroy the massy character of the 
 profile it adorns, and approximate it to its opposite, the concave. 
 I >n the other hand, the ornament left projecting from the concave, 
 must be sparing enough, and dispersed enough, to allow the 
 concave bell to be clearly seen beneath it ; otherwise it will choke 
 up the concave profile, and approximate it to its opposite, the 
 convex. 
 
 § xxxtx. And, secondly, in its style. For, clearly, as the sculp- 
 tor of the concave profile must leave masses of rough stone pre- 
 pared for his outer ornament, and cannot finish them at once, but 
 must complete the cutting of the smooth bell beneath first, and 
 tlun return to the projecting masses (for if he were to finish these 
 latter first, they would assuredly, it' delicate or sharp, be broken as 
 he worked on); since, 1 say, he must work in this foreseeing and 
 predetermined method, he is sure to reduce the system of his orna- 
 ments to some definite symmetrical order before he begins; and the 
 habit of conceiving beforehand all that he has to do, will probably 
 
decobation. XXVII. THE COKNICE AND CAPITAL. 317 
 
 render him not only more orderly in its arrangement, but more 
 skilful and accurate in its execution, than if he could finish all 
 as he worked on. On the other hand, the sculptor of the convex 
 profile has its smooth surface laid before him, as a piece of paper 
 on which he can sketch at his pleasure ; the incisions he makes in 
 it are like touches of a dark pencil ; and he is at liberty to rove 
 over the surface in perfect freedom, with light incisions or with 
 deep ; finishing here, suggesting there, or perhaps in places leaving 
 the surface altogether smooth. It is ten to one, therefore, but 
 that, if he yield to the temptation, he becomes irregular in design, 
 and rude in handling ; and we shall assuredly find the two families 
 of capitals distinguished, the one by its symmetrical, thoroughly 
 organised, and exquisitely executed ornament, the other by its 
 rambling, confused, and rudely chiselled ornament : But, on the 
 other hand, while we shall often have to admire the disciplined 
 precision of the one, and as often to regret the irregular rudeness 
 of the other, we shall not fail to find balancing qualities in both. 
 The severity of the disciplinarian capital represses the power of 
 the imagination ; it gradually degenerates into Formalism ; and 
 the indolence which cannot escape from its stern demand of 
 accurate workmanship, seeks refuge in copyism of established 
 forms, and loses itself at last in lifeless mechanism. The licence 
 of the other, though often abused, permits full exercise to the 
 imagination : the mind of the sculptor, unshackled by the 
 niceties of chiselling, wanders over its orbed field in endless 
 fantasy ; and, when generous as well as powerful, repays the 
 liberty which has been granted to it with interest, by developing 
 through the utmost wildness and fulness of its thoughts, an order 
 as much more noble than the mechanical symmetry of the 
 opponent school, as the domain which it regulates is vaster. 
 
 § XL. And now the reader shall judge whether I had not 
 reason to cast aside the so-called Five orders of the Renaissance 
 architects, with their volutes and fillets, and to tell him that 
 there were only two real orders, and that there could never be 
 more.* For we now find, that these two great and real orders 
 
 * Chap. I., § xix. 
 
318 XXVir. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. DECORATION. 
 
 are representative of the two great influences which must for 
 ever divide the heart of man : the one of Lawful Discipline, 
 with its perfection and order, but its danger of degeneracy into 
 Formalism ; the other of Lawful Freedom, with its vigour and 
 variety, but its danger of degeneracy into Licentiousness. 
 
 § XLI. I shall not attempt to give any illustrations here of the 
 most elaborate developments of either order ; they will be better 
 given on a larger scale: but the examples in Plates XVII. and 
 XVIII. represent the two methods of ornament in their earliest 
 appliance. The two lower capitals in Plate XVII. are a pure 
 type of the concave school; the two in the centre of Plate XVIIL, 
 of the convex. At the top of Plate XVIIL are two Lombardic 
 capitals ; that on the left from Sta. Sofia at Padua, that on the 
 right from the cortile of St. Ambrogio at Milan. They both 
 have the concave angle truncation ; but being of date prior to the 
 time when the idea of the concave bell was developed, they are 
 otherwise left square, and decorated with the surface ornament 
 characteristic of the convex school. The relation of the designs 
 to each other is interesting; the cross being prominent in the 
 centre of each, but more richly relieved in that from St. Am- 
 brogio. The two beneath ai'e from the southern portico of 
 St. Mark's; the shafts having been of different lengths, and 
 neither, in all probability, originally intended for their present 
 place, they have double abaci, of which the uppermost is the 
 cornice running round the whole facade. The zigzagged capital 
 is highly curious, and in its place very effective and beautiful ; 
 although one of the exceptions which it was above noticed that 
 we should sometimes find to the law stated in § XV. above. 
 
 § XLLT. The lower capital, which is also of the true convex 
 school, exhibits one of the conditions of the spurred type, <? 
 of Fig. XXII. , respecting which one or two points must be 
 noticed. 
 
 If we were to take up the plan of the simple spur, represented 
 at e in Fig. XXII. p. 106., and treat it, with the salvia leaf, as we 
 did the spur of the base, we should have for the head of our 
 capital a plan like Fig. LXVL, which is actually that of one of 
 
XYIU . 
 
 Capital^. 
 
 I OJTVEX GROUP 
 
IinCORATlON. 
 
 XXVIT. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 
 
 319 
 
 Fig. LXVI. 
 
 the capitals of the Fondaco de' Turchi 
 at Venice ; with this only difference, 
 that the intermediate curves between 
 the spurs would have been circular : 
 the reason they are not so, here, is 
 that the decoration, instead of being 
 confined to the spur, is now spread 
 over the whole mass, and contours are 
 therefore given to the intermediate 
 curves which fit them for this orna- 
 ment ; the inside shaded space being 
 the head of the shaft, and the outer, the abacus. The reader has 
 in Fig. LXVI. a characteristic type of the plans of spurred 
 capitals, generally preferred by the sculptors of the convex 
 school, but treated with infinite variety, the spurs often being 
 cut into animal forms, or the incisions between them multiplied, 
 for richer effect ; and in our own Norman capital the type c of 
 Fig. XXII. is variously subdivided by incisions on its slope, 
 approximating in general effect to many conditions of the real 
 spurred type e, but totally differing from them in principle. 
 
 § XLin. The treatment of the spur in the concave school is 
 far more complicated, being borrowed in nearly every case from 
 the original Corinthian. Its plan may be 
 generally represented by Fig. LXVII. The 
 spur itself is carved into a curling tendril 
 or concave leaf, which supports the pro- 
 jecting angle of a four-sided abacus, whose 
 hollow sides fall back behind the bell, and 
 have generally a rosette or other ornament 
 in their centres. The mediaeval architects 
 often put another scpiare abacus above all, 
 as represented by the shaded portion of Fig. LXVII., and some 
 massy conditions of this form, elaborately ornamented, are very 
 beautiful ; but it is apt to become rigid and effeminate, as 
 assuredly it is in the original Corinthian, which is thoroughly 
 mean and meagre in its upper tendrils and abacus. 
 
 Fig. LXVII. 
 
320 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. 
 
 lJECORATIl.N. 
 
 <: 
 
 § xliv. The lowest capital in Plate XVIII. is from St. Mark's, 
 
 and singular in having double spurs ; it is therefore to be coin 
 
 pared with the doubly spurred base, 
 Fig. lxyiil algQ from g Mark » in p late XI< 
 
 f\ /- . 
 
 , _ . / In other respects it is a good ex- 
 
 ample of the union of breadth of 
 mass with subtlety of curvature, 
 which characterises nearly all the 
 spurred capitals of the convex 
 school. Its plan is given in Fig. 
 "^<^> LXVIII. : the inner shaded circle 
 
 . — ; is the head of the shaft; the white 
 
 & v- cross, the bottom of the capital, 
 
 which expands itself into the ex- 
 ternal shaded portions at the top. Each spur, thus formed, is cut 
 like a ship's bow, with the Doric profile; the surfaces so ob- 
 tained are then charged with arborescent ornament. 
 
 § XLV. I shall not here farther exemplify the conditions of 
 the treatment of the spur, because I am afraid of confusing the 
 reader's mind, and diminishing the distinctness of his conception 
 of the differences between the two great oi'ders, which it has been 
 my principal object to develope throughout this chapter. If all 
 my readers lived in London, I could at once fix this difference in 
 their minds by a simple, yet somewhat curious illustration. In 
 many parts of the west end of London, as, for instance, at the 
 corners of Belgrave Square, and the north side of Grosvenor 
 Square, the Corinthian capitals of newly-built houses are put into 
 cages of wire. The wire cage is the exact form of the typical 
 capital of the convex school ; the Corinthian capital, within, is a 
 finished and highly decorated example of the concave. The space 
 between the cage and capital is the limit of ornamentation. 
 
 § XL VI. Those of my readers, however, to whom this illustration 
 is inaccessible, must be content with the two profiles, 13 and 14, 
 on Plate XV. If they will glance along the line of sections from 
 1 to 6, they will see that the profile 13 is their final development. 
 with a superadded cornice for its abacus. It is taken from a 
 
decoration. XXVH. THE COKNICE AND CAPITAL. 321 
 
 capital in a very important ruin of a palace, near the Rialto of 
 Venice, and hereafter to be described ; the projection, outside of 
 its principal curve, is the profile of its superadded leaf orna- 
 mentation ; it may be taken as one of the simplest, yet a perfect 
 type of the concave group. 
 
 § XLVII. The profile 14 is that of the capital of the main shaft 
 of the northern portico of St. Mark's, the most finished example 
 I ever met with of the convex family, to which, in spite of 
 the central hrward bend of its profile, it is marked as distinctly 
 belonging, by the bold convex curve at its root, springing from 
 the shaft in the line of the Christian Doric cornice, and exactly 
 reversing the structure of the other profile, which rises from the 
 shaft, like a palm leaf from its stem. Farther, in the profile 13, 
 the innermost line is that of the bell; but in the profile 14, the 
 outermost line is that of the bell, and the inner line is the limit 
 of the incisions of the chisel, in undercutting a reticulated veil 
 of ornament, surrounding a flower like a lily ; most ingeni- 
 ously, and, I hope, justly, conjectured by the Marchese Selvatico 
 to have been intended for an imitation of the capitals of the 
 temple of Solomon, which Hiram made, with " nets of checker 
 work, and wreaths of chain work for the chapiters that were 
 on the top of the pillars . . . and the chapiters that were upon 
 the top of the pillars were of lily work in the porch." (1 Kings, 
 vii. 17.19.) 
 
 § XLYIH. On this exquisite capital there is imposed an abacus 
 of the profile with which we began our investigation long ago, 
 the profile a of Fig. V. This abacus is formed by the cornice 
 already given, a, of Plate XVI. ; and therefore we have, in 
 this lovely Venetian capital, the summary of the results of our 
 investigation, from its beginning to its close : the type of the first 
 cornice ; the decoration of it, in its emergence from the classical 
 models ; the gathering into the capital ; the superimposition of 
 the secondary cornice, and the refinement of the bell of the 
 capital by triple curvature in the two limits of chiselling. I 
 cannot express the exquisite refinements of the curves on the 
 small scale of Plate XV. ; I will give them more accurately in 
 
 Y 
 
322 XXVII. THE CORNICE AND CAPITAL. decoration. 
 
 a larger engraving ; but the scale on which they are here 
 given will not prevent the reader from perceiving, and let him 
 note it thoughtfully, that the outer curve of the noble capital 
 is the one which was our first example of associated curves ; 
 that I have had no need, throughout the whole of our enquiry, to 
 refer to any other ornamental line than the three which I at first 
 chose, the simplest of those which Nature set by chance before 
 me ; and that this lily, of the delicate Venetian marble, has but 
 been wrought, by the highest human art, into the same line 
 which the clouds disclose, when they break from the rough rocks 
 of the flank of the Matterhorn. 
 
<4 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 323 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE ARCHIVOLT AND APERTURE. 
 
 § I. If the windows and doors of some of our best northern 
 Gothic buildings were built up, and the ornament of their 
 archivolts concealed, there would often remain little but masses 
 of dead wail and unsightly buttress ; the whole vitality of the 
 building consisting in the graceful pi'oportions or rich mouldings 
 of its apertures. It is not so in the south, where, frequently, the 
 aperture is a mere dark spot on the variegated wall ; but there 
 the column, with its horizontal or curved architrave, assumes an 
 importance of another kind, equally dependent upon the methods 
 of lintel and archivolt decoration. These, though in their 
 richness of minor variety they defy all exemplification, may be 
 very broadly generalised. 
 
 Of the mere lintel, indeed, there is no specific decoration, nor 
 can be ; it has no organism to direct its ornament, and therefore 
 may receive any kind and degree of ornament, according to its 
 position. In a Greek temple, it has meagre horizontal lines ; in a 
 Romanesque church, it becomes a row of upright niches, with an 
 apostle in each ; and may become anything else at the architect's 
 will. But the arch-head has a natural organism, which separates 
 its ornament into distinct families, broadly definable. 
 
 § II. In speaking of the arch-line and arch masonry, we con- 
 sidered the arch to be cut straight through the wall ; so that, if 
 half built, it would have the appearance at a, Fig. LXIX. But 
 in the chapter on Form of Apertures, Ave found that the side of the 
 arch, or jamb of the aperture, might often require to be bevelled, 
 so as to give the section b, Fig. LXIX. It is easily conceivable 
 that when two ranges of voussoirs were used, one over another, 
 it would be easier to leave those beneath, of a smaller diameter, 
 
324 
 
 XXVIII. THE ARCHIVOLT AND APERTURE. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 Fi S LXIX. 
 
 than to bevel them to accurate junction with 
 those outside. Whether influenced by this faci- 
 lity, or by decorative instinct, the early northern 
 builders often substitute for the bevel the third 
 condition, c, of Fig. LXIX. ; so that, of the three 
 forms in that figure, a belongs principally to the 
 south, c to the north, and b indifferently to both. 
 
 § m. If the arch in the northern building be 
 very deep, its depth will probably be attained by 
 a succession of steps, like that in c; and the richest 
 results of northern archivolt decoration are en- 
 tirely based on the aggregation of the ornament 
 of these several steps ; while those of the south 
 are only the complete finish and perfection of the 
 ornament of one. In this ornament of the single 
 arch, the points for general note are very few. 
 § IV. It was, in the first instance, derived from the classical 
 architrave*, and the early Romanesque arches are nothing but 
 such an architrave, bent round. The horizontal lines of the latter 
 become semicircular, but their importance and value remain ex- 
 actly the same ; their continuity is preserved across all the vous- 
 soirs, and the joints and functions of the latter are studiously 
 concealed. As the builders get accustomed to the arch, and love 
 it better, they cease to be ashamed of its structure : the voussoirs 
 begin to show themselves confidently, and fight for precedence 
 with the architrave lines; and there is an entanglement of the 
 two structures, in consequence, like the circular and radiating 
 lines of a cobweb, until at last the architrave lines get worsted, 
 and driven away outside of the voussoirs ; being permitted to 
 stav at all only on condition of their dressing themselves in 
 mediaeval costume, as in the plate opposite. 
 
 § v. In other cases, however, before the entire discomfiture of 
 
 * The architrave is properly the horizontal piece of stone laid across the tops 
 of the pillars in Greek buildings, and commonly marked with horizontal lines, 
 obtained by slight projections of its surface, while, it is protected above, in the 
 richer orders, by a small cornice. 
 
decoration. XXVIII. THE ARCHIVOLT AND APERTURE. 325 
 
 the architrave, a treaty of peace is signed between the adverse 
 parties, on these terms : That the architrave shall entirely dismiss 
 its inner three meagre lines, and leave the space of them to the 
 voussoirs, to display themselves after their manner ; but that, in 
 return for this concession, the architrave shall have leave to 
 expand the small cornice which usually terminates it (the reader 
 had better look at the original form in that of the Erechtheum, 
 in the middle of the Elgin room of the British Museum) into 
 bolder prominence, and even to put brackets under it, as if it 
 were a roof cornice, and thus mark with a bold shadow the 
 terminal line of the voussoirs. This condition is seen in the arch 
 from St. Pietro of Pistoja, Plate XIII., above, p. 287. 
 
 § VI. If the Gothic spirit of the building be thoroughly de- 
 termined, and victorious, the architrave cornice is compelled to 
 relinquish its classical form, and take the profile of a Gothic 
 cornice or dripstone ; while, in other cases, as in much of the 
 Gothic of Verona, it is forced to disappear altogether. But the 
 voussoirs then concede, on the other hand, so much of their dig- 
 nity as to receive a running ornament of foliage or animals, like 
 a classical frieze, and continuous round the arch. In fact, the 
 contest between the adversaries may be seen running through all 
 the early architecture of Italy : success inclining sometimes to the 
 one, sometimes to the other, and various kinds of truce or recon- 
 ciliation being effected between them: sometimes merely formal, 
 sometimes honest and affectionate, but with no regular succession 
 Fig. lxx. m time. The greatest victory of the voussoir 
 
 is to annihilate the cornice, and receive an orna- 
 ment of its own outline, and entirely limited by 
 I/ 8 its own joints ; and yet this may be seen in the 
 very early apse of Murano. 
 
 § VII. The most usual condition, however, is 
 that unity of the two members above described, 
 § v., and which may be generally represented 
 by the archivolt section a, Fig. LXX. ; and from 
 this descend a family of Gothic archivolts of the 
 highest importance. For the cornice, thus at- 
 
 T 3 
 
326 XXVIII. THE ARCHIVOLT AND APERTURE. decoration. 
 
 tached to the arch, suffers exactly the same changes as the 
 level cornice, or capital ; receives, in due time, its elaborate ogee 
 profile and leaf ornaments, like fig. 8 or 9 of Plate XV. ; and, 
 when the shaft loses its shape, and is lost in the later Gothic 
 jamb, the archivolt has influence enough to introduce this ogee 
 profile in the jamb also, through the banded impost: and we 
 immediately find ourselves involved in deep successions of ogee 
 mouldings in sides of doors and windows, which never would 
 have been thought of, but for the obstinate resistance of the 
 classical architrave to the attempts of the voussoir at its degrada- 
 tion or banishment. 
 
 § Yin. This, then, will be the first great head under which we 
 shall in future find it convenient to arrange a large number of 
 archivolt decorations. It is the distinctively Southern and 
 Byzantine form, and typically represented by the section a, of 
 Fig. LXX. ; and it is susceptible of almost every species of 
 surface ornament, respecting which only this general law may 
 be asserted : that, while the outside or vertical surface may 
 properly be decorated, and yet the soffit or under surface left 
 plain, the soffit is never to be decorated, and the outer surface 
 left plain. Much beautiful sculpture is, in the best Byzantine 
 buildings, half lost by being put under soffits ; but the eye is led 
 to discover it, and even to demand it, by the rich chasing of the 
 outside of the voussoirs. It would have been an hypocrisy to 
 carve them externally only. But there is not the smallest excuse 
 for caiwing the soffit, and not the outside ; for, in that case, we 
 approach the building under the idea, of its being perfectly plain ; 
 we do not look for the soffit decoration, and, of course, do not 
 see it; or, if we do, it is merely to regret that it should not be 
 in a better place. In the Renaissance architects, it may, perhaps, 
 for once, be considered a merit, that tiny put their bad decoration 
 systematically in the places where we should least expect it, and 
 can seldomest see it: — Approaching the Scuola di San Rocco, 
 you probably will regret the extreme plainness and barrenness 
 of the window traceries ; but, if you will go very close to the 
 Avail beneath the windows, you may, on sunny days, discover a 
 
decoration. XXVIII. THE ARCHIVOLT AND APERTURE. 327 
 
 quantity of panel decorations which the ingenious architect lias 
 concealed under the soffits. 
 
 The custom of decorating the arch soffit with panelling is a 
 Roman application of the Greek roof ornament, which, whatever 
 its intrinsic merit (compare Chap. XXIX. § iv. ) may rationally 
 be applied to waggon vaults, as of St. Peter's, and to arch soffits 
 under which one walks. But the Renaissance architects had not 
 wit enough to reflect that people usually do not walk through 
 windows. 
 
 § IX. So far, then, of the Southern archivolt : In Fig. LXIX., 
 above, it will be remembered that c represents the simplest form 
 of the Northern. In the farther development of this, which we 
 have next to consider, the voussoirs, in consequence of their own 
 ne°Ti<rence or over-confidence, sustain a total and irrecoverable 
 defeat. That archivolt is in its earliest conditions perfectly pure 
 and undecorated, — the simplest and rudest of Gothic forms. Ne- 
 cessai'ily, when it falls on the pier, and meets that of the opposite 
 arch, the entire section of the masonry is in the shape of a cross, 
 and is carried by the crosslet shaft, which we above stated to be 
 distinctive of Northern design. I am more at a loss to account 
 for the sudden and fixed development of this type of archivolt 
 than for any other architectural transition with which I am 
 acquainted. But there it is, pure and firmly established, as early 
 as the building of St. Michele of Pavia: and we have thence- 
 forward only to observe what comes of it. 
 
 § x. We find it first, as I said, perfectly barren ; cornice and 
 architrave altogether ignored, the existence of such things prac- 
 tically denied, and a plain, deep-cut recess with a single mighty 
 shadow occupying their place. The voussoirs, thinking their 
 great adversary utterly defeated, are at no trouble to show them- 
 selves ; visible enough in both the upper and under archivolts, 
 they are content to wait the time when, as might have been 
 hoped, they should receive a new decoration peculiar to them- 
 selves. 
 
 § XI. In this state of paralysis, or expectation, their flank is 
 turned by an insidious chamfer. The edges of the two great 
 
 Y 4 
 
328 XXVIII. THE ARCHIVOLT AXD APERTURE. decobatios. 
 
 blank archivolts are felt to be painfully conspicuous ; all the four 
 are at once beaded or chamfered, as at b, Fig. LXX. ; a rich 
 group of deep lines, running concentrically with the arch, is the 
 result on the instant, and the fate of the voussoirs is sealed. 
 They surrender at once without a struggle, and unconditionally ; 
 the chamfers deepen and multiply themselves, cover the soffit, 
 ally themselves with other forms resulting from grouped 
 shafts or traceries, and settle into the inextricable richness of the 
 fully developed Gothic jamb and arch; farther complicated in 
 the end by the addition of niches to their recesses, as above 
 described. 
 
 § xn. The voussoirs, in despair, go over to the classical camp, 
 in hope of receiving some help or tolerance from their former 
 enemies. They receive it indeed ; but as traitors should, to their 
 own eternal dishonour. They are sharply chiselled at the joints, 
 or rusticated, or cut into masks and satyrs' heads, and so set forth 
 and pilloried in the various detestable forms of which the simplest 
 is given above in Plate XIII. (on the left) ; and others may be 
 seen in nearly every large building in London, more especially 
 in the bridges ; and, as if in pure spite at the treatment they 
 had received from the archivolt, they are now not content with 
 vigorously showing their lateral joints, but shape themselves into 
 right-angled steps at their heads, cutting to pieces their limiting 
 line, which otherwise would have had sympathy with that of 
 the arch, and fitting themselves to their new friend, the Renais- 
 sance Ruled Copy-book wall. It had been better they had died 
 ten times over, in their own ancient cause, than thus prolonged 
 their existence. 
 
 § xm. ^Ye bid them farewell in their dishonour, to return to 
 our victorious chamfer. It had not, we said, obtained so easy a 
 conquest, unless by the help of certain forms of the grouped shaft. 
 The chamfer was quite enough to decorate the archivolts, if there 
 were no more than two; but if, as above noticed in § in., the 
 archivolt was very deep, and composed of a succession of such 
 sups, the multitude of chamferings were felt to be weak and 
 insipid, and instead of dealing with the outside edges of the archi- 
 
decoration. XXVIII. THE ARCII1VOLT AND ArERTURE. 6ZV 
 
 volts, the group was softened by introducing solid shafts in their 
 dark inner angles. This, the manliest and best condition of the 
 early northern jamb and archivolt, is represented in section at 
 fig. 12 of Plate II. ; and its simplest aspect in Plate V., from the 
 Broletto of Como, — an interesting example, because there the 
 voussoirs, being in the midst of their above-described southern 
 contest with the architrave, were better prepared for the flank 
 attack upon them by the shaft and chamfer, and make a noble 
 resistance, with the help of colour, in which even the shaft itself 
 gets slightly worsted, and cut across in several places, like General 
 Zach's column at Marengo. 
 
 § XIV. The shaft, however, rapidly rallies, and brings up its 
 own peculiar decorations to its aid ; and the intermediate archivolts 
 receive running or panelled ornaments, also, until we reach the 
 exquisitely rich conditions of our own Norman archivolts, and 
 of the parallel Lombardic designs, such as the entrance of the 
 Duomo, and of San Ferrao, at Verona. This change, however, 
 occupies little time, and takes place principally in doorways, 
 owing to the greater thickness of wall, and depth of archivolt ; 
 so that we find the rich shafted succession of ornament, in the 
 doorway and window aperture, associated with the earliest and 
 rudest double archivolt, in the nave arches, at St. Michele of 
 Pavia. The nave arches, therefore, are most usually treated by 
 the chamfer, and the voussoirs are there defeated much sooner 
 than by the shafted arrangements, which they resist, as we saw, 
 in the south by colour ; and even in the north, though forced out 
 of their own shape, they take that of birds' or monsters' heads, 
 which for some time peck and pinch the rolls of the archivolt to 
 their hearts' content ; while the Norman zigzag ornament allies 
 itself with them, each zigzag often restraining itself amicably 
 between the joints of each voussoir in the ruder work, and even 
 in the highly finished arches, distinctly presenting a concentric or 
 sunlike arrangement of lines ; so much so, as to prompt the 
 conjecture, above stated, Chap. XX. § xxvi., that all such orna- 
 ments were intended to be typical of light issuing from the orb 
 of the arch. I doubt the intention, but acknowledge the resem- 
 
330 XXVIII. THE ARCIIIVOLT AND APERTURE. becoratiox. 
 
 blance ; which perhaps goes far to account for the never-failing 
 delightfulness of this zigzag decoration. The diminution of the 
 
 O CO 
 
 zigzag, as it gradually shares the defeat of the voussoir, and is 
 at last overwhelmed by the complicated, railroad-like fluency of 
 the later Gothic mouldings, is to me one of the saddest sights in 
 the drama of architecture. 
 
 § XV. One farther circumstance is deserving of especial note in 
 Plate V., the greater depth of the voussoirs at the top of the 
 arch. This has been above alluded to as a feature of good con- 
 struction, Chap. XI. § III.; it is to be noted now as one still more 
 valuable in decoration : for when we arrive at the deep succession 
 of concentric archivolts, with which northern portals, and many 
 of the associated windows, are headed, we immediately find a 
 difficulty in reconciling the outer curve with the inner. If, as is 
 sometimes the case, the width of the group of archivolts be twice 
 or three times that of the inner aperture, the inner arch may be 
 distinctly pointed, and the outer one, if drawn with concentric 
 arcs, approximate very nearly to a round arch. This is actually 
 the case in the later Gothic of Verona ; the outer line of the 
 archivolt having a hardly perceptible point, and every inner arch 
 of course forming the point more distinctly, till the innermost 
 becomes a lancet. By far the nobler method, however, is that 
 of the pure early Italian Gothic ; to make every outer arch a 
 magnified facsimile of the innermost one. every arc including 
 the same number of degrees, but degrees of a larger circle. The 
 result is the condition represented in Plate V., often found in 
 far bolder development ; exquisitely springy and elastic in its 
 expression, and entirely free from the heaviness and monotony of 
 the deep northern archivolts. 
 
 § XVI. We have not spoken of the intermediate foi'm, b, of 
 Fig. LXIX. (which its convenience for admission of light has 
 rendered common in nearly all architectures), because it has no 
 transitions peculiar to itself: in the north it sometimes shares 
 the fate of the outer architrave, and is channelled into longitudinal 
 mouldings ; sometimes remains smooth and massy, as in military 
 architecture, or in the simpler forms of domestic and ecclesiastical. 
 
decoratiox. XXVIII. THE ARCHIVOLT AND APERTURE. 331 
 
 In Italy it receives surface decoration like the architrave, but 
 lias, perhaps, something of peculiar expression in being placed 
 between the tracery of the window within, and its shafts and 
 tabernacle work without, as in the Duomo of Florence: in this 
 position it is always kept smooth in surface, and inlaid (or painted) 
 Avith delicate arabesques ; while the tracery and the tabernacle 
 work are richly sculptured. The example of its treatment by 
 coloured voussoirs, given in Plate XIX., may be useful to the 
 reader as a kind of central expression of the aperture deco- 
 ration of the pure Italian Gothic; — aperture decoration proper; 
 applying no shaft work to the jambs, but leaving the bevelled 
 opening unenriched ; using on the outer archivolt the voussoirs 
 and concentric architrave in reconcilement (the latter having, 
 however, some connection with the Norman zigzag) ; and beneath 
 them, the pure Italian two-pieced and mid-cusped arch, with rich 
 cusp decoration. It is a Veronese arch, probably of the thirteenth 
 century, and finished with extreme care ; the red portions are all 
 in brick, delicately cast: and the most remarkable feature of the 
 whole is the small piece of brick inlaid on the angle of each 
 stone voussoir, with a most just feeling, which every artist will 
 at once understand, that the colour ought not to be let go all 
 at once. 
 
 § XVII. We have traced the various conditions of treatment in 
 the archivolt alone ; but, except in what has been said of the 
 peculiar expression of the voussoirs, we might throughout have 
 spoken in the same terms of the jamb. Even a parallel to the 
 expression of the voussoir may be found in the Lombardic and 
 Norman divisions of the shafts, by zigzags and other transverse 
 ornamentation, which in the end are all swept away by the 
 canaliculated mouldings. Then, in the recesses of these and of 
 the archivolt s alike, the niche and statue decoration developes 
 itself; and the vaulted and cavernous apertures are covered with 
 incrustations of fretwork, and with every various application of 
 foliage to their fantastic mouldings. 
 
 § xvill. I have kept the inquiry into the proper ornament of 
 the archivolt wholly free from all confusion with the questions of 
 
332 XXVIII. THE AKC'IIIVOLT AND APERTURE. decoration. 
 
 beauty in tracery ; for, in fact, all tracery is a mere multiplication 
 and entanglement of small archivolts, and its cusp ornament is a 
 minor condition of that proper to the spandril. It does not 
 reach its completely defined form until the jamb and archivolt 
 have been divided into longitudinal mouldings ; and then the 
 tracery is formed by the innermost group of the shafts or 
 fillets, bent into whatever forms or foliations the designer may 
 choose ; but this with a delicacy of adaptation which I rather 
 choose to illustrate by particular examples, of which we shall 
 meet with many in the course of our inquiry, than to delay the 
 reader by specifying here. As for the conditions of beauty in the 
 disposition of the tracery bars, I see no hope of dealing with the 
 subject fairly but by devoting, if I can find time, a separate essay 
 to it — which, in itself, need not be long, but would involve, 
 before it could be completed, the examination of the whole mass 
 of materials lately collected by the indefatigable industry of the 
 English architects who have devoted their special attention to 
 this subject, and which are of the highest value as illustrating the 
 chronological succession or mechanical structure of tracery, but 
 which, in most cases, touch on their aesthetic merits incidentally 
 only. Of works of this kind, by far the best I have met with 
 is Mr. Edmund Sharpe's, on Decorated "Windows, which seems to 
 me, as far as a cursory glance can enable me to judge, to exhaust 
 the subject as respects English Gothic ; and which may be re- 
 commended to the readers who are interested in the subject, 
 as containing a clear and masterly enunciation of the general 
 principles by which the design of tracery has been regulated, 
 from its first development to its final degradation. 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 333 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE ROOF. 
 
 § I. The modes of decoration hitherto considered, have been 
 common to the exteriors and interiors of all noble buildings ; 
 and we have taken no notice of the various kinds of ornament 
 which require protection from weather, and are necessarily 
 confined to interior work. But in the case of the roof, the 
 exterior and interior treatments become, as we saw in con- 
 struction, so also in decoration, separated by broad and bold 
 distinctions. One side of a wall is, in most cases, the same as 
 another, and if its structure be concealed, it is mostly on the 
 inside ; but, in the roof, the anatomical structure, out of which 
 decoration should naturally spring, is visible, if at all, in the 
 interior only : so that the subject of internal ornament becomes 
 both wide and important, and that of external, comparatively 
 subordinate. 
 
 § II. Now, so long as we were concerned principally with the 
 outside of buildings, we might with safety leave expressional 
 character out of the question for the time, because it is not to be 
 expected that all persons who pass the building, or see it from a 
 distance, shall be in the temper which the building is properly 
 intended to induce ; so that ornaments somewhat at variance with 
 this temper may often be employed externally without painful 
 effect. But these ornaments would be inadmissible in the interior, 
 for those who enter will for the most part either be in the proper 
 temper which the building requires, or desirous of acquiring it. 
 (The distinction is not rigidly observed by the mediaeval builders, 
 and grotesques, or profane subjects, occur in the interior of 
 churches, in bosses, crockets, capitals, brackets, and such other 
 portions of minor ornament ; but we do not find the interior 
 wall covered with hunting and battle pieces, as often the Loin- 
 
334 XXIX. THE ROOF. decoration-. 
 
 bardic exteriors.) And thus the interior expression of the roof 
 or ceiling becomes necessarily so various, and the kind and 
 degree of fitting decoration so dependent upon particular cir- 
 cumstances, that it is nearly impossible to classify its methods, or 
 limit its applications. 
 
 § ill. I have little, therefore, to say here, and that touching 
 rather the omission than the selection of decoration, as far as 
 regards interior roofing. "Whether of timber or stone, roofs 
 are necessarily divided into surfaces, and ribs or beams; — sur- 
 faces, flat or carved; ribs, traversing these in the directions where 
 main strength is required ; or beams, filling the hollow of the 
 dark gable with the intricate roof-tree, or supporting the flat 
 ceiling. Wherever the ribs and beams are simply and unaffect- 
 edly arranged, there is no difficulty about decoration ; the beams 
 may be carved, the ribs moulded, and the eye is satisfied at once ; 
 but when the vaulting is unribbed, as in plain waggon vaults 
 and much excellent early Gothic, or when the ceiling is flat, it 
 becomes a difficult question how far their surfaces may receive 
 ornamentation independent of their structure. I have never 
 mvself seen a flat ceiling satisfactorily decorated, except by 
 painting: there is much good and fanciful panelling in old 
 English domestic architecture, but it always is in some degree 
 meaningless and mean. The flat ceilings of Venice, as in the 
 Scuola di San Rocco and Ducal Palace, have in their vast panel- 
 lings some of the noblest paintings (on stretched canvass) which 
 the world possesses : and this is all very well for the ceiling ; but 
 one would rather have the painting in a better place, especially 
 when the rain soaks through its canvass, as I have seen it doing 
 through many a noble Tintoret. On the whole, flat ceilings are 
 as much to be avoided as possible ; and, when necessary, perhaps 
 a panelled ornamentation with rich coloured patterns is the most 
 satisfying, and loses least of valuable labour. But I leave the 
 question to the reader's thought, being myself exceedingly unde- 
 cided respecting it : except only touching one point — that a 
 blank ceiling is not to be redeemed by a decorated ventilator. 
 § iv. I have a more confirmed opinion, however, respecting the 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXIX. THE ROOF. 335 
 
 decoration of curved surfaces! The majesty of a roof is never, I 
 think, so great, as when the eye can pass undisturbed over the 
 course of all its curvatures, and trace the dying of the shadows 
 along its smooth and sweeping vaults. And I would rather, 
 myself, have a plain ridged Gothic vault, with all its rough 
 stones visible, to keep the sleet and wind out of a cathedral aisle, 
 than all the fanning and pendanting and foliation that ever 
 bewildered Tudor weight. But mosaic or fresco may of course 
 be used as far as we can afford or obtain them ; for these do 
 not break the curvature. Perhaps the most solemn roofs in the 
 world are the apse conchas of the Romanesque basilicas, with 
 their golden ground and severe figures. Exactly opposed to these 
 are the decorations which disturb the serenity of the curve without 
 giving it interest, like the vulgar panelling of St. Peter's and the 
 Pantheon ; both, I think, in the last degree detestable. 
 
 § V. As roofs internally may be divided into surfaces and ribs, 
 externally they may be divided into surfaces, and points, or ridges; 
 these latter often receiving very bold and distinctive ornament. 
 The outside surface is of small importance in central Europe, 
 being almost universally low in slope, and tiled, throughout Spain, 
 South France, and North Italy : of still less importance where it 
 is flat, as a terrace ; as often in South Italy and the East, mingled 
 with low domes : but the larger Eastern and Arabian domes 
 become elaborate in ornamentation : I cannot speak of them with 
 confidence ; to the mind of an inhabitant of the north, a roof 
 is a guard against wild weather ; not a surface which is for ever 
 to bask in serene heat, and gleam across deserts like a rising 
 moon. I can only say, that I have never seen any drawing of a 
 richly decorated Eastern dome that made me desire to see the 
 original. 
 
 § VI. Our own northern roof decoration is necessarily simple. 
 Coloured tiles are used in some cases with quaint effect ; but I 
 believe the dignity of the building is always greater when the 
 roof is kept in an undisturbed mass, opposing itself to the 
 variegation and richness of the walls. The Italian round tile 
 is itself decoration enough, a deep and rich fluting, which all 
 
336 XXIX. THE BOOP. 
 
 DECOR \TlOS. 
 
 artists delight in ; this, however, is fitted exclusively for low 
 pitch of roofs. On steep domestic roofs, there is no ornament 
 better than may be obtained by merely rounding, or cutting 
 to an angle, the lower extremities of the flat tiles or shingles, 
 as in Switzerland : thus the whole surface is covered with an 
 appearance of scales, a fish-like defence against water, at once 
 perfectly simple, natural, and effective at any distance ; and the 
 best decoration of sloping stone roofs, as of spires, is a mere copy 
 of this scale armour ; it enriches every one of the spires and 
 pinnacles of the cathedral of Coutances, and of many Norman 
 and early Gothic buildings. Roofs covered or edged with lead 
 have often patterns designed upon the lead, gilded and relieved 
 with some dark colour, as on the house of Jacques Coeur at 
 Bourses ; and I imagine the effect of this must have been 
 singularly delicate and beautiful, but only traces of it now 
 remain. The northern roofs, however, generally stand in little 
 need of surface decoration, the eye being drawn to the fantastic 
 ranges of their dormer windows, and to the finials and fringes on 
 their points and ridges. 
 
 § vil. Whether dormer windows are legitimately to be classed 
 as decorative features, seems to me to admit of doubt. The 
 northern spire system is evidently a mere elevation and ex- 
 aggeration of the domestic turret with its look-out windows, and 
 one can hardly part with the grotesque lines of the projections, 
 though nobody is to be expected to live in the spire : but, at 
 all events, such windows are never to be allowed in places visibly 
 inaccessible, or on less than a natural and serviceable scale. 
 
 § VIII. Under the general head of roof-ridge and point de- 
 coration, we may include, as above noted, the entire race of 
 fringes, finials, and crockets. As there is no use in any of these 
 things, and as they are visible additions and parasitical portions 
 of the structure, more caution is required in their use than in any 
 other features of ornament, and the architect and spectator must 
 both be in felicitous humour before they can be well designed or 
 thoroughly enjoyed. They are generally most admirable where 
 the grotesque Northern spirit has most power ; and I think there 
 
DECORATION. 
 
 XXIX. THE ROOF. 337 
 
 is almost always a certain spirit of playfulness in them, adverse 
 to the grandest architectural effects, or at least to be kept in 
 severe subordination to the serener character of the prevalent 
 lines. But as they are opposed to the seriousness of majesty on 
 the one hand, so they are to the weight of dulness on the other ; 
 and I know not any features which make the contrast between 
 continental domestic architecture, and our own, more humili- 
 atingly felt, or which give so sudden a feeling of new life and 
 delight, when we pass from the streets of London to those of 
 Abbeville or Rouen, as the quaint points and pinnacles of the 
 roof gables and turrets. The commonest and heaviest roof may 
 be redeemed by a spike at the end of it, if it is set on with any 
 spirit ; but the foreign builders have (or had, at least) a peculiar 
 feeling in this, and gave animation to the whole roof by the 
 fringe of its back, and the spike on its forehead, so that all goes 
 together, like the dorsal fins and spines of a fish : but our spikes 
 have a dull, screwed on, look ; a far-off relationship to the nuts 
 of machinery ; and our roof fringes are sure to look like fenders, 
 as if they were meant to catch ashes out of the London smoke-- 
 clouds. 
 
 § IX. Stone finials and crockets are, I think, to be considered 
 in architecture, what points and flashes of light are in the colour 
 of painting, or of nature. There are some landscapes whose best 
 character is sparkling, and there is a possibility of repose in the 
 midst of brilliancy, or embracing it, — as on the fields of summer 
 sea, or summer land : 
 
 " Calm, and deep peace, on this high wold, 
 And on the dews that drench the furze, 
 And on the silvery gossamers, 
 That twinkle into green and gold." 
 
 And there are colourists who can keep their quiet in the midst 
 of a jewellery of light ; but, for the most part, it is better to 
 avoid breaking up either lines or masses by too many points, 
 and to make the few points used exceedingly jjrecious. So 
 the best crockets and finials are set, like stars, along the lines, 
 and at the points, which they adorn, with considerable intervals 
 
 z 
 
338 XXIX. THE 1500F. 
 
 DECORATION. 
 
 between them, and exquisite delicacy and fancy of sculpture in 
 their own designs ; if very small, they may become more frequent, 
 and describe lines by a chain of points: but their whole value 
 is lost if they are gathered into bunches or clustered into tassels 
 and knots; and an over-indulgence in them always marks low- 
 ness of school. In Venice, the addition of the finial to the arch- 
 head is the first sign of degradation ; all her best architecture is 
 entirety without either crockets or finials ; and her ecclesiastical 
 architecture may be classed, with fearless accuracy, as better or 
 worse, in proportion to the diminution or expansion of the 
 crocket. The absolutely perfect use of the crocket is found, I 
 think, in the tower of Giotto, and in some other buildings of the 
 1'isan school. In the North they generally err on one side or 
 other, and are either florid and huge, or mean in outline, looking 
 as if they had been pinched out of the stone-work, as throughout 
 the entire cathedral of Amiens ; and are besides connected with 
 the generally spotty system which has been spoken of under the 
 head of archivolt decoration. 
 
 § x. Employed, however, in moderation, they are among the 
 most delightful means of delicate expression ; and the architect 
 has more liberty in their individual treatment than in any other 
 feature of the building. Separated entirely from the structural 
 system, they are subjected to no shadow of any other laws than 
 those of grace and chastity ; and the fancy may range without 
 rebuke, for materials of their design, through the whole field of 
 the visible or imaginable creation. 
 
339 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE VESTIBULE. 
 
 § I. I have hardly kept my promise. The reader has decorated 
 but little for himself as yet ; but I have not, at least, attempted 
 to bias his judgment. Of the simple forms of decoration which 
 have been set before him, he has been always left free to choose ; 
 and the stated restrictions in the methods of applying them have 
 been only those which followed on the necessities of construction 
 previously determined. These having been now defined, I do 
 indeed leave my reader free to build ; and with what a freedom ! 
 All the lovely forms of the universe set before him, whence to 
 choose, and all the lovely lines that bound their substance or 
 guide their motion ; and of all these lines, — and there are myriads 
 of myriads in every bank of grass and every tuft of forest ; and 
 groups of them, divinely harmonised, in the bell of every flower, 
 and in every several member of bird and beast, — of all these 
 lines, for the principal forms of the most important members of 
 architecture, I have used but Three ! What, therefore, must be 
 the infinity of the treasure in them all ? There is material 
 enough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of cathe- 
 drals : but suppose we were satisfied with less exhaustive ap- 
 pliance, and built a score of cathedrals, each to illustrate a single 
 flower ? that would be better than trying to invent new styles, I 
 think. There is quite difference of style enough, between a 
 violet and a harebell, for all reasonable purposes. 
 
 § II. Perhaps, however, even more strange than the struggle of 
 our architects to invent new styles, is the way they commonly 
 speak of this treasure of natural infinity. Let us take our 
 patience to us for an instant, and hear one of them, not among 
 the least intelligent : — 
 
340 XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 
 
 " It is not true that all natural forms are beautiful. We may hardly 
 be able to detect this in Nature herself; but when the forms are separated 
 from the things, and exhibited alone (by sculpture or carving), we then see 
 that they are not all fitted for ornamental purposes ; and indeed that very 
 few, perhaps none, are so fitted without correction. Yes, I say correction, 
 for though it is the highest aim of every art to imitate nature, this is not 
 to be done by imitating any natural form, but by criticising and correcting 
 it, — criticising it by Nature's rules gathered from all her works, but never 
 completely carried out by her in any one work ; correcting it, by rendering 
 it more natural, i. e. more conformable to the general tendency of Nature, 
 according to that noble maxim recorded of Raffaelle, ' that the artist's 
 object was to make things not as Nature makes them, but as she would 
 make them : ' as she ever tries to make them, but never succeeds, though 
 her aim may be deduced from a comparison of her efforts ; just as if a 
 number of archers had aimed unsuccessfully at a mark upon a wall, and 
 this mark were then removed, we could by the examination of their arrow- 
 marks point out the most probable position of the spot aimed at, with a 
 certainty of being nearer to it than any of their shots."* 
 
 § in. I had thought that, by this time, we had done with that 
 stale, second-hand, one-sided, and misunderstood saying of 
 Eaffaelle's ; or that at least, in these days of purer Christian 
 light, men might have begun to get some insight into the mean- 
 ing of it : Raffaelle was a painter of humanity, and assuredly 
 there is something the matter with humanity, a few dovrebbe's, 
 more or less, wanting in it. We have most of us heard of original 
 sin, and may perhaps, in our modest moments, conjecture that 
 we are not quite what God, or nature, would have us to be. 
 Uaffaelle had something to mend in Humanity : I should have 
 liked to have seen him mending a daisy ! — or a pease-blossom, or 
 a moth, or a mustard seed, or any other of God's slightest works. 
 If he had accomplished that, one might have found for him more 
 respectable employment, — to set the stars in better order, perhaps, 
 (they seem grievously scattered as they are, and to be of all 
 manner of shapes and sizes, — except the ideal shape, and the 
 proper size) ; or to give us a corrected view of the ocean : that, 
 at least, seems a very irregular and improveable thing ; the very 
 
 * Garbett on Design, p. 74. 
 
XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 341 
 
 fishermen do not know, this day, how far it will reach, driven 
 up before the west wind: — perhaps Some One else does, but that 
 is not our business. Let us go down and stand by the beach 
 of it, — of the great, irregular sea, and count whether the thunder 
 of it is not out of time. One, — two : — here comes a well-formed 
 wave at last, trembling a little at the top, but, on the whole, 
 orderly. So, crash among the shingle, and up as far as this 
 grey pebble ; now stand by and watch ! Another: — - Ah, careless 
 wave ! why couldn't you have kept your crest on ? it is all 
 gone away into spray, striking up against the cliffs there — 
 I thought as much — missed the mark by a couple of feet! 
 Another : — How now, impatient one ! couldn't you have waited 
 till your friend's reflux was done with, instead of rolling your- 
 self up with it in that unseemly manner ? You go for nothing. 
 A fourth, and a goodly one at last. What think we of yonder 
 slow rise, and crystalline hollow, without a flaw ? Steady, good 
 wave ; not so fast, not so fast ; where are you coming to ? — By our 
 architectural word, this is too bad ; two yards over the mark, and 
 ever so much of you in our face besides ; and a wave which we 
 had some hope of, behind there, broken all to pieces out at sea, 
 and laying a great white tablecloth of foam all the way to the 
 shore, as if the marine gods were to dine off it ! Alas, for these 
 unhappy arrow shots of Nature ; she will never hit her mark with 
 those unruly waves of hers, nor get one of them into the ideal 
 shape, if we wait for her a thousand years. Let us send for a 
 Greek architect to do it for her. He comes — the great Greek 
 architect, with measure and rule. Will he not also make the 
 weight for the winds ? and weigh out the waters by measure ? 
 and make a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of 
 the thunder ? He sets himself orderly to his work, and behold ! 
 this is the mark of nature, and this is the thing into which the 
 great Greek architect improves the sea — 
 
 z 3 
 
342 XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 
 
 (-Vi/.aTxa, SaXarra: AVas it this, then, that they wept to see from 
 the sacred mountain — those wearied ones ? 
 
 § iv. But the sea was meant to be irregular ! Yes, and were 
 not also the leaves, and the blades of grass ; and, in a sort, as far 
 as may be without mark of sin, even the countenance of man ? 
 Or would it be pleasanter and better to have us all alike, and 
 numbered on our foreheads, that we might be known one from 
 the other ? 
 
 § v. Is there, then, nothing to be done by man's art ? Have we 
 only to copy, and again copy, for ever, the imagery of the 
 universe ? Not so. We have work to do upon it ; there is not 
 any one of us so simple, nor so feeble, but he has work to do 
 upon it. But the work is not to improve, but to explain. This 
 infinite universe is unfathomable, inconceivable, in its whole; 
 every human creature must slowly spell out, and long con- 
 template, such part of it as may be possible for him to reach ; 
 then set forth what he has learned of it for those beneath him ; 
 extricating it from infinity, as one gathers a violet out of grass ; 
 one does not improve either violet or grass in gathering it, 
 but one makes the flower visible ; and then the human being 
 has to make its power upon his own heart visible also, and to 
 give it the honour of the good thoughts it has raised up in him, 
 and to write upon it the history of his own soul. And sometimes 
 he may be able to do more than this, and to set it in strange 
 lights, and display it in a thousand ways before unknown : ways 
 specially directed to necessary and noble purposes, for which he 
 had to choose instruments out of the wide armoury of God. All 
 this he may do: and in this he is only doing what every Christian 
 has to do with the written, as well as the created word, " rightly 
 dividing the word of truth." Out of the infinity of the written 
 word, he has also to gather and set forth things new and old, to 
 choose them for the season and the work that are before him, to 
 explain and manifest them to others, with such illustration and 
 enforcement as may be in his power, and to crown them with the 
 history of what, by them, God has done for his soul. And, in 
 doing this, is he improving the Word of God ? Just such 
 
XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 343 
 
 difference as there is between the sense in which a minister may 
 be said to improve a text, to the people's comfort, and the sense 
 in which an atheist might declare that he could improve the 
 Book, which, if any man shall add unto, there shall be added 
 unto him the plagues that are written therein; just such dif- 
 ference is there between that which, with respect to Nature, man 
 is, in his humbleness, called upon to do, and that which, in his 
 insolence, he imagines himself capable of doing. 
 
 § "VI. Have no fear, therefore, reader, in judging between 
 nature and art, so only that you love both. If you can love one 
 only, then let it be Nature ; you are safe with her : but do not 
 then attempt to judge the art, to which you do not care to give 
 thought, or time. But if you love both, you may judge between 
 them fearlessly; you may estimate the last, by its making you 
 remember the first, and giving you the same kind of joy. If, in 
 the square of the city, you can find a delight, finite, indeed, but 
 pure and intense, like that which you have in a valley among the 
 hills, then its art and architecture are right ; but if, after fair 
 trial, you can find no delight in them, nor any instruction like 
 that of nature, I call on you fearlessly to condemn them. 
 
 We are forced, for the sake of accumulating our power and 
 knowledge, to live in cities : but such advantage as we have in 
 association with each other is in great part counterbalanced by 
 our loss of fellowship with nature. AVe cannot all have our 
 gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. 
 Then the function of our architecture is, as far as may be, to 
 replace these ; to tell us about nature ; to possess us with 
 memories of her quietness ; to be solemn and full of tenderness, 
 like her, and rich in portraitures of her ; full of delicate imagery 
 of the flowers we can no more gather, and of the living creatures 
 now far away from us in their own solitude. If ever you felt or 
 found this in a London street, — if ever it furnished you with one 
 serious thought, or one ray of true and gentle pleasure, — if there 
 is in your heart a true delight in its grim railings and dark 
 casements, and wasteful finery of shops, and feeble coxcombry 
 of clubdiouses, — it is well: promote the building of more like 
 
 z 4 
 
314 XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 
 
 them. But if tliey never taught you anything, and never made 
 you happier as you passed beneath them, do not think they have 
 any mysterious goodness nor occult sublimity. Have done with 
 the wretched affectation, the futile barbarism, of pretending to 
 enjoy : for, as surely as you know that the meadow grass, meshed 
 with fairy rings, is better than the wood pavement, cut into 
 hexagons ; and as surely as you know the fresh winds and 
 sunshine of the upland are better than the choke-damp of the 
 vault, or the gas-light of the ball-room, you may know, as I 
 told you that jou should, that the good architecture, wdiich has 
 life, and truth, and joy in it, is better than the bad architecture, 
 which has death, dishonesty, and vexation of heart in it, from the 
 beginning to the end of time. 
 
 § VII. And now come with me, for I have kept you too long 
 from your gondola : come with me, on an autumnal morning, 
 through the dark gates of Padua, and let us take the broad road 
 leading towards the East. 
 
 It lies level, for a league or two, between its elms, and vine 
 festoons full laden, their thin leaves veined into scarlet hectic, and 
 their clusters deepened into gloomy blue ; then mounts an em- 
 bankment above the Brenta, and runs between the river and the 
 broad plain, wdiich stretches to the north in endless lines of 
 mulberry and maize. The Brenta flows slowly, but strongly ; 
 a muddy volume of yellowdsh-grey water, that neither hastens 
 nor slackens, but glides heavily between its monotonous banks, 
 with here and there a short, babbling eddy twisted for an instant 
 into its opaque surface, and vanishing, as if something had been 
 dragged into it and gone dowm. Dusty and shadeless, the road 
 fares along the dyke on its northern side ; and the tall wdiite 
 tower of Polo is seen trembling in the heat mist far away, and 
 never seems nearer than it did at first. Presently, you pass one 
 of the much vaunted " villas on the Brenta : " a glaring, spectral 
 shell of brick and stucco, its windows with painted architraves 
 like picture-frames, and a court-yard paved with pebbles in front 
 of it, all burning in the thick glow of the feverish sunshine, but 
 fenced from the high road, for magnificence sake, with goodly 
 
XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 345 
 
 posts and chains ; then another, of Kew Gothic, with Chinese 
 variations, painted red and green ; a third, composed for the 
 greater part of dead wall, with fictitious windows painted upon it, 
 each with a pea-green blind, and a classical architrave in bad 
 perspective ; and a fourth, with stucco figures set on the top of 
 its garden-wall : some antique, like the kind to be seen at the 
 corner of the New Road, and some of clumsy grotesque dwarfs, 
 with fat bodies and large boots. This is the architecture to 
 which her studies of the Renaissance have conducted modern 
 Italy. 
 
 § vill. The sun climbs steadily, and warms into intense white 
 the walls of the little piazza of Dolo, where we change horses. 
 Another dreary stage among the now divided branches of the 
 Brenta, forming irregular and half-stagnant canals ; with one or 
 two more villas on the other side of them, but these of the old 
 Venetian type, which we may have recognised before at Padua, 
 and sinking fast into utter ruin, black, and rent, and lonely, set 
 close to the edge of the dull water, with what were once small 
 gardens beside them, kneaded into mud, and with blighted 
 fragments of gnarled hedges and broken stakes for their fencing 1 : 
 and here and there a few fragments of marble steps, which have 
 once given them graceful access from the water's edge, now 
 settling into the mud in broken joints, all aslope, and slippery 
 with green weed. At last the road turns sharply to the north, 
 and there is an open space, covered with bent grass, on the right 
 of it : but do not look that way. 
 
 § IX. Five minutes more, and we are in the upper room of the 
 little inn at Mestre, glad of a moment's rest in shade. The table 
 is (always, I think) covered with a cloth of nominal white and 
 perennial grey, with plates and glasses at due intervals, and small 
 loaves of a peculiar white bread, made with oil, and more like 
 knots of flour than bread. The view from its balcony is not 
 cheerful : a narrow street, with a solitary brick church and barren 
 campanile on the other side of it ; and some conventual buildings, 
 with a few crimson remnants of fresco about their windows ; and, 
 between them and the street, a ditch with some slow current in it, 
 
34G XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 
 
 and one or two small houses beside it, one with an arbour of 
 roses at its door, as in an English tea-garden ; the air, however, 
 about us having in it nothing of roses, but a close smell of garlic 
 and crabs, warmed by the smoke of various stands of hot chestnuts. 
 There is much vociferation also going on beneath the window 
 respecting certain wheelbarrows which are in rivalry for our 
 baggage ; we appease their rivalry with our best patience, and 
 follow them down the narrow street. 
 
 § x. We have but walked some two hundred yards when we 
 come to a low wharf or quay, at the extremity of a canal, with 
 long steps on each side down to the water, which latter we fancy 
 for an instant has become black with stagnation ; another glance 
 undeceives us, — it is covered with the black boats of Venice. 
 We enter one of them, rather to try if they be real boats or not, 
 than with any definite purpose, and glide away ; at first feeling 
 as if the water were yielding continually beneath the boat and 
 letting her sink into soft vacancy. It is something clearer than 
 any water we have seen lately, and of a pale green ; the banks 
 only two or three feet above it, of mud and rank grass, with 
 here and there a stunted tree ; gliding swiftly past the small 
 casement of the gondola, as if they were dragged by upon a 
 painted scene. 
 
 Stroke by stroke, we count the plunges of the oar, each heaving 
 up the side of the boat slightly as her silver beak shoots forward. 
 We lose patience, and extricate ourselves from the cushions: the 
 sea air blows keenly by, as we stand leaning on the roof of the 
 floating cell. In front, nothing to be seen but long canal and 
 level bank ; to the west, the tower of Mestre is lowering fast, 
 and behind it there have risen purple shapes, of the colour of 
 dead rose-leaves, all round the horizon, feebly defined against the 
 afternoon sky, — the Alps of Bassano. Forward still : the endless 
 canal bends at last, and then breaks into intricate angles about 
 some low bastions, now torn to pieces and staggering in ugly 
 rents towards the water, — the bastions of the fort of Malghera. 
 Another turn, and another perspective of canal ; but not inter- 
 minable. The silver beak cleaves it fast, — it widens : the rank 
 
XXX. THE VESTIBULE. 347 
 
 grass of the banks sinks lower, and lower, and at last dies in 
 tawny knots along an expanse of weedy shore. Over it, on the 
 right, but a few years back, we might have seen the lagoon 
 stretching to the horizon, and the warm southern sky bending 
 over Malamocco to the sea. Now we can see nothing but what 
 seems a low and monotonous dockyard wall, with flat arches to 
 let the tide through it; — this is the railroad bridge, conspicuous 
 above all things. But at the end of those dismal arches there 
 rises, out of the wide water, a straggling line of low and confused 
 brick buildings, which, but for the many towers which are 
 mingled among them, might be the suburbs of an English 
 manufacturing town. Four or five domes, pale, and apparently 
 at a greater distance, rise over the centre of the line ; but the 
 object which first catches the eye is a sullen cloud of black 
 smoke brooding over the northern half of it, and which issues 
 from the belfry of a church. 
 It is Venice. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 1. FOUNDATION OF VENICE. 
 
 I find the chroniclers agree in fixing the year 421, if any: the follow- 
 ing sentence from De Monaci may perhaps interest the reader. 
 
 " God, who punishes the sins of men by war sorrows, and whose ways 
 are past finding out, willing both to save the innocent blood, and that a 
 great power, beneficial to the whole world, should arise in a spot strange 
 beyond belief, moved the chief men of the cities of the Venetian province, 
 (which, from the border of Pannonia, extended as far as the Adda, a river 
 of Lombardy), both in memory of past, and in dread of future distress, to 
 establish states upon the nearer islands of the inner gulphs of the Adriatic, 
 to which, in the last necessity, they might retreat for refuge. And first 
 Galienus de Fontana, Simon de Glauconibus, and Antonius Calvus, or, as 
 others have it, Adalhertus Falerius, Thomas Candiano, Comes Daulus, 
 Consuls of Padua, by the command of their King and the desire of the 
 citizens, laid the foundations of the new commonwealth, under good 
 auspices, on the island of the Rialto, the highest and nearest to the mouth 
 of the deep river now called the Brenta, in the year of Our Lord, as 
 many writers assure us, four hundred and twenty-one, on the 25th clay 
 of March." * 
 
 It is matter also of very great satisfaction to know that Venice was 
 founded by good Christians : " La qual citade e stada hedificada da veri e 
 boni Christiani:" which information I found in the MS. copy of the 
 Zancarol Chronicle, in the library of St. Mark's. 
 
 Finally, the conjecture as to the origin of her name, recorded by San- 
 sovino, will be accepted willingly by all who love Venice: " Fu inter- 
 pretato da alcuni, che questa voce Venetia voglia dire VENI ETIAM, 
 cioe, vieni ancora, e ancora, percioche quante volte verrai, sempre vedrai 
 nuove cose, e nuove bellezze." 
 
 * Ed. Venetis, 1758, Lib. I. 
 
350 APPENDIX, 2, 3. 
 
 2. POWER OF THE DOGES. 
 
 The best authorities agree in giving the year 697 as that of the election 
 of the first doge, Paul Luke Anafeste. He was elected in a general 
 meeting of the commonalty, tribunes, and clergy, at Heraclea, " divinis 
 rebus procuratis," as usual, in all serious work, in those times. His authority 
 is thus defined by Sabellieo, who was not likely to have exaggerated it: — 
 "Penes quern decus omne imperii ac majestas esset: cui jus concilium cogendi 
 quoties de republica aliquid referri oporteret ; qui tribunos annuos in 
 singulas insulas legeret, a quibus ad Ducem esset provocatio. Casterum, si 
 quia dignitatem, ecclesiam, sacerdotumve cleri populique suffragio esset 
 adeptus, ita demum id ratum haberetur si dux ipse auctor factus esset." 
 (Lib. I.) The last clause is very important, indicating the subjection of 
 the ecclesiastical to the popular and ducal (or patrician) powers, which, 
 throughout her career, was one of the most remarkable features in the 
 policy of Venice. The appeal from the tribunes to the doge is also important ; 
 and the expression "decus omne imperii," if of somewhat doubtful force, is 
 at least as energetic as could have been expected from an historian under 
 the influence of the Council of Ten. 
 
 3. SERRAR DEL CONSIGLIO. 
 
 The date of the decree which made the right of sitting in the grand 
 council hereditary, is variously given ; the Venetian historians themselves 
 saying as little as they can about it. The thing was evidently not ac- 
 complished at once, several decrees following in successive years : the 
 Council of Ten was established without any doubt in 1310, in consequence 
 of the conspiracy of Tiepolo. The Venetian verse, quoted by Mutinelli 
 (Annali Urbani di Venezia, p. 153.), is worth remembering: 
 
 " Del mille tresento e diese 
 A mezzo el mese delle ceriese 
 Bagiamonte passo el ponte 
 E per esso fo fatto el Consegio di diese." 
 
 The reader cannot do better than take 1297 as the date of the beginning 
 of the change of government, and this will enable him exactly to divide the 
 1100 years from the election of the first doge into 600 of monarchy and 
 500 of aristocracy. The coincidence of the numbers is somewhat curious ; 
 697 the date of the establishment of the government, 1297 of its change, 
 and 1797 of its fall. 
 
APPENDIX, 4, 5. 351 
 
 4. S. PIETRO DI CASTELLO. 
 
 It is credibly reported to have been founded in the seventh century, and 
 (with somewhat less of credibility) in a place where the Trojans, conducted 
 by Antenor, had, after the destruction of Troy, built " un castello, 
 chiamato prima Troja, poscia Olivolo, intcrpretato, luogo pieno." It seems 
 that St. Peter appeared in person to the Bishop of Heraclea, and com- 
 manded him to found, in his honour, a church in that spot of the rising city 
 on the Rialto : " ove avesse veduto una mandra di buoi e di pecore pas- 
 colare unitamente. Questa fu la prodigiosa origine della Chiesa di San 
 Pietro, che poscia, o rinovata, o ristaurata, da Orso Participazio IV Ves- 
 covo Olivolense, divenne la Cattedrale della Nuova citta." (Xotizie 
 Storiche delle Chiese e Jlonasteri di Venezia. Padua, 1758.) What there 
 was so prodigious in oxen and sheep feeding together, we need St. Peter, 
 I think, to tell us. The title of Bishop of Castello was first taken in 
 1091 : St. Mark's was not made the cathedral church till 1807. It may 
 be thought hardly fair to conclude the small importance of the old St. Pietro 
 di Castello from the appearance of the w r retched modernisations of 1620. 
 But these modernisations are spoken of as improvements ; and I find no 
 notice of peculiar beauties in the older building, either in the work above 
 quoted, or by Sansovino; who only says that when it was destroyed by 
 fire (as everything in Venice was, I think, about three times in a century), 
 in the reign of Vital Michele, it was rebuilt "with good thick walls, main- 
 taining, for all that, the order of its arrangement taken from the Greek 
 mode of building." This does not seem the description of a very enthu- 
 siastic effort to rebuild a highly ornate cathedral. The present church is 
 among the least interesting in Venice ; a wooden bridge, something like 
 that of Battersea on a small scale, connects its island, now almost deserted, 
 with a wretched suburb of the city behind the arsenal ; and a blank level 
 of lifeless grass, rotted away in places rather than trodden, is extended 
 before its mildewed facade and solitary tower. 
 
 5. PAPAL POWER IN VENICE. 
 
 I may refer the reader to the eleventh chapter of the twenty-eighth 
 book of Daru for some account of the restraints to which the Venetian 
 clergy were subjected. I have not myself been able to devote any time to 
 the examination of the original documents bearing on this matter, but the 
 following; extract from the letter of a friend, who will not at present 
 
352 APPENDIX, 5. 
 
 permit me to give his name, but who is certainly better conversant with 
 the records of the Venetian State than any other Englishman, will be of 
 great value to the general reader : — 
 
 "In the year 1410, or perhaps at the close of the thirteenth century, 
 churchmen were excluded from the Grand Council and declared ineligible 
 to civil employments; and in this same year, 1410, the Council of Ten, 
 with the Giunta, decreed that whenever in the state's councils matters con- 
 cerning ecclesiastical affairs were being treated, all the kinsfolk of Venetian 
 beneficed clergymen were to be expelled ; and, in the year 1434, the re- 
 lations of churchmen were declared ineligible to the post of ambassador 
 at Rome. 
 
 " The Venetians never gave possession of any sec in their territories to 
 bishops unless they had been proposed to the pope by the senate, which 
 elected the patriarch, who was supposed, at the end of the sixteenth century, 
 to be liable to examination by his Holiness, as an act of confirmation or 
 installation ; but, of course, everything depended on the relative power at 
 any given time of Rome and Venice: for instance, a few days after the 
 accession of Julius II., in 1503, he requests the Signory, cap in hand, to 
 allow him to confer the archbishopric of Zara on a dependant of his, one 
 Cipico, the Bishop of Famagosta. Six years later, when Venice was over- 
 whelmed by the leaguers of Cambrai, that furious pope would assuredly 
 have conferred Zara on Cipico without asking leave. In 1608, the rich 
 Camaldolite Abbey of Vangadizza, in the Polcsine, fell vacant through 
 the death of Lionardo Loredano, in whose family it had been since some 
 while. The Venetian ambassador at Rome received the news on the 
 night of the 28th December; and, on the morrow, requested Paul IV. 
 not to dispose of this preferment until he heard from the senate. 
 The pope talked of 'poor cardinals' and of his nephew, but made no 
 positive reply ; and, as Francesco Contarini was withdrawing, said to 
 him ; ' My Lord ambassador, with this opportunity we will inform you 
 that, to our very great regret, we understand that the chiefs of the Ten 
 mean to turn sacristans ; for they order the parish priests to close the church 
 doors at the Ave Maria, and not to ring the bells at certain hours. This 
 is precisely the sacristan's office ; we don't know why their lordships, by 
 printed edicts, which we have seen, choose to interfere in this matter. This 
 is pure and mere ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; and even, in case of any in- 
 convenience arising, is there not the patriarch, who is at any rate your own; 
 why not apply to him, who could remedy these irregularities ? These are 
 matters which cause us very notable displeasure ; we say so that they may 
 be written and known : it is decided by the councils and canons, and not 
 
APPENDIX, 5. 353 
 
 uttered by us, that whosoever forms any resolve against the ecclesiastical 
 liberty, cannot do so without incurring censure : and in order that Father 
 Paul [Bacon's correspondent] may not say hereafter, as he did in his past 
 writings, that our predecessors assented either tacitly or by permission, we 
 declare that we do not give our assent, nor do we approve it ; nay, we 
 blame it, and let this be announced in Venice, so that, for the rest, every 
 one may take care of his own conscience. St. Thomas a Becket, whose 
 festival is celebrated this very day, suffered martyrdom for the ecclesiastical 
 liberty; it is our duty likewise to support and defend it.' Contarini 
 says: ' This remonstrance was delivered with some marks of anger, 
 which induced me to tell him how the tribunal of the most excellent the 
 Lords chiefs of the Ten is in our country supreme ; that it does not do its 
 business unadvisedly, or condescend to unworthy matters ; and that, there- 
 fore, should those Lords have come to any public declaration of their will, 
 it must be attributed to orders anterior, and to immemorial custom and 
 authority ; recollecting that, on former occasions likewise, similar com- 
 missions were given to prevent divers incongruities ; wherefore an upright 
 intention, such as this, ought not to be taken in any other sense than its 
 own, especially as the parishes of Venice were in her own gift,' &c. &c. 
 The pope persisted in bestowing the abbacy on his nephew, but the republic 
 would not give possession, and a compromise was effected by its being con- 
 ferred on the Venetian Matteo Priuli, who allowed the cardinal five thousand 
 ducats per annum out of its revenues. A few years before this, this very 
 same pope excommunicated the State, because she had imprisoned two 
 churchmen for heinous crimes ; the strife lasted for more than a year, and 
 ended through the mediation of Henry IV., at whose suit the prisoners were 
 delivered to the French ambassador, who made them over to a papal com- 
 missioner. 
 
 " In January, 1484, a tournament was in preparation on St. Mark's 
 Square : some murmurs had been heard about the distribution of the prizes 
 having been pre-arranged, without regard to the ' best man.' One of the 
 chiefs of the Ten was walking along Rialto on the 28th January, when a 
 young priest, twenty-two yeai - s old, a sword-cutler's son, and a Bolognese, 
 and one of Perugia, both men-at-arms under Robert Sansoverino, fell upon 
 a clothier with drawn weapons. The chief of the Ten desired they might 
 be seized, but at the moment the priest escaped ; he was however subse- 
 quently retaken, and in that very evening hanged by torch-light between 
 the columns with the two soldiers. Innocent VIII. was less powerful than 
 Paul IV. ; Venice weaker in 1605 than in 1484. 
 
 ct * * * -jhg exc l us i n from the Grand Council, whether at the end of 
 
 A A 
 
354 APPENDIX, 5. 
 
 the fourteenth or commencement of the following century, of the Venetian 
 ecclesiastics, (as induced either by the republic's acquisitions on the main 
 land then made, and which, through the rich benefices they embraced, 
 might have rendered an ambitious churchman as dangerous in the Grand 
 Council as a victorious condottiere ; or from dread of their allegiance being 
 divided between the church and their country, it being acknowledged that 
 no man can serve two masters,) did not render them hostile to their father- 
 land, whose interests were, with very few exceptions, eagerly farthered by 
 the Venetian prelates at Rome, who, in their turn, received all honour at 
 Venice, where state receptions given to cardinals of the houses of Correr, 
 Grimani, Cornaro, Pisani, Contarini, Zeno, Delfino, and others, vouch for 
 the good understanding that existed between the ' Papalists ' and their 
 countrymen. The Cardinal Grimani was instrumental in detaching Ju- 
 lius II. from the league of Cambrai ; the Cardinal Cornaro always aided 
 the State to obtain anything required of Leo X. ; and, both before and 
 after their times, all Venetians that had a seat in the Sacred College were 
 patriots rather than pluralist s : I mean that they cared more for Venice 
 than for their benefices, admitting thus the soundness of that policy which 
 denied them admission into the Grand Council." 
 
 To this interesting statement, I shall add, from the twenty-eighth book 
 of Daru, two passages, well deserving consideration by us English in 
 present days : 
 
 " Pour etre parfaitement assuree contre les envahissements de la puissance 
 ecclesiastique, Venise commenca par lui titer tout prctexte d'intervenir dans 
 les affaires de FEtat ; elle rcsta invariablement fidele au dogme. Jamais 
 aucune des opinions nouvelles n'y prit la moindre faveur; jamais aucun 
 heresiarque ne sortit de Venise. Les conciles, les disputes, les guerres de 
 religion, se passerent sans qu'elle y prit jamais la moindre part, lncbran- 
 lable dans sa foi, elle ne fut pas moins invariable dans son systenie de 
 tolerance. Non settlement ses sujets de la religion grecque conserverent 
 l'exercice de leur culte, leurs eveques et leurs pretres ; mais les Protestants, 
 les Armeniens, les Mahomitans, les Juifs, toutes les religions, toutes les 
 sectes qui se trouvaient dans Venise, avaient des temples, et la sepulture 
 dans les eglises n'etait point refuse aux heretiques. Une police vigilante 
 s'appliquait avec le meme soin a eteindre les discordes, et a empecher les 
 
 fanatiques et les novateurs de troubler 1'Etat." 
 
 ******** 
 
 " Si on considere que c'est dans un temps ou presque toutes les nations 
 trcmblaient devant la puissance pontificale, que les Venitiens surent tenir 
 leur elerge dans la dependance, et braver souvent les censures ecclesiastiques 
 
APPENDIX, 5. 355 
 
 et les interdits, sans encourir jamais aucun reproche sur la purete de leur 
 foi, on sera force de rcconnaitre que cette republique avait devance de loin 
 les autres peuples dans cette partie de la science du gouvernement. La 
 fameuse maxime, ' Siamo veneziani, poi christian!,' n'etait qu'une formule 
 energique qui ne prouvait point qu'ils voulussent placer l'interet de la 
 religion apres celui de l'Etat, mais qui annoncait leur invariable resolution 
 de ne pas souffrir qu'un pouvoir Stranger portat atteinte aux droits de la 
 republique. 
 
 "Dans toute la duree de son existence, au milieu des revers comme dans 
 la prosperity, cet inebranlable gouvernement ne fit qu'une seule fois des 
 concessions a la cour de Rome, et ce fut pour detacher 1c Pape Jules II. de 
 la ligue de Cambrai. 
 
 " Jamais il ne se relacha du soin de tenir le clerge dans une nullite 
 absolue relativement aux affaires politiques ; on pent en juger par la 
 conduite qu'il tint avec l'ordre religieux le plus redoutable et le plus 
 accoutume a s'immiscer dans les secrets de l'Etat et dans les interets 
 temporels." 
 
 The main points, next stated, respecting the Jesuits are, that the decree 
 which permitted their establishment in Venice required formal renewal 
 every three years ; that no Jesuit could stay in Venice more than three 
 years ; that the slightest disobedience to the authority of the government 
 was instantly punished by imprisonment ; that no Venetian could enter 
 the order without express permission from the government ; that the 
 notaries were forbidden to sanction any testamentary disposal of property 
 to the Jesuits ; finally, that the heads of noble families were forbidden to 
 permit their children to be educated in the Jesuits' colleges, on pain of 
 degradation from their rank. 
 
 Now, let it be observed that the enforcement of absolute exclusion of 
 the clergy from the councils of the state, dates exactly from the period 
 which I have marked for the commencement of the decline of the Venetian 
 power. The Romanist is welcome to his advantage in this fact, if advan- 
 tage it be ; for I do not bring forward the conduct of the senate of 
 Venice, as Daru does, by way of an example of the general science of 
 government. The Venetians accomplished therein what we ridiculously 
 call a separation of " Church and State " (as if the State were not, in all 
 Christendom, necessarily also the Church*), but ought to call a separation 
 of lay and clerical officers. I do not point out this separation as subject 
 of praise, but as the witness borne by the Venetians against the principles 
 
 * Compare Appendix 12. 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 APPENDIX, 5. 
 
 of the Papacy. If they were to blame, in yielding to their fear of the 
 ambitious spirit of Rome so far as to deprive their councils of all religious 
 element, what excuse are we to offer for the state, which, with Lords 
 Spiritual of her own faith already in her senate, permits the polity of Rome 
 to be represented by lay members? To have sacrificed religion to mistaken 
 policy, or purchased security with ignominy, would have been no new 
 thing in the world's history ; but to be at once impious and impolitic, and 
 seek for danger through dishonour, was reserved for the English parliament 
 of 1829. 
 
 I am glad to have this opportunity of referring to, and farther enforcing, 
 the note on this subject which, not without deliberation, I appended to the 
 " Seven Lamps ; " and of adding to it the following passage, written by my 
 father in the year 1839, and published in one of the journals of that year : 
 ■ — a passage remarkable as much for its intrinsic value, as for having 
 stated, twelve years ago, truths to which the mind of England seems but 
 now, and that slowly, to be awakening. 
 
 ""We hear it said, that it cannot be merely the Roman religion that 
 causes the difficulty [respecting Ireland], for we were once all Roman 
 Catholics, and nations abroad of this faith are not as the Irish. It is totally 
 overlooked, that when we were so, our government was despotic, and fit to 
 cope with this dangerous religion, as most of the Continental governments 
 yet are. In what Roman Catholic state, or in what age of Roman Catholic 
 England, did we ever hear of such agitation as now exists in Ireland by 
 evil men taking advantage of an anomalous state of things — Roman Catholic 
 ignorance in the people, Protestant toleration in the Government? AVe 
 have yet to feel the tremendous difficulty in which Roman Catholic eman- 
 cipation has involved us. Too late we discover that a Roman Catholic is 
 wholly incapable of being safely connected with the British constitution, as 
 it now exists, in any near relation. The present constitution is no longer 
 fit for Catholics. It is a creature essentially Protestant, growing with the 
 growth, and strengthening with the strength, of Protestantism. So entirely 
 is Protestantism interwoven with the whole frame of our constitution and 
 laws, that I take my stand on this, against all agitators in existence, that 
 the Roman religion is totally incompatible with the British constitution. 
 We have, in trying to combine them, got into a maze of difficulties ; we are 
 the worse, and Ireland none the better. It is idle to talk of municipal 
 reform or popular Lords Lieutenant. The mild sway of a constitutional 
 monarchy is not strong enough for a Roman Catholic population. The 
 stern soul of a Republican would not shrink from sending half the mis- 
 guided population and all the priests into exile, and planting in their place 
 
APPENDIX, 5. 357 
 
 nn industrious Protestant people. But you cannot do this, and you cannot 
 convert the Irish, nor by other means make them fit to wear the mild re- 
 straints of a Protestant Government. It was, moreover, a strange logic 
 that begot the idea of admitting Catholics to administer any part of our 
 laws or constitution. It was admitted by all that, by the very act of 
 abandoning the Roman religion, we became a free and enlightened people. 
 It was only by throwing off the yoke of that slavish religion that we at- 
 tained to the freedom of thought which has advanced us in the scale of 
 society. We are so much advanced by adopting and adhering to a reformed 
 religion, that, to prove our liberal and unprejudiced views, we throw down 
 the barriers betwixt the two religions, of which the one is the acknowledged 
 cause of light and knowledge, the other the cause of darkness and ignorance. 
 We are so much altered to the better by leaving this people entirely, and 
 giving them neither part nor lot amongst us, that it becomes proper to 
 mingle again with them. We have found so much good in leaving them, 
 that we deem it the best possible reason for returning to be among them. 
 No fear of their Church again shaking us, with all our light and knowledge. 
 It is true, the most enlightened nations fell under the spell of her enchant- 
 ments, fell into total darkness and superstition; but no fear of us — we are 
 too weil informed ! What miserable reasoning ! infatuated presumption ! 
 I fear me, when the Roman religion rolled her clouds of darkness over the 
 earlier ages, that she quenched as much light, and knowledge, and judgment 
 as our modern Liberals have ever displayed. I do not expect a statesman 
 to discuss the point of Transubstantiation betwixt Protestant and Catholic, 
 nor to trace the narrow lines which divide Protestant sectarians from each 
 other ; but can any statesman that shall have taken even a cursory glance 
 at the face of Europe, hesitate a moment on the choice of the Protestant 
 religion ? If he unfortunately knew nothing of its being the true one in 
 regard to our eternal interests, he is at least bound to see whether it be not 
 the best for the worldly prosperity of a people. He may be but moderately 
 imbued with pious zeal for the salvation of a kingdom, but at least he will 
 be expected to weigh the comparative merits of religion, as of law or govern- 
 ment ; and blind, indeed, must he be if he does not discern that, in ne- 
 glecting to cherish the Protestant faith, or in too easily yielding to any 
 encroachments on it, he is foregoing the use of a state engine more powerful 
 than all the laws which the uninspired legislators of the earth have ever 
 promulgated, in promoting the happiness, the peace, prosperity, and the 
 order, the industry, and the wealth, of a people ; in forming every quality 
 valuable or desirable in a subject or a citizen ; in sustaining the public mind 
 at that point of education and information that forms the best security for 
 
 A A 3 
 
358 appendix, 5, 6. 
 
 the state 3 and the best preservative for the freedom of a people, whether 
 religious or political." 
 
 G. RENAISSANCE ORNAMENTS. 
 
 There having been three principal styles of architecture in Venice, — the 
 Greek or Byzantine, the Gothic, and the Renaissance, it will be shown, in 
 the sequel, that the Renaissance itself is divided into three correspondent 
 families: Renaissance engrafted on Byzantine, which is earliest and best; 
 Renaissance engrafted on Gothic, which is second, and second best ; Re- 
 naissance on Renaissance, which is double darkness, and worst of all. The 
 palaces in which Renaissance is engrafted on Byzantine are those noticed 
 by Commynes : they are characterised by an ornamentation very closely 
 resembling, and in some cases identical with, early Byzantine work ; namely, 
 groups of coloured marble circles inclosed in interlacing bands. I have put 
 on the opposite page one of these ornaments, from the Ca' Trevisan, in 
 which a most curious and delicate piece of inlaid design is introduced into a 
 band which is almost exactly copied from the church of Theotocos at Con- 
 stantinople, and correspondent with others in St. Mark's. There is also 
 much Byzantine feeling in the treatment of the animals, especially in the 
 two birds of the lower compartment, while the peculiar curves of the cinque 
 cento leafage are visible in the leaves above. The dove, alighted, with the 
 olive-branch plucked off, is opposed to the raven with restless expanded 
 wings. Beneath are evidently the two sacrifices "of every clean fowl and 
 of every clean beast." The colour is given with green and white marbles, 
 the dove l'elievcd on a ground of greyish green, and all is exquisitely finished. 
 
 In Plate I., p. 13., the upper figure is from the same palace (Ca' Trevisan), 
 and it is very interesting in its proportions. If we take five circles in geo- 
 metrical proportion, each diameter being two-thirds of the diameter next 
 above it, and arrange the circles so proportioned, in contact with each other, 
 in the manner shown in the plate, we shall find that an increase quite im- 
 perceptible in the diameter of the circles in the angles, will enable us to 
 inscribe the whole in a square. The lines so described will then run in 
 the centre of the white bands. I cannot be certain that this is the actual 
 construction of the Trevisan design, because it is on a high wall surface, 
 where I could not get at its measurements; but I found this construction 
 exactly coincide with the lines of my eye-sketch. The lower figure in 
 Plate I. is from the front of the Ca' Dario, and probably struck the eye of 
 Commynes in its first brightness. Sclvatico, indeed, considers both the 
 Ca' Trevisan (which once belonged to Bianca Cappello) and the Ca' Dario, 
 
X 
 
 C3 
 
 P. 
 
 X 
 H 
 > 
 
 N 
 
6, 7. 359 
 
 as buildings of the sixteenth century. I defer the discussion of the question 
 at present, but have, I believe, sufficient reason for assuming the Ca' Dario 
 to have been built about 1486, and the Ca' Trevisan not much later. 
 
 7. VARIETIES OF TILE ORDERS. 
 
 Of these phantasms and grotesques, one of some general importance 19 
 that commonly called Ionic, of which the idea was taken (Vitruvius says) 
 from a woman's hair, curled ; but its lateral processes look more like rams' 
 horns : be that as it may, it is a mere piece of agreeable extravagance, 
 and if, instead of rams' horns, you put ibex horns, or cows' horns, or an 
 ass's head at once, you will have ibex orders, or ass orders, or any number 
 of other orders, one for every head or horn. You may have heard of 
 another order, the Composite, which is Ionic and Corinthian mixed, and is 
 one of the worst of ten thousand forms referable to the Corinthian as their 
 head : it may be described as a spoiled Corinthian. And you may have 
 also heard of another order, called Tuscan (which is no order at all, but a 
 spoiled Doric) : and of another called Roman Doric, which is Doric more 
 spoiled, both which are simply among the most stupid variations ever 
 invented upon forms already known. I find also in a French pamphlet 
 upon architecture *, as applied to shops and dwelling houses, a sixth order, 
 the " Ordre Francais," at least as good as any of the three last, and to be 
 hailed with acclamation, considering whence it comes, there being usually 
 more tendency on the other side of the channel to the confusion of 
 " ordres " than their multiplication : but the reader will find in the end 
 that there are in very deed only two orders, of which the Greek, Doric, 
 and Corinthian are the first examples, and they not perfect, nor in any- 
 wise sufficiently representative of the vast families to which they belong ; 
 but being the first and the best known, they may properly be considered 
 as the types of the rest. The essential distinctions of the two great orders 
 he will find explained in §§ XXXV. and XXXVI. of Chap. XXVII., and in 
 the passages there referred to ; but I should rather desire that these 
 passages might be read in the order in which they occur. 
 
 * L'Artiste en Batiments, par Louis Bertbaux : Dijon, 1847. My printer writes at 
 the side of the page a note, which I insert with thanks : — " This is not the first attempt at 
 a French order. The writer has a Treatise by Sebastian Le Clerc, a great man in his 
 generation, which contains a Roman order, a Spanish order, which the inventor appeai'3 
 to think very grand, and a new French order nationalised by the Gallic cock crowing and 
 clapping its wings in the capital." 
 
 A A 4 
 
360 APPENDIX, 8. 
 
 8. THE NORTIIErvN ENERGY. 
 
 I have sketched above, in the First Chapter, the great events of architec- 
 tural history in the simplest and fewest words I could; but this indraught 
 of the Lombard energies upon the Byzantine rest, like a wild north wind 
 descending into a space of rarified atmosphere, and encountered by an Arab 
 simoom from the south, may well require from us some farther attention ; 
 for the differences in all these schools are more in the degrees of their 
 impetuosity and refinement (these qualities being, in most cases, in inverse 
 ratio, yet much united by the Arabs) than in the style of the ornaments 
 they employ. The same leaves, the same animals, the same arrangements, 
 are used by Scandinavians, ancient Britons, Saxons, Normans, Lombards, 
 Romans, Byzantines, and Arabians ; all being alike descended through 
 classic Greece from Egypt and Assyria, and some from Phoenicia. The 
 belts which encompass the Assyrian bulls, in the hall of the British 
 Museum, are the same as the belts of the ornaments found in Scan- 
 dinavian tumuli ; their method of ornamentation is the same as that of the 
 gate of Mycenae, and of the Lombard pulpit of St. Ambrogio of Milan, 
 and of the church of Theotocos at Constantinople : the essential differences 
 among the great schools are their differences of temper and treatment, 
 and science of expression ; it is absurd to talk of Norman ornaments, and 
 Lombard ornaments, and Byzantine ornaments, as formally distinguished ; 
 but there is irreconcileable separation between Arab temper, and Lombard 
 temper, and Byzantine temper. 
 
 Now, as far as I have been able to compare the three schools, it appears 
 to me that the Arab and Lombard are both distinguished from the 
 Byzantine by their energy and love of excitement, but the Lombard stands 
 alone in his love of jest: Neither an Arab nor Byzantine ever jests in his 
 architecture ; the Lombard has great difficulty in ever being thoroughly 
 serious : thus they represent three conditions of humanity, one in perfect 
 rest, the Byzantine, with exquisite perception of grace and dignity ; the 
 Arab, with the same perception of gracCj but with a restless fever in his 
 blood ; the Lombard, equally energetic, but not burning himself away, 
 capable of submitting to law, and of enjoying jest. But the Arabian 
 feverishness infects even the Lombard in the south, showing itself, how- 
 ever, in endless invention, with a refreshing firmness and order directing 
 the whole of it. The excitement is greatest in the earliest times, most of 
 all shown in St. Michele of Pavia ; and I am strongly disposed to connect 
 much of its peculiar manifestations with the Lombard's habits of eating 
 and drinking, especially his carnivorousness. The Lombard of early 
 
APPENDIX, 8. 361 
 
 times seems to have been exactly what a tiger would be, if you could 
 give him love of a joke, vigorous imagination, strong sense of justice, 
 fear of hell, knowledge of northern mythology, a stone den, and a mallet 
 and chisel : fancy him pacing up and down in the said den to digest his 
 dinner, and striking on the wall, with a new fancy in his head, at every 
 turn, and you have the Lombardic sculptor. As civilisation increases the 
 supply of vegetables, and shortens that of wild beasts, the excitement 
 diminishes ; it is still strong in the thirteenth century at Lyons and 
 Rouen ; it dies away gradually in the later Gothic, and is quite extinct 
 in the fifteenth century. 
 
 I think I shall best illustrate this general idea by simply copying the 
 entries in my diary which were written when, after six months' close 
 study of Byzantine work in Venice, I came again to the Lombard work of 
 Verona and Pavia. There are some other points alluded to in these 
 entries not pertaining to the matter immediately in hand ; but I have left 
 them, as they will be of use hereafter. 
 
 " (Verona.) Comparing the arabesque and sculpture of the Duomo here 
 with St. Mark's, the first thing that strikes one is the low relief, the second 
 the greater motion and spirit, with infinitely less grace and science. With 
 the Byzantines, however rude the cutting, every line is lovely, and the 
 animals or men are placed in any attitudes which secure ornamental 
 effect, sometimes impossible ones, always severe, restrained, or languid. 
 With the Romanesque workmen all the figures show the effoi - t (often suc- 
 cessful) to express energetic action; hunting chiefly, much fighting, and 
 both spirited ; some of the dogs running capitally, straining to it, and 
 the knights hitting haul, while j T et the faces and drawing are in the 
 last degree barbarous. At Venice all is graceful, fixed, or languid ; the 
 eastern torpor is in every line, — the mark of a school formed on severe 
 traditions, and keeping to them, and never likely or desirous to rise beyond 
 them, but with an exquisite sense of beauty, and much solemn religious 
 faith. 
 
 " If the Greek outer archivolt of St. Mark's is Byzantine, the law is 
 somewhat broken by its busy domesticity ; figures engaged in every trade, 
 and in the preparation of viands of all kinds; a crowded kind of London 
 Christmas scene, interleaved (literally) by the superb balls of leafage, unique 
 in sculpture ; but even this is strongly opposed to the wild war and chase 
 passion of the Lombard. Farther, the Lombard building is as sharp, pre- 
 cise, and accurate, as that of St. Mark's is careless. The Byzantines seem 
 to have been too lazy to put their stones together ; and, in general, my first 
 impression on coming to Verona, after four months in Venice, is of the 
 
362 APPENDIX, 8. 
 
 exquisitely neat masonry and perfect feeling here; a style of Gothic formed 
 by a combination of Lombard surface ornament with Pisan Gothic, than 
 which nothing can possibly be more chaste, pure, or solemn." 
 
 I have said much of the shafts of the entrance to the crypt of St. 
 Zeno* ; the following note of the sculptures on the archivolt above them 
 is to our present purpose : — 
 
 " It is covered by very light but most effective bas-reliefs of jesting 
 subject: — two cocks carrying on their shoulders a long staff, to which a 
 fox (?) is tied by the legs, hanging down between them : the strut of the 
 foremost cock, lifting one leg at right angles to the other, is delicious. Then 
 a stag hunt, with a centaur horseman drawing a bow; the arrow has gone 
 clear through the stag's throat, and is sticking there. Several capital 
 hunts with dogs, with fruit trees between, and birds in them ; the leaves, 
 considering the early time, singularly well set, with the edges outwards, 
 sharp, and deep cut : snails and frogs filling up the intervals, as if sus- 
 pended in the air, with some saucy puppies on their hind legs, two or three 
 nondescript beasts ; and, finally, on the centre of one of the arches on the 
 south side, an elephant and castle, — a very strange elephant, yet cut as if 
 the carver had seen one." 
 
 Observe this elephant and castle ; we shall meet with him farther north. 
 
 " These sculptures of St. Zeno are, however, quite quiet and tame com- 
 pared with those of St. Michele of Pavia, which are designed also in a 
 somewhat gloomier mood ; significative, as I think, of indigestion. (Note 
 that they are much earlier than St. Zeno ; of the seventh century at latest. 
 There is more of nightmare, and less of wit in them.) Lord Lindsay has 
 described them admirably, but has not said half enough ; the state of mind 
 represented by the west front is more that of a feverish dream, than re- 
 sultant from any determined architectural purpose, or even from any 
 definite love and delight in the grotesque. One capital is covered with a 
 mass of grinning heads, other heads grow out of two bodies, or out of and 
 under feet; the creatures are all fighting, or devouring, or struggling which 
 shall be uppermost, and yet in an ineffectual way, as if they would fight 
 for ever, and come to no decision. Neither sphinxes nor centaurs did I 
 notice, nor a single peacock (I believe peacocks to be purely Byzantine), 
 but mermaids with two tails (the sculptor having perhaps seen double at the 
 time), strange, large fish, apes, stags, (bulls?), dogs, wolves, and horses, 
 griffins, eagles, long-tailed birds, (cocks?), hawks, and dragons, without 
 end, or with a dozen of ends, as the case may be; smaller birds, with 
 
 * The lower group in Plate XVII. 
 
APPENDIX, 8. 3G3 
 
 rabbits, and small nondescripts, filling the friezes. The actual leaf, which 
 is used in the best Byzantine mouldings at Venice, occurs in parts of these 
 Pavian designs. But the Lombard animals are all alive, and fiercely alive 
 too, all impatience and spring; the Byzantine birds peck idly at the fruit, 
 and the animals hardly touch it with their noses. The cinque cento birds 
 in Venice hold it up daintily, like train-bearers ; the birds in the earlier 
 Gothic peck at it hungrily and naturally ; but the Lombard beasts gripe 
 at it like tigers, and tear it off with writhing lips and glaring eyes. They 
 are exactly like Jip with the bit of geranium, worrying imaginary cats 
 in it." 
 
 The notice of the leaf in the above extract is important, — it is the vine- 
 leaf; used constantly both by Byzantines and Lombards, but by the latter 
 with especial frequency, though at this time they were hardly able to 
 indicate what they meant. It forms the most remarkable generality of the 
 St. Michele decoration ; though, had it not luckily been carved on the 
 facade, twining round a stake, and with grapes, I should never have 
 known what it was meant for, its general form being a succession of sharp 
 lobes, with incised furrows to the point of each. But it is thrown about 
 in endless change ; four or five varieties of it might be found on every 
 cluster of capitals : and not content with this, the Lombards hint the same 
 form even in their griffin wings. They love the vine very heartily. 
 
 In St. Michele of Lucca we have perhaps the noblest instance in Italy 
 of the Lombard spirit in its later refinement. It is some four centuries 
 later than St. Michele of Pavia, and the method of workmanship is alto- 
 gether different. In the Pavian church, nearly all the ornament is cut in a 
 coarse sandstone, in bold relief: a darker and harder stone (I think, not 
 serpentine, but its surface is so disguised by the lustre of ages that I could 
 not be certain) is used for the capitals of the western door, which are 
 especially elaborate in their sculpture ; — two devilish apes, or apish devils, 
 I know not which, with bristly moustaches and edgy teeth, half-crouching, 
 with their hands impertinently on their knees, ready for a spit or a spring if 
 one goes near them ; but all is pure bossy sculpture ; there is no inlaying, 
 except of some variegated tiles in the shape of saucers set concave (an orna- 
 ment used also very gracefully in St. Jacopo of Bologna) : and the whole 
 surface of the church is enriched with the massy reliefs, well preserved 
 everywhere above the reach of human animals, but utterly destroyed to 
 some five or six feet from the ground ; worn away into large cellular 
 hollows and caverns, some almost deep enough to render the walls unsafe, 
 entirely owing to the uses to which the recesses of the church are dedi- 
 cated by the refined and high-minded Italians. But St. Michele of Lucca 
 
364 APPENDIX, 8. 
 
 is wrought entirely in white marble and green serpentine ; there is hardly 
 any relieved sculpture except in the capitals of the shafts and cornices, 
 and all the designs of wall ornament are inlaid with exquisite precision 
 — white on dark ground : the ground being cut out and filled with 
 serpentine, the figures left in solid marble. The designs of the Parian 
 church are encrusted on the walls; of the Lucchese, incorporated with 
 them ; small portions of real sculpture being introduced exactly where 
 the eye, after its rest on the flatness of the wall, will take most delight in 
 the piece of substantial form. The entire arrangement is perfect beyond 
 all praise, and the morbid restlessness of the old designs is now appeased. 
 Geometry seems to have acted as a febrifuge, for beautiful geometrical 
 designs are introduced amidst the tumult of the hunt ; and there is no 
 more seeing double, nor ghastly monstrosity of conception ; no more 
 ending of everything in something else; no more disputing for spare legs 
 amoiif bewildered bodies ; no more setting on of heads wrong side fore- 
 most. The fragments have come together : we are out of the Infei'no with 
 its weeping down the spine; we are in the fair hunting-fields of the 
 Lucchese mountains (though they had their tears also), — with horse, 
 and hound, and hawk ; and merry blast of the trumpet. — Very strange 
 creatures to be hunted, in all truth; but still creatures with a single 
 head, and that on their shoulders, which is exactly the last place in the 
 Pavian church where a head is to be looked for. 
 
 My food friend Mr. Cockerell wonders, in one of his lectures, 
 why I give so much praise to this " crazy front of Lucca."' But it is 
 not crazy ; not by any means. Altogether sober, in comparison with the 
 earlv Lombard work, or with our Xorman. Crazy in one sense it is: 
 utterly neglected, to the breaking of its old stout heart ; the venomous 
 ni"hts and salt frosts of the Maremma winters have their way with it — 
 " Poor Tom's a cold ! " The weeds that feed on the marsh air, have 
 twisted themselves into its crannies; the polished fragments of serpentine 
 are split and rent out of their cells, and lie in green ruins along its ledges ; 
 the salt sea winds have eaten away the fair shafting of its star window into 
 a skeleton of crumbling rays. It cannot stand much longer ; may Heaven 
 onlv, in its benignity, preserve it from restoration, and the sands of the 
 Serchio give it honourable grave. 
 
 In the " Seven Lamps," Plate VI., I gave a faithful drawing of one 
 of its upper arches, to which I must refer the reader ; for there is a marked 
 piece of character in the figure of the horseman on the left of it. And in 
 making this reference, I would say a few words about those much abused 
 plates of the " Seven Lamps." They are black, they are overbitten, they 
 
XXI 
 
 i nxytage ■ 
 
 "WalT-Tpil .'Di-rnnil-ini! 
 
 S.W MICHELE, LUCCA 
 
APPENDIX, 8. .365 
 
 are hastily drawn, they are coarse and disagreeable ; how disagreeable to 
 many readers I venture not to conceive. But their truth is carried to an 
 extent never before attempted in architectural drawing. It does not in 
 the least follow that because a drawing is delicate, or looks careful, it 
 has been carefully drawn from the thing represented ; in nine instances out 
 of ten, careful and delicate drawings are made at home. It is not so easy 
 as the reader, perhaps, imagines, to finish a drawing altogether on the spot, 
 especially of details seventy feet from the ground ; and any one who will 
 try the position in which I have had to do some of my work — standing, 
 namely, on a cornice or window sill, holding by one arm round a shaft, and 
 hanging over the street (or canal, at Venice), with my sketch-book sup- 
 ported against the wall from w T hich I was drawing, by my breast, so as to 
 leave my right hand free — will not thenceforward wonder that shadows 
 should be occasionally carelessly laid in, or lines drawn with some un- 
 steadiness. But, steady or infirm, the sketches of which those plates in the 
 " Seven Lamps " are fac-similes, were made from the architecture itself, and 
 represent that architecture with its actual shadows at the time of day at 
 which it w T as drawn, and with every fissure and line of it as they now exist ; 
 so that when I am speaking of some new point, which perhaps the drawing 
 was not intended to illustrate, I can yet turn back to it with perfect 
 certainty that if anything be found in it bearing on matters now in hand, 
 I may depend upon it just as securely as if I had gone back to look again 
 at the building. 
 
 It is necessary that my readers should understand this thoroughly, and 
 I did not before sufficiently explain it ; but I believe I can show them the 
 use of this kind of truth, now that we are again concerned with this front of 
 Lucca. They will find a drawing of the entire front in Gaily Knight's 
 " Architecture of Italy." It may serve to give them an idea of its general 
 disposition, and it looks very careful and accurate ; but every bit of the orna- 
 ment on it is drawn out of the artist's head. There is not one line of it that 
 exists on the building. The reader will therefore, perhaps, think my ugly 
 black plate of somewhat more value, upon the whole, in its rough veracity, 
 than the other in its delicate fiction.* 
 
 * One of the upper stories is also in Gaily Knight's plate represented as merely banded, 
 and otherwise plain : it is, in reality, covered with as delicate inlaying as the rest. The 
 whole front is besides out of proportion, and out of perspective, at once; and yet this 
 work is referred to as of authority, by our architects. Well may our architecture fall 
 from its place among the fine arts, as it is doing rapidly ; nearly all our works of value 
 being devoted to the Greek architecture, which is utterly useless to us — or worse. One 
 most noble book, however, has been dedicated to our English abbeys, — Mr. E. Sharpe'a 
 "Architectural Parallels" — almost a model of what I should like to see done for the 
 Gothic of all Europe. 
 
366 A1TENDIX, 8. 
 
 As, however, I made a drawing of another part of the church somewhat 
 more delicately, and as I do not choose that my favourite church should 
 suffer in honour by my coarse work, I have had this, as far as might be, 
 fac-similied by line engraving (Plate XXI.). It represents the southern 
 side of the lower arcade of the west front; and may convey some idea of 
 the exquisite finish and grace of the whole : but the old plate, in the " Seven 
 Lamps" gives a nearer view of one of the upper arches, and a more faithful 
 impression of the present aspect of the work, and especially of the seats 
 of the horsemen ; the limb straight, and well down on the stirrup (the 
 warrior's seat, observe, not the jockey's), with a single pointed spur on 
 the heel. The bit of the lower cornice under this arch I could not see, 
 and therefore had not drawn ; it was supplied from beneath another arch. 
 I am afraid, however, the reader has lost the thread of my story while 
 I have been recommending my veracity to him. I was insisting upon the 
 healthy tone of this Lucca work as compared with the old spectral Lom- 
 bard friezes. The apes of the Pavian church ride without stirrups, but 
 all is in good order and harness here : civilisation had done its work; there 
 was reaping of corn in the Val d'Arno, though rough hunting still upon 
 its hills. But in the north, though a century or two later, we find the 
 forests of the Rhone, and its rude limestone cotes, haunted by phantasms 
 still; (more meat-eating, then, I think). I do not know a more interesting 
 group of cathedrals than that of Lyons, Vienne, and Valence : more inte- 
 resting indeed, generally, than beautiful ; but there is a row of niches on 
 the west front of Lyons, and a course of panelled decoration about its 
 doors, which is, without exception, the most exquisite piece of Northern 
 Gothic I ever beheld, and with which I know nothing that is even com- 
 parable, except the work of the north transept of Rouen, described in the 
 " Seven Lamps," p. 159. ; work of about the same date, and exactly 
 the same plan ; quatrefoils filled with grotesques, but somewhat less 
 finished in execution, and somewhat less wild in imagination. I wrote 
 down hastily, and in their own course, the subjects of some of the quatre- 
 foils of Lyons ; of which I here give the reader the sequence : — 
 
 1. Elephant and castle; less graphic than the St. Zeno one. 
 
 2. A huge head walking on two legs, turned backwards, hoofed ; the 
 
 head has a horn behind, with drapery over it, which ends in 
 another head. 
 
 3. A boar hunt ; the boar under a tree, very spirited. 
 
 4. A bird putting its head between its legs to bite its own tail, which 
 
 ends in a head. 
 
appendix, 8, 9. 367 
 
 k, w, 
 
 5. A dragon with a human head set on the wrong way. 
 
 6. St. Peter awaked by the angel in prison ; full of spirit, the prison 
 
 picturesque, with a trefoilcd arch, the angel eager, St. Peter 
 startled, and full of motion. 
 
 7. St. Peter led out by the angel. 
 
 8. The miraculous draught of fishes; fish and all, in the small space. 
 
 9. A large leaf, with two snails rampant, coming out of nautilus shells, 
 
 with grotesque faces, and eyes at the ends of their horns. 
 
 10. A man with an axe, striking at a dog's head, which comes out of a 
 
 nautilus shell : the rim of the shell branches into a stem with two 
 large leaves. 
 
 11. Martyrdom of St. Sebastian ; his body very full of arrows. 
 
 12. Beasts coming to ark ; Noah opening a kind of wicker cage. 
 
 13. Noah building the ark on shores. 
 
 14. A vine leaf with a dragon's head and tail, the one biting the other. 
 
 15. A man riding a goat, catching a flying devil. 
 
 16. An eel or muraena growing into a bunch of flowers, which turns 
 
 into two wings. 
 
 17. A sprig of hazel, with nuts, thrown all round the quatrefoil; with a 
 
 squirrel in centre, apparently attached to the tree only by its 
 enormous tail, richly furrowed into hair, and nobly sweeping. 
 
 18. Four hares fastened together by the ears, galloping in a circle. 
 
 Mingled with these grotesques are many sword and buckler 
 combats, the bucklers being round and conical like a hat ; I 
 thought the first I noticed, carried by a man at full gallop on 
 horseback, had been a small umbrella. 
 
 This list of subjects may sufficiently illustrate the feverish character of 
 the Northern Energy ; but influencing the treatment of the whole there is 
 also the Northern love of what is called the Grotesque, a feeling which I 
 find myself, for the present, quite incapable either of analysing or defining, 
 though we all have a distinct idea attached to the word : I shall try, 
 however, in the next volume. 
 
 9. WOODEN CHURCHES OF THE NORTH. 
 
 I cannot pledge myself to this theory of the origin of the vaulting shaft, 
 but the reader will find some interesting confirmations of it in Dahl's work 
 on the wooden churches of Norway. The inside view of the church of 
 Borgund shows the timber construction of one shaft run up through a 
 crossing architrave, and continued into the clerestory ; while the church of 
 
368 APPENDIX, 9, 10, 11. 
 
 Urncs is in the exact form of a basilica ; but the wall above the arches is 
 formed of planks, with a strong upright above each capital. The passage 
 quoted from Stephen Eddy's Life of Bishop Wilfrid, at p. 86. of Churton's 
 " Early English Church," gives us one of the transformations or petri- 
 factions of the wooden Saxon churches. " At Ripon he built a new 
 church of polished stone, with columns variously ornamented, and porches." 
 Mr. Churton adds : " It was perhaps in bad imitation of the marble 
 buildings he had seen in Italy, that he washed the walls of this original 
 York Minster, and made them 'whiter than snow.'" 
 
 10. CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 The very cause which enabled the Venetians to possess themselves of 
 the body of St. Mark, was the destruction of the church by the caliph for 
 the sake of its marbles : the Arabs and Venetians, though bitter enemies, 
 thus building on the same models ; these in reverence for the destroyed 
 church, and those with the very pieces of it. In the somewhat prolix 
 account of the matter given in the Notizie Storiche (above quoted) the 
 main points are, that " il Califa de' Saraceni, per fabbricarsi un Palazzo 
 presso di Babilonia, aveva ordinato die dalle Chiese de' Cristiani si 
 togliessero i piii scelti marmi;" and that the Venetians, " videro sotto i 
 loro occhi flagellarsi crudelmente un Cristiano per aver infranto un 
 marmo." I heartily wish that the same kind of punishment were enforced 
 to this day, for the same sin. 
 
 11. RENAISSANCE LANDSCAPE. 
 
 I am glad here to re-assert opinions which it has grieved me to be 
 suspected of having changed. The calmer tone of the second volume of 
 " Modern Painters," as compared with the first, induced, I believe, this 
 suspicion, very justifiably, in the minds of many of its readers. The dif- 
 ference resulted, however, from the simple fact, that the first was written 
 in great haste and indignation, for a special purpose and time ; — the 
 second, after I had got engaged, almost unawares, in inquiries which could 
 not be hastily nor indignantly pursued : my opinions remaining then, and 
 remaining now, altogether unchanged on the subject which led me into the 
 discussion. And that no farther doubt of them may be entertained by 
 any who may think them worth questioning, I shall here, once for all, ex- 
 press them in the plainest and fewest words I can. I think that J. M. "W. 
 
APPENDIX, 11. 369 
 
 Turner is riot only the greatest (professed) landscape painter who ever 
 lived, but that he has in him as much as would have furnished all the rest 
 with such power as they had ; and that, if we put Xicolo Poussin, Salvator, 
 and our own Gainsborough out of the group, he would cut up into Claudes, 
 Cuyps, Ruysdaels, and such others, by uncounted bunches. I hope this is 
 plainly and strongly enough stated. And farther, I like his later pictures, 
 up to the year 1845, the best; and believe that those persons who only 
 like his early pictures do not, in fact, like him at all. They do not like 
 that which is essentially his. They like that in which he resembles 
 other men; wdiich he had learned from Loutherbourg, Claude, or Wilson: 
 that which is indeed his own, they do not care for. Not that there is not 
 much of his own in his early works ; they are all invaluable in their way ; 
 but those persons wdio can find no beauty in his strangest fantasy on the 
 Academy walls, cannot distinguish the peculiarly Turneresque characters 
 of the earlier pictures. And, therefore, I again state here, that I think 
 his pictures painted between the years 1830 and 1845 his greatest; and 
 that his entire power is best represented by such pictures as the Temeraire 
 the Sun of Venice going to Sea, and others, painted exactly at the time 
 when the public and the press were together loudest in abus2 of him. 
 
 I desire, however, the reader to observe that I said, above, professed 
 landscape painters, among whom, perhaps, I should hardly have put Gains- 
 borough. The landscape of the great figure painters is often majestic in 
 the highest degree, and Tintoret's especially shows exactly the same power 
 and feeling as Turner's. If with Turner I were to 
 
 rank the historical painters as landscapists, esti- Turner. Tintoret. 
 
 mating rather the power they show, than the actual Masaccio. 
 value of the landscape they produced, I should class John Bellini, 
 those, whose landscapes I have studied, in some such Albert Durer. 
 order as this at the side of the page ; — associating Giorgione. 
 with the landscape of Perugino that of Francia Paul Veronese, 
 and Angelico, and the other severe painters of Titian, 
 religious subject. I have put Turner and Tintoret Rubens, 
 side by side, not knowing which is, in landscape, Correggio. 
 
 the greater ; I had nearly associated in the same Orcagna. 
 manner the noble names of John Bellini and Benozzo Gozzoli. 
 Albert Durer ; but Bellini must be put first, for his Giotto, 
 
 profound religious peace, yet not separated from Baffaelle. 
 the other, if but that we might remember his Perugino. 
 
 kindness to him in Venice : and it is well we should 
 
 B B 
 
370 APrENDix, 11, 12. 
 
 take note of it here, for it furnishes us with a most interesting confirmation 
 of what was said in the text respecting the position of Bellini as the last 
 of the religious painters of Venice. The following passage is quoted in 
 Jackson's " Essay on "Wood-engraving," from Albert Durer's Diary : — 
 
 " I have many good friends among the Italians who warn me not to ea. 
 or drink with their painters, of whom several arc my enemies, and copy 
 my picture in the church, and others of mine, wherever they can find them, 
 and yet they blame them, and sat/ they are not according to ancient art, and 
 therefore not good. Giovanni Bellini, however, has praised me highly to 
 several gentlemen, and wishes to have something of my doing : he called 
 on me himself, and requested that I would paint a picture for him, for 
 which, he said, he would pay me well. People are all surprised that I 
 should be so much thought of by a person of his reputation : he is very 
 old, but is still the best painter of them all." 
 
 A choice little piece of description this, of the Renaissance painters, 
 side by side with with the good old Venetian, who was soon to leave them 
 to their own ways. The Renaissance men are seen in perfection, envying, 
 stealing, and lying, but without wit enough to lie to purpose. 
 
 12. ROMANIST MODERN ART. 
 
 It is of the highest importance, in these days, that Romanism should be 
 deprived of the miserable influence which its pomp and picturcsqueness 
 have given it over the weak sentimentalism of the English people ; I call 
 it a miserable influence, for of all motives to sympathy with the Church of 
 Rome, this I unhesitatingly class as the basest : I can, in some measure, 
 respect the other feelings which have been the beginning- of apostasy; I 
 can respect the desire for unity which would reclaim the Romanist by love, 
 and the distrust of his own heart which subjects the proselyte to priestly 
 power ; I say I can respect these feelings, though I cannot pardon unprin- 
 cipled submission to them, nor enough wonder at the infinite fatuity of the 
 unhappy persons whom they have betrayed: — Fatuity, self-inflicted, and 
 stubborn in resistance to God's Word and man's reason ! — to talk of the 
 authority of the Church, as if the Church were anything else than the whole 
 company of Christian men, or were ever spoken of in Scripture* as other 
 
 * Except in the single passage " tell it unto the Church," which is simply the extension 
 of what hail been commanded before, i. e., tell the fault first " between thee and him," 
 then taking "with thee one or two more," then, to all Christian men capable of hearing 
 the cause : if he refuse to hear their common voice, " let him be unto thee as an heathen 
 man and publican : " (But consider how Christ treated both). 
 
APPENDIX, 12. 371 
 
 than a company to be taught and fed, not to teach and feed. — Fatuity ! to 
 talk of a separation of Church and State, as if a Christian state, and every 
 officer therein, were not necessarily a part of the Church*, and as if any 
 state officer could do his duty without endeavouring to aid and promote 
 religion, or any clerical officer do his duty without seeking for such aid and 
 accepting it : — Fatuity ! to seek for the unity of a living body of truth and 
 trust in God, with a dead body of lies and trust in wood, and thence to 
 expect anything else than plague, and consumption by worms undying, for 
 both. Blasphemy as well as fatuity ! to ask for any better interpreter of 
 God's Word than God, or to expect knowledge of it in any other way than 
 the plainly ordered way : if any man will do he shall know. But of all 
 these fatuities, the basest is the being lured into the Romanist Church by 
 the glitter of it, like larks into a trap by broken glass ; to be blown into a 
 change of religion by the whine of an organ-pipe ; stitched into a new 
 creed by gold threads on priests' petticoats ; jangled into a change of 
 conscience by the chimes of a belfry. I know nothing in the shape of 
 error so dark as this, no imbecility so absolute, no treachery so con- 
 temptible. I had hardly believed that it was a thing possible, though 
 vague stories had been told me of the effect, on some minds, of mere scarlet 
 and candles, until I came on this passage in Pugin's " Remarks on articles 
 in the Rambler " : — 
 
 " Those who have lived in want and privation are the best qualified to 
 appreciate the blessings of plenty ; thus, to those who have been devout 
 and sincere members of the separated portion of the English Church ; who 
 have prayed, and hoped, and loved, through all the poverty of the maimed 
 rites which it has retained — to them does the realisation of all their 
 longing desires appear truly ravishing. * Oh ! then, what 
 
 delight ! what joy unspeakable ! when one of the solemn piles is presented 
 to them, in all its pristine life and glory ! — the stoups are filled to the 
 brim ; the rood is raised on high ; the screen glows with sacred imagery 
 and rich device ; the niches are filled ; the altar is replaced, sustained by 
 sculptured shafts, the relics of the saints repose beneath, the body of Our 
 Lord is enshrined on its consecrated stone ; the lamps of the sanctuary 
 burn bright ; the saintly portraitures in the glass windows shine all 
 gloriously ; and the albs hang in the oaken ambries, and the cope chests 
 
 * One or two remarks on this subject, some of which I had intended to have inserted 
 here, and others in Appendix 5., I have arranged in more consistent order, and published 
 in a separate pamphlet, " Notes on the Construction of Sheep-folds," for the convenience 
 of readers interested in other architecture than that of Venetian palaces. 
 
872 APPENDIX, 12. 
 
 are filled with orphreyed baudekins; and pix - , and pax, and chrismatory 
 are there, and thurible, and cross." 
 
 One might have put this man under a pix, and left him, one should 
 have thought; but he has been brought forward, and partly received, as an 
 example of the effect of ceremonial splendour on the mind of a great 
 architect. It is very necessary, therefore, that all those who have felt 
 sorrow at this should know at once that he is not a great architect, but 
 one of the smallest possible or conceivable architects ; and that by his 
 own account and setting forth of himself. Hear him : — 
 
 '• I believe, as regards architecture, few men have been so unfortunate 
 as myself. I have passed my life in thinking of fine things, studying fine 
 things, designing fine things, and realising very poor ones. I have never 
 had the chance of producing a single fine ecclesiastical building, except my 
 own church, where I am both paymaster and architect ; but everything 
 else, either for want of adequate funds or injudicious interference and 
 control, or some other contingency, is more or less a failure. * * 
 
 " St. George's was spoilt by the very instructions laid down by the 
 committee, that it was to hold 3000 people on the floor at a limited price ; 
 in consequence, height, proportion, everything, was sacrificed to meet these 
 conditions. Nottingham was spoilt by the style being restricted to lancet, 
 — a period well suited to a Cistercian abbey in a secluded vale, but very 
 unsuitable for the centre of a crowded town. * * * 
 
 " Kirkham was spoilt through several hundred pounds being reduced on 
 the original estimate ; to effect this, which was a great sum in proportion 
 to the entire cost, the area of the church was contracted, the walls lowered, 
 tower and spire reduced, the thickness of walls diminished, and stone 
 arches omitted." (Remarks, &c, by A. Welby Pugin : Dolman, 1850.) 
 
 Is that so ? rhidias can niche himself into the corner of a pediment, 
 and Raffaelle expatiate within the circumference of a clay platter; but 
 Pugin is inexpressible in less than a cathedral? Let his ineffableness be 
 assured of this, once for all, that no difficulty or restraint ever happened 
 to a man of real power, but his power was the more manifested in the con- 
 tending with, or conquering it; and that there is no field so small, no 
 cranny so contracted, but that a great spirit can house and manifest itself 
 therein. The thunder that smites the Alp into dust, can gather itself 
 into the width of a golden wire. TVhatever greatness there was in you, 
 had it been Buonaroti's own, you had room enough for it in a single niche ; 
 you might have put the whole power of it into two feet cube of Caen 
 stone. St. George's was not high enough for want of money ? But was 
 it want of money that made you put that blunt, overloaded, laborious 
 
APPENDIX, 12. 373 
 
 ogee door into the side of it ? Was it for lack of funds that you sunk the 
 tracery of the parapet in its clumsy zigzags? Was it in parsimony that 
 you buried its paltry pinnacles in that eruption of diseased crockets? or in 
 pecuniary embarrassment that you set up the belfry foolscaps, with the 
 mimicry of dormer windows, which nobody can ever reach nor look out 
 of? Not so, but in mere incapability of better things. 
 
 I am sorry to have to speak thus of any living architect ; and there is 
 much in this man, if he were rightly estimated, which one might both 
 regard and profit by. He has a most sincere love for his profession, a 
 heartily honest enthusiasm for pixes and piscinas ; and though he will 
 never design so much as a pix or a piscina thoroughly well, yet better than 
 most of the experimental architects of the day. Employ him by all 
 means, but on small work. Expect no cathedrals of him ; but no one, at 
 present, can design a better finial. That is an exceedingly beautiful one 
 over the western door of St. George's ; and there is some spirited impish- 
 ness and switching of tails in the supporting figures at the imposts. Only 
 do not allow his good designing of finials to be employed as an evidence 
 in matters of divinity, nor thence deduce the incompatibility of Pro- 
 testantism and art. I should have said all that I have said, above, of 
 artistical apostasy, if Giotto had been now living in Florence, and if art 
 were still doing all that it did once for Rome. But the grossness of the 
 error becomes incomprehensible as well as unpardonable, when we look 
 to what level of degradation the human intellect has sunk at this instant 
 in Italy. So far from Romanism now producing anything great in art, it 
 cannot even preserve what has been given to its keeping. I know no 
 abuses of precious inheritance half so grievous, as the abuse of all that is 
 best in art wherever the Romanist priesthood gets possession of it. It 
 amounts to absolute infatuation. The noblest pieces of mediaeval sculpture 
 in North Italy, the two griffins at the central (west) door of the cathedral 
 of Verona, were daily permitted to be brought into service, when I was 
 there in the autumn of 1849, by a washerwoman living in the Piazza, who 
 tied her clothes-lines to their beaks: and the shafts of St. Mark's at 
 Venice were used by a salesman of common caricatures to fasten his prints 
 upon (Compare Appendix 25.) ; and this in the face of the continually 
 passing priests : while the epiantity of noble art annually destroyed 
 in altarpieces by candle-droppings, or perishing by pure brutality of 
 neglect, passes all estimate. I do not know, as I have repeatedly stated, 
 how far the splendour of architecture, or other art, is compatible with the 
 honesty and usefulness of religious service. The longer I live, the more 1 
 incline to severe judgment in this matter, and the less I can trust the 
 
 B b 3 
 
374 appendix, 12, 13. 
 
 sentiments excited by painted glass and coloured tile;?. But if there lie 
 indeed value in such things, our plain duty is to direct our strength 
 against the superstition which has dishonoured them : there are thousands 
 who might possibly be benefited by them, to whom they are now merely 
 an offence, owing to their association with idolatrous ceremonies. I have 
 but this exhortation for all who love them, — not to regulate their creeds 
 by their taste in colours, but to hold calmly to the right, at whatever 
 present cost to their imaginative enjoyment ; sure that they will one day 
 find in heavenly truth a brighter charm than in earthly imagery, and 
 striving to gather stones for the eternal building, whose walls shall be 
 salvation, and whose gates shall be praise. 
 
 13. MR. fergusson's system. 
 
 The reader may at first suppose this division of the attributes of buildings 
 into action, voice, and beauty, to be the same division as Mr. Fergusson's, 
 now well known, of their merits, into technic, aesthetic, and phonetic. 
 
 But there is no connection between the two systems : mine, indeed, 
 does not profess to be a system, it is a mere arrangement of my subject, 
 for the sake of order and convenience in its treatment ; but, as far as it 
 f;oes, it differs altogether from Mr. Fei'gusson's, in these two following 
 respects : — 
 
 The action of a building, that is to say its standing or consistence, 
 depends on its good construction ; and the first part of the foregoing 
 volume has been entirely occupied with the consideration of the con- 
 structive merit of buildings : but construction is not their only technical 
 merit. There is as much of technical merit in their expression, or in their 
 beauty, as in their construction. There is more mechanical or technical 
 admirableness in the stroke of the painter wdio covers them with fresco, than 
 in the dexterity of the mason who cements their stones : there is just as 
 much of what is technical in their beauty, therefore, as in their construction ; 
 and, on the other hand, there is often just as much intellect shown in their 
 construction as there is in either their expression or decoration. Now 
 Mr. Fergusson means by his "Phonetic" division, whatever expresses 
 intellect: my constructive division, therefore, includes part of his phonetic ; 
 and my expressive and decorative divisions include part of his technical. 
 
 Secondly, Mr. Fergusson tries to make the same divisions fit the subjects 
 of art, and art itself; and therefore talks of technic, aesthetic, and phonetic, 
 arts, (or, translating the Greek, of artful arts, sensitive arts, and talkative 
 arts ;) but I have nothing to do with any division of the arts, I have 
 
APPENDIX, 13. 375 
 
 to deal only with the merits of buildings. As, however, I have been led 
 into reference to Mr. Fergusson's system, I would fain say a word or two 
 to effect Mr. Fergusson's extrication from it. 1 hope to find in him a 
 noble ally, ready to join with me in war upon affectation, falsehood, and 
 prejudice, of every kind : I have derived much instruction from his most 
 interesting work, and I hope for much more from its continuation ; but 
 he must disentangle himself from his system, or he will be strangled by it : 
 never was anything so ingeniously and hopelessly wrong throughout ; the 
 whole of it is founded on a confusion of the instruments of man with his 
 capacities. 
 
 Mr. Fergusson would have us take — 
 
 " First, man's muscular action or power." (Technics.) 
 
 "Secondly, those developments of sense by which he does!! as much 
 
 as by his muscles." (^Esthetics.) 
 " Lastly, his intellect, or to confine this more correctly to its external 
 
 action, It is ■power of speech ! ! ! " (Phonetics. ) 
 Granting this division of humanity correct, or sufficient, the writer 
 then most curiously supposes that he may arrange the arts as if there 
 were some belonging to each division of man, — never observing that 
 every art must be governed by, and addressed to, one division, and 
 executed by another ; executed by the muscular, addressed to the sensitive 
 or intellectual ; and that, to be an art at all, it must have in it work of 
 the one, and guidance from the other. If, by any lucky accident, he had 
 been led to arrange the arts, either by their objects, and the things to 
 which they are addressed, or by their means, and the things by which 
 they are executed, he would have discovered his mistake in an instant. 
 As thus : — 
 
 The arts are addressed to the, — Muscles ! ! 
 
 Senses, 
 Intellect ; 
 or executed by, — Muscles, 
 Senses ! ! 
 Intellect. 
 Indeed it is true that some of the arts are in a sort addressed to the muscles, 
 surgery, for instance ; but this is not among Mr. Fergusson's technic, but 
 his politic, arts ! and all the arts may, in a sort, be said to be performed 
 by the senses, as the senses guide both muscles and intellect in their 
 work: but they guide them as they receive information, or are standards 
 of accuracy, but not as in themselves capable of action. Mr. Fergusson 
 is, I believe, the first person who has told us of senses that act or do, 
 
 b n 4 
 
376 APPENDIX, 13. 
 
 they having been hitherto supposed only to sustain or perceive. The 
 weight of error, however, rests just as much in the original division of 
 man, as in the endeavour to fit the arts to it. The slight omission of the 
 soul makes a considerable difference when it begins to influence the final 
 results of the arrangement. 
 
 Mr. Fergusson calls morals and religion " Politick arts " (as if religion 
 were an art at all ! or as if both were not as necessary to individuals 
 as to societies) ; and therefore, forming these into a body of arts by 
 themselves, leaves the rest of the arts to do without the soul and the 
 moral feelings as best they may. Hence " expression," or " phonetics," 
 is of intellect only (as if men never expressed their feelings /) ; and then, 
 strangest and worst of all, intellect is entirely resolved into talking! 
 There can be no intellect but it must talk, and all talking must be 
 intellectual. I believe people do sometimes talk without understanding; 
 and I think the world would fare ill if they never understood without 
 talking. The intellect is an entirely silent faculty, and has nothing to do 
 with parts of speech any more than the moral part has. A man may feel 
 ami know things without expressing either the feeling or knowledge ; and 
 the talking; is a muscular mode of communicating the workings of the in- 
 tellect or heart: — muscular, whether it be by tongue or by sign, or by 
 carving or writing, or by expression of feature ; so that to divide a man into 
 muscular and talking parts, is to divide him into body in general, and 
 tongue in particular, the endless confusion resulting from which arrange- 
 ment is only less marvellous in itself, than the resolution with which Mr. 
 Fergusson has worked through it, and in srnte of it, up to some very 
 interesting and suggestive truths ; although starting with a division of 
 humanity which does not in the least raise it above the brute, for a rattle- 
 snake has his muscular, aesthetic, and talking part as much as man, only 
 he talks with his tail, and says, " I am angry with you, and should like 
 to bite you," more laconically and effectively than any phonetic biped could, 
 were be so minded. And, in fact, the real difference between the brute and 
 man is not so much that the one has fewer means of expression than the 
 other, as that it has fewer thoughts to express, and that we do not under- 
 stand its expressions. Animals can talk to one another intelligibly enough 
 when they have anything to say, and their captains have words of com- 
 mand just as clear as ours, and better obeyed. We have indeed, in watching 
 the efforts of an intelligent animal to talk to a human being, a melancholy 
 sense of its dumbness ; but the fault is still in its intelligence, more than 
 in its tongue. It has not wit enough to systematise its cries or signs, and 
 form them into lansruase. 
 
APPENDIX, 13. 377 
 
 But there is no end to the fallacies and confusions of Mr. Fennisson's 
 arrangement. It is a perfect entanglement of gun-cotton, and explodes 
 into vacuity wherever one holds a light to it. I shall leave him to do so 
 with the rest of it for himself, and should perhaps have left it to his own 
 handling altogether, but for the intemperateness of the spirit with which 
 he has spoken on a subject perhaps of all others demanding gentleness 
 and caution. No man could more earnestly have desired the changes 
 lately introduced into the system of the University of Oxford than I did 
 myself: no man can be more deeply sensible than I of grievous failures 
 in the practical working even of the present system : but I believe that 
 these failures may be almost without exception traced to one source, 
 the want of evangelical, and the excess of rubrical, religion among the 
 tutors ; together with such rustinesses and stiffnesses as necessarily attend 
 the continual operation of any intellectual machine. The fault is, at any 
 rate, far less in the system than in the imperfection of its administration ; 
 and had it been otherwise, the terms in which Mr. Fergusson speaks of 
 it are hardly decorous in one who can but be imperfectly acquainted 
 with its working. They are sufficiently answered by the structure of 
 the essay in which they occur ; for if the high powers of mind which its 
 author possesses had been subjected to the discipline of the schools, he 
 could not have wasted his time on the development of a system which 
 their simplest formulae of logic would have shown him to be untenable. 
 
 Mr. Fergusson will, however, find it easier to overthrow his system than 
 to replace it. Every man of science knows the difficulty of arrano-ino- a 
 reasonable system of classification, in any subject, by any one group of 
 characters ; and that the best classifications are, in many of their branches, 
 convenient rather than reasonable : so that, to any person who is really 
 master of his subject, many different modes of classification will occur at 
 different times ; one of which he will use rather than another, according 
 to the point which he has to investigate. I need only instance the three 
 arrangements of minerals, by their external characters, and their positive 
 or negative bases, of which the first is the most useful, the second the 
 most natural, the third the most simple ; and all in several ways un- 
 satisfactory. 
 
 But when the subject becomes one which no single mind can grasp, and 
 which embraces the whole range of human occupation and enquiry, the dif- 
 ficulties become as great, and the methods as various, as the uses to which 
 the classification might be put ; and Mr. Fergusson has entirely forgotten 
 to inform us what is the object to which his arrangements are addressed. 
 For observe : there is one kind of arrangement which is based on the 
 
378 APPENDIX, 13. 
 
 rational connection of the sciences or arts with one another; an arrange- 
 ment which maps them out like the rivers of some great country, and 
 marks the points of their junction, and the direction and force of their 
 united currents ; and this without assigning to any one of them a supe- 
 riority above another, but considering them all as necessary members of 
 the noble unity of human science and effort. There is another kind of 
 classification which contemplates the order of succession in which they 
 might most usefully be presented to a single mind, so that the given mind 
 should obtain the most effective and available knowledge of them all : and, 
 finally, the most usual classification contemplates the powers of mind which 
 they each require for their pursuit, the objects to which they are ad- 
 dressed, or with which they are concerned ; and assigns to each of them a 
 rank superior or inferior, according to the nobility of the powers they 
 require, or the grandeur of the subjects they contemplate. 
 
 Now, not only would it be necessary to adopt a different classification 
 with respect to each of these great intentions, but it might be found so 
 even to vary the order of the succession of sciences in the case of every 
 several mind to which they were addressed ; and that their rank would 
 also vary with the power and specific character of the mind engaged upon 
 them. I once heard a very profound mathematician remonstrate against 
 the impropriety of Wordsworth's receiving a pension from government, on 
 the ground that he was " only a poet." If the study of mathematics had 
 always this narrowing effect upon the sympathies, the science itself would 
 need to be deprived of the rank usually assigned to it ; and there could be 
 no doubt that, in the effect it had on the mind of this man, and of such 
 others, it was a very contemptible science indeed. Hence, in estimating 
 the real rank of any art or science, it is necessary for us to conceive it as 
 it would be grasped by minds of every order. There are some arts and 
 sciences which we underrate, because no one has risen to show us with 
 what majesty they may be invested ; and others which we overrate, 
 because we are blinded to their general meanness by the magnificence 
 which some one man has thrown around them : thus, philology, evi- 
 dently the most contemptible of all the sciences, has been raised to unjust 
 dignity by Johnson.* And the subject is farther complicated by the 
 question of usefulness ; for many of the arts and sciences require consider- 
 able intellectual power for their pursuit, and yet become contemptible by 
 the slifditness of what they accomplish : metaphysics, for instance, cxer- 
 
 * Not, however, liv Johnson's testimony : Vide Adventurer, No. 39. " Such operations 
 as required neither celerity nor strength, — the low drudgery of collating copies, 
 comparin" authorities, digesting dictionaries, or accumulating compilations." 
 
appendix, 13, 14. 379 
 
 cising intelligence of a high order, yet useless to the mass of mankind, and, 
 to its own masters, dangerous. Yet, as it has become so by the want 
 of the true intelligence which its inquiries need, and by substitution of 
 vain subtleties in its stead, it may in future vindicate for itself a higher 
 rank than a man of common sense usually concedes to it. 
 
 Nevertheless, the mere attempt at arrangement must be useful, even 
 where it docs nothing more than develope difficulties. Perhaps the 
 greatest fault of men of learning is their so often supposing all other 
 branches of science dependent upon or inferior to their own best beloved 
 branch ; and the greatest deficiency of men comparatively unlearned, their 
 want of perception of the connection of the branches with each other. He 
 who holds the tree only by the extremities, can perceive nothing but the 
 separation of its sprays. It must always be desirable to prove to those the 
 equality of rank, to these the closeness of sequence, of what they had 
 falsely supposed subordinate or separate. And, after such candid ad- 
 mission of the co-equal dignity of the truly noble arts and sciences, we 
 may be enabled more justly to estimate the inferiority of those which 
 indeed seem intended for the occupation of inferior powers and narrower 
 capacities. In Appendix 14. following, some suggestions will be found as 
 to the principles on which classification might be based ; but the arrange- 
 ment of all the arts is certainly not a work which could with discretion be 
 attempted in the Appendix to an essay on a branch of one of them. 
 
 14. DIVISIONS OF HUMANITY. 
 
 The reader will probably understand this part of the subject better if he 
 will take the trouble briefly to consider the actions of the mind and body of 
 man in the sciences and arts, which give these latter the relations of rank 
 usually attributed to them. 
 
 It was above observed (Appendix 13.) that the arts were generally 
 ranked according to the nobility of the powers they require, that is to 
 say, the quantity of the being of man which they engaged or addressed. 
 Now their rank is not a very important matter as regards each other, for 
 there are few disputes more futile than that concerning the respective 
 dignity of arts, ail of which are necessary and honourable. But it is a 
 very important matter as regards themselves ; — very important whether 
 they are practised with the devotion and regarded with the respect 
 which are necessary or due to their perfection. It does not at all matter 
 whether architecture or sculpture be the nobler art; but it matters much 
 
380 APPENDIX, 1-i. 
 
 whether the thought is bestowed upon buildings, or the feeling is expressed 
 in statues, which make either deserving of our admiration. It is foolish and 
 insolent to imagine that the art which we ourselves practise is greater than 
 any other ; but it is wise to take care that in our own hands it is as noble 
 as we can make it. Let us take some notice, therefore, in what degrees 
 the faculties of man may be engaged in his several arts : we may consider 
 the entire man as made up of body, soul, and intellect, (Lord Lindsay, 
 meaning the same thing, says inaccurately — sense, intellect, and spirit — ■ 
 forgetting that there is a moral sense as well as a bodily sense, and a 
 spiritual body as well as a natural body, and so gets into some awkward 
 confusion, though right in the main points.). Then, taking the word 
 soul as a short expression of the moral and responsible part of being, 
 each of these three parts has a passive and active power. The body 
 has senses and muscles ; the soul, feeling and resolution ; the intellect, 
 understanding and imagination. The scheme may be put into tabular 
 form, thus : — 
 
 Passive or Receptive Tart. Active or Motive Part. 
 Body - Senses. Muscles. 
 
 Soul - Feeling. Resolution. 
 
 Intellect - Understanding. Imagination. 
 
 In this scheme I consider memory a part of understanding, and conscience 
 I leave out, as being the voice of God in the heart, inseparable from the 
 system, yet not an essential part of it. The sense of beauty I consider a 
 mixture of the Senses of the body and soul. 
 
 Now all these parts of the human system have a reciprocal action on one 
 another, so that the true perfection of any of them is not possible without 
 some relative perfection of the others, and yet any one of the parts of the 
 system may be brought into a morbid development, inconsistent with the 
 perfection of the others. Thus, in a healthy state, the acuteness of the 
 senses quickens that of the feelings, and these latter quicken the under- 
 standing, and then all the three quicken the imagination, and then all 
 the four strengthen the resolution; while yet there is a danger, on the 
 other hand, that the encouraged and morbid feeling may weaken or bias 
 the understanding, or that the over shrewd and keen understanding 
 may shorten the imagination, or that the understanding and imagination 
 together may take place of, or undermine, the resolution, as in Hamlet. So 
 in the mere bodily frame there is a delightful perfection of the senses, con- 
 sistent with the utmost health of the muscular system, as in the quick sight 
 and hearing of an active savage : another false delicacy of the senses, in the 
 
APPENDIX, 14. 381 
 
 Sybarite, consequent on their over indulgence, until the doubled rose-leaf 
 is painful ; and this inconsistent with muscular perfection. Again ; there is 
 a perfection of muscular action consistent with exquisite sense, as in that 
 of the fingers of a musician or of a painter, in which the muscles are 
 guided by the slightest feeling of the strings, or of the pencil: another 
 perfection of muscular action inconsistent with acuteness of sense, as in the 
 effort of battle, in which a soldier does not perceive his wounds. So that it 
 is never so much the question, what is the solitary perfection of a given part 
 of the man, as what is its balanced perfection in relation to the whole of him : 
 and again, the perfection of any single power is not merely to be valued by 
 the mere rank of the power itself, but by the harmony which it indicates 
 among the other powers. Thus, for instance, in an archer's glance along his 
 arrow, or a hunter's raising of his rifle, there is a certain perfection of sense 
 and finger which is the result of mere practice, a simple bodily perfection ; 
 but there is a farther value in the habit which results from the resolution and 
 intellect necessary to the forming of it : in the hunter's raising of his rifle 
 there is a quietness implying far more than mere practice, — implying cou- 
 rage, and habitual meeting of danger, and presence of mind, and many 
 other such noble characters. So also in a musician's way of laying finger 
 on his instrument, or a painter's handling of his pencil, there are many 
 qualities expressive of the special sensibilities of each, operating on the pro- 
 duction of the habit, besides the sensibility operating at the moment of 
 action. So that there are three distinct stages of merit in what is commonly 
 called mei - e bodily dexterity: the first, the dexterity given by practice, 
 called command of tools or of weapons; the second stage, the dexterity or 
 grace given by character, as the gentleness of hand proceeding from modesty 
 or tenderness of spirit, and the steadiness of it resulting from habitual 
 patience coupled with decision, and the thousand other characters partially 
 discernible, even in a man's writing, much more in his general handiwork ; 
 and, thirdly, there is the perfection of action produced by the operation 
 of present strength, feeling, or intelligence, on instruments thus pre- 
 viously perfected, as the handling of a great painter is rendered more 
 beautiful by his immediate care and feeling and love of his subject, or 
 knowledge of it, and as physical strength is increased by strength of will 
 and greatness of heart. Imagine, for instance, the difference in manner of 
 fighting, and in actual muscular strength and endurance, between a common 
 soldier, and a man in the circumstances of the Horatii, or of the temper of 
 Leonidas. 
 
 Mere physical skill, therefore, the mere perfection and power of the 
 body as an instrument, is manifested in three stages; 
 
382 APPENDIX, 14. 
 
 First, Bodily power by practice ; 
 Secondly, Bodily power by moral habit ; 
 Thirdly, Bodily power by immediate energy ; 
 
 and the arts will be greater or less, crcteris paribus, according to the 
 degrees of these dexterities which they admit. A smith's work at his anvil 
 admits little but the first ; fencing, shooting, and riding, admit something 
 of the second ; while the fine arts admit (merely through the channel of 
 the bodily dexterities) an expression almost of the whole man. 
 
 Nevertheless, though the higher arts admit this higher bodily perfection, 
 they do not all require it in equal degrees, but can dispense with it more 
 and more in proportion to their dignity. The arts whose chief element is 
 bodily dexterity, may be classed together as arts of the third order, of 
 which the highest will be those which admit most of the power of moral 
 habit and energy, such as riding and the management of weapons ; and 
 the rest may be thrown together under the general title of handicrafts, of 
 which it does not much matter which are the most honourable, but rather, 
 which are the most necessary and least injurious to health, which it is not 
 our present business to examine. Men engaged in the practice of these are 
 called artizans, as opposed to artists, who are concerned with the fine arts. 
 
 The next step in elevation of art is the addition of the intelligences 
 which have no connection with bodily dexterity ; as, for instance, in 
 hunting, the knowledge of the habits of animals and their places of abode ; 
 in architecture, of mathematics ; in painting, of harmonies of colour ; in 
 music, of those of sound ; all this pure science being joined with readiness 
 of expedient in applying it, and with shrewdness in apprehension of 
 difficulties, either present or probable. 
 
 It will often happen that intelligence of this kind is possessed without 
 bodily dexterity, or the need of it ; one man directing and another 
 executing, as for the most part in architecture, war, and seamanship. And 
 it is to be observed, also, that in proportion to the dignity of the art, 
 the bodily dexterities needed even in its subordinate agents become less 
 important, and are more and more replaced by intelligence ; as in the 
 steering of a ship, the bodily dexterity required is less than in shooting or 
 fencing, but the intelligence far greater : and so in war, the mere swords- 
 manship and marksmanship of the troops are of small importance in com- 
 parison with their disposition, and right choice of the moment of action. 
 So that arts of this second order must be estimated, not by the quantity of 
 bodily dexterity they require, but by the quantity and dignity of the 
 knowledge needed in their practice, and by the degree of subtlety needed 
 
appendix, 14, 15. 383 
 
 in bringing such knowledge into play. War certainly stands first in the 
 general mind, not only as the greatest of the arts which I have called of 
 the second order, but as the greatest of all arts. It is not, however, easy 
 to distinguish the respect paid to the Power, from that rendered to the Art 
 of the soldier ; the honour of victory being more dependent, in the vulgar 
 mind, on its results, than its difficulties. I believe, however, that taking 
 into consideration the greatness of the anxieties under which this art must 
 be practised, the multitude of circumstances to be known and regarded in 
 it, and the subtleties both of apprehension and stratagem constantly 
 demanded by it, as well as the multiplicity of disturbing accidents and 
 doubtful contingencies against which it must make provision on the 
 instant, it must indeed rank as far the first of the arts of the second 
 order; and next to this great art of killing must come the art of healing, 
 medicine being much like war in its stratagems and watchings against its 
 dark and subtle death-enemy. 
 
 Then the arts of the first order will be those in which the Imaginative 
 part of the intellect and the Sensitive part of the soul are joined ; as 
 poetry, architecture, and painting ; these forming a kind of cross, in their 
 part of the scheme of the human being, with those of the second order, 
 which wed the Intelligent part of the intellect and Resolute part of the 
 soul. But the reader must feel more and more, at every step, the im- 
 possibility of classing the arts themselves, independently of the men by 
 whom they are practised ; and how an art, low in itself, may be made 
 noble by the quantity of human strength and being which a great man 
 will pour into it ; and an art, great in itself, be made mean by the 
 meanness of the mind occupied in it. I do not intend, when I call 
 painting an art of the first, and war an art of the second, order, to class 
 Dutch landscape painters with good soldiers; but I mean, that if from 
 such a man as Napoleon we were to take away the honour of all that he 
 had done in law and civil government, and to give him the reputation 
 of his soldiership only, his name would be less, if justly weighed, than that 
 of Buouaroti, himself a good soldier also, when need was. But I will not 
 endeavour to pursue the inquiry, for I believe that of all the arts of the 
 first order it would be found that all that a man has, or is, or can be, he 
 can fully express in them, and give to any of them, and find it not enough. 
 
 15. INSTINCTIVE JUDGMENTS. 
 
 The same rapid judgment which I wish to enable the reader to form of 
 architecture, may in some sort also be formed of painting, owing to the 
 
384 APPENDIX, 15. 
 
 close connection between execution and expression in the latter ; as between 
 structure and expression in the former. We ought to be able to tell 
 good painting by a side glance as we pass along a gallery ; and, until we 
 can do so, we are not fit to pronounce judgment at all : not that I class 
 this easily visible excellence of painting with the great expression al 
 qualities which time and watchfulness only unfold. I have again and 
 again insisted on the supremacy of these last, and shall always continue 
 to do so. But I perceive a tendency among some of the more thoughtful 
 critics of the day to forget that the business of a painter is to paint, and 
 so altogether to despise those men, Veronese and Rubens for instance, 
 who were painters, par excellence, and in whom the expressional qualities 
 are subordinate. Now it is well, when we have strong moral or poetical 
 feeling manifested in painting, to mark this as the best part of the work ; 
 but it is not well to consider as a thing of small account, the painters 
 lansuatre in which that feeline; is conveyed ; for if that lancuasre be not 
 good and lovely, the man may indeed be a just moralist or a great poet, 
 but he is not a painter, and it was wrong of him to paint. He had much 
 better have put his morality into sermons, and his poetry into verse, than 
 into a language of which he was not master. And this mastery of the 
 language is that of which we should be cognizant by a glance of the eye ; 
 and if that be not found, it is wasted time to look farther : the man has 
 mistaken his vocation, and his expression of himself will be cramped by 
 his awkward efforts to do what he was not fit to do. On the other hand, 
 if the man be a painter indeed, and have the gift of colours and lines, 
 what is in him will come from his hand freely and faithfully; and the 
 language itself is so difficult and so vast, that the mere possession of it 
 argues the man is great, and that his works are worth reading. So that I 
 have never yet seen the case in which this true artistical excellence, visible 
 by the eye-glance, was not the index of some true expressional worth in 
 the work. Neither have I ever seen a good expressional work without 
 high artistical merit: and that this is ever denied is only owing to the 
 narrow view which men are apt to take both of expression and of art ; 
 a narrowness consequent on their own especial practice and habits of 
 thought. A man long trained to love the monk's visions of Fra Angelico, 
 turns in proud and ineffable disgust from the first work of Rubens which 
 he encounters on his return across the Alps. But is he right in his 
 indignation? He has forgotten, that while Angelico prayed and wept 
 in his olive shade, there was different work doing in the clank fields of 
 Flanders ; — wild seas to be banked out ; endless canals to be dug, and 
 boundless marshes to be drained ; hard ploughing and harrowing- of the 
 
APPENDIX, 15. 385 
 
 frosty clay; careful breeding of stout horses and fat cattle ; close setting 
 of brick walls against cold winds and snow ; nmch hardening of hands 
 and gross stoutening of bodies in all this; gross jovialities of harvest 
 homes and Christmas feasts, which were to be the reward of it ; rough 
 affections, and sluggish imaginations ; fleshy, substantial, iron-shod hu- 
 manities, but humanities still ; humanities which God had his eye upon, 
 and which won, perhaps, here and there, as much favour in his sight as 
 the wasted aspects of the whispering monks of Florence (Heaven forbid it 
 should not be so, since the most of us cannot be monks, but must be 
 ploughmen and reapers still). And are we to suppose there is no nobility 
 in Rubens' masculine and universal sympathy with all this, and with his 
 large human rendering of it, Gentleman though he was, by birth, and 
 feeling, and education, and place ; and, when he chose, lordly in conception 
 also? He had his faults, perhaps great and lamentable faults, though 
 more those of his time and his country than his own ; he has neither 
 cloister breeding nor boudoir breeding, and is very unfit to paint either 
 in missals or annuals ; but he has an open sky and wide-world breeding 
 in him, that we may not be offended with, fit alike for king's court, 
 knight's camp, or peasant's cottage. On the other hand, a man trained 
 here in England, in our Sir Joshua school, will not and cannot allow that 
 there is any art at all in the technical work of Angelico. But he is just as 
 wrong as the other. Fra Angelico is as true a master of the art necessary 
 to his purposes, as Rubens was of that necessary for his. We have been 
 taught in England to think there can be no virtue but in a loaded brush 
 and rapid hand ; but if we can shake our common sense free of such 
 teaching, we shall understand that there is art also in the delicate point 
 and in the hand which trembles as it moves ; not because it is more liable 
 to err, but because there is more danger in its error, and more at stake 
 upon its precision. The art of Angelico, both as a colourist and a 
 draughtsman, is consummate ; so perfect and beautiful, that his work may 
 be recognised at any distance by the rainbow-play and brilliancy of it : 
 However closely it may be surrounded by other works of the same school, 
 glowing with enamel and gold, Angelico's may be told from them at 
 a glance, like so many huge pieces of opal lying among common marbles. 
 So again with Giotto ; the Arena chapel is not only the most perfect 
 expressional work, it is the prettiest piece of wall decoration and fair 
 colour, in North Italy. 
 
 Now there is a correspondence of the same kind between the technical 
 and expressional parts of architecture ; — not a true or entire correspondence, 
 so that when the expression is best, the building must be also best : but 
 
 c c 
 
38G appendix, 15, 16, 17. 
 
 so much of correspondence as that good building is necessary to good 
 expression, comes before it, and is to be primarily looked for: and the 
 more, because the manner of building is capable of being determinately 
 estimated and classed ; but the expressional character not so : we can at 
 once determine the true value of technical qualities, we can only ap- 
 proximate to the value of expressional qualities : and besides this, the 
 looking for the technical qualities first will enable us to cast a large 
 quantity of rubbish aside at once, and so to narrow the difficult field 
 of inquiry into expression : we shall get rid of Chinese pagodas and 
 Indian temples, and Eenaissance Palladianisms, and Alhambra stucco and 
 filigree, in one great rubbish heap; and shall not need to trouble ourselves 
 about their expression, or anything else concerning them. Then taking the 
 buildings which have been rightly put together, and which show common 
 sense in their structure, we may look for their farther and higher excellences ; 
 but on those which are absurd in their first steps we need waste no time. 
 
 16. STRENGTH OF SHAFTS. 
 
 I could have wished, before writing this chapter, to have given more 
 study to the difficult subject of the strength of shafts of different materials 
 and structure ; but I cannot enter into every inquiry which general criticism 
 might suggest, and this I believe to be one which would have occupied the 
 reader with less profit than many others: all that is necessary for him to 
 note is, that the great increase of strength gained by a tubular form in iron 
 shafts, of given solid contents, is no contradiction to the general principle 
 stated in the text, that the strength of materials is most available when 
 they are most concentrated. The strength of the tube is owing to certain 
 properties of the arch formed by its sides, not to the dispersion of its 
 materials : and the principle is altogether inapplicable to stone shafts. No 
 one would think of building a pillar of a succession of sandstone rino-s ; 
 however strong it might be, it would be still stronger filled up, and the 
 substitution of such a pillar for a solid one of the same contents would lose 
 too much space; for a stone pillar, even when solid, must be quite as thick 
 as is either graceful or convenient, and in modern churches is often too 
 thick as it is, hindering sight of the preacher, and checking the sound of 
 his voice. 
 
 17. ANSWER TO MR. GARBETT. 
 
 Smnc three months ago, and long after the writing of this passage, I met. 
 accidentally with Mr. Garbett's elementary Treatise on Design. (Weale, 
 
APPENDIX, 17. 387 
 
 1850.) If I had cared about the reputation of originality, I should have been 
 annoyed — and was so, at first, on finding Mr. Garbett's illustrations of the 
 subject exactly the same as mine, even to the choice of the elephant's foot 
 for the parallel of the Doric pillar : I even thought of omitting, or re-writing, 
 great part of the chapter, but determined at last to let it stand. I am 
 striving to speak plain truttuon many simple and trite subjects, and I hope, 
 therefore, that much of what I say has been said before, and am quite 
 willing to give up all claim to originality in any reasoning or assertion 
 whatsoever, if any one cares to dispute it. I desire the reader to accept what 
 I say, not as mine, but as the truth, which may be all the world's, if they 
 look for it. If I remember rightly, Mr. Frank Howard promised at some 
 discussion respecting the " Seven Lamps," reported in the " Builder," to pluck 
 all my borrowed feathers off me ; but I did not see the end of the discussion, 
 and do not know to this day how many feathers I have left : at all events 
 the elephant's foot must belong to Mr. Garbett, though, strictly speaking, 
 neither he nor I can be quite justified in using it, for an elephant in reality 
 stands on tiptoe ; and this is by no means the expression of a Doric shaft. 
 As, however, I have been obliged to speak of this treatise of Mr. Garbett's, 
 and desire also to recommend it as of much interest and utility in its state- 
 ments of fact, it is impossible for me to pass altogether without notice, as 
 if unanswerable, several passages in which the writer has objected to views 
 stated in the " Seven Lamps." I should at any rate have noticed the passage 
 quoted above, (Chap. 30th,) which runs counter to the spirit of all I have 
 ever written, though without referring to me ; but the references to the 
 " Seven Lamps" I should not have answered, unless I had desired, 
 generally, to recommend the book, and partly also, because they may 
 serve as examples of the kind of animadversion which the " Seven 
 Lamps " had to sustain from architects, very generally ; which examples 
 being once answered, there will be little occasion for my referring in 
 future to other criticisms of the kind. 
 
 The first reference to the " Seven Lamps" is in the second page, where 
 Mr. Garbett asks a question, " Why are not convenience and stability 
 enough to constitute a fine building?" — which I should have answered 
 shortly by asking another, " "Why we have been made men, and not bees 
 nor termites:" but Mr. Garbett has given a very pretty, though partial, 
 answer to it himself, in his 4th to 9th pages, — an answer which I heartily 
 beg the reader to consider. But, in page 12., it is made a grave charge 
 against me, that I use the words beauty and ornament interchangeably. I 
 do so, and ever shall ; and so, I believe, one day, will Mr. Garbett himself; 
 but not while he continues to head his pages thus: — "Beauty not de- 
 
 c c 2 
 
;)88 appendix, 17. 
 
 pendent on ornament, or superfluous features." What right has lie to 
 assume that ornament, rightly so called, ever was, or can be, superfluous? I 
 have eaid above, and repeatedly in other places, that the most beautiful things 
 are the most useless; I never said superfluous. I said useless in the well- 
 understood and usual sense, as meaning, inapplicable to the service of the 
 body. Thus I called peacocks and lilies useless ; meaning, that roast pea- 
 cock was unwholesome (taking Juvenal's word for it), and that dried lilies 
 made bad hay: but I do not think peacocks superfluous birds, nor that the 
 world could get on well without its lilies. Or, to look closer, I suppose 
 the peacock's blue eyes to be very useless to him ; not dangerous indeed, 
 as to their first master, but of small service, yet I do not think there is a su- 
 perfluous eye in all his tail ; and for lilies, though the great King of Israel 
 was not " arrayed " like one of them, can Mr. Garbett tell us which are 
 their superfluous leaves ? Is there no Diogenes among lilies ? none to be 
 found content to drink dew, but out of silver? The fact is, I never met 
 with the architect yet who did not think ornament meant a thing to be 
 bought in a shop, and pinned on, or left off, at architectural toilets, as the 
 fancy seized them, thinking little more than many women do of the other 
 kind of oraament — the only true kind — St. Peter's kind, — " Not that 
 outward adorning, but the inner — of the heart." I do not mean that 
 architects cannot conceive this better ornament, but they do not understand 
 that it is the only ornament ; that all architectural ornament is this, and 
 nothing but this; that a noble building never has any extraneous or 
 superfluous ornament; that all its parts are necessary to its loveliness, and 
 that no single atom of them could be removed without harm to its life. 
 You do not build a temple and then dress it.* You create it in its 
 loveliness, and leave it, as her Maker left Eve. Not unadorned, I believe, 
 but so well adorned as to need no feather crowns. And I use the words 
 ornament and beauty interchangeably, in order that architects may 
 understand this : I assume that their building is to be a perfect creature, 
 capable of nothing less than it has, and needing nothing more. It may, 
 indeed, receive additional decoration afterwards, exactly as a woman may 
 gracefully put a bracelet on her arm, or set a flower in her hair : but that 
 additional decoration is not the architecture. It is of curtains, pictures, 
 statues, things which may be taken away from the building, and not hurt 
 it. What has the architect to do with these? He has only to do with 
 what is part of the building itself, that is to say, its own inherent beauty. 
 
 * We Lave done so — theoretically; just as one would reason on the human form from 
 the bones outwards: but the Architect of the human form frames all at once — bone and 
 flesh. 
 
APPENDIX, 17. 380 
 
 And because Mr. Garbett does not understand or acknowledge this, he is 
 led on from error to error ; for we next find him endeavouring to define 
 beauty as distinct from ornament, and saying that " Positive beauty may 
 be produced by a studious collation of whatever will display design, order, 
 and congruity." (p. 14.) Is that so? There is a highly studious collation 
 of whatever will display design, order, and congruity, in a skull, is there 
 not? — yet small beauty. The nose is a decorative feature, — yet slightly 
 necessary to beauty, it seems to me ; now, at least, for I once thought I 
 must be wrong in considering a skull disagreeable. I gave it fair trial ; 
 put one on my bedroom chimney-piece, and looked at it by sunrise every 
 morning, and by moonlight every night, and by all the best lights I could 
 think of, for a month, in vain. I found it as ugly at last as I did at first. 
 So, also, the hair is a decoration, and its natural curl is of little use ; but 
 can Mr. Garbett conceive a bald beauty ? or does he prefer a wig, because 
 that is a " studious collation" of whatever will produce design, order, and 
 congruity? So the flush of the cheek is a decoration, — God's painting of 
 the temple of his spirit, — and the redness of the lip; and yet poor Viola 
 thought it beauty truly blent ; and I hold with her. 
 
 I have answered enough to this count. 
 
 The second point questioned is my assertion, " Ornament cannot be 
 overcharged if it is good, and is always overcharged when it is bad." To 
 which Mr. Garbett objects in these terms : " I must contend, on the 
 contrary, that the very best ornament may be overcharged by being 
 misplaced." 
 
 A short sentence, with two mistakes in it. 
 
 First. Mr. Garbett cannot get rid of his unfortunate notion that orna- 
 ment is a thing to be manufactured separately, and fastened on. He 
 supposes that an ornament may be called good in itself, in the stonemason s 
 yard or in the ironmonger s shop : Once for all, let him put this idea out of 
 his head. "We may say of a thing, considered separately, that it is a pretty 
 thing ; but before we can say it is a good ornament, we must know what 
 it is to adorn, and how. As, for instance, a ring of gold is a pretty thing: 
 it is a good ornament on a woman's finger ; not a good ornament hung 
 through her under lip. A hollyhock, seven feet high, would be a good 
 ornament for a cottage-garden ; not a good ornament for a lady's head- 
 dress. Might not Mr. Garbett have seen this without my showing? and 
 that, therefore, when I said "good" ornament, I said "well-placed" 
 ornament, in one word ; and that, also, when Mr. Garbett says " it may 
 be overcharged by being misplaced," he merely says it may be overcharged 
 by being bad. 
 
 c c 3 
 
39U APPENDIX, 17. 
 
 Secondly. But, granted that ornament were independent of its position, 
 and might be pronounced good in a separate form, as books are good, or 
 men are good, — Suppose I had written to a student in Oxford, "You 
 cannot have too many books, if they be good books ; " and he had answered 
 me, " Yes, for if I have many, I have no place to put them in but the 
 coal-cellar." Would that in anywise affect the general principle that he 
 could not have too many books ? 
 
 Or suppose he had written, " I must not have too many, they confuse 
 my head." I should have written back to him : " Don't buy books to put 
 in the coal-hole, nor read them if they confuse your head ; you cannot 
 have too many, if they be good : but if you are too lazy to take care of 
 them, or too dull to profit by them, you are better without them." 
 
 Exactly in the same tone, I repeat to Mr. Garbett, "You cannot have 
 too much ornament, if it be good : but if you are too indolent to arrange 
 it, or too dull to take advantage of it, assuredly you are better with- 
 out it." 
 
 The other points bearing on this question have already been stated in 
 the close of the 21st chapter. 
 
 The third reference I have to answer, is to my repeated assertion, that 
 the evidence of manual labour is one of the chief sources of value in 
 ornament, (" Seven Lamps," p. 49., " Modern Painters," § 1. Chap. III.,) 
 to which objection is made in these terms : " We must here warn the 
 reader against a remarkable error of Ruskin. The value of ornaments in 
 architecture depends not in the slightest degree on the manual labour they 
 contain. If it did, the finest ornaments ever executed would be the stone 
 chains that hang before certain Indian rock-temples." Is that so ? Hear 
 a parallel argument. " The value of the Cornish mines depends not in the 
 slightest degree on the quantity of copper they contain. If it did, the 
 most valuable things ever produced would be copper saucepans." It is 
 hardly worth my while to answer this ; but, lest any of my readers should 
 be confused by the objection, and as I hold the fact to be of great import- 
 ance, I may re-state it for them with some explanation. 
 
 Observe, then, the appearance of labour, that is to say, the evidence of 
 the past industry of man, is always, in the abstract, intensely delightful : 
 man being meant to labour, it is delightful to see that he has laboured, and 
 to read the record of his active and worthy existence. 
 
 The evidence of labour becomes painful only when it is a sign of Eeil 
 greater, as Evil, than the labour is great, as Good. As, for instance, if a 
 man has laboured for an hour at what might have been done by another 
 man in a moment, this evidence of his labour is also evidence of his 
 
APPENDIX, 17. 391 
 
 weakness ; and this weakness is greater in rank of evil, than his industry is 
 great in rank of good. 
 
 Again, if a man have laboured at what was not worth accomplishing, 
 the signs of his labour are the signs of his folly, and his folly dishonours 
 his industry ; we had rather he had been a wise man in rest, than a fool in 
 labour. 
 
 Again, if a man have laboured without accomplishing anything, the signs 
 of his labour are the signs of his disappointment ; and we have more sorrow 
 in sympathy with his failure, than pleasure in sympathy with his work. 
 
 Now, therefore, in ornament, whenever labour replaces what was better 
 than labour, that is to say, skill and thought; whenever it substitutes 
 itself for these, or negatives these by its existence, then it is positive evil. 
 Copper is an evil when it alloys gold, or poisons food : not an evil, as 
 copper : good in the form of pence, seriously objectionable when it occupies 
 the room of guineas. Let Danae cast it out of her lap, when the gold 
 comes from heaven ; but let the poor man gather it up carefully from the 
 earth. 
 
 Farther, the evidence of labour is not only a good when added to other 
 good, but the utter absence of it destroys good in human work. It is only 
 for God to create without toil ; that which man can create without toil is 
 worthless : machine ornaments are no ornaments at all. Consider this 
 carefully, reader : I could illustrate it for you endlessly ; but you feel it 
 yourself every hour of your existence. And if you do not know that you 
 feel it, take up, for a little time, the trade which of all manual trades has 
 been most honoured : be for once a carpenter. Make for yourself a table 
 or a chair, and see if ever you thought any table or chair so delightful, 
 and what strange beauty there will be in their crooked limbs. 
 
 I have not noticed any other animadversions on the " Seven Lamps" in 
 Mr. Garbett's volume ; but if there be more, I must now leave it to his 
 own consideration, whether he may not, as in the above instances, have 
 made them incautiously : I may, perhaps, also be permitted to request other 
 architects, who may happen to glance at the preceding pages, not imme- 
 diately to condemn what may appear to them false in general principle. 
 I must often be found deficient in technical knowledge ; I may often err 
 in my statements respecting matters of practice or of special law. But I 
 do not write thoughtlessly respecting principles ; and my statements of 
 these will generally be found worth reconnoitring before attacking. Archi- 
 tects, no doubt, fancy they have strong grounds for supposing me wrong 
 when they seek to invalidate my assertions. Let me assure them, at 
 least, that I mean to be their friend, although they may not immediately 
 
 c c 4 
 
392 APPENDIX, 17. 
 
 recognise me as such. If I could obtain tlic public ear, and the principles 
 I have advocated were carried into general practice, porphyry and serpentine 
 would be given to them instead of limestone and brick ; instead of tavern 
 and shop-fronts they would have to build goodly churches and noble 
 dwelling-houses ; and for every stunted Grecism and stucco Romanism, 
 into which they are now forced to shape their palsied thoughts, and to 
 whose crumbling plagiarisms they must trust their doubtful fame, they 
 would be asked to raise whole streets of bold, and rich, and living 
 architecture, with the certainty in their hearts of doing what was honourable 
 to themselves, and good for all men. 
 
 Before I altogether leave the question of the influence of labour on 
 architectural effect, the reader may expect from me a word or two 
 respecting the subject which this year must be interesting to all — the 
 applicability, namely, of glass and iron to architecture in general, as in 
 some sort exemplified by the Crystal Palace. 
 
 It is thought by many that we shall forthwith have great part of our 
 architecture in glass and iron, and that new forms of beauty will result 
 from the studied employment of these materials. 
 
 It may be told in few words how far this is possible ; how far eternally 
 impossible. 
 
 There are two means of delight in all productions of art — colour and 
 form. 
 
 The most vivid conditions of colour attainable by human art are those of 
 works in glass and enamel, but not the most perfect. The best and noblest 
 colouring possible to art is that attained by the touch of the human hand 
 on an opaque surface, upon which it can command any tint required, 
 without subjection to alteration by fire or other mechanical means. No 
 colour is so noble as the colour of a good painting on canvass or gesso. 
 
 This kind of colour being, however, impossible, for the most part, in 
 architecture, the next best is the scientific disposition of the natural colours 
 of stones, which are far nobler than any abstract hues producible by 
 human art. 
 
 The delight which we receive from glass painting is one altogether 
 inferior, and in which we should degrade ourselves by over indulgence. 
 Nevertheless, it is possible that we may raise some palaces like Aladdin's, 
 with coloured glass for jewels, which shall be new in the annals of human 
 splendour, and good in their place; but not if they superseded nobler 
 edifices. 
 
 Now, colour is producible either on opaque or in transparent bodies : but 
 form is only expressible, in its perfection, on opaque bodies, without lustre. 
 
APPENDIX, 17. 393 
 
 This law is imperative, universal, irrevocable. No perfect or refine;! 
 form can be expressed except in opaque and lustreless matter. You 
 cannot see the form of a jewel, nor, in any perfection, even of a cameo or 
 bronze. You cannot perfectly see the form of a humming-bird, on account 
 of its burnishing; but you can see the form of a swan perfectly. No 
 noble work iu form can ever, therefore, be produced in transparent or 
 lustrous glass or enamel. All noble architecture depends for its majesty on 
 its form : therefore you can never have any noble architecture in transparent 
 jr lustrous glass or enamel. Iron is, however, opaque ; and both it and 
 opaque enamel may, perhaps, be rendered quite lustreless ; and, therefore, 
 fit to receive noble form. 
 
 Let this be thoroughly done, and both the iron and enamel made fine in 
 paste or grain, and you may have an architecture as noble as cast or struck 
 architecture ever can be : as noble, therefore, as coins can be, or common 
 cast bronzes, and such other multiplicable things;* — eternally separated 
 from all good and great things by a gulph which not all the tubular 
 bridges nor engineering of ten thousand nineteenth centuries cast into one 
 great bronze-foreheaded century, will ever overpass one inch of. All art 
 which is worth its room ill this world, all art which is not a piece of 
 blundering refuse, occupying the foot or two of earth which, if unen- 
 cumbered by it, would have grown corn or violets, or some better thing, is 
 art which proceeds from an individual mind, working through instruments 
 which assist, but do not supersede, the muscular action of the human hand, 
 upon the materials which most tenderly receive, and most securely retain, the 
 impressions of such human labour. 
 
 And the value of every work of art is exactly in the ratio of the quantity 
 of humanity which has been put into it, and legibly expressed upon it 
 for ever : — 
 
 First, of thought and moral purpose ; 
 
 Secondly, of technical skill ; 
 
 Thirdly, of bodily industry. 
 
 The quantity of bodily industry which that Crystal Palace expresses is 
 very great. So far it is good. 
 
 * Of course mere multiplieability, as of an engraving, does not diminish the intrinsic 
 value of the work ; and if the casts of sculpture could be as sharp as the sculpture itself, 
 they would hold to it the relation of value which engravings hold to paintings. And, if 
 we choose to have our churches all alike, we might cast them all in bronze — we might 
 actually coin churches, and have mints of Cathedrals. It would be worthy of the spirit 
 of the century to put milled edges for mouldings, and have a popular currency of 
 religious subjects; a new cast of nativities every Christmas. I have not heard this 
 contemplated, however, and I speak, therefore, only of the results which I believe are 
 contemplated, as attainable by mere mechanical applications of glass and iron. 
 
394 appendix, 17. 18. 
 
 The quantity of thought it expresses is, I suppose, a single and very 
 admirable thought of Mr. Paxton's, probably not a bit brighter than 
 thousands of thoughts which pass through his active and intelligent brain 
 every hour, — that it might be possible to build a greenhouse larger than 
 ever greenhouse was built before. This thought, and some very ordinary 
 algebra, are as much as all that glass can represent of human intellect. 
 " But one poor halfpennyworth of bread to all this intolerable deal of 
 sack." Alas ! 
 
 " The earth hath bubbles as the water hath : 
 And this is of them." 
 
 18. EARLY ENGLISH CAPITALS. 
 
 The depth of the cutting in some of the early English capitals is, indeed, 
 part of a general system of attempts at exaggerated force of effect, like the 
 " black touches " of second-rate draughtsmen, which I have noticed as 
 characteristic of nearly all northern work, associated with the love of the 
 grotesque: but the main section of the capital is indeed a dripstone 
 rolled round, as above described; and dripstone sections are continually 
 found in northern work, where not only they cannot increase force of effect, 
 but are entirely invisible except on close examination ; as, for instance, 
 under the uppermost range of stones of the foundation of Whitehall, or 
 under the slope of the restored base of All Souls College, Oxford, under 
 the level of the eye. I much doubt if any of the Fellows be aware of its 
 existence. 
 
 Many readers will be surprised and displeased by the disparagement of 
 the early English capital. That capital has. indeed, one character of 
 considerable value ; namely, the boldness with which it stops the mouldings 
 which fall upon it, and severs them from the shaft, contrasting itself with 
 the multiplicity of their vertical lines. Sparingly used, or seldom seen, it is 
 thus, in its place, not unplcasing ; and we English love it from association, 
 it being always found in connexion with our purest and loveliest Gothic 
 arches, and never in multitudes large enough to satiate the eye with its 
 form. The reader who sits in the Temple church every Sunday, and sees 
 no architecture during the week but that of Chancery Lane, may most 
 justifiably quarrel with me for what 1 have said of it. But if every house 
 in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane were Gothic, and all had early English 
 capitals, I would answer for his making peace with me in a fortnight. 
 
APPENDIX, 19. 395 
 
 19. TOMBS NEAR ST. ANASTASIA. 
 
 Whose they are, is of little consequence to the reader or to me, and I 
 have taken no pains to discover ; their value being not in any evidence they 
 bear respecting dates, but in their intrinsic merit as examples of composition. 
 Two of them are within the gate, one on the top of it, and this latter is on 
 the whole the best, though all are beautiful ; uniting the intense northern 
 energy in their figure sculpture with the most serene classical restraint in 
 their outlines, and unaffected, but masculine simplicity of construction. 
 
 I have not put letters to the diagram of the lateral arch at page 133., in 
 order not to interfere with the clearness of the curves, but I shall always 
 express the same points by the same letters, whenever I have to give 
 measures of arches of this simple kind, so that the reader need never have 
 the diagrams lettered at all. The base or span of the centre arch will 
 always be a b ; its vertex will always be V; the points of the cusps will be 
 c c ; pp will be the bases of perpendiculars let fall from V and c on a b ; 
 and d the base of a perpendicular from the point of the cusp to the arch line. 
 Then a b will always be the span of the arch, V p its perpendicular height, 
 V a the chord of its side arcs, d c the depth of its cusps, c c the horizontal 
 interval between the cusps, a c the length of the chord of the lower arc of 
 the cusp, V c the length of the chord of the upper arc of the cusp, (whether 
 continuous or not,) and c p the length of a perpendicular from the point of 
 the cusp on a b. 
 
 Of course we do not want all these measures for a single arch, but it 
 often happens that some of them are attainable more easily than others; 
 some are often unattainable altogether, and it is necessary therefore to have 
 expressions for whichever we may be able to determine. 
 
 V p or V a, a b, and d c are always essential ; then either a c and V c, 
 or c c and c p : when I have my choice, I always take a b, V p, d c, c c, and 
 c p, but c p is not to be generally obtained so accurately as the cusp arcs. 
 
 The measures of the present arch are : 
 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 a b, 
 
 3„8 
 
 vp, 
 
 4„0 
 
 V c, 
 
 2„4i 
 
 a c, 
 
 2 „ Oi 
 
 dc, 
 
 „ 3i 
 
:;:>i; appendix, 20. 
 
 20. SHAFTS OF DUCAL PALACE. 
 
 The shortness of the thicker ones at the angles is induced by the greater 
 depth of the enlarged capitals: thus the 36th shaft is 10ft. 4i in. in 
 circumference at its base, and 10 ,, OJ,* in circumference under the fillet 
 of its capital; but it is only 6 ,, If high, while the minor intermediate 
 shafts, of which the thickest is 7 ,, 8 round at the base, and 7 ,, 4 
 under capital, are yet on the average 7 ,, 7 high. The angle shaft towards 
 t lie sea (the 18th) is nearly of the proportions of the 3Gth, and there are 
 three others, the loth, 24th, and 26th, which are thicker than the rest, 
 though not so thick as the angle ones. The 24th and 26th have both party 
 walls to bear, and I imagine the loth must in old time have carried another, 
 reaching across what is now the Sala del Gran Consiglio. 
 
 They measure respectively round at the base, 
 
 The 15 th, 8 „ 2 
 24th, 9 „ 61 
 26th, 8 „ 0i 
 
 The other pillars towards the sea, and those to the 27th inclusive of the 
 Piazzetta, are all seven feet round at the base, and then there is a most 
 curious and delicate crescendo of circumference to the 36th, thus : 
 
 The 28th, 
 
 7 „ 3 
 
 The 
 
 33 rd, 7 „ 6 
 
 29th, 
 
 7„4 
 
 
 34th, 7 „ 8 
 
 30th, 
 
 7 „ 6 
 
 
 35th, 7 „ 8 
 
 31st, 
 
 7., 7 
 
 
 36th, 10 „ 4 j 
 
 32nd, 
 
 7,, 5 
 
 
 
 The shafts of the upper arcade, which are above these thicker columns, 
 are also thicker than their companions, measuring, on the average, 4 „ 8£ 
 in circumference, while those of the sea facade, except the 29th, average 
 4 „ 7£ i» circumference. The 29th, which is of course above the loth 
 of the lower story, is 5 „ 5 in circumference, which little piece of evidence 
 will be of no small value to us by-and-by. The 35th carries the angle of 
 the palace, and is 6 ,, round. The 47th, which comes above the 24th, 
 and carries the party wall of the Sala del Gran Consiglio, is strengthened 
 by a pilaster; and the 51st, which comes over the 26th, is 5 „ 4£ round, or 
 
 * I shall often have occasion to write measures in the current text, therefore the reader 
 will kindly understand that whenever they are thus written, 2 „ 2, with double commas 
 between, the first figures stand for English feet, the second for English inches. 
 
appendix, 20. 397 
 
 nearly the same as the 29th ; it carries the party wall of the Sala del 
 Scrutinio; a small room containing part of St. Mark's library, coming 
 between the two saloons; a room which, in remembrance of the help I 
 have received in all my inquiries from the kindness and intelligence of 
 its usual occupant, I shall never easily distinguish otherwise than as 
 " Mr. Lorenzi's." * 
 
 I may as well connect with these notes respecting the arcades of the 
 Ducal Palace, those which refer to Plate XIV., which represents one of 
 its spandrils. Every spandril of the lower arcade was intended to have 
 been occupied by an ornament resembling the one given in that Plate. 
 The mass of the building being of Istrian stone, a depth of about two 
 inches is left within the mouldings of the arches, rough hewn, to receive 
 the slabs of fine marble composing the patterns. I cannot say whether 
 the design was never completed, or the marbles have been since removed, 
 but there are now only two spandrils retaining their fillings, and vestiges 
 of them in a third. The two complete spandrils are on the sea facade, 
 above the 3rd and 10th capitals [vide method of numbering, Chap. I., 
 page 30.) ; that is to say, connecting the 2nd arch with the 3rd, and 
 the 9th with the 10th. The latter is the one given in Plate XIV. 
 The white portions of it are all white marble, the dentil band surrounding 
 the circle is in coarse sugary marble, which I believe to be Greek, and 
 never found in Venice, to my recollection, except in work at least anterior 
 to the fifteenth century. The shaded fields charged with the three white 
 triangles are of red Verona marble ; the inner disc is green serpentine, and 
 the dark pieces of the radiating leaves are grey marble. The three triangles 
 are equilateral. The two uppermost are 1 „ 5 each side, and the lower 
 one 1 „ 2. 
 
 The extreme diameter of the circle is 3 „ 10|; its field is slightly 
 raised above the red marbles, as shown in the section at A, on the left. 
 Aa is part of the red marble field; ab the section of the dentil moulding 
 let into it; b c the entire breadth of the rayed zone, represented on the 
 other side of the spandril by the line C/; c d is the white marble band 
 let in, with the dog-tooth on the face of it ; b c is 7| inches across ; c d 3| ; 
 and at B are given two joints of the dentil (mentioned above, in the chapter 
 on dentils, as unique in Venice) of their actual size. At C is given one ot 
 the inlaid leaves; its measure being (in inches) C/ 7| ; C ft -f ; f g f ; 
 
 * I cannot suffer this volume to close without also thanking my kind friend, 
 Mr. Kawdon Brown, for help given me in a thousand ways duringjny stay in Venice : 
 but chiefly for his direction to passages elucidatory of my subject in the MSS. of 
 St. Mark's library. 
 
398 appendix, 20, 21. 
 
 fe 4f, the base of the smaller leaves being of course/" e ~f'J — 4. The 
 pattern which occupies the other spandril is similar, except that the field 
 b c, instead of the intersecting arcs, has only triangles of grey marble, 
 arranged like rays, with their bases towards the centre. There being 
 twenty round the circle, the reader can of course draw them for himself; 
 they being isosceles, touching the dentil with their points, and being 
 in contact at their bases : it has lost its central boss. The marbles are, 
 in both, covered with a rusty coating, through which it is excessively 
 difficult to distinguish the colours (another proof of the age of the orna- 
 ment). But the white marbles are certainly, in places (except only the 
 sugary dentil), veined with purple, and the grey seem warmed with green. 
 
 A trace of another of these ornaments may be seen over the 21st 
 capital ; but I doubt if the marbles have ever been inserted in the other 
 spandrils, and their want of ornament occasions the slight meagrcness in 
 the effect of the lower story, which is almost the only fault of the building. 
 
 This decoration by discs, or shield-like ornaments, is a marked cha- 
 racteristic of Venetian architecture in its earlier ages, and is carried into 
 later times by the Byzantine Renaissance, already distinguished from 
 the more corrupt forms of Renaissance, in Appendix 6. Of the disc 
 decoration, so borrowed, we have already an example in Plate I. In 
 Plate VIII. we have an earlier condition of it, one of the discs being 
 there sculptured, the others surrounded by sculptured bands : here we 
 have, on the Ducal Palace, the most characteristic of all, because likest 
 to the shield, which was probably the origin of the same ornament among 
 the Arabs, and assuredly among the Greeks. In Mr. Donaldson's resto- 
 ration of the gate of the treasury of Atreus, this ornament is conjectu rally 
 employed, and it occurs constantly on the Arabian buildings of Cairo. 
 
 21. ANCIENT REPRESENTATIONS OF WATER. 
 
 I have long been desirous of devoting some time to an enquiry into the 
 effect of natural scenery upon the pagan, and especially the Greek, mind ; 
 and knowing that my friend, Mr. C. Newton, had devoted much thought to 
 the elucidation of the figurative and symbolic language of ancient art, I 
 asked him to draw up for me a few notes of the facts which he considered 
 most interesting, as illustrative of its methods of representing nature. I 
 suggested to him, for an initiative subject, the representation of water ; 
 because this is one of the natural objects whose portraiture may most easily 
 be made a test of treatment, for it is one of universal interest, and of more 
 closely similar aspect in all parts of the world than any other. Waves, 
 
APPENDIX, 21. 399 
 
 currents, and eddies are much liker each other, everywhere, than either 
 land or vegetation. Rivers and lakes, indeed, differ widely from the sea, 
 and the clear Pacific from the angry Northern ocean ; but the Nile is 
 liker the Danube than a knot of Nubian palms is to a glade of the Black 
 Forest ; and the Mediterranean is liker the Atlantic than the Campo 
 Felice is like Solway moss. 
 
 Mr. Newton has accordingly most kindly furnished me with the fol- 
 lowing data. One or two of the types which he describes have been 
 already noticed in the main text; but it is well that the reader should 
 again contemplate them in the position which they here occupy in a 
 general system. I recommend his especial attention to Mr. Newton's 
 definitions of the terms " figurative " and " symbolic," as applied to art, in 
 the beginning of the paper. 
 
 In ancient art, that is to say, in the art of the Egyptian, Assyrian, 
 Greek, and Roman races, water is, for the most part, represented con- 
 ventionally rather than naturally. 
 
 By natural representation is here meant as just and perfect an imitation 
 of nature as the technical means of art will allow : on the other hand, 
 representation is said to be conventional, either when a confessedly 
 inadequate imitation is accepted in default of a better, or when imitation 
 is not attempted at all, and it is agreed that other modes of representation, 
 those by figures or by symbols, shall be its substitute and equivalent. 
 
 In figurative representation there is always impersonation ; the sensible 
 form, borrowed by the artist from organic life, is conceived to be actuated 
 by a will, and invested with such mental attributes as constitute per- 
 sonality. 
 
 The sensible symbol, whether borrowed from organic or from inorganic 
 nature, is not a personification at all, but the conventional sign or equi- 
 valent of some object or notion, to which it may perhaps bear no visible 
 resemblance, but with which the intellect or the imagination has in some 
 way associated it. 
 
 For instance, a city may be figuratively represented as a woman 
 crowned with towers ; here the artist has selected for the expression of his 
 idea a human form animated with a will and motives of action analogous 
 to those of humanity generally. Or, again, as in Greek art, a bull may be 
 a figurative representation of a river, and, in the conception of the artist, 
 this animal form may contain, and be ennobled by, a human mind. 
 
 This is still impersonation ; the form only in which personality is 
 embodied is changed. 
 
400 APPENDIX, 21. 
 
 Again, a dolphin may be used as a symbol of the sea : a man ploughing 
 with two oxen is a well-known symbol of a Koman colony. In neither of 
 these instances is there impersonation. The dolphin is not invested, like 
 the figure of Xeptune, with any of the attributes of the human mind ; it 
 has animal instincts, but no will ; it represents to us its native element, 
 only as a part may be taken for a whole. 
 
 Again, the man ploughing does not, like the turreted female figure, 
 personify, but rather typifies the town, standing as the visible repre- 
 sentation of a real event, its first foundation. To our mental perceptions, as 
 to our bodily senses, this figure seems no more than man ; there is no 
 blending of his personal nature with the impersonal nature of the colony, 
 no transfer of attributes from the one to the other. 
 
 Though the conventionally imitative, the figurative, and the symbolic, 
 are three distinct kinds of representation, they are constantly combined in 
 one composition, as we shall see in the following examples, cited from the 
 art of successive races in chronological order. 
 
 In Egyptian art the general representation of water is the conventionally 
 imitative. In the British Museum are two frescoes from tombs at Thebes, 
 Nos.177. and 170. : the subject of the first of these is an oblong pond, ground- 
 plan and elevation being strangely confused in the design. In this pond 
 water is represented by parallel zigzag lines, in which fish are swimming 
 about. On the surface are birds and lotos flowers ; the herbage at the 
 ed^e of the pond is represented by a border of symmetrical fan-shaped 
 flowers; the field beyond by rows of trees, arranged round the sides of 
 the pond at right angles to each other, and in defiance of all laws of 
 perspective. 
 
 In the fresco, No. 170., we have the representation of a river with 
 papyrus on its bank. Here the water is rendered by zigzag lines arranged 
 vertically and in parallel lines, so as to resemble herring- 
 g bone masonry, thus. There are fish in this fresco as 
 
 ;^£^\S^vSS in the preceding, and in both, each fish is drawn very 
 distinctly, not as it would appear to the eye viewed 
 through water. The mode of representing this element 
 in Egyptian painting is further abbreviated in their hie- 
 roglyphic writing, where the sign of water is a zigzag line; this line is, 
 so to speak, a picture of water written in short hand. In the Egyptian 
 Pantheon there was but one aquatic deity, the god of the Nile ; his type 
 is, therefore, the only figurative representation of water in Egyptian 
 art. (Birch, "Gallery of British Museum Antiquities," PI. 13.) In 
 Assyrian sculpture we have very curious conventionally imitative reprc- 
 
APPENDIX, 21. 401 
 
 sentations of water. On several of the friezes from Nimroud and Khor- 
 sabad, men are seen crossing a river in boats, or on skins, accompanied bv 
 horses swimming (see Layard, ii. p. 381.). In these scenes water is 
 represented by masses of wavy lines somewhat resembling tresses of hair, 
 and terminating in curls or volutes : these wavy lines express the general 
 character of a deep and rapid current, like that of the Tigris. Fish are 
 but sparingly introduced, the idea of surface being sufficiently expressed by 
 the floating figures and boats. In the representation of these there is the 
 same want of perspective as in the Egyptian fresco which we have just cited. 
 
 In the Assyrian Pantheon one aquatic deity has been discovered, the 
 god Dagon, whose human form terminates in a fish's tail. Of the character 
 and attributes of this deity we know but little. 
 
 The more abbreviated mode of representing water, the zigzag line, 
 occurs on the large silver coins with the type of a city or a war-galley, 
 (see Layard, ii. p. 386.). These coins were probably struck in Assyria, not 
 long after the conquest of it by the Persians. 
 
 In Greek art the modes of representing water are far more varied. 
 Two conventional imitations, the wave moulding and the Mseander, are 
 well known. Both are probably of the most remote antiquity ; both have 
 been largely employed as an architectural ornament, and subordjnately as 
 a decoration of vases, costume, furniture and implements. In the wave 
 moulding we have a conventional representation of the small crisping 
 waves which break upon the shore of the Mediterranean, the sea of 
 the Greeks. 
 
 Their regular succession, and equality of force and volume, are generalised 
 in this moulding, while the minuter varieties which distinguish one wave 
 from another are merged in the general type. The character of ocean 
 waves is to be " for ever changing, yet the same for ever ; " it is this 
 eternity of recurrence which the early artist has expressed in this hiero- 
 glyphic. 
 
 With this profile representation of water may be compared the sculptured 
 waves out of which the head and arms of Hyperion are rising in the 
 pediment of the Parthenon (Elgin Room, No. (65.) 91, Museum Marbles, 
 vi. pi. 1.). Phidias has represented these waves like a mass of overlapping 
 tiles, thus generalising their rippling movement. In the Meander pattern 
 the graceful curves of nature are represented by angles, as in the Egyptian 
 hieroglyphic of water: so again the earliest representation of the labyrinth 
 on the coins of the Cretan Cnossus is rectangular ; on later coins we find 
 the curvilinear form introduced. 
 
 In the language of Greek rnythography, the wave pattern and the 
 
 D P 
 
102 APPENDIX, 21. 
 
 Mseander are sometimes used singly for the idea of water, but more 
 frequently combined with figurative representation. The number of 
 aquatic deities in the Greek Pantheon led to the invention of a great 
 variety of beautiful types. Some of these are very well known. Every- 
 body is familiar with the general form of Poseidon (Neptune), the Nereids, 
 the Nymphs and River Gods ; but the modes in which these types were 
 combined with conventional imitation and with accessory symbols deserve 
 careful study, if we would appreciate the surpassing richness and beauty of 
 the language of art formed out of these elements. 
 
 This class of representations may be divided into two principal groups, 
 those relating to the sea, and those relating to fresh water. 
 
 The power of the ocean and the great features of marine scenery are 
 embodied in such types as Poseidon, Nereua and the Nereids, that is to say, 
 in human forms moving through the liquid element in chariots, or on the 
 back of dolphins, or who combine the human form with that of the fish-like 
 Tritons. The sea-monsters who draw these chariots are called Hippocamps, 
 being composed of the tail of a fish and the fore-part of a horse, the legs 
 terminating in web-feet : this union seems to express speed and power 
 under perfect control, such as would characterise the movements of sea 
 deities. A few examples have been here selected, to show how these types 
 were combined with symbols and conventional imitation. 
 
 In the British Museum is a vase, No. 1257., engraved, (Lenormant et 
 De Witte, Mon. Ceram., i. pi. 27.) of which the subject is, Europa crossing 
 the sea on the back of the bull. In this design the sea is represented by a 
 variety of expedients. First, the swimming action of the bull suggests the 
 idea of the liquid medium through which he moves. Behind him stands 
 Nereus, his staff held perpendicularly in his hand ; the top of his staff conies 
 nearly to the level of the bull's back, and is probably meant as the measure 
 of the whole depth of the sea. Towards the surface line thus indicated a 
 dolphin is rising; in the middle depth is another dolphin; below, a shrimp 
 and a cuttle-fish, and the bottom is indicated by a jagged line of rocks, on 
 which are two echini. 
 
 On a mosaic found at Oudnah in Algeria (Revue Archeol., iii. pi. 50.), 
 we have a representation of the sea, remarkable for the fulness of details 
 with which it is made out. 
 
 This, though of the Roman period, is so thoroughly Greek in feeling, that 
 it may be cited as an example of the class of mythography now under con- 
 sideration. The mosaic lines the floor and sides of a bath, and, as was 
 commonly the case in the baths of the ancients, serves as a figurative re- 
 presentation of the water it contained. 
 
APPENDIX, 21. 403 
 
 On the sides are hippocamps, figures riding on dolphins and islands, 
 on which fishermen stand : on the floor are fish, crabs, and shrimps. 
 
 These, as in the vase with Europa, indicate the bottom of the sea : the 
 same symbols of the submarine world appear on many other ancient designs. 
 Thus in vase pictures, when Poseidon upheaves the island of Cos to over- 
 whelm the Giant Polybotes, the island is represented as an immense mass 
 of rock ; the parts which have been under water are indicated by a dolphin, 
 a shrimp, and a sepia, the parts above the water by a goat and a serpent, 
 (Lenormant et De Witte, i., tav. 5.). 
 
 Sometimes these symbols occur singly in Greek art, as the types, for 
 instance, of coins. In such cases they cannot be interpreted without being 
 viewed in relation to the whole context of mythography to which they 
 belong. If we find, for example, on one coin of Tarentum a shell, on 
 another a dolphin, on a third a figure of Taras, the mythic founder of the 
 town, riding on a dolphin in the midst of the waves, and this latter group 
 expresses the idea of the town itself and its position on the coast, then we 
 know the two former types to be but portions of the greater design, having 
 been detached from it, as we may detach words from sentences. 
 
 The study of the fuller and clearer examples, such as we have cited 
 above, enables us to explain many more compendious forms of ex- 
 pression. We have, for instance, on coins several representations of 
 ancient harbours. 
 
 Of these the earliest occurs on the coins of Zancle, the modern Messina 
 in Sicily. The ancients likened the form of this harbour to a sickle, and 
 on the coins of the town we find a curved object, within the area of 
 which is a dolphin. On this curve are four square elevations placed at 
 equal distances. It has been conjectured that these projections are either 
 towers or the large stones to which galleys were moored still to be 
 seen in ancient harbours (see Burgon, Numismatic Chronicle, iii., p. 40.). 
 With this archaic representation of a harbour may be compared some 
 examples of the Roman period. On a coin of Sept. Severus struck at 
 Corinth, (Millingen, Sylloge of Uned. Coins, 1837, p. 57., PI. II. No. 30.) 
 we have a female figure standing on a rock between two recumbent male 
 fisures holding rudders. From an arch at the foot of the rock a stream is 
 flowing : this is a representation of the rock of the Acropolis of Corinth ; 
 the female figure is a statue of xlphrodite, whose temple surmounted the 
 rock. The stream is the fountain Pirene. The two recumbent figures are 
 impersonations of the two harbours, Lechreum and Cenchreia, between 
 which Corinth was situated. Philostratus (Icon, ii., c. 16.) describes a 
 
404 APPENDIX, 21. 
 
 similar picture of the Isthmus between the two harbours, one of which was 
 in the form of a youth, the other of a nymph. 
 
 On another coin of Corinth we have one of the harbours in a semicircular 
 form, the whole arc being marked with small equal divisions, to denote 
 the archways under which the ancient galleys were drawn, subducta ; at 
 cither horn or extremity of the harbour is a temple ; in the centre of the 
 mouth, a statue of Neptune. (Millingen, Medailles Inc'd., PI. II., No. 19. 
 Compare also Millingen, Ancient Coins of Cities and Kings, 1831, pp.59 
 — 61. PI. IV., No. 15.; Mionnet, Suppl. vii. p. 79., No. 246.; and the 
 harbour of Ostium, on the large brass coins of Nero, in which there is a 
 representation of the Roman fleet and a reclining figure of Neptune.) 
 
 In vase pictures we have occasionally an attempt to represent water 
 naturally. On a vase in the British Museum (No. 785.), of which the 
 subject is Ulysses and the Sirens, the sea is rendered by wavy lines drawn 
 in black on a red ground, and something like the effect of light playing on 
 the surface of the water is given. On each side of the ship are shapeless 
 masses of rock on which the Sirens stand. 
 
 One of the most beautiful of the figurative representations of the sea 
 is the well-known type of Scylla. She has a beautiful body, terminating 
 in two barking dogs and two serpent tails. Sometimes drowning men, 
 the rati nantes in gurgite vasto, appear caught up in the coils of these 
 tails. Below are dolphins. Scylla generally brandishes a rudder, to show 
 the manner in which she twists the course of ships. For varieties of her 
 type see Monum. dell' Inst. Archeol. Rom., iii., Taw. 52 — 3. 
 
 The representations of fresh water may be arranged under the following 
 heads — rivers, lakes, fountains. 
 
 There are several figurative modes of representing rivers very frequently 
 employed in ancient mythography. 
 
 In the type which occurs earliest wc have the human form combined 
 with that of the bull in several ways. On an archaic coin of Metapontum 
 in Lucania, (see frontispiece to Millingen, Ancient Coins of Greek Cities 
 and Kin^s,) the river Achelous is represented with the figure of a man with 
 a shaggy beard and bull's horns and ears. On a vase of the best period of 
 Greek art, (Brit. Mus. No. 789. ; Birch, Trans. Roy. Soc. of Lit., New 
 Series, Lond. 1843, i. p. 100.) the same river is represented with a 
 satyr's head and long bull's horns on the forehead ; his form, human to 
 the waist, terminates in a fish's tail; his hair falls down his back; his 
 beard is Ion" and shaggy. In this type we see a combination of the three 
 forms separately enumerated by Sophocles, in the commencement of the 
 Trachinise. 
 
APPENDIX, 21. 405 
 
 A\t\^or Atyw, 
 o'c /i' ev rpi<7ii' ftopQaiatv t^/JrEi Trarpoe, 
 <j>otTu»> IvapyiiQ Tuvpoc. oXXor cuoXoq 
 Spacwi' tXikToc, aXXor' urcpiiM kvtei 
 /5ou-pwpOf, ek ?£ caaKtnv yEvetaSog 
 xpovi'oi Cuppatioi'TO k'pijvaiov itotov. 
 
 In a third variety of this type the human-headed body is united at the 
 waist with the shoulders of a bull's body, in which it terminates. This 
 occurs on an early vase. (Brit. Mus., No. 452.) On the coins of CEniadae 
 in Acarnania, and on those of Ambracia, all of the period after Alexander 
 the Great, the Achelous has a bull's body, and head with a human face. 
 In this variety of the type the human element is almost absorbed, as in the 
 first variety cited above, the coin of Metapontum, the bull portion of the 
 type is only indicated by the addition of the horns and ears to the human 
 head. On the analogy between these varieties in the type of the Achelous 
 and those under which the metamorphoses of the marine goddess Thetis 
 are represented, see Gerhard, Auserl. Vasenb., ii., pp. 106 — 113. It is 
 probable that, in the type of Thetis, of Proteus, and also of the Achelous, 
 the singular combinations and transformations are intended to express the 
 changeful nature of the element water. 
 
 Numerous other examples may be cited, where rivers are represented 
 by this combination of the bull and human form, which may be called, 
 for convenience, the Androtauric type. On the coins of Sicily, of the 
 Archaic and also of the finest period of art, rivers are most usually repre- 
 sented by a youthful male figure, with small budding horns; the hair 
 has the lank and matted form which characterises aquatic deities in Greek 
 mythography. The name of the river is often inscribed round the head. 
 When the whole figure occurs on the coin, it is always represented standing, 
 never reclining. 
 
 The type of the bull on the coins of Sybaris and Thurium, in Magna 
 Grascia, has been considered, with great probability, a representation of 
 this kind. On the coins of Sybaris, which are of a very early period, the 
 head of the bull is turned round ; on those of Thurium, he stoops his head, 
 butting : the first of these actions has been thought to symbolise the 
 winding course of the river, the second, its headlong current. On the 
 coins of Thurium, the idea of water is further suggested by the adjunct of 
 dolphins and other fish in the exergue of the coin. The ground on which 
 the bull stands is indicated by herbage or pebbles. This probably repre- 
 sents the river bank. Two bulls' heads occur on the coins of Sardis, and 
 
 D d 3 
 
406 APPENDIX, 21. 
 
 it has been Ingeniously conjectured by Mr. Burgon that the two rivers of 
 the place are expressed under this type. 
 
 The representation of river-gods as human figures in a reclining position, 
 though probably not so much employed in earlier Greek art as the 
 Androtauric type, is very much more familiar to us, from its subsequent 
 adoption in Roman mythography. The earliest example we have of a 
 reclining river-god is in the figure in the Elgin Room commonly called 
 the Ilissus, but more probably the Cephissus. This occupied one angle in 
 the western pediment of the Parthenon ; the other Athenian river, the 
 Ilissus, and the fountain Callirrhoc, being represented by a male and 
 female figure in the opposite angle ; this group, now destroyed, is visible 
 in the drawing made by Carrey in 1678. 
 
 It is probable that the necessities of pedimental composition first led the 
 artist to place the river-god in a reclining position. The head of the 
 Ilissus being broken off, we are not sure whether he had bull's horns, like 
 the Sicilian figures already described. His form is youthful ; in the folds 
 of the drapery behind him there is a How like that of waves, but the idea 
 of water is not suggested by any other symbol. When we compare this 
 figure with that of the Nile (Visconti, Mus. Pio Clem., i., PI. 38.), and 
 the figure of the Tiber in the Louvre, both of which are of the Roman 
 period, we see how in these later types the artist multiplied symbols and 
 accessories, ingrafting them on the original simple type of a river-god, as it 
 was conceived by Phidias in the figure of the Ilissus. The Kile is 
 represented as a colossal bearded figure reclining. At his side is a 
 cornucopia, full of the vegetable produce of the Egyptian soil. Round his 
 body are sixteen naked boys, who represent the sixteen cubits, the height 
 to which the river rose in a favourable year. The statue is placed on a 
 basement divided into three compartments, one above another. In the 
 uppermost of these, waves arc flowing over in one great sheet from the 
 side of the river-god. In the other two compartments are the animals 
 and plants of the river; the bas-reliefs on this basement are, in fact, a kind 
 of abbreviated symbolic panorama of the Nile. 
 
 The Tiber is represented in a very similar manner. On the base are, in 
 two compartments, scenes taken from the early Roman myths ; flocks, 
 herds, and other objects on the banks of the river. (Visconti, Mus. P. CI. 
 i., PI. 39.; Millin, Galerie Mythol., i., p. 77., PI. 74., Nos. 304. 308.) 
 
 In the types of the Greek coins of Camarina, we find two interesting 
 representations of lakes. On the obverse of one of these we have, within 
 a circle of the wave pattern, a male head, full face, with dishevelled hair, 
 
APPENDIX, 21. 407 
 
 and with a dolphin on either side; on the reverse, a female figure sailing 
 on a swan, below which a wave moulding, and above, a dolphin. 
 
 On another coin the swan type of the reverse is associated with the 
 youthful head of a river-god, inscribed "Hipparis" on the obverse. On 
 some smaller coins we have the swan flying over the rippling waves, 
 which are represented by the wave moulding. When we examine the 
 chart of Sicily, made by the Admiralty survey, we find marked down 
 at Camarina a lake, through which the river Hipparis flows. 
 
 "We can hardly doubt that the inhabitants of Camarina represented both 
 their river and their lake on their coins. The swan flying over the waves 
 would represent the lake ; the figure associated with it being no doubt 
 the Aphrodite worshipped at the place : the head, in a circle of wave 
 pattern, may express that part of the river which flows through the lake. 
 
 Fountains are usually represented by a stream of water issuing from 
 a lion's head in the rock : see a vase, (Gerhard, Auserl. Vasenb., taf. 
 cxxxiv.), where Hercules stands, receiving a shower-bath from a hot spring 
 at Thermae in Sicily. On the coins of Syracuse the fountain Arethusa is 
 represented by a female head seen to the front ; the flowing lines of her 
 dishevelled hair suggest, though they do not direct!}' imitate, the bubbling 
 action of the fresh-water spring ; the sea in which it rises is symbolised by 
 the dolphins round the head. This type presents a striking analogy with 
 that of the Camarina head in the circle of wave pattern described above. 
 
 These are the principal modes of representing water in Gi'eek my- 
 elography. In the art of the Roman period, the same kind of figurative 
 and symbolic language is employed, but there is a constant tendency to 
 multiply accessories and details, as we have shown in the later re- 
 presentations of harbours and river-gods cited above. In these crowded 
 compositions the eye is fatigued and distracted by the quantity it has 
 to examine ; the language of art becomes more copious, but less terse 
 and emphatic, and addresses itself to minds far less intelligent than the 
 refined critics who were the contemporaries of Phidias. 
 
 Rivers in Roman art are usually represented by reclining male figures, 
 generally bearded, holding reeds or other plants in their hands, and leaning 
 on urns from which water is flowing. On the coins of many Syrian cities, 
 struck in imperial times, the city is represented by a turreted female figure 
 seated on rocks, and resting her feet on the shoulder of a youthful male 
 figure, who looks up in her face, stretching out his arms, and who is sunk 
 in the ground as high as the waist. Sec Midler (Denkmiiler d. A. Kunsr, i., 
 taf. 49., No. 220.) for a group of this kind in the Vatican, and several 
 similar designs on coins. 
 
 d d 4 
 
408 APPENDIX, 21. 
 
 On the column of Trajan there occur many rude representations of the 
 Danube, and other rivers crossed by the Romans in their military expe- 
 ditions. The water is imitated by sculptured wavy lines, in which boats 
 are placed. In one scene (Bartoli, Colonna Trajana, Tav. 4.) this rude 
 conventional imitation is combined with a figure. In a recess in the river 
 bank is a reclining river god, terminating at the waist. This is either 
 meant for a statue which was really placed on the bank of the river, and 
 which therefore marks some particular locality, or we have here figurative 
 representation blended with conventional imitation. 
 
 On the column of Antoninus (Bartoli, Colon. Anton., Tav. 15.) a 
 storm of rain is represented by the head of Jupiter Pluvius, who has a vast 
 outspread beard flowing in long tresses. In the Townley collection, in the 
 British Museum, is a Roman helmet found at Ribchcster in Lancashire, 
 with a mask or vizor attached. The helmet is richly embossed with figures 
 in a battle scene ; round the brow is a row of turrets ; the hair on the 
 forehead is so treated as to give the idea of waves washing the base of the 
 turrets. This head is perhaps a figurative representation of a town girt 
 with fortifications and a moat, near which some great battle was fought. 
 It is engraved (Vetusta Monum. of Soc. Ant. London, iv., PI. 1 — 4.). 
 
 In the Galeria at Florence is a group in alto relievo (Gori, Inscript. 
 Ant., Flor. 1727, p. 76. Tab. 14.) of three female figures, one of whom 
 is certainly Demeter Kourotrophos, or the earth ; another, Thetis, or the 
 sea ; the centre of the three seems to represent Aphrodite associated, as on 
 the coins of Camarina, with the element of fresh water. 
 
 This figure is seated on a swan, and holds over her head an arched veil. 
 Her hair is bound with reeds ; above her veil grows a tall water plant, 
 and below the swan other water plants, and a stork seated on a hydria, 
 or pitcher, from which water is flowing. The swan, the stork, the 
 water-plants, and the hydria must all be regarded as symbols of fresh 
 water, the latter emblem being introduced to show that the element is fit 
 for the use of man. 
 
 Fountains in Roman art are generally personified as figures of nymphs 
 reclining with urns, or standing holding before them a large shell. 
 
 One of the latest representations of water in ancient art is the mosaic 
 of Palestrina (Barthclemy, in Bartoli, Peint. Antiques) which may be 
 described as a kind of rude panorama of some district of Upper Egypt, a 
 bird's-eye view, half map, half picture, in which the details are neither 
 adjusted to a scale, nor drawn according to perspective, but crowded 
 together, as they would be in an ancient bas-relief. 
 
APPENDIX, 22, 23. 
 
 409 
 
 22. ARABIAN ORNAMENTATION. 
 
 I do not mean what I have here said of the inventive power of the Arab 
 to be understood as in the least applying to the detestable ornamentation 
 of the Alhambra.* The Alhambra is no more characteristic of Arab work, 
 than Milan Cathedral is of Gothic: it is a late building, a work of the 
 Spanish dynasty in its last decline, and its ornamentation is fit for nothing 
 but to be transferred to patterns of carpets or bindings of books, together 
 with their marbling, and mottling, and other mechanical recommendations. 
 The Alhambra ornament has of late been largely used in shop-fronts, to 
 the no small detriment of Resrent Street and Oxford Street. 
 
 23. VARIETIES OE CHAMFER. 
 
 Let B A C, Fig. LXXIL, be the original angle of the wall. Inscribe 
 within it a circle, pQN p, of the size of the bead required, touching 
 A B, A C, in p, p ; join p, p, and draw B C parallel to it, touching the 
 circle. 
 
 Fig. LXXII. 
 
 * I have not seen the building itself, but Mr. Owen Jones's work may, I suppose, be 
 considered as sufficiently representing it for all purposes of criticism. 
 
410 appendix, 23, 24, 
 
 Then the lines B C, /; p are the limits of the possible chamfers con- 
 structed with curves struck either from centre A, as the lines Q q, N d, 
 r u, g c, &c., or from any other point chosen as a centre in the direction 
 Q A produced : and also of all chamfers in straight lines, as a b, e f. There 
 are, of course, an infinite number of chamfers to be struck between B C 
 and p p, from every point in Q A produced to infinity ; thus we have 
 infinity multiplied into infinity to express the number of possible chamfers 
 of tliis species, wdiich are peculiarly Italian chamfers ; together with another 
 singly infinite group of the straight chamfers, a b, e f, &c, of which the 
 one formed by the line a b, passing through the centre of the circle, is the 
 universal early Gothic chamfer of Venice. 
 
 Again. Either on the line A C, or on any other lines A/ or A »/, 
 radiating from A, any number of centres may be taken, from which, witli 
 any radii not greater than the distance between such points and Q, an 
 infinite number of curves may be struck, such as t u, r s, N n (all which 
 are here struck from centres on the line A C). These lines represent the 
 great class of the northern chamfers, of which the number is infinity 
 raised to its fourth power, but of which the curve N n (for northern) 
 represents the average condition ; the shallower chamfers of the same 
 group, r s, t u, &c, occurring often in Italy. The lines ?■ u, t u, and a b 
 may be taken as appi - oximating to the most frequent conditions of the 
 southern chamfer. 
 
 It is evident that the chords of any of these curves will give a relative 
 group of rectilinear chamfers, occurring both in the North and South ; but 
 the rectilinear chamfers, I think, invariably fall within the line Q C, and 
 are either parallel with it, or inclined to A C at an angle greater than 
 ACQ, and often perpendicular to it ; but never inclined to it at an angle 
 less than ACQ. 
 
 24. RENAISSANCE BASES. 
 
 The following extract from my note-book refers also to some features of 
 late decoration of shafts. 
 
 " The Scuola di San Bocco is one of the most interesting examples of 
 Renaissance work in Venice. Its fluted pillars are surrounded each by a 
 .wreath, one of vine, another of laurel, another of oak, not indeed arranged 
 with the fantasticism of early Gothic; but, especially the laurel, reminding 
 one strongly of the laurel sprays, powerful as well as beautiful, of 
 Veronese and Tintoret. Their steins arc curiously and richly interlaced 
 — the last vestige of the Bvzantine wreathed work — and the vine-leaves 
 
appendix, 24, 25. 411 
 
 are ribbed on the surfaces, I think, nearly as finely as those of the Noah *, 
 though more injured by time. The capitals are far the richest Renaissance 
 in Venice, less corrupt and more masculine in plan than any other, and 
 truly suggestive of support, though of course showing the tendency to error 
 in this respect ; and finally, at the angles of the pure Attic bases, on the 
 square plinth, are set couchant animals; one, an elephant four inches high, 
 very curiously and cleverly cut, and all these details worked with a spirit, 
 finish, fancy, and affection quite worthy of the middle ages. But they have 
 all the marked fault of being utterly detached from the architecture. The 
 wreaths round the columns look as if they would drop off the next moment, 
 and the animals at the bases produce exactly the effect of mice who had 
 got there by accident : one feels them ridiculously diminutive, and utterly 
 useless." 
 
 The effect of diminutiveness is, I think, chiefly owing to there being no 
 other groups of figures near them, to accustom the eye to the proportion, 
 and to the needless choice of the largest animals, elephants, bears, and lions, 
 to occupy a position so completely insignificant, and to be expressed on so 
 contemptible a scale, — not in a bas-relief or pictorial piece of sculpture, but 
 as independent figures. The whole building is a most curious illustration 
 of the appointed fate of the Renaissance architects, — to caricature what- 
 ever they imitated, and misapply whatever they learned. 
 
 25. ROMANIST DECORATION OF BASES. 
 
 I have spoken above (Appendix 12.) of the way in which the Roman 
 Catholic priests everywhere suffer their churches to be desecrated. But 
 the worst instances I ever saw of sacrilege and brutality, daily permitted in 
 the face of all men, were the uses to which the noble base of St. Mark's 
 was put, when I was last in Venice. Portions of nearly all cathedral-) 
 may be found abandoned to neglect ; but this base of St. Mark's is in no 
 obscure position. Full fronting the western sun — crossing the whole breadth 
 of St. Mark's Place — the termination of the most noble square in the 
 world — the centre of the most noble city — its purple marbles were, in 
 the winter of 1849, the customary gambling tables of the idle children of 
 Venice ; and the parts which flank the Great Entrance, that very entrance 
 where " Barbarossa flung his mantle off"," were the counters of a common 
 bazaar for children's toys, carts, dolls, and small pewter spoons and dishes, 
 
 * The sculpture of the Drunkenness of Noah on the Ducal Palace, of which we shall 
 have much to say hereafter. 
 
412 APPENDIX, 25. 
 
 German caricatures, and books of the Opera, mixed with those of the offices 
 of religion; the caricatures being fastened with twine round the porphyry 
 shafts of the church. One Sunday, the 24th of February, 1850, the book- 
 stall being somewhat more richly laid out than usual, I noted down the 
 titles of a few of the books in the order in which they lay, and I give them 
 below. The irony conveyed by the juxtaposition of the three in italics 
 appears too shrewd to be accidental ; but the fact was actually so. 
 
 Along the edge of the wdiite plinth were a row of two kinds of books, 
 Officium Beataj Virg. M. ; and Officium ITebdomadne sanctas, juxta 
 Formam Missalis et Breviarii Bomaui sub Urbano VIII. corrccti. 
 Behind these lay, side by side, the following: — 
 
 Don Desiderio. Dramma Giocoso per Musica. 
 Breve Esposizione dclla Carattere di vera Religione. 
 On the top of this latter, keeping its leaves open, 
 
 La Figlia del Beggimento. Melodramma comica. 
 
 Carte(j<jio di Madama la Marchesa di Pompadour, osniu raccolta di 
 
 Lettere scritte delta Medesima. 
 Tstruzioni di morale Condotta per le Fit/lie. 
 Francesco, di Rimini. Dramma per 3Iusica. 
 Then, a little farther on, after a mass of plays : — 
 Orazioni a Gesu Xazareno e a Maria addolorata. 
 Semirauiide ; Melodramma tragico da rapprescntarsi nel Gran 
 
 Teatro il Fenice. 
 Modo di orare per l'Acquisto del S. Giubileo, conceduto a tutto il 
 
 Mondo Cattolico da S. S. Gregorio XVI. 
 Le due illustre Bivali, Melodramma in Tre Atti, da rapprescntarsi 
 
 nel nuovo Gran Teatro il Fenice. 
 II Cristiano secondo il Cuore di Gesu, per la Fratica delle sue Virtu. 
 Traduzione dell' Idioma Italiana. 
 
 La chiava Chinese ; Commedia del Sig. Abate Pictro Chiari. 
 La Pelarina ; Intermezzo di Tre Parti per Musica. 
 II Cavaliero c la Dama ; Commedia in Tre Atti in Prosa. 
 I leave these facts without comment. But this being the last piece of 
 Appendix I have to add to the present volume, I would desire to close its 
 liases with a question to my readers — a statistical question — which, I doubt 
 not, is being accurately determined for us all elsewhere, and which, there- 
 fore, it seems to me, our time would not be wasted in determining for 
 ourselves. 
 
 There has now been peace between England and the continental powers 
 about thirty-five years, and during that period the English have visited the 
 
APPENDIX, 25. 413 
 
 continent at the rate of man}- thousands a year, staying there, I suppose, 
 on the average, each two or three months ; nor these an inferior kind of 
 English, but the hind which ought to be the best- — the noblest born, the 
 best taught, the richest in time and money, having more leisure, know- 
 ledge, and power than any other portion of the nation. These, we might 
 suppose, beholding, as they travelled, the condition of the states in which 
 the Papal religion is professed, and being, at the same time, the most 
 enlightened section of a great Protestant nation, would have been animated 
 with some desire to dissipate the Romanist errors, and to communicate to 
 others the better knowledge which they possessed themselves. I doubt 
 not but that He who gave peace upon the earth, and gave it by the hand 
 of England, expected this much of her, and has watched every one of the 
 millions of her travellers as they crossed the sea, and kept count for him of 
 his travelling expenses, and of their distribution, in a manner of which 
 neither the traveller nor his courier were at all informed. I doubt not, I 
 say, but that such accounts have been literally kept for all of us, and that 
 a day will come when they will be made clearly legible to us, and when 
 we shall see added together, on one side of the account book, a great sum, 
 the certain portion, whatever it may be, of this thirty-five years' spendino-s 
 of the rich English, accounted for in this manner : — 
 
 To wooden spoons, nut-crackers, and jewellery, bought at Geneva, and 
 elsewhere among the Alps, so much ; to shell cameos and bits of mosaic 
 bought at Rome, so much ; to coral horns and lava broodies bought at 
 Naples, so much ; to glass beads at Venice, and gold filigree at Genoa, so 
 much ; to pictures, and statues, and ornaments, everywhere, so much ; to 
 avant-couriers and extra post-horses, for show and magnificence, so much ; 
 to great entertainments and good places for seeing sights, so much; to 
 ball-dresses and general vanities, so much. This, I say, will be the sum 
 on one side of the book ; and on the other will be written, 
 
 To the struggling Protestant Churches of France, Switzerland, and 
 Piedmont, so much. 
 
 Had we not better do this piece of statistics for ourselves, in time ? 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 89, line 11 from bottom, for c t) read b 
 
 — 297, line 15 from bottom, for roof, read root. 
 
 — 384, line 3 from bottom, " olive sbade" should not be in italics. 
 
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 Tod's Lectures, vols. 1, 2, and 3, each _' 6 
 
 Description of London, by Chambers 3 << 
 
 Meditations on the Sacrament ... 4 
 
 Scotiish Songs 3 
 
 Introduction to Astronomy .... 3 
 
 Alphabet, on Card ...... 1 
 
 Types for Writing (per Alphabet) .0 3 6 
 
 LONSOX: I'KINTEO BY STEWART ANO Ml BAAT, OLD BAILEY. 
 
 
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