The Stones of Venice, Volume 1 (of 3)

Vide end of Appendix 20 (#x15_x_15_i97).

83

Vide, however, their defence in the Essay above quoted, p. 251 (#x9_x_9_i59).

84

In very early Doric it was an absolute right line; and that capital is therefore derived from the pure cornice root, represented by the dotted line.

85

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 the capital itself. (This note is not for the general reader, who need not trouble himself about the matter.)

86

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. (#x10_pgepubid00046), § XVII.) 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. (#x10_x_10_i161), to be one from temperance to luxury; and from the cornice f to the cornice g, in Plate XVI. (#x11_x_11_i88), 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.

87

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 therefore 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 moulding, both which may be seen disfiguring half the buildings in London.

88

I have taken these dates roughly from Selvatico; their absolute accuracy to within a year or two, is here of no importance.

89

Chap. I. (#x1_pgepubid00022) § XIX., Appendix 7 (#x14_x_14_i5): and Chap. VI. (#x3_pgepubid00027) § V.

90

Chap. I. (#x1_pgepubid00022), § XIX.

91

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.

92

Garbett on Design, p. 74.

93

Ed. Venetis, 1758, Lib. I.

94

Compare Appendix 12 (#x14_x_14_i75).

95

L’Artiste en Bâtiments, par Louis Berteaux: Dijon, 1848. 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 appears to think very grand, and a new French order nationalised by the Gallic cock crowing and clapping its wings in the capital.”

96

The lower group in Plate XVII. (#x12_x_12_i13)

97

One of the upper stories is also in Gally 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’s “Architectural Parallels”—almost a model of what I should like to see done for the Gothic of all Europe.

98

Except in the single passage “tell it unto the Church,” which is simply the extension of what had 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 a heathen man and publican:” (But consider how Christ treated both.)

99

One or two remarks on this subject, some of which I had intended to have inserted here, and others in Appendix 5 (#x13_x_13_i67), 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.

100

Not, however, by Johnson’s testimony: Vide Adventurer, No. 39. “Such operations as required neither celerity nor strength,—the low drudgery of collating copies, comparing authorities, digesting dictionaries, or accumulating compilations.”

101

We have done so—theoretically; just as one would reason on the human form from the bones outwards: but the Architect of human form frames all at once—bone and flesh.

102

Of course mere multiplicability, 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.

103

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.

104

I cannot suffer this volume to close without also thanking my kind friend, Mr. Rawdon Brown, for help given me in a thousand ways during my stay in Venice: but chiefly for his direction to passages elucidatory of my subject in the MSS. of St. Mark’s library.

105

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.

106

The sculpture of the Drunkenness of Noah on the Ducal Palace, of which we shall have much to say hereafter.