which sustains the great party wall of the Sala del Gran Consiglio. The
shaft is thicker than the rest; but the capital, though ancient, is
coarse and somewhat inferior in design to the others of the series. It
represents the history of marriage: the lover first seeing his mistress
at a window, then addressing her, bringing her presents; then the
bridal, the birth and the death of a child. But I have not been able to
examine these sculptures properly, because the pillar is encumbered by
the railing which surrounds the two guns set before the Austrian
guard-house.