Sec. 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 expression of the supporting power of both. It is exactly opposed to the system of running cornices and banded[85] capitals, in which the ornament 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 archivolts, 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 licenses taken by the great 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 observance; 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 finger, and the cornice falls to pieces, like a bouquet which has been untied.

Sec. XVI. 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 strength is got by the lower member. This cornice will, nevertheless, 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 she 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 tendrils, 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 with 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.

Sec. 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 Appendix 8. The cornices, a, d, and b, are of the same date, but they show a singular difference in the workman's temper: that at b is a single copy of a classical mosaic; and many carved cornices occur, associated with it, which are, in like manner, mere copies of the Greek and Roman egg and arrow mouldings. But the cornices a and d are copies of nothing of the kind: the idea of them has indeed been taken from the Greek honeysuckle ornament, 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 its original; energetic, not in the quantity of work, but in 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 edge. 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 eternity: but the man of a and d will cut his way forward, or there is no truth in handicrafts, nor stubbornness in stone.

Sec. 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 from root to point, and that distinctly visible at almost any distance from the eye, and in almost any light.

Sec. XIX. Here, then, are two great new elements visible; energy and naturalism:—Life, with submission to the laws of God, and love of his works; this is Christianity, dealing with her classical models. Now look back to what I said in Chap. 1. Sec. XX. of this dealing of hers, and invention of the new Doric line; then to what is above stated (Sec. VIII.) 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.

Sec. XX. We said that something would come of these two cornices, a and d. In e and f 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 proofs 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.

Sec. XXI. The fifth example (f) 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 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?

Sec. XXII. Look back to the XXXIIIrd paragraph of the first chapter, and you will see the meaning of it. These cornices are the Venetian Ecclesiastical Gothic; the Christian element struggling 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.[86]

Sec. XXIII. Now look to the last cornice (g). That is Protestantism,—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 f 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 saplessness 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 color and shape of Classicalism mingled with it—the 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.

Sec. XXIV. 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 express the working of that spirit which grafts one nature upon another, and discerns a law in its members warring against the law of its mind.

Sec. 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 Sec. XIII., and observe the modifications of form of profile which resulted from the changing contours of the leafage; for up to Sec. XIII., 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, fortunately, 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.



Sec. XXVI. That cornice occurs, in the simplest work, perfectly pure, but in finished work it was quickly felt that there was a meagreness in its junction with the wall beneath it, where it was set as here at a, Fig. LXIII., 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. LXIII.), the other by slipping the whole cornice a little forward (c. Fig. LXIII.). From these two methods arise two groups of cornices and capitals, which we shall pursue in succession.

Sec. XXVII. First group. With the roll at the base (b, Fig. LXIII.). The chain of its succession is represented from 1 to 6, in Plate XV.: 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. 69, above. Now, keeping the same refined profile, substitute the condition of it, f 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. LIII., page 287, 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 times 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 in cornices on the one hand, which are often a little shorter, and capitals on the other, which are often a little deeper.[87] 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.



Sec. XXVIII. Second group (c, Fig. LXIII.). If the lower angle, which was quickly felt to be hard, be rounded off, we have the form a, Fig. 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 believe 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 represented 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 might be considered as made up of two ogee curves laid, like packed herrings, head to tail. 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),[88] and 11 from that of Andrea Morosini (1347), all in the church of San Giov. and Paola, all these being cornice profiles; and, finally, 12 from a capital of the Ducal Palace, of fourteen century work.

Sec. 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 continuation 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 a 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.

Sec. 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 gathering of the one into the other.

Look back to Fig. XXII., p. 110. 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. Sec. 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 inquiries, or which illustrate points, not hitherto touched upon, in the disposition of the abacus.

Sec. 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 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.

Sec. 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., Sec. XIII.), 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. LXIII. 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. 110, and with a concave cut, as in Fig. XXI., p. 109. These two capitals are from the cloister of the duomo of Verona.



Sec. XXXIII. The lowermost figure in Plate XVII. represents an exquisitely 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 comparing 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. This method of reduction is that of order d in Fig. XXII., 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 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.

Sec. XXXIV. The reader will easily understand that the gracefulness of this kind of truncation, as he sees it in Plate XVII., soon suggested the idea of reducing it to a 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 invented; 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 younger leaves spring up in luxuriant growth among the primal four. The varieties of their grouping we shall enumerate hereafter: one general characteristic of them all must be noted here.

Sec. XXXV. The reader has been told repeatedly[89] 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. 65. And hitherto, respecting the capital, we have been exclusively concerned with the methods in which these two families of simple contours have gathered themselves 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, Sec. XXVIII., which are but feebly marked in the cornice, boldly distinguish and divide the families of the capital.

Sec. XXXVI. Whatever 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.

Sec. XXXVII. Now, look back to Fig. V., p. 65. 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 mass, hardly recognizable as a cornice profile. It is evident, on the other hand, that we can afford to cut into this profile without fear of destroying its strength, and that 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 dotted lines at e, Fig. V., and the pointed oval, or vesica piscis, which is traced by them, may be called the Limit of ornamentation.

Sec. XXXVIII. 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. On 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.

Sec. XXXIX. And, secondly, in its style. For, clearly, as the sculptor of the concave profile must leave masses of rough stone prepared for his outer ornament, and cannot finish them at once, but must complete the cutting of the smooth bell beneath first, and then return to the projecting masses (for if he were to finish these latter first, they would assuredly, if delicate or sharp, be broken as he worked on; since, I say, he must work in this foreseeing and predetermined method, he is sure to reduce the system of his ornaments to some definite symmetrical order before he begins); and the habit of conceiving beforehand all that he has to do, will probably 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 roam 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 license 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.



Sec. 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.[90] For we now find that these two great and real orders 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 vigor and variety, but its danger of degeneracy into Licentiousness.

Sec. 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 Plate 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 XVIII., of the convex. At the top of Plate XVIII. 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. Ambrogio. The two beneath are 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 Sec. XV. above.



Sec. XLII. The lower capital, which is also of the true convex school, exhibits one of the conditions of the spurred type, e 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. 110, 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. LXVI., which is actually that of one of 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 ornament; 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 the 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.



Sec. XLIII. 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 projecting 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 square 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.

Sec. XLIV. The lowest capital in Plate XVIII. is from St. Mark's, and singular in having double spurs; it is therefore to be compared with the doubly spurred base, also from St Mark's, in Plate XI. In other respects it is a good example 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 cross, the bottom of the capital, which expands itself into the external shaded portions at the top. Each spur, thus formed, is cut like a ship's bow, with the Doric profile; the surfaces so obtained are then charged with arborescent ornament.

Sec. 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 orders, 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.

Sec. XLVI. 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 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 ornamentation; it may be taken as one of the simplest, yet a perfect type of the concave group.

Sec. 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 inward 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 ingeniously, 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.)

Sec. XLVIII. 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 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 inquiry, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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., Sec. 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., to be one from temperance to luxury; and from the cornice f 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.

[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. Sec. XIX., Appendix 7: and Chap. VI. Sec. V.

[90] Chap. I., Sec. XIX.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE ARCHIVOLT AND APERTURE.



Sec. 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 wall and unsightly buttress; the whole vitality of the building consisting in the graceful proportions 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 generalized.

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.

Sec. II. In speaking of the arch-line and arch masonry, we considered 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, we 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, than to bevel them to accurate junction with those outside. Whether influenced by this facility, 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.



Sec. III. 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 entirely 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.

Sec. IV. It was, in the first instance, derived from the classical architrave,[91] 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 exactly the same; their continuity is preserved across all the voussoirs, 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 stay at all only on condition of their dressing themselves in mediaeval costume, as in the plate opposite.

Sec. V. In other cases, however, before the entire discomfiture of 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.

Sec. VI. If the Gothic spirit of the building be thoroughly determined, 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 dignity 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 reconciliation being effected between them: sometimes merely formal, sometimes honest and affectionate, but with no regular succession in time. The greatest victory of the voussoir is to annihilate the cornice, and receive an ornament of its own outline, and entirely limited by its own joints: and yet this may be seen in the very early apse of Murano.

Sec. VII. The most usual condition, however, is that unity of the two members above described, Sec. 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 attached 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 degradation or banishment.



Sec. VIII. 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 carving 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 they 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 wall beneath the windows, you may, on sunny days, discover a quantity of panel decorations which the ingenious architect has 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. Sec. 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.

Sec. 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 negligence 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. Necessarily, when it falls on the pier, and meets that of the opposite arch, the entire section of 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 thenceforward only to observe what comes of it.

Sec. X. We find it first, as I said, perfectly barren; cornice and architrave altogether ignored, the existence of such things practically 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 themselves; 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 themselves.

Sec. XI. In this state of paralysis, or expectation, their flank is turned by an insidious chamfer. The edges of the two great 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.

Sec. XII. 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 dishonor. 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 Renaissance Ruled Copy-book wall. It had been better they had died ten times over, in their own ancient cause, than thus prolonged their existence.

Sec. XIII. We bid them farewell in their dishonor, 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 Sec. III., the archivolt was very deep, and composed of a succession of such steps, the multitude of chamferings were felt to be weak and insipid, and instead of dealing with the outside edges of the archivolts, 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 color, in which even the shaft itself gets slightly worsted, and cut across in several places, like General Zach's column at Marengo.

Sec. 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 Fermo, 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 color; 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. Sec. XXVI., that all such ornaments were intended to be typical of light issuing from the orb of the arch. I doubt the intention, but acknowledge the resemblance; which perhaps goes far to account for the never-failing delightfulness of this zigzag decoration. The diminution of the 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.

Sec. 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 construction, Chap. XI., Sec. 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 fac-simile 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.

Sec. XVI. We have not spoken of the intermediate form, 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. In Italy it receives surface decoration like the architrave, but has, 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) with delicate arabesques; while the tracery and the tabernacle work are richly sculptured. The example of its treatment by colored voussoirs, given in Plate XIX., may be useful to the reader as a kind of central expression of the aperture decoration 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 color ought not to be let go all at once.

Sec. 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 archivolts alike, the niche and statue decoration develops itself; and the vaulted and cavernous apertures are covered with incrustations of fretwork, and with every various application of foliage to their fantastic mouldings.

Sec. XVIII. I have kept the inquiry into the proper ornament of the archivolt wholly free from all confusion with the questions of 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 recommended 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.



CHAPTER XXIX.

THE ROOF.

Sec. 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 construction, 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.

Sec. 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 Lombardic 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 circumstances, that it is nearly impossible to classify its methods, or limit its application.

Sec. III. 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;—surfaces, 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 unaffectedly 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 services may receive ornamentation independent of their structure. I have never myself 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 panellings some of the noblest paintings (on stretched canvas) 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 canvas, 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 colored patterns is the most satisfying, and loses least of valuable labor. But I leave the question to the reader's thought, being myself exceedingly undecided respecting it: except only touching one point—that a blank ceiling is not to be redeemed by a decorated ventilator.

Sec. IV. I have a more confirmed opinion, however, respecting the 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.

Sec. 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 forever 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.

Sec. VI. Our own northern roof decoration is necessarily simple. Colored 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 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 armor; 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 color, as on the house of Jaques Coeur at Bourges; 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.

Sec. VII. 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 exaggeration 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.

Sec. VIII. Under the general head of roof-ridge and point decoration, 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 humor 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 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 humiliatingly 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.

Sec. IX. Stone finials and crockets are, I think, to be considered in architecture, what points and flashes of light are in the color 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 colorists 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 precious. So the best crockets and finials are set, like stars, along the lines, and at the points, which they adorn, with considerable intervals 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 lowness of school. In Venice, the addition of the finial to the arch-head is the first sign of degradation; all her best architecture is entirely 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 Pisan 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 stonework, 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.

Sec. 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.



CHAPTER XXX.

THE VESTIBULE.

Sec. 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 always been 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 harmonized, 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 cathedrals, but suppose we were satisfied with less exhaustive appliance, 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.

Sec. 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:—

"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."[92]

Sec. III. I had thought that, by this time, we had done with that stale, second-hand, one-sided, and misunderstood saying of Raffaelle's; or that at least, in these days of purer Christian light, men might have begun to get some insight into the meaning 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. Raffaelle 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 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 yourself 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 table-cloth 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 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—



[Greek: Thalatta, thalatta]: Was it this, then, that they wept to see from the sacred mountain—those wearied ones?

Sec. 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?

Sec. 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 contemplate, 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 honor 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 armory 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 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 difference 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.

Sec. 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.