CHAPTER XIV.

“Alas! of thousand bosoms kind,

That daily court you and caress,

How few the happy secret find

Of your calm loveliness!”

_Christian Year._

Concluding Summary--Classic and Gothic Architecture--Italian

Gothic--Shafts--Cornices--Monuments--Cloisters--Windows--Brickwork--Colour

in Construction--Truth in Architectural Design and Construction.

I propose in this chapter to sum up, as shortly as I can, the

information which I have gathered in the course of my tours in the North

of Italy, on the subject of mediæval art. In doing this I shall have to

remark, not only on the beauties, but also on the failings of Italian

Gothic architecture, and to give expression to the thoughts which arise

in examining its remains as to developments which are possible to us in

the same direction, as well as to suggest some of the lessons which may

be learnt from them.

I think it may be gathered, from what has been already said, that it

will be useless to look for anything like the completeness in the

development of the style in Italy which our ancestors attained to in

England; and this is easily accounted for. In England there were no

Classic buildings to find here and there an admirer, or perhaps a

cluster of disciples, as in Italy; and men worked, therefore, when the

Gothic style was thoroughly established, freely, and in their own way,

and apparently quite untrammelled with a suspicion even that there had

ever been another style brought to perfection by people above most

others civilized and refined in their habits and tastes, and one

moreover which was distinguished by certain broad and strongly marked

lines of separation from the style which they inherited from their

fathers, and practised and brought, as nearly as they could, to

perfection. In England, therefore, in the Middle Ages, we may look in

vain for any evidence of active sympathy with a more ancient and

venerable style than that which was then in the fulness of vigour, life,

and constant development; and consequently, if it be likely that any

infusion of the art practised by the ancients could have aided the

Northern architects in their work, we must not expect to find here any

trace of such assistance or such advantages. But in Italy the case was

far different: the love for the remains of earlier ages was never dead,

but only slept, ever and anon to break forth in some new appropriation

of ancient materials, or some imitation and reproduction of an ancient

form or idea. So in Venice, in the thirteenth century, whilst pointed

arches were being reared by some to support the walls, not only of the

churches, but of the houses also, other hands were busy with the task of

raising aloft those two Classic shafts, with their antique capitals and

detail, which, even to the present day, stand peculiar and

well-remembered features of the Piazzetta of S. Mark; standing proofs,

if such are indeed wanted, that there had been artists in earlier days

whose art was noble and well worthy of the emulation of men in all ages.

And this Classic seed fell into not ungrateful soil; for though there,

as elsewhere throughout Europe, the value of the pointed arch as a

feature in construction--independently, that is, of its intrinsic

beauty--must have been well known, and was boldly recognized where it

could not be avoided, there were nevertheless in a hundred ways proofs

that men still remembered the lessons and traditions of the past, and

used it with a certain degree of caution and unwillingness, and

associated with features which, rightly or wrongly, were at the time

eschewed by all Northern architects, either as being contrary to its

spirit, or through ignorance of their existence. This fact would seem,

therefore, to place the Italian works of the Middle Ages in the ranks of

hybrid and mixed styles, and to debar them from competition with the

more pure contemporary works of Northern Europe.

There will, however, always be much profit in the careful examination of

such works as these in Italy, because their authors stood in the same

position that we do now, and, conversant to some extent with the

beauties of the best Gothic architecture of the North and the best

Classic examples of Italy, took what they deemed best from each, and

endeavoured to unite the perfections of both.

Classic architecture is that of the lintel and impost, involving the

idea of rest: Gothic is that of the arch and the flying buttress,

involving the idea of life and motion. The two ideas are absolutely

opposed to each other. Classic architecture, directly it admits the

arch, ceases to be true to itself in any real artistic sense; yet if it

refuses to use, and to exhibit the use of the arch, it denies itself

wilfully the use of the best known mode of construction. Gothic

architects may still, on the other hand, as they always have done, gain

much from the teachings of Classic buildings. And if sometimes there is

too great liveliness and want of repose in their works, they may

usefully study those of their predecessors who undoubtedly obtained more

breadth and repose in them by some knowledge of Classic examples, than

they would have had if they had not known them.

Gothic architecture was essentially the work of scientific men; the

most consummate skill being displayed in arranging thousands of small

blocks of stones, any one of which might be carried upon a strong man’s

shoulders, into walls rising far in height above anything ever dreamt of

by the Greek, bridging great openings, and providing by the exactest

counterpoise of various parts for the perfect security of works whose

airiness and life would seem to have lifted them out of the region of

constructive skill; and yet all these wonderful works were executed in

materials as ponderous in their nature as those which the Greek had

handled so rudely in construction, and so delicately in ornamentation.

The natural result of this excess of science was, perhaps, that less

delicacy and beauty of detail became necessary; for when the plain rough

walls, without carving and without ornament, were nevertheless of

necessity so beautiful in their intricacy of outline and delicacy of

structure; and when, too, so little (comparatively) plain surface

remained to be looked at or dwelt upon, men cared less for the choicest

examples of the sculptor’s art, and were less obliged to satisfy the eye

with them. Much, therefore, as Art gained in most ways by the invention

of the arch, she at the same time lost something which had been until

then possessed, and which, too, was essential in the highest order of

work.

This was the case, speaking generally; but, as need hardly, I suppose,

be said, there are examples scattered here and there throughout the

North of Europe, and particularly in France and England, which shew

distinctly enough that their artists had grasped this necessity in its

very fullest extent; and were in no degree satisfied with anything less

than the greatest perfection in the sculpture, and other decorations

with which they adorned their works.

Italian architects stood, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in

a position in many respects very different from that held by their

Northern contemporaries, and the marks of this difference are everywhere

to be seen. It was natural to them to reconcile in their works, so far

as they could, the principles of two styles which we are too prone to

deem irreconcilable; and where they have achieved a real success, it

ought to be a lesson that the course which they pursued is still open to

us, though with larger opportunities and greater knowledge. At the same

time they committed faults which we ought especially to beware of

imitating in any respect.

They ignored, as much as possible, the clear exhibition of the pointed

arch, and, even when they did use it, not unfrequently introduced it in

such a way as to shew their contempt for it as a feature of

construction; employing it often only for ornament, and never hesitating

to construct it in so faulty a manner that it required to be held

together with iron rods from the very first day of its erection. This

fault they often found it absolutely necessary to commit, because they

scarcely ever brought themselves to allow the use of the buttress; and

this reluctance was a remarkable proof of their Classic sympathies.

Classic architecture was as distinctly symbolic of rest as Gothic was of

life; the column and lintel of the one were as still and symbolical of

perfect repose, as the arch of the other, sustained by the strong arm of

the flying buttress, was of life, vigour, and motion. Italian Gothic

architects then, in never resorting to the buttress, avowed their

feeling that a state of perfect rest was the only allowable state for a

perfect building, and they preferred almost always to use the arch for

its beauty only, and avowedly not for its constructional value, which

they evidenced by tying it together with iron bars at its base, which

there was no intention of disguising, and therefore no shamefacedness in

the use of. From this, I believe, at least one beauty arose. It is

obvious that the pointed arch, descending upon the capital of a shaft

without any visible stay or buttress to retain it in its place, would

look weak and thin; and it was soon perceived that, in order to overcome

this difficulty, the only course was to add to its substance by cusping

it on the under side. Thence came the trefoiled arches so frequent in

Italy, and always so very lovely. As so much depended upon them, no

pains were spared in bringing their outline into the very purest form.

To this we owe the absolute perfection which characterizes some of the

trefoiled arches in early Italian work; of this we have an example (to

take one instance among many) in the tombs of the Scaligers, at Verona,

in which the mass of the trefoil descending from the arch conveys to the

eye the impression of a firmness which, in part, it certainly gives, but

which would nevertheless be insufficient in reality for the stability of

the work, without the aid of the connecting rod of iron below.

In northern Gothic architecture, arches invariably tell their own story,

and do their own work, avowedly and without any disguise; in Italy this

is the exception, not the rule, and the commonest exception is seen in

the arcades dividing the aisles from the naves of churches, and in the

large open arches forming the arcades upon which public and private

buildings so often stand, though even these are sometimes (as in the

second stage of the Ducal Palace at Venice) formed of continuous

traceries in place of arches, and are dependent for their stability,

like the single arches of tombs and monuments, upon the assistance of

iron ties.

Another proof of the reverence for ancient tradition in art is furnished

by the extent to which, throughout the time of the prevalence of pointed

architecture in Italy, the round arch was also used. Examples of this

are very frequent, and of the most capricious kind. At Cremona, e.g.,

the south transept has semicircular arches throughout, and the north

transept pointed arches; the date of both being, however, as nearly as

possible the same. At Verona, in the old house given in plate 14, some

of the bearing arches are pointed, some round; and again, in some

buildings the main arches are round, and the ornamental pointed. Again,

one of the most common cornices in all the mediæval brickwork of Italy

is a continuous arcade of round arches intersecting one another, and

forming at their intersections pointed arches; and in the Ca’ d’Oro, one

of the most elaborately ornate late Gothic buildings in Venice, some of

the entrance arches are pointed and some round. It needs not, however,

that examples should be multiplied, for almost every building exhibits

some trace of this kind of confusion.

The Venetian love for the ogee arch, which spread thence to Verona,

Vicenza, and Ferrara, has been already mentioned; no doubt we must look

to the East for the very early introduction of this feature in Venice,

and I only incidentally refer to it here as proving, from the way in

which it was perpetually used, that its adopters had no peculiar love

for the form of the pure pointed arch, of which it is certainly a most

vitiated perversion.

With this, by way of preface, let us now go on to look at the features

of these Italian works in detail. We shall find that we have two

influences brought out, even more strongly than in most mediæval works,

in Italian buildings. These are, first, local, and next, personal

influences. The Venetian, the Bolognese, and the Veronese, for instance,

are all distinctly local styles, in which early traditions were

preserved, to some extent, from first to last; and to these might be

added the Florentine, the Genoese, and the Pisan. On the other hand it

is impossible not to notice the very great personal influence exercized

over their descendants, as well as over their contemporaries, by some of

the greater Italian architects, of whom I may adduce Nicola Pisano as

the most eminent example.

There is a third influence which must not be overlooked--that of foreign

architects. Milan Cathedral, designed by a German, is very unlike any

other Italian building in style; San Francesco at Assisi was also the

work of a foreigner; and the western front of Genoa Cathedral owes much

of its peculiar and extremely beautiful character to contact with, and

knowledge of, French art; whilst Vercelli is another instance, as far as

its interior is concerned, which may be included in this list. Generally

speaking, however, the influence of the foreigner seems to have been

confined pretty much to the particular church designed by him.

In the Middle Ages the Italians led a life more akin to our own, at the

present day, than other people. The country was populous, the cities

numerous and rich, and the people full of emulation and individuality.

This was precisely the condition of things that would lead, most

certainly, to the employment of artists from a distance, and to the

establishment of a professional practice of the art earlier than

elsewhere. It led to the employment of the family of the Pisani, of the

Campione clan, the sculptors of Como, the Cosmati in Rome, and many

others. In England and in France it is much more difficult to point to

any facts proving the employment of the same architects in various parts

of the country, and there is, at first sight, therefore, less of what is

obviously personal in their art in the Middle Ages.

The history of our old architects in England and France is very

peculiar; they were, as a rule, each confined to a certain district, in

which they wrought in what was in fact a merely local variety of their

national style. In point of artistic talent, they were very equally

matched, so that it is difficult to assign the pre-eminence to any one

over the rest, though in England we may point to our Yorkshire abbeys,

and in France to the buildings in the Isle de France as being on the

whole the finest examples. We have had no Nicola Pisano here; our old

architects’ work is singularly equal in its character in each period;

and whether it was displayed in the little village church lying

concealed on the banks of a rippling stream, or in the vast abbey of

some sequestered valley, or in the cathedral church of the busy city,

there seems to be matter for equal admiration in all. In Italy, on the

other hand, we see a number of individual architects exercizing each his

peculiar influence, varying very much in their skill and power, and

having, moreover, the doubtful advantage of a constant recollection of

the works of a different style of art, from whose traditions they never

escaped. Placed, in short, very much in the position that we are at the

present day, they never wrought with the same absolute and joyous

freedom that marks their contemporaries’ work in France and England; and

thus, though their architecture may be inferior, it is of very special

value to us; for we may, perhaps, see better the cause of some of our

own shortcomings, when we investigate theirs, and so we may hope to

excel the works which they executed under conditions so similar to those

under which we labour, even if we cannot quite rival the complete

perfection of the greater mediæval architects of the North. And, seeing

that all the faults of Italian Gothic artists arose from their

incomplete devotion to the new art, and their lingering fondness for the

old Classic forms, we shall be led probably to recognize the paramount

importance of throwing ourselves heartily and entirely into the study

and practice of the one great and national division of our art, and

then, not venturing to attempt to design in some base imitation of

Classic one day, or in a pretended Gothic the next, as is only too much

the custom, we shall make our sense of art so completely a portion of

our inmost selves, as never to do anything new in any but our own one

special style. We shall, in short, recognize, as the greatest danger to

the progress of real art, that eclectic spirit which the Italians never

escaped from, and which, in our own day, leads men to design their work

in the style which they or their clients fancy for the moment, and not

in that which is the truest result of previous experience, and most

fitted to the country in which it is to be executed.

In examining the features of any national school of architecture, it is

worthy of notice how distinctly some of its peculiarities and prejudices

are marked from the very first, even in the ground-plans of the

buildings it produced. This is notably the case in the ecclesiastical

edifices of France, England, and Germany. Each country, after the art

had become settled and, so to speak, acclimatized, had its special

arrangement of plan, which was seldom departed from and was handed on

from age to age as a precious heirloom. And, going to Italy, we shall

find that the same feature strikes us there in almost all the buildings

of the pointed style, and that the buildings from which they were

directly derived are the same as those from which we indirectly derived

our own. Their plans are all derived from two ancient types, both of

which are of venerable antiquity. It was from the basilica, converted

into a church, with its nave and aisles terminated at the end, by an

apsidal projection from a sort of transept, that all of one class of the

Italian Gothic churches with transepts were copied. Indeed, if we look

at the ground-plan of S. Paul without the walls, at Rome, and compare it

with the fully developed church of Sta. Anastasia, at Verona, we shall

see that absolutely the only difference is the addition of small chapels

on the east side of the transept; so that in place of the one apse,

which marks the former, we have the central apse and subsidiary chapels

on each side of it. The church of San Clemente, at Rome, with its three

aisles ended with parallel apses at the east end, is a variety of this

type, followed in such churches as the Cathedral of Torcello, and indeed

in all later Italian Gothic churches without transepts. And even when,

as in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian architects

endeavoured to secure an immensely wide unbroken area of nave, they

still looked back fondly to these old precedents, and finished them at

the east, with three parallel apsidal chapels.

The other model was the Byzantine plan of S. Mark’s at Venice, itself

imported from the East, which was copied closely in the south-west of

France, and produced no slight effect in modifying the simple Romanesque

plan, until it assumed all the characteristics of the complete Lombard

style, and from the North of Italy sent out vigorous off-shoots, of

which the most important were those which we trace all along the valley

of the Rhine, and throughout the centre of France.

Thus, the ground-plans of Italian Gothic buildings were simply a natural

development from those of earlier date, and adhering, as they always

did, very closely to the older plan and arrangements, afford us scarcely

an example of those later developments of prolonged choirs, of which our

English cathedrals and abbeys afford perhaps the most magnificent

examples, or of the splendid French _chevet_ with its surrounding aisle

and chapels. The traces of Classic influence on the plan are indeed so

many and so clear, that it is hardly speaking too strongly to say that

Gothic planning was never developed by Italian architects, so shackled

were they by the ever-present influence of buildings in another style.

Hence, the more we study their peculiarities, the more we see how

curious a mixture there is in them of the character of Classic and

Gothic buildings, and how essentially clumsy all their planning is when

compared with the scientific work of the more thoroughly Gothic

architects of the North. If we compare an ordinary Italian groined

church with a French or English example, we shall find one very marked

difference in them. In the former each bay of the nave is square, and

hence each bay of the narrower side aisles is oblong, with the greatest

width towards the nave; in the latter, on the contrary, the aisle

compartment is square, and that of the nave oblong, with its narrowest

side towards the aisle. Hence, in the former, the points of support are

farther apart, and the plan loses much of its intricacy, and at the same

time, no doubt, the whole building loses much of its apparent scale. The

enormous church of San Petronio at Bologna, for instance, has but six

bays in the length of its vast nave, and the eye refuses to be convinced

by the practical measurement of the foot of the real dimensions of the

building. The object of the Italian architect always was to obtain as

few points of support as possible in a given area; but there is little

if any real gain in this. The points of support in the Italian churches

were larger, and the cost in the end was probably much greater than in

the apparently more intricate and complex plans of the French and

English architects. The science displayed in their planning was

therefore of a superficial and mistaken description, and not really

equal to that which marks the work of their Northern competitors.[81]

The same absence of subdivision is seen in the elevation of each bay of

an Italian church, where in place of the triple division in height of

our great Northern churches, with their well-accentuated proportions and

beautiful variety of detail, we have a singularly meagre design

perpetually repeated, and consisting generally of simple broad arches,

with a small circular clerestory window above them, and no other kind of

decoration, save where the painter has come with his ever-ready art to

the rescue of the apparently incompetent architect.

How this plainness and severity was corrected we have already seen in

the interior of Sta. Anastasia, at Verona--a church which, though it is

simple and unadorned in its construction almost beyond any large church

with which I am acquainted, has been made remarkable, owing to the skill

of its decorator, for being more than usually ornate and magnificent.

The invariable simplicity of Italian groining has been often noticed in

these pages, and need only be referred to here as illustrating the love

of simplicity upon which I have dwelt. No one feature gains so much by

it as this, and I can fancy the horror with which an Italian, or indeed

any other architect, in the thirteenth century, would have viewed such

fine works in their way, as our own examples of complicated

fan-traceried groinings. The painting of this simple groining at Verona,

at Lodi, and still more at Assisi, proves how it ought always to be

treated; and happily in England we have still more than one example of

the same kind, as, for instance, two chapels in the Cathedral at

Winchester.

So far for the plan. When we look at single features of the building we

shall find another peculiarity meeting us at every turn, and of the good

effect of which it is impossible to speak too warmly. This is the

constant use of the detached shaft or column. This is the one great and

lasting beauty which was derived from Classic examples. The Italians,

finding it used with luxurious profusion in their Classic and Byzantine

buildings, persevered in its use throughout the whole Gothic period. It

is true that, as time wore on, there was a somewhat less free use of it

than at first, but it was never altogether ignored. We cannot say as

much for our own ancestors: so long as the influence of Lombard and

Romanesque art is visible in French, German, and English Gothic, so long

the detached shaft was used, and just in proportion as in course of

time that influence decreased, so did the frequency of its use decrease.

Our fourteenth and fifteenth century buildings present nothing in its

place but combinations of mouldings, in themselves very beautiful, but

by no means so beautiful as to reconcile us to the loss of that which

they so entirely supplanted. One consequence of their introduction, to

the exclusion of the detached shaft, was, that the art of sculpture

deteriorated just in proportion as the art of moulding was developed.

There is no place in which architectural sculpture can be more fittingly

displayed than in the capital of a column. It is the most convenient,

and at the same time the most conspicuous, position for it. It is, too,

the most important feature in every design in which the detached column

is used. The gathering together of all the arch mouldings into one above

the capital, in order that their forces may be collected before being

transmitted to the ground, leads naturally to the laying of a special

emphasis on this point above all others; and it is one of the strongest

among the many reasons in favour of earliest Gothic, and against the

later varieties of the style, that in the former the use of shafts

involved the use of forcible and elaborately-cut capitals, so that this

point might be most distinctly marked, whilst in the latter, by the

disuse of the shaft and the constant practice of carrying the mouldings

of the arch down to the ground without any interruption, it was made as

little of as was possible.

In this respect, therefore, above all others, Italian Gothic

artists--having given way to change less than their contemporaries--are

worthy of our highest admiration. The love of variety, which is

characteristic of all good Gothic art, is conspicuous in the Italian

treatment of the shaft just as much as in the northern Gothic variation

of mouldings. When they are plain cylinders, and not banded (and the

band occurs but seldom in Italian work), they often taper slightly, and

with very beautiful effect. This was distinctly a relic of the Classic

entasis, and the examples given in a note will suffice to shew the

extent to which the shaft is reduced in proportion to its height.[82]

Wherever, however, the shaft is spiral or decorated with carving, or

when the occurrence of a band destroys the idea of its continuity from

base to capital, its monolithic character needs not to be marked, and

the shaft is then always made of the same diameter throughout. The

ornamentation is of various kinds. Circular shafts are inlaid, carved,

diapered, or made of marbles selected for their beauty of colour. Lucca

Cathedral affords, perhaps, the best examples of decoration by inlaying:

there the shafts are of white marble inlaid with dark green; some have a

diaper, others are girt with a succession of simple chevrons, others

with spiral lines, others with crosses, flowers, fleurs-de-lis, or

foliated circles; and one, at least, with a succession of imitations of

arcades one over the other; but I remember no example of the same kind

in the buildings described in these pages. At Lucca these inlaid shafts

are frequently alternated with sculptured shafts, of which examples are

common all over Italy. They are deeply cut with spiral lines of

mouldings, occasionally adorned with sculpture of flowers, as in the

doorways at Bergamo and Modena, and are often also inlaid richly with

mosaic.

The best examples of the richer kinds of shafts are seen frequently in

Italian Gothic buildings and monuments south of the Apennines. Such, for

instance, as those which, with rich iron work between them, form the

screen round the altar under the “crossing” of Sta. Chiara at Assisi,

or in the monument of Pope Benedict X. at Perugia, where the shafts are

of white marble, the spiral lines formed with a bead and fillets, and at

the base and neck of the shaft the beads are all connected together with

small arches, in the spandrels of which vine leaves are delicately

carved; whilst to add to the extraordinary richness of the work, small

figures are carved in the marble creeping round the shaft in the hollow

formed by the spiral construction, and the spaces between the mouldings

are filled in with glass mosaic patterns in red, green, and blue on a

gold ground. The shafts of Orcagna’s shrine in Or’ San Michele,

Florence, are of the same character, but these extraordinary decorations

occur generally only in the best and richest internal work, executed

under the direct influence of Florentine, Neapolitan, or Roman

artists.[83]

The arrangement of spiral shafts was generally, but not always,

symmetrical. In the Campanile of Florence, where they occur in pairs on

each side of a window, they are always arranged with the spiral lines

curving in opposite directions. In the porch of Sta. Maria Maggiore,

Bergamo, the three shafts in each jamb are all different: the first

spiral and carved, but not moulded; the second moulded with chevrons;

the third spiral and moulded only, and the central shaft is red whilst

the others are all white. In the spirally designed string-courses of the

Venetian palaces the spiral lines are always worked in opposite

directions right and left of the centre.

Another bold variety is seen in the beautiful coupled shafts at the

entrance to the crypt of San Zenone, Verona, where both the shafts are

quatrefoil in section, but entirely different in character, one of them

being quite straight, the other slightly, but yet conspicuously,

spiral. In a monument in the south aisle of the same church, four shafts

are cut out of one block of marble; and in order that this may be

realized they are knotted together in the centre; and a similar example

exists in the porch, of which I have given a view, at Trent, and in one

of the windows of the Broletto at Como. The shafts round the lower basin

of Nicola Pisano’s beautiful fountain at Perugia are in clusters of

three, chevroned, spiral, and fluted in the greatest possible variety;

and in later works, in which we find that the error of continuing arch

mouldings to the ground, instead of stopping them on the capital, was

occasionally committed--as, e.g., in the archway to the baptistery in

the church of the Frari, at Venice--we see an instance of a moulded

imitation of such a cluster of shafts as these of Nicola Pisano’s,

chevroned and spiral, forming jamb and arch alike. In the later

doorways, such as those of the western front of the cathedral of Como,

and many of those at Monza, Pavia, and in most of the Venetian churches

and buildings, the jambs and arches are identical in section; but even

in these cases there is always a capital interposed, and I hardly

remember an example of a continuous moulding without an impost, which at

least marked--if often in an incomplete manner--the line of the

springing of the arch.

I must not forget that which is, after all, the most charming of all

arrangements of shafts, viz. the use of them in couples, set generally

one behind the other, so that, in elevation, extreme delicacy is

secured, whilst, in perspective, there is beautiful light and shade, and

ample effect of strength. This is a favourite arrangement in cloisters

and in belfries; and, wherever it occurs, one regrets, as one looks at

it, that though in old days French, Spanish, German, and even Irish[84]

architects gladly followed the Italian example, it was so seldom that

an Englishman condescended to do the same.[85]

In the treatment of mouldings the Italian Gothic work is quite peculiar.

An Italian architect would have been surprized, could he have seen the

dark and piquant recesses of the mouldings in which his Northern

brethren in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries so much delighted.

He rarely, if ever, indulged in a deep hollow, but made a point rather

of shewing the hard sharp outline of the square edges of his stones or

bricks, relieved only by the interposition of simple round members,

alternated with flat hollows; his mouldings, even when designed for such

grand works as the Ducal Palace, being bald and crude in design, though

they conduced no doubt to that breadth of effect to which he always

desired that everything should be sacrificed. There is but little skill

shewn in the way in which their contours are drawn, and the carelessness

with which they are fitted to the size of the capital that carries them

is a constant source of disgust to any one who has been trained by the

study of the exquisite English mouldings of the same period. The

architectural carving was designed with the same idea; for when it was

introduced elsewhere than in the capitals of columns, it was always very

flat and delicate, severe in outline, and not much relieved, and often

very decided in its direct imitation of nature. This, however, is mainly

seen in the earliest examples, for I am bound to say that later Italians

never rivalled the Byzantine capitals of S. Mark’s, or some of those in

the early church of San Zenone, Verona. Indeed, as time wore on, the

carving in Italian buildings became steadily worse and worse. Most of

the later Venetian capitals are bad in their outline, confused and

purposeless in all their lines, and shew no sense of that vigorous

petrifaction of the elements of natural growth and form, which was so

sensitively felt and expressed by French and English artists.

[Illustration: CORNICE--SAN FRANCESCO, BRESCIA.]

And, next, we come to the cornice, the feature which above all others

must most startle men who, for the first time, make acquaintance with

Italian work, and which most recalls in its idea its Classic prototype;

for, though its treatment in detail is as unlike that of the ancients as

it can well be, it is, nevertheless, so decidedly marked and so

prominent a feature (crowning not only the summits of walls, but even

running up the gables, and returning round buttresses), that it is

impossible not to regard it as another evidence of admiration for, and

imitation of, earlier work.

The ordinary northern parapet is never used, the eaves almost always

finishing with the common Italian tiles projecting slightly over the

deep cornice of the walls. We have nothing at all parallel to these

cornices in England, and I remember but few examples of anything of the

same kind in the North of Europe, save in the transept of Lübeck

Cathedral, and such churches as those of Bamberg and the Rhine country;

which last seem to be derived from the Lombard churches of Pavia, and to

have nothing in common with later pointed work, and to have exerted

little, if any, influence on its development.

I have said enough, I hope, to explain the grounds for my opinion that,

with the single exception of their use of shafts, we never find the same

kind of perfection in Italian Gothic buildings as in French or English

works of the same date; but I am not slow to allow, nevertheless, that

they do contain features of extreme beauty and purity; and many of them

peculiar to themselves. There is perhaps no country in the world which

excels Italy in the buildings which were erected for civic and domestic

purposes. The Doge’s Palace, and many of the other palaces at Venice,

the Broletto of Como, the other houses or palaces of which I have given

illustrations throughout this volume, are some only among many which

might be enumerated, any one of which would have not only an advantage

over very many of our own buildings, as a model of good architecture,

but at the same time the merit of fitness for the purposes for which our

domestic buildings in towns are at the present day required. Then again,

there are, as I have shewn, the exquisite porches; the peculiar, and

generally noble, campanili; the many-shafted cloisters; the perfect

monuments; the use of brickwork of the best kind; and, finally, that in

which Italian architecture of the Middle Ages teaches us more than any

other architecture since the commencement of the world--the introduction

of colour in construction--which is managed generally with such

consummate beauty, refinement, and modesty, that oven where it

accompanies faulty construction and unworthily sham expedients, it is

impossible to avoid giving oneself up altogether to admiration of the

result.

It will be seen that I am not by any means a blind enthusiast about

Italian architecture. Who, indeed, that has studied on the spot, as I

have done, not only a vast number of buildings in England, but also

nearly all of the best examples in France, Spain, and Germany, could do

otherwise than profess his truest allegiance to be due to the truthful

beauties of his own national variety of the style? I should think that

most students would agree with me, if they found themselves able to

institute such a comparison.

The first view of an Italian Gothic church, whatever its date, is

startlingly and, I think, disagreeably unlike anything that we are

accustomed to in our own old buildings. You may go to a great English

cathedral and find that from every point of view, inside and outside,

every feature is well proportioned to its place, and beautiful in

itself, whilst the _tout ensemble_ is also perfect in proportion and

mass. This can never be said of Italian work. It never produced anything

perfect both in detail and in mass; and one always finds it necessary to

make excuses for even the best works, such as one never finds necessary,

or allows oneself to think of making, for English works. There is

something really absurd in comparing even the best of the Italian

churches with such cathedrals as those of Canterbury or Lincoln, so

superior are the latter from almost every point of view. The Italian

church is usually a long, broad, rather low building, lighted with but

few windows, having but a small, if any, clerestory, and with scarcely

any irregularity in shape or plan; it has scarcely ever more than one

tower, and this is never combined with the rest of the design in the

manner common to us in England or France. There is no approach,

therefore, to such combinations of steeples as are familiar to us at

Canterbury, Wells, Laon, Reims, or Rouen, and undoubtedly there is very

much less external grandeur. The steeple, when it does occur, is often

detached; and when it is engaged, it does not open into the church, but

is placed in some irregular and abnormal position, where it is at once

felt that it is purposely not intended to be looked at in conjunction

with the main façade of the building. There is no attempt even to secure

a tolerable sky-line. The only relief to the monotonous outline of the

main building is at the crossing, where something in the way of a low,

mean dome is occasionally introduced, but this is always of but slight

elevation, and not intended to produce any good external effect, such as

was aimed at in our own central steeples. So also if we look at their

façades, we have a feature on which, in common with ourselves, they

often lavished considerable expense, and probably the greatest pains.

The treatment is very similar in its idea throughout the whole period

during which the style prevailed; and the effect produced is undoubtedly

oftener very disappointing than attractive. The commonest type of façade

is one in which the cornice, which is generally of slight projection,

but deep and marked in character, is carried up the flat gable of the

building, whilst the whole front, divided by vertical pilasters into

three or five divisions in width, is lighted either by a series of

circular windows, or by one large and important rose in the centre. This

class of front is common to most of the Gothic churches in Lombardy.

At Ferrara, we see another and very different design in the grand front

to the cathedral, which, save that it is entirely and shamelessly a sham

front, might vie even with that of a Northern cathedral in beauty,

intricacy, and richness of character; but this design is not really

very Italian in style, and is a solitary example. When an Englishman

sees the tympanum of the principal doorway of such a church filled with

a sculpture of S. George and the Dragon, he may be pardoned for

recollecting that our royal family have sprung from the same stock as

the D’Estes, once Lords of Ferrara, the front of whose cathedral is

almost the finest in Italy.

Other portions of Italian churches are even less satisfactory than their

façades. I have already explained that the clerestory is rarely lighted

by anything more elaborate than a succession of circular windows of

small size. The church of Sta. Anastasia, Verona, gives us the best

example of these, the windows there being of brick, filled in with very

good early plate tracery in stone. The east end is often more

picturesque than the west; and that of the church of San Fermo Maggiore,

Verona, affords a good example. The east ends of the churches of the

Frari and SS. Giovanni e Paolo, at Venice, are perhaps the two finest

examples of this portion of the building to be seen in Italy, and are

worthy of very high praise.

If we descend from generals to details, we shall find much more to

admire, and altogether much more to interest us. The doorways and the

porches, which protect without concealing them, are often especially

beautiful. I have already mentioned the doorways of Sta. Anastasia and

San Zenone at Verona, of S. Mark’s, Venice, the cathedral at Modena, and

the north porch of Sta. Maria Maggiore, at Bergamo, all of which are

full of beauty and full of national character. Another favourite and

beautiful type is that of the porch on the north side of San Fermo, at

Verona, which is arched on each face, and roofed with a flat-pitched

roof, gabled both ways. In the doorways, inclosed within these porches,

we shall hardly find so much to admire, and must not expect anything

like our own or the great French examples. Generally the opening is

square-headed, with a lintel often formed by an ingenious dovetailing of

stone together,[86] and the mouldings of the jambs are too often

continuous and very small and badly marked in their sections.

The exquisite monuments which so often occur against the walls or by the

sides of Italian churches are somewhat similar in idea to these porches.

Of these I have said so much that I only refer to them here, as among

the most charming features of Italian art. I think that our own

monuments, rich as our country is in them, will only be considered much

superior to the best of these by those whose patriotism warps their

judgment! One of the most perfect examples of the class is to be seen in

the Castelbarco monument close to the church of Sta. Anastasia, Verona.

Here the pointed trefoiled arch, on each face of the canopy over the

tomb, springs from four detached shafts, and fits very closely under

flat gables or pediments, above and from between which rises a perfectly

plain pyramidal mass of stone. The very simplicity of the design of

these monuments is their greatest charm; and so conscious were their

designers of this, that they seem to me to have lavished all their care

and refinement upon them. There are of necessity iron ties at the

springing of the arch; but it was felt necessary to give the eye a sense

of security beyond what the existence of these ties could afford, and

this was accomplished by adding on the under side of the arch a simple

and rather heavy cusp, generally proportioned with a degree of delicate

skill of which modern architects appear to me (if I may dare to say it)

never to dream. I believe that good architecture may generally be

detected at once, by the excellence of such apparently small matters as

the shape of a cusp. I am certain that good Italian architecture

invariably has cusping, which is both nervous in its curve and yet

delicate; and I believe that most modern cusps are drawn by the hundred

as a mere matter of routine, without care and without pleasure, and

consequently without good effect.

Not less beautiful than the porches and monuments is another feature

which occurs in Italy, as often as, and perhaps more perfectly than,

anywhere else--the cloister. This consists generally of an open arcade

supported on detached shafts, and is very frequently of two stages in

height. Notwithstanding their extreme simplicity and moderate amount of

enrichment, these Italian cloisters are always capital in their effect.

They owe this very much to the number of shafts which support their

arches; these are generally of marble, coupled together except at the

angles, where there are usually four. Some of the cloisters which still

remain in Verona, are among the most beautiful examples. Nor are those

of San Stefano, Bologna, nor at a later date those of the church of

Sant’Antonio at Padua and at Brescia, less worthy of study. They never

have the beautiful traceries of our Northern cloisters, for the

sufficient reason, that the climate rendered less protection from the

weather necessary; and the consequence of this is, that their arcades,

being always severely simple in design, no effort was ever spared to

make them as perfect as possible in their proportions.

The cloisters of the cathedral at Aosta are interesting as affording an

instance of the lavish richness of illustration which some of the

mediæval sculptors bestowed on their work; the capitals throughout being

sculptured with illustrations of subjects, all of which are made fully

intelligible by inscriptions incised in the stone--a favourite practice

not only of early Italian sculptors, but of their brethren in Germany

and France. In the cloister of San Gregorio, Venice, we have another

variety in which the shafts support the woodwork of the roof in a very

picturesque fashion, without any arches. This is a type of cloister

which might often be most useful in modern work, and is an evidence of

the extent to which a Gothic artist may, when necessity requires it,

trench boldly on what is ordinarily supposed to be the exclusive

province of Classic art--the use of the shaft and lintel; but here the

Gothic artist with his usual reality made his lintel of wood in place of

stone.

The Italian treatment of windows is especially worthy of note. The

drawings which I have given will shew how generally the tracery,

commonly called plate-tracery, was used. It is, indeed, a very beautiful

mode of treatment, but quite distinct from all fully-developed systems,

inasmuch as it deals only with the piercings here and there in the block

of stone which forms the window-head, and not with the intricate

combinations of lines which mark out the outlines of the spaces to be

pierced. The difference is great--the one kind giving that exquisite

depth and mystery and admitting of the infinite variety so

characteristic of northern Gothic, the other giving breadth and flatness

of effect, and leaving space on its broad surfaces for the play of the

brilliant sunshine, save where the black piercing of some simple

form--quatrefoil or trefoil--gives life to the otherwise monotonous

window-head. Of the two the former admits of infinitely more variety and

display of fancy and ingenuity; though the latter, perhaps, when seen at

its best, is really the more beautiful. Both of them are, however, so

good as to be equally usable, and neither of them to the exclusion of

the other.

In Italian Gothic traceries, it is difficult to shew the progression or

regular development which marks every stage of northern Gothic. There

are numerous examples of simple lancet windows, of cusped lancets, of

combinations of lancets cusped or uncusped, and oftentimes of windows

of plate-tracery, and then of more developed tracery which, however, was

still treated as plate tracery with the addition of mouldings. In the

later windows an unsightly effect is produced by the wide and bald plain

splay or reveal which is usually formed round the window, outside as

well as inside, and also by the placing of glazing behind the traceries

in a separate wooden frame, so that they are completely concealed from

view on the interior. The tracery of the second stage of the Doge’s

Palace at Venice is probably equal to any that has ever been executed,

and may well be the pride of the country. It has also the special

peculiarity, common to all Venetian domestic work, of being sufficiently

strong in its section and construction to bear an enormous weight of

wall without the aid of any discharging arch above it. There is another

class of traceries which seems to have been essentially an Italian

invention, and which is as objectionable as any tracery that I know.

Examples of this may be seen in the south transept of SS. Giovanni e

Paolo, at Venice. They give the idea of having been cut out to order,

from an enormous mass of ready-made tracery, kept in slab, sold by the

superficial yard, and cut to fit any opening required. There is no

attempt to finish the tracery where it meets the inclosing arch, and the

effect is consequently always rude and unskilful.[87]

Another feature is, the constant use at all dates of shafts in place of

moulded window monials; and another, the very frequent insertion of a

transome of tracery, across the middle of the height of the window. The

use of the shaft instead of the moulded monial does not seem to be so

admirable in ecclesiastical as in domestic work. It generally

accompanied the system already mentioned of fixing the glazing in wooden

frames, behind the stonework, and hence seldom looks well in

church-windows except on the outside. The deep transomes pierced with

tracery are of common occurrence. They are seen in almost all the

Venetian Gothic churches, but their utility and beauty are alike

doubtful.

No country affords more frequent examples of circular windows than

Italy. They occur in almost every church, and are of stone, marble, and

brick. The best example I know, of very early pointed character, and one

which is unsurpassed anywhere, is in the west front of the church of

Sta. Maria, Toscanella. Here there is an inner wheel, and the space

between the two wheels is divided by shafts, between each of which is

pierced a quatrefoil. The little window in the gable of the oratory of

San Zenone, Verona, is a favourable example of a smaller window. It is

of eight lights divided by shafts, and well moulded and proportioned in

all its parts. Other circular windows as at S. Mark’s, Venice, and in

the church of Sant’Antonio, Padua, are of the class already described,

where the tracery seems to have been inserted, without reference to, or

connection with, the inclosing circular line.

I have now, I think, exhausted the distinguishing features of an Italian

church, with the exception of its campanile. This, as I have said

before, is always a single steeple (with the perhaps unique exception of

Genoa Cathedral, which has two), generally detached from the main

fabric, planted wherever it happened to be most convenient; sometimes as

at Vercelli, not even at right angles to the building to which it is

attached, and with but little reference to its effect upon the remainder

of the building. There are no features of Italian buildings which are so

universally remembered with pleasure; and similar as they are in their

general scheme, there is nevertheless a considerable variety in their

treatment in detail. The first thing to be noted is, that they are never

supported by buttresses, and that the usual mode of ascent was by a

staircase in the thickness of the wall, and not by any such excrescence

as a staircase turret. The outline is severely square and simple, and,

unlike as it is to most of our English steeples, generally exceedingly

striking. No doubt the apparent height of these towers is enormously

increased by the absence of buttresses. The originals of all Italian

campanili seem to be the early steeples of the Roman churches, divided

into a series of stages of equal height, pierced with windows not

varying much in design throughout. The most exact reproductions of these

steeples may be found so far from the centre of Italy as at Susa at the

foot of the Mont Cenis, and in other very similar erections all over the

North of Italy. With certain broad general features of resemblance there

are, however, several local variations, which may be divided roughly

into the following separate classes or schools:--(1) The Pisan: (2) the

Venetian and Veronese: (3) the Genoese: and (4) the Florentine: of which

I need here only speak of the Venetian and Veronese, which are

undoubtedly among the finest. In the Veronese there is a very distinct

imitation of the pure Romanesque examples, whilst in the Venetian there

is generally less subdivision into stages, the walls being arcaded with

very slightly recessed lofty arcades, and the horizontal divisions being

much fewer in number. Of these, San Giacomo del Rialto is one of the

best examples; it is executed, as all the Venetian examples are, in

brick. In all these examples the pilasters at the angles are carefully

marked. But there is another variety of distinctly Italian towers in

which this is not the case. The finest example of this is the tower of

the Scaliger Palace, at Verona, where the simple unbroken mass of

masonry and brickwork shoots up into the sky all but unpierced until the

belfry stage. Of this kind of tower the examples are not unfrequent in

the smaller churches in Lombardy, and in the public halls and private

houses of many of the cities described in these pages. The tower at Asti

is one of the best of these.

There remain two other subjects which, more than any others, meet us at

every stage of our study of Gothic architecture in Italy. These are,

first, the use of brick; and secondly, the introduction of coloured

materials in construction, of both of which, as we have seen, there are

so many valuable examples.

It has been by far too much the fashion of late years to look upon brick

as a very inferior material, fit only to be covered with compo, and

never fit to be used in church-building, or indeed in any buildings of

any architectural pretension, so that I suspect many people, trusting to

their knowledge of pointed architecture in England, would be much

surprized to find that, throughout large tracts of the Continent, brick

was the natural, and indeed the popular material during the most palmy

days of architecture in the Middle Ages. Yet so it was that in Holland,

in the south-west of France, in Northern Germany, and the Low Countries,

in large tracts in Spain, and throughout Northern Italy, stone was

either scarce or not to be obtained, and brick was therefore everywhere

and most fearlessly used.

In all these countries, just as in Italy, it was used without any

concealment, but each country developed its practice in this matter for

itself, and there is therefore considerable diversity in their work.

They are all unlike, and far superior to what remains to us of ancient

brickwork in England, for I need hardly say that, with a rare exception

here and there, and in comparatively small districts, brick was not used

in England between the time of the Romans and the fifteenth century,

and, when used afterwards, was seldom remarkable either for any singular

beauty or originality of treatment. In this matter, therefore, we are

obliged to go to the Continent for information.

[Illustration: STRING-COURSE--PALACE OF JURISCONSULTS, CREMONA.]

Italian brickwork is remarkable as being almost always executed with

nothing but red bricks, with occasional but rare use of stonework; the

bricks for the ordinary walling are generally rather larger than ours,

in no way superior in their quality, and always built coarsely with a

wide joint of mortar. Those used for windows, doorways, and generally

where they were required to attract attention and to be ornamental, were

made of much finer clay and moulded with the greatest care and skill.

The transepts and campanile of Cremona Cathedral are instances of red

brick used without any intermixture of stone save in the shafts of the

windows, and their effect is certainly very grand. The mouldings are

elaborate, and the way in which cusping is formed singularly successful.

This, it must be observed, was not usually done by means of bricks

moulded in the form of a cusp, but with ordinary bricks, built with the

same radiating lines as those of the arch to which they belonged, and

cut and rubbed to the necessary outline. Sometimes, as, e.g., in the

windows at Mantua,[88] which are some of the very best I have ever seen,

the points of the cusps and key-stones of the arches are formed in

pieces of stone, the alternation of which with the deep-red hue of the

bricks produces the most satisfactory effect of colour. This sort of

treatment is common at Brescia, Verona, Mantua, and Venice, but unknown

at Cremona.

[Illustration: WINDOW IN NORTH TRANSEPT, CREMONA CATHEDRAL.]

In nearly all cases where brick is used for tracery, it is in the shape

of plate-tracery. The tympanum of the arch is filled in with a mass of

brickwork, through which are pierced the arches over the several lights

of the window, and these are supported on marble or stone shafts with

carved capitals, instead of monials:[89] and above these sometimes, as

in the windows of Sant’Andrea, Mantua, are three cusped circles;

sometimes, as in the palace at Mantua, only one cusped circle; or else,

as in a beautiful example at Cremona, the plain brick tympanum is

relieved by the introduction of a panel of terra-cotta, bearing the

cross on a shield, whilst round its outer circumference delicately

treated though large cusping defines the outline of the arch.[90]

[Illustration: DETAIL OF WINDOW-JAMB--CREMONA.]

The windows at Coccaglio[91] and at Monza[92] are examples of tympana

left quite plain, or, as in the former case, pierced only with a small

opening of a few inches in diameter, which nevertheless gives much

effect to the design. In the latter case there is a feature which is

well worth notice, because it is remarkable in the best Italian

brickwork, and always very effective. Labels are exceedingly rare, but

their place is usually supplied by a course of very narrow deep red

bricks which surrounds the back of the arch. In the window in Monza

Cathedral there are two such courses--one about 4½ inches wide, the

other not more than 2½. They serve to define the arch and keep it

distinct in effect from the walling around it. Sometimes, as in the

Vescovato at Mantua, and in the houses at Asti, these narrow bricks are

introduced between a succession of rims of brickwork on the same face,

alternated very picturesquely with squares of stone, and sometimes, as

in some beautiful arcading outside San Fermo Maggiore at Verona,[93] to

define and enliven the lines of stonework; for in this case, though the

work is all in stone and no brick was really required, so great was the

appreciation of colour, that it was gladly and most successfully

introduced. In the early cloister of San Zenone we see it again,[94] as

also in all the very beautiful arches which still remain in the Broletto

of Brescia.[95]

[Illustration: BRICK ARCHIVOLT, VESCOVATO--MANTUA.]

[Illustration: ARCH-MOULD--CREMONA.]

But beside this there was another way in which Italian architects

produced a very beautiful effect: this was in the alternation of stone

and brick. We have one of the first examples of this in the magnificent

walls of San Zenone at Verona, in which a deep red brick is used in

courses alternating with a very warm-coloured stone. The brick is used

very irregularly: beginning at the base of the walls over the cloisters,

we have alternately with courses of stone, first a band of three courses

of brick, after this one course of brick, four courses, five courses,

two courses, one course, and then the cornice, which is mainly of stone,

but relieved by two courses of narrow bricks; in spite of the variation

in the height of the brick courses, those of stone in this case are

nearly uniform in depth. In the west front of San Fermo Maggiore[96] we

have brick and stone used in alternate and regular courses all the way

up; in this case the brick is used rather for colour than for any other

reason, though the side walls of this church are entirely of brick and

crowned with excessively deep brick cornices.

The churches at Asti afford examples of the worst kind of

counterchanging of stone and brick; in them the jamb of a window is

treated like a chess-board, being chequered with alternate red and white

both horizontally and vertically. To accomplish this the construction is

ingeniously twisted, and it need hardly be said that the effect is not

at all good.

The interior of San Zenone, Verona, is lined with brick and stone,

arranged just as it is outside, and the effect is most satisfactory;

indeed, this and the interior of the baptistery at Cremona, still left

in their original state, shew how noble an effect of colour may be given

by brick internally, and how mistaken we are when we cover our walls

with undecorated plaster. I have seen it maintained by men who possibly

had never seen such old works as these in their old state, that such

colour as this is savage and fit only for uncultivated men. If, however,

there is refinement in whitewash or plaster, I am unable to see it, and

I can see no more inconsistency in honestly shewing the real materials

of the wall inside than in doing so outside. This at any rate is beyond

all doubt what these old Italian architects did.

[Illustration: WINDOW--VERONA.]

The east end of the church of the Frari at Venice is another example of

coursing with stone.[97] There, however, the courses are far apart, and

seem to be intended to define the lines of the springing of arches, of

transomes, and the like; and this they do very satisfactorily. But,

perhaps, the very best example of mixed stone and brick is that which we

have in the window-heads of the church by the side of the Duomo at

Verona,[98] in which the arrangement of the two colours is quite

perfect. In this case the cusped head of the light is executed in stone,

not in brick; and this is, I think, as a general rule, by far the better

plan; for if an attempt is made to execute tracery in brick, we have the

example of the Germans before our eyes as a warning. They rarely (S.

Katharine, Lübeck, is almost a solitary exception) used stone in their

window tracery; and as they never developed the kind of brick

plate-tracery which is so characteristic of the best Italian work, they

built windows which were either bald and ugly in their simplicity, or

else, endeavouring to execute elaborate traceries by the use of bricks,

moulded into the forms of component parts of tracery, they produced

what are even more distasteful than any other kind of window; in part

because they consist of an endless repetition of small reticulations,

and in part because they lead naturally to the constant reproduction of

the same window for economy’s sake.

[Illustration: BRICK WINDOW, SANT’ANDREA--MANTUA.]

There can be no doubt that the best windows for brick churches are

either those beautiful Italian developments of plate-tracery in which

all the bricks are carefully cut and rubbed for their proper place, or

those in which, within an inclosing arch of line upon line of brickwork,

a small portion of stone is used for the traceries. And this last has

the advantage of giving much more opportunity for variety of form and

beauty of effect than any brick traceries can ever give.

There is one point in which a curious practical difference exists

between our old work and most old Italian. Here it was not the custom to

have keystones to pointed arches, whilst there it is quite the rule to

have them; this may have been partly, perhaps, because it was a matter

of convenience to mark the central stone in arches composed of alternate

voussoirs of brick and stone, and it may have been partly some relic of

Classic traditions: not only, however, is there a keystone, but

sometimes, as in the Broletto at Brescia, this is additionally

distinguished, above the rest of the stone voussoirs, by some small

ornament carved upon it. With one more fact I think I may end what I

have to say on this head: this is with reference to the mode in which

some of the Italian brick arches very beautifully follow the fashion,

not so uncommon in stone, of increasing in depth as they approach the

centre. In this manner, one sometimes sees an arch whose outer

circumference is pointed, whilst its inner line is a semicircle. This

was a fashion most popular in Florence, and not so common in Northern

Italy; still it is to be seen at Monza, Verona, and elsewhere. The

effect is always very good, and, though quite unknown to our forefathers

in England, may well be introduced in our works, as it gives great

appearance of strength, and is no doubt, at the same time, the strongest

possible form of arch.

No one can deny that the study of Italian brickwork must be useful to

those who are compelled, as we so often are, to use the same material in

buildings for whose good architectural effect and character we are

anxious. But, far as it is in advance of most ancient brickwork in

England, there are points in which we must refuse to follow it; we need

not, for instance, in attempting to rival its beauties, confound them

with faults which were essentially those of the whole Italian style, and

not specially of Italian brickwork. We may with the greatest advantage

emulate the Italian system of brick-window tracery, whilst we take care

never to imitate the equally common custom in Italy of erecting sham

fronts in order to display our traceries. Again, though they never used

any but red bricks, there is no reason why we should not enliven our

work with the contrast of other colours. Germany gives us examples of

green and black bricks, and, indeed, Italy affords some (e.g.,

Sant’Antonio, in Padua, Murano, and Torcello) of a yellowish brick; and,

no doubt, the effects producible by these contrasts of colour are such

as Italian architects were always ready to avail themselves when they

had the opportunity. This their parti-coloured works in marble

sufficiently prove; but at the same time it was seldom that they

ventured upon such works in brick; and as it must be admitted that there

is no sort of work which so much requires skilful handling, or which is

so liable to degenerate into vulgarity, as this, it is probable that

they advisedly abstained from it.

As to the question whether it be desirable or not to introduce brick at

all in ecclesiastical edifices, or generally in public buildings, one

might, a few years ago, have been anxious to say somewhat. I trust,

however, that the ignorant prejudice which made many good people regard

stone as a sort of sacred material, and red brick as one fit only for

the commonest and meanest purposes, is fast wearing out, and that what

now mainly remains to be done is to shew how it may most effectively be

used, not only in external, but also in internal works.

One word only as to its colour, for I think that we ought as much as

possible to insist upon this being taken into consideration. We do not,

as a general rule, I suppose, adopt any material in good works of

architecture simply because it is the very cheapest that can be

obtained; sometimes, indeed, we must, and then I should be the last to

contend against what is simply an act of necessity, not of choice; but

ordinarily, before, for economy’s sake, we determine to sacrifice the

colour of our work, and to use those detestable-looking dirty yellow

bricks in which London so much indulges, we ought to consider whether,

by some economy in other respects, we may not save enough to allow of

the use of the best kind of red brick for the general face of our

walls.[99]

At the present day there is, I think, absolutely no one point in which

we fail so much, and about which the world in general has so little

feeling, as that of colour. Our buildings are, in nine cases out of

ten, cold, colourless, insipid, academical studies, and our people have

no conception of the necessity of obtaining rich colour, and no

sufficient love for it when successfully obtained. The task and duty of

architects at the present day is mainly that of awakening and then

satisfying this feeling; and one of the best and most ready vehicles for

doing this exists, no doubt, in the rich-coloured brick so easily

manufactured in this country, which, if properly used, may become so

effective and admirable a material.

The other mode of introducing colour in construction, by means of the

use of marbles, deserves also some notice. In my notes upon the

buildings as they were passed in my journeys, I have described two modes

in which this kind of work was treated: the first was that practised in

Venice--the veneering of brick walls with thin layers or coats of

marble; the other, that practised at Bergamo, Cremona, and Como--in

which the marble formed portion of the substance of the wall.

These two modes led, as would naturally be expected, to two entirely

different styles and modes of architecture.

The Venetian mode was rather likely to be destructive of good

architecture, because it was sure to end in an entire concealment of the

real construction of the work; the other mode, on the contrary,

proceeded on true principles, and took pleasure in defining most

carefully every line in the construction of the work. It might almost be

said that one mode was devised with a view to the concealment, and the

other with a view to the explanation, of the real mode of construction.

I have already described, at some length, the main features of these old

works in marble, and I feel, therefore, that all that need now be done

is to point out the degree to which they afford matter for our imitation

with the coloured materials and marbles which we fortunately have in

Great Britain fit for the purpose, though not in very great variety.

There appears to me to be a certain limited extent to which we may

safely go in the way of inlaying or incrustation: we may, for instance,

so construct our buildings as that there may be portions of the face of

their walls in which no strain will be felt, and in which this absence

of strain will be at once apparent; obviously, to instance a particular

place, the spaces inclosed within circles constructed in the spandrels

of a line of arches can have no strain of any kind. They are portions of

wall without any active function, and may safely be filled in with

materials the only object of which is to be ornamental. All kinds of

sunk panels inclosed within arches or tracery would come under the same

head; the spaces between string-courses might also do so very

frequently, if, as in old examples, the string-courses were large slabs

of stones bedded into the very midst of the wall, and so capable of

protecting the thin, weak slabs of marbles incrusted between them.

In Venice we have some grand examples, at S. Mark’s, of this system of

incrustation filling in the whole of the space within large arches; here

it is lawful, because there is no weight upon it to thrust it out of its

place or disjoint it, as the least pressure most certainly always will.

So far in praise of the Venetian system. But in other parts of the same

building we have this system carried to a length which I cannot but

think most mistaken, and which, I most heartily trust, may never find

imitators here. In these the arches were constructed in brick, and then

entirely covered with marble. Of course there was some difficulty in

doing this, and the way in which the difficulty was met was extremely

ingenious; a succession of thin slabs of marble was placed round the

soffeit of the arch, having perhaps enough of the cohesion given by the

form of the arch to enable them to support their own weight, and

further supported by metal staples let into the joints of the brickwork.

The edges of these thin slabs projected sufficiently in advance of the

face of the brickwork to allow of their being worked with some kind of

pattern--generally, as has before been said, a sort of dentil--and of

their giving some support to the thin slices of marble with which the

walls were then covered. The whole system was excessively weak; and this

can nowhere be better seen than in the Fondaco de Turchi, where almost

the whole of the marble facing and beautiful medallions, in which it was

once so rich, have peeled off, and left nothing but the plain and

melancholy substratum of brick. Few architects, I should think, would

like to contemplate their work perishing in this piecemeal manner, any

more than they would enjoy the thought of a west front left unfinished,

like that of Sta. Anastasia at Verona, and prepared only for marble with

rough, irregular, and unsightly brickwork.

It would be unjust not to say that often, very often, this system of

incrustation, even when carried to the extreme limits of what seems to

be lawful, wins upon our love by the exquisite delicacy and taste of the

sculptured patterns, worked in low-relief, with which it is covered. The

men who did this work were, perhaps, more of sculptors than of

architects; and certainly it must be confessed that never in buildings

in which the construction is mainly thought of, is there, so far as I

know, so much elaborate thought and skill exhibited in the decorative

part of the work as in buildings such as these.

Sometimes, the sculptured medallions set in the centre of a plain

surface of marble are of exquisite taste and beauty; whilst here and

there, as e.g. in S. Mark’s and in one or two spots in the water-front

of the Ducal Palace, are examples of great beauty, of medallions formed

of marbles of various colours, arranged with great refinement in some

kind of geometrical pattern, which shew another and equally beautiful

mode of relieving plain spaces of walling.

The plain surfaces of the walls in Venetian work were commonly either

entirely inlaid, or else inlaid within a square inclosing border of

projecting moulding. The inlaying was composed of a number of

rectangular slabs of marble, not by any means always of the same size,

supported to some extent by the projections of the inclosing marbles or

by those of the archivolt, but always dependent mainly on metal cramps

let into the fabric of the wall; and, when possible, these marbles were

slabs cut out of the same block, and put side by side, so as to produce

a kind of regular pattern wherever the veining of the marble was at all

positively marked.

The other mode of introducing constructional colour in marble commends

itself to one’s reason as that which is most likely to endure for ages,

and as that, therefore, which ought, wherever it may be, to be adopted.

The first idea of the architects of these buildings seems to have been

to arrange their material with as much regard to strong contrasts of

colour as was possible. The first thing they did, therefore, was to

alternate the colours of every course of masonry, either simply as in

the Broletto at Como[100] and in Sta. Maria Maggiore at Bergamo,[101] or

as in the west front of the cathedral at Cremona, where very narrow

layers of white marble are laid between each of the other courses, which

are of course so much the more defined.

The description which I have already given of these works, as well as of

the porch at Bergamo, will shew how regular is the way in which this

system of counterchanging the colours was carried out by the purely

constructional school; this is, in fact, the great mark of difference

between the constructional and the incrusting school of Italian

architects, the whole arrangement of coloured materials by the two

schools being quite different, and producing singularly different

results. The most common fault of the Venetian system of incrustation

must have been that upon a general surface of plain wall you had here

and there a square patch of marble surrounding a window opening; that of

the other system would be, in the opinion of many, that you have too

stripy an effect of colour, and that all the divisions, moreover, are

horizontal.

The former must certainly have been the case wherever the incrustation

did not extend over the whole surface of the walls, which was very

frequently the case; but the latter is not really a fault; it was only

an elaboration in a more beautiful material of the same system which we

have seen pursued with such happy results by the builders of Verona in

brick and stone,[102] and which we find adopted by the architects of

Northern Germany in the frequent alternation of courses of red and black

brick, and sometimes by our own forefathers in the coursing of flint

work with stone, or in the counterchanging of red and white stones which

we see in some of the Northamptonshire churches. The system was a

thoroughly sound one, because it not only proceeded from and depended on

the natural arrangement of the material, but afforded the best possible

means for displaying the various colours which were to be used.

Probably all these systems are mainly useful now as shewing us certain

principles which we may work out and apply to our own somewhat different

circumstances; and surely one of our first objects ought to be the

discovery of the extent of our means and opportunities, which in this

matter are at the present day far beyond what is generally imagined.

It must never be forgotten by us that our forefathers had very limited

means of obtaining materials from one locality and transporting them to

another; and were moreover, to a great extent, unacquainted with the

materials which might, if necessary, be obtained. We have not this

excuse; we not only know what materials we may obtain, but we have at

the same time marvellous facilities for their conveyance between all

parts of the country; and we know also how much has been done of old in

other countries by using them in a proper way.

No excuse therefore can be found for us if we continue to neglect to

avail ourselves of them as though they were still undiscovered. We have

alabaster, which may be wrought at a really trifling expense; large

fields of marbles, of which those of Devonshire and Ireland are

particularly valuable for architectural decoration, and those of

Derbyshire and Purbeck for the formation of shafts and columns: we have,

moreover, an exhaustless supply of granites of various colours; of

serpentine; and, lastly, of building-stones of many tints, many of which

may be very effective when contrasted. In addition to these natural

materials we have every facility for making the most perfect bricks;

and, owing to the excellence already achieved by our manufacturers of

glass and pottery, we have no difficulty in making mosaics and tiles,

either for roofing, flooring, or inlaying, of any degree of beauty,

either of colour or form.

With such advantages we ought long since to have effected far more than

we have ever attempted, or apparently ever thought of. Our buildings

should, both outside and inside, have had some of that warmth which

colour only can give; they should have enabled the educated eye to revel

in bright tints of nature’s own formation, whilst to the uneducated eye

they would have afforded the best of all possible lessons, and, by

familiarizing it with the proper combination of colour and form, would

have enabled it to appreciate it.

And then, if ever the day shall come when our buildings thus do their

duty and teach their proper lesson to the eye, we may hope that we shall

see a feeling, more general and more natural, for colour of all kinds

and for art of every variety in the bulk of our people. At present it is

really saddening to converse with the majority of educated men on any

question of colour. For them it has no charms and no delight. The

puritanical uniformity of our coats and of all our garments is but a

reflection from the prevailing lack of love of art or colour of any

kind. A rich colour is thought vulgar, and that only is refined which is

neutral, plain, and ugly.

Perhaps in all this there may be something more than art can ever

grapple with; it may be ingrain, and part of the necessity of the

present age; but if so, oh for the days when, as of yore, colour may be

appreciated and beloved, when uniformity shall not be considered beauty,

nor a hideous plainness be considered a fit substitute for severity! Oh

too, for the days when men shall have cast off their dependence on other

men’s works, and the customs of their own days, and, like true men and

faithful, shall honestly and with energy, each in his own sphere, set to

work to do all that in them lies to increase the power of art and to

advance its best interests. All these aims and objects are more or less

bound up with the best interests of a people, however old and however

powerful, because they depend for ultimate and real success upon the

thorough belief, on the part of all its votaries, in certain great and

eternal principles, which, if always acted upon, would beyond all doubt

sometimes make great artists and always good men.

The principle which artists now have mainly to contend for is that of

TRUTH; forgotten, trodden under foot, despised, if not hated for ages,

this must be their watchword. If they be architects, let them remember

how vitally necessary truthfulness in construction, in design, and in

decoration, is to any permanent success in even the smallest of their

works; or sculptors, let them recollect how vain and unsatisfactory has

been their abandonment of truth in their attempted revival among us of

what in Classic times were--what they no longer are--real

representations and natural works of art; if painters, let them remember

how all-important a return to first principles and truth in the

delineation of nature and natural forms is to them, if they are ever to

create a school of art by which they may be remembered in another age.

Finally, I wish that all artists would remember the one great fact which

separates by so wide a gap the architects, sculptors, and painters of

the best days of the Middle Ages from us now--their earnestness and

their thorough self-sacrifice in the pursuit of art, and in the

exaltation of their religion. They were men who had a faith, and hearts

earnestly bent on the propagation of that faith; and were it not for

this, their works would never have had the life, vigour, and freshness

which even now they so remarkably retain. Why should we not be equally

remembered three centuries hence? Have we less to contend for, less

faith to exhibit, or less self-sacrifice to offer than they, because we

live in later days? Or is it true that the temper of men is so much

changed, and that the vocation of art has changed with it? I believe

not. There have been evidences enough that there is no lack of

liberality on the part of our employers, where there is any evidence of

skill and enthusiasm for his work on the part of the artist. The English

architect of to-day has opportunities as great as those of any of his

predecessors, if he will but use them. But he must use his art as one

who respects both himself and it. There is no real respect for an art

when it is treated, as it always has been by the Renaissance architects

and their followers, as a mere affair of display. No good building was

ever yet erected in which the architect designed the front, and left

the flanks or internal courts to take care of themselves. So also no

good building was ever seen, in which the exterior only was thought of,

and the internal decoration and design neglected. But this is almost

universal now, except in the few buildings in which the Gothic style has

been carefully revived. In such treatment of art as this, there is an

ingrain falseness, which is as demoralizing as it is ruinous. If

architecture is only an affair of outside display, no one will take any

real interest in it, for from the first it is the evidence of the

architect’s love for his work which has given the human interest which

is all in all to it.

It is this truthfulness only, in every line and every detail of every

part of a building, which can ever make great architecture--it is this

only which one would wish to extract from the works of our

forefathers--and this only which I have desired to discover in the works

of those Italian artists whose labours I have been considering, and

whose efforts I have endeavoured to set before my readers; and it is

this desire which can alone be my excuse for having undertaken the work

which I have now brought to a conclusion.

[Illustration: 65. KEY PLAN OF CAPITALS DUCAL PALACE VENICE.]

APPENDIX.

_Catalogue of the Subjects of the Sculptured Capitals in the Lower Stage

of the Doge’s Palace, Venice._

The capitals are numbered as in the accompanying key-plan, beginning at

the south-east angle on the Molo front, and going from right to left

until the last capital, near S. Mark’s, is reached. For those who wish

for something more than a catalogue, I need hardly say that in the

latter portion of the second volume of the ‘Stones of Venice,’ Mr.

Ruskin has given all that can be desired, with his usual felicity and

beauty of verbal illustration.

In the ‘Annales Archéologiques,’ vol. xvii. (1857), Mr. Burges has given

a very full and careful account of all the capitals, to which M. Didron

Ainé has added some supplementary notes.

Zanotto (‘Il Palazzo Ducale di Venezia,’ vol. i. pp. 209-355) has given

a still more full description, accompanied by rather rude outlines of

all the lower range of capitals. There is small need, therefore, for

anything more than a mere catalogue here, which it seems to me may be of

service to some of those who are able to look at the Ducal Palace, but

unable to carry with them any of the weighty volumes to which I have

referred.

_South-east Angle._--Above the capital is the Drunkenness of Noah. Above

this, on a level with the traceries of the upper arcade, the archangel

Raphael, with Tobit, who bears a scroll with these words--

EFICE [=Q]

SO. FRE

T[=V]. RAFA

EL. REVE

RENDE

QUIETŪ.[103]

CAPITAL I. Partly built up. Has three figures of nude children, one with

a comb and shears, another with a bird. The foliage is good; but the

nude figures have the appearance of semi-Renaissance work.

II. Partly built up. Large birds--one devouring a serpent, another a

fish, and the third pluming its feathers. The foliage here is not very

good, and the design of the capital in no way first-rate, the birds

being treated in a very naturalesque way.

III. Partly built up. Large heads, male and female. The man has a

helmet, partly of plate, but with chain mail round the neck.

IV. Partly built up. Children, nude, holding (1) a bird, and (2 and 3)

fruit.

V. Partly built up. Emperors. This is the first capital which has

inscriptions. Those visible are (1) TITUS VESPASIAN IPAT; (2) TRAJANUS

I[=NPE]; and (3) (OCT)AVIANUS IPATO.

VI. Partly built up. Large heads, alternated with tufts of foliage,

badly carved.

VII. Virtues and Vices. (1) Liberality; inscribed LARGITAS. ME. ONORAT.

(2) Constancy; COSTANCIA. SU. NIL. TIMĒS. (3) Discord; DISCORDIA.

SU. - - - DISCORDANS. (4) Patience; PATIENTIA. MANET. MECUM. (5) Despair;

DESPERACIO. MORS. CRUDELIS. (6) Obedience; OBEDIENCIA.A.D[=NO].EXIBEO.

(7) Infidelity; INFIDELITATE.--ILI.GERO. (8) Modesty; MODESTIA.ROBŪ

OBTINEO. This capital should be compared with No. XXVIII. The foliage

here is very beautiful; but the execution of No. XXVIII. is best.

VIII. Monsters, generally with musical instruments. A riding figure here

wears chain armour. There are no inscriptions on this capital, and its

intention is very obscure.

IX. Virtues. (1) Faith; FIDES.OPTIMA.IN.DEO. (2) Fortitude;

FORTITUDO.‘SUM.VIRILIS’ (Mr. Ruskin), or ‘INVINCIBILIS.’ (3) Temperance;

TEMPERANTIA. SUM. IN. OMIBU. (4) Humility; HUMILITAS.ABITAT.I.ME. (5)

Charity; KARITAS.DEI.MECŪ.EST. (6) Justice; REX.SUM.JUSTICIE. (7)

Prudence; PRUDENTIA.METIT.OIĀ. (8) Hope; SPĒ.HABE.IN.D[=NO]. The

differences between this capital and No. XXIX. are very slight. In the

latter, Prudence has a book, which she has not here; and Temperance has

a jug here in addition to the chalice which the other carries.

X. Vices. (1) Luxury; LUXURIA. SUM. IMENSA. (2) Gluttony; GULA. SINE.

ORDINE. SŪ. (3) Pride; SUPERBIA.PREESSE.VOLO. (4) Anger; IRA.

CRUDELIS. Ē. IN. ME. (5) Avarice; AVARITIA. ANPLECTOR. (6) Idleness;

ACCIDIA. ME. STRĪGIT. (7) Vanity; VANITAS.IN.ME.HABUNDAT. (8) Envy;

INVIDIA.ME.CŌBVRIT. This capital is very finely sculptured.

XI. Birds. Some web-footed, some not so; and with no inscriptions.

XII. Virtues and Vices. (1) Misery; MISERIA. (2) Cheerfulness;

ALACRITAS. (3) Folly; STULTICIA.. E. REGNAT. (4) CASTITAS

(CE)L(EST)IS.Ē. (5) HONESTY; (HO)NEST(ATEM. DILIGO). (6) Falsehood.

(7) Injustice; INJUSTICIA. SEVA. SŪ. (8) Abstinence; ASTINĒCIA.OPTIMA.E..

This capital is so much damaged as to be hardly intelligible without

comparison with No. XXXIII.

XIII. Lions’ heads, large and coarse, and with very poorly carved tufts

of foliage between them.

XIV. Wild animals. The whole of the beast, not the head only, is given.

They are poorly carved and designed.

XV. Damsels and Youths. Considered by Selvatico, and after him by Mr.

Ruskin, to represent Idleness. There are no inscriptions. More probably

they represent the youth of the higher class with marks of their

sportive occupations. This is an extremely well-carved capital.

XVI. Eight large heads alternately with tufts of foliage. The whole

finely carved and designed. Supposed by Zanotto to represent the

foreigners who traded with Venice. Selvatico describes it as

representing Latins, Tartars, etc., and as being in fact a repetition of

No. XXIII. (_vide infra._)

XVII. Philosophers. This is very much damaged, and the inscriptions are

nearly destroyed. (1) Solomon. (2) Triscian. (3) Aristotle. (4) Tully.

(5) Pythagoras. On a label carried by this figure Mr. Burges reads the

date 1344. Mons. Didron interprets it 1399; this is a date, however,

which he will not admit, believing the real date to be 1299. Mr. Ruskin

does not appear to have seen these figures, and I have been unable to

satisfy myself about them.

XVIII. This is the angle capital. Above it is the Temptation of Adam and

Eve; and on the second stage, the four winds on the capital of the

arcade, and the Archangel Michael above. The whole is a perfectly

beautiful group of sculpture, of an equally beautiful and well-selected

story.

Planets. (1) Creation of Man;

DE.LIMO.D[=S].A[=DA].DE.COSTA.FORMAVIT.ET.EVA. (2) Saturn;

ET.SATURNE.DOMUS.EGLOCERUNTIS.ET.URNE. (3) Jupiter;

INDE.JOVI.DOMA.PISCES.SIMUL.ATQ.CIRONA. (4) Mars;

E--ARIES.MARTIS.ET.ACU--E.SCORPIO.PARTIS. (5) The Sun; EST. DOMU. SOLIS.

TU. QUOQ.SIGNE.LEONI. (6) Venus; LIBRA. CŪ. TAURO. VENUS.--T. PURIOR.

AURO. (7) Mercury; OCCUPAT.ERIGONE.STILBONS.GEMIUQ.LACONE. (8) The Moon;

LUNE CANCER.DOMUT.P[=BET].Ī.ORBE SIGNO[=RIO]. The whole of the

sculpture of this capital deserves careful study. Mars is a figure in

chain mail. Venus, seated on a bull, and the Moon--a female figure in a

boat, with a crescent in one hand and a crab in the other--are both of

them exquisitely treated.

XIX. Artificers. Figures alternately crowned and uncrowned working at

parts of a building. The foliage is admirable. The pieces of stone on

which the artificers are at work are inlaid with porphyry. Mr. Ruskin

points out that all the architectural details represented are such as

would be found in the early part of the fourteenth century. It is

certainly very curious that among the workers one has ‘DISCIPULUS

OPTIMUS;’ another--‘DISIPŪLS INCREDŪL,’ over the head: a reference

to S. John and S. Thomas, which is not intelligible to me.

XX. Beasts. Eight large heads, well carved and set as knops below

masses of rather heavily treated leaves. The beasts have their names

inscribed: LEO. LUPUS. URSUS. MUSIPUL. CHANIS.[104] APER. GRIFO. VULPUS.

XXI. Trades. Finely carved. Inscriptions over the heads of the workmen:

(1) LAPICIDA SUM. (2) AURIFICES. (3) CERDO SUM. (4) CARPENTARIUS SUM.

(5) MENSURATOR. (6) AGRICHOLA. (7) NOTARIUS SUM. (8) FABER SUM.

XXII. The Ages of Man. A very interesting capital. (1) ╋

LUNA. D[=NA]T. IFANCIE. P. ANO. IIII. (2) MECUREŪ. DNT.

PUERICIE. P. ANO. X. (3) ADOLOSENCIE. (VEN)US. P. AN. VII. (4)

INVENTUTI.D[=N]T.SOL.P.AN.XIX. (5) SENECTUTI.D[=N]T.MARS.P.

AN. XV. (6) SENICIE.D[=N]T.JUPITER.P.ANN.XII. (7)

DECREPITE.D[=N]T.SAT[=N].UQ.AD.MŌTE. (8) ULTIMA.E.MORS.PENA PECATI.

XXIII. Nations. This is treated in the same way exactly as No. XX. The

heads are inscribed, LATINI. TARTARI. TURCHI. ONGARI. GRECI. GOTI.

EGICY. PERSII. It will be found that, counting from the south-west

angle, the second and fifth capitals on each front are of the same

description, i.e. Nos. XIII. and XVI. on the west side, and XIX. and

XXIII. on the Piazzetta front. I think this militates against Mr.

Ruskin’s view that this capital is not old, as it shews how very

regularly they are placed; and I do not see much to choose between in

these four capitals. It is worth notice here that this capital is, to a

considerable extent, a replica of No. XVI.; but the latter has no

inscriptions.

XXIV. Love and Marriage. This is a much larger column than the others.

It carries a cross wall above, so placed as to allow of rooms on the

sea-front, about sixty-three feet in width. It is one of the most

exquisite of all the series. The subjects are: (1) A young man with his

hand on his heart, admiring a damsel. (2) They meet and converse. (3)

She puts a crown on his head, and presents him with an apple. (4) They

embrace. (5) The marriage bed. (6) They hold their bambino wrapped in

swaddling clothes between them. (7) The child grows, and enjoys life.

(8) The child is dead, and his parents mourn over his body. The change

in character from the extreme smartness of dress in the earliest

subject to the carelessness about it in the last, should be observed.

Above this capital is a figure of Venice personified, in one of the

divisions of the tracery. She is seated on lions’ backs, with her feet

above the sea.

XXV. Labours of the Months. This is not a replica. (1) March; MARCIUS.

CORNATOR. (2) April and May; APRILIS ╋ MAGIUS. (3) June;

JUNIUS.CŪ.CERISIS. (4) July and August; JULIUS ╋ AUGUSTU. (5)

September; SEPTEBE. SUPEDITAT. (6) October and November; OCTOBĒ ╋

NOVEMBE. (7) December; DECEM - - - CAT SUUM. (8) January and February;

JANVARIVS ╋ FEBRUARU.

XXVI. Sports and Employments of damsels and young men. This is a replica

of No. XV. The foliage here is exquisitely carved. There are no

inscriptions. The figures, as in the other, hold: (1) A horse. (2) A

bird, and the leg of a larger bird (hawking?). (3) A distaff. (4) A dog.

(5) A flower. &c. &c.

XXVII. Fruit in baskets. This is not a replica. It is the finest of the

“knop” series of capitals. The fruit is admirably carved, and here the

exact imitation of nature in the fruit, combined with foliage in the

knops between the baskets, which is quite conventional and architectural

in its character, is extremely interesting and instructive, as shewing

how distinctly the sculptor knew the proper limits of conventional and

realistic representation. The fruit are described: (1) Cherries;

SEREXIS. (2) Pears; PIRI. (3) Cucumbers; CHOCUMERIS. (4) Peaches;

PERSICI. (5) Gourds; CUCHE. (6) Melons; MOLONI. (7) Figs; FIGI. (8)

Grapes; HUVA.

XXVIII. Virtues and Vices. This is a replica of No. VII. The differences

are very small. Here II[H? unclear?] is prefixed to the “ONO[G?]RAT” of

the other capital.

XXIX. Virtues. A replica of No. IX.

XXX. Vices. A replica of No. X., but well deserving study.

XXXI. Monsters. A replica of No. VIII., but very rudely carved, and very

inferior to the next.

XXXII. Students. This is _not_ a replica of No. XVII. The figures are

admirably treated, all looking thoughtful, and some holding foliage. It

seems to represent the more thoughtful side of youth as compared with

the idle side, represented in the capitals XV. and XXVI. Zanotto

supposes the figures to be the Seven Wise Men of Greece; but the eighth

figure--a woman speaking--does not lend itself to this. Mr. Burges most

ingeniously suggests that it refers to Nouvella d’Andrea, who, in her

father’s last illness, lectured from behind a curtain to his pupils; her

father died in 1348.

XXXIII. Virtues and Vices. This is a replica of No. XII.

XXXIV. Eight birds. A replica of No. XI.

XXXV. Nude children. A replica of No. IV. They have birds, fruit, etc.,

in their hands.

XXXVI. Justice and Lawgivers. This is the north-west angle column. The

capital has the following subjects: (1) Justice; JUSTITIA. (2)

Aristotle; ARISTOTEL. CHE. DIE. LEGGE. (3) Moses; - - -

L.PUOLO.D.L.SUO.ISEL.RITA.[105] (4) Solon;

SAL.UNO.DEI.SETE.SAVI.DI.GRECIA.CHE.DIE.LEGGE. (5) Scipio;

ISIPIONE.ACHASTITA.CHE--E.LA.FIA.ARE.[106] (6) Numa Pompilius; NUMA

POMPILIO.IPERADOR.EDIFICHADOR.DI.TEPI.E.CHIESE. (7) Moses receiving the

tables of the law; QUADO.MOISE.RICEVE.LA.LEGE.I. SUL.MONTE. (8) Trajan;

TRAINO.ĪPERADORE.CHE.DIE.JUSTITIA.A.LA.VEDOVA.

The carving of foliage in this capital is, I think, simpler, and on the

whole better than that on the other great angle, capital No. XVIII.,

with which it invites comparison; but the carving of the figures is

quite inferior, and later in character. The foliage above this capital,

which supports the Judgment of Solomon, is inferior to that on the

capital itself, and is, I believe, considerably later in date, being no

doubt of the same age as the figures in the Judgment, i.e. not earlier

than 1430-1450. Above this angle is the figure of the Archangel Gabriel.

THE END

LONDON :

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS.

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In a view of Zurich, published A.D. 1654, these

steeples are shown with octagonal spires rising above the gabled

sides of the towers; the belfry stages and cupolas now existing must

therefore be of a date subsequent to the publication of this view.

[2] This division is seen clearly in one of the curious prints by

Merian, which illustrate a most valuable and interesting book,

entitled ‘Topographia Helvetiæ,’ published at Frankfort-am-Main,

A.D. 1654, and full of most picturesque and exact views

of Swiss towns; they are valuable, as proving beyond all question

their state in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and as being

executed with very much artistic feeling. That of Chur gives the whole

town in the most complete manner; the castle, the churches, the walls,

and the many watch-towers, with the magnificent mountains behind

them, making one of the most picturesque _ensembles_ conceivable.

Many of these views of Swiss towns are remarkable, as proving how

very regularly the mediæval towns were planned whenever there was the

opportunity, the streets all at right angles, and the great church and

marketplace in the centre of the whole.

[3] I grieve to say it does so no longer. When I last crossed the

Splügen, in 1869, this bridge had disappeared, and one of iron had

been erected in its place. It was a capital example of the skilful

carpentry of the old Swiss bridge-builders.

[4] Probably most travellers who pass by Chiavenna are now on their

way to or from the Engadin by the beautiful Maloja pass. They will do

well before they reach the top of the pass to notice on their left the

ruined remains of a Gothic chapel of the fifteenth century, which may,

I suppose, aspire to the honour of being at a greater height above the

sea than any other Gothic church in Europe. Its architectural merit

is not great, but still it has a certain value, as showing how well a

simple little Gothic church looks among the wildest mountain scenery.

[5] See illustration opposite page 104.

[6] The church was built in A.D. 1134 by Maestro Fedro.

[7] For a view of this porch, see the frontispiece of this volume.

[8] “✠ MCCCLX · MAGISTER · JOHANES · FILIUS · C · DNI · VGI · DE ·

CAMPILIO · FECIT · HOC · OPUS.” This Giovanni da Campione was one of a

family of architects of much celebrity. See their genealogical tree in

‘Italian Sculptors’ p. 106.

[9] The round church of San Tommaso in Limine, described by Mr. Gally

Knight as similar in plan to San Vitale, at Ravenna, is only eight

miles to the north of Bergamo, and ought, equally with Malpaga Castle,

to be seen. I regret that I have never yet visited it.

[10] S. Gereon, at Köln, is a magnificent example of a church upon

the same kind of plan; a grand choir projected from a decagonal nave,

the effect of which is capital. No doubt such a nave does much more

than merely suggest the possibility of adapting the dome to Gothic

buildings.

[11] I say this advisedly, though knowing very well that some German

antiquaries assert this cathedral to have been built in the time of

Bishop Ulrich II., A.D. 1022-1055. Those who say so

must, I think, be entirely blind to all architectural detail.

[12] Anno Domini MCCXII. ultima die Februarii

presidente venerabile Tridentino Episcopo Frederico de Vanga, et

disponente hujus Ecclesie opus incepit et construxit magister Adam de

Arognio Cumane Dioc. et circuitum ipse, sui filii, inde sui Aplatici

cum appendiciis intrinsece et extrinsece istius ecclesie magisterio

fabricarunt. Cujus et sue prolis hic subtus sepulcrum manet. Orate pro

eis.

[13] The church of the Capuchins, at Lugo, is a Spanish example of the

same arrangement.

[14] Admirable drawings of it have been published by Mr. Grüner.

[15] An extremely careful chroma-lithograph of this wall and monument

has been issued by the Arundel Society, accompanied with a notice of

both, written by Mr. Ruskin.

[16] I leave this passage as it originally stood. It is pleasant to

feel how completely unnecessary it is now to use such language on the

subject.

[17] It is not a little remarkable that this should be the monument a

copy of which the late Duke of Brunswick desired in his will to have

erected over his grave!

[18] The wings of these angels are of metal, though the figures

themselves are marble.

[19] This grille is worthy of especial notice. Instead of being hard

and stiff, it is all linked together, so that it is more like a piece

of chain mail than of iron railing. Its intricacy adds manifold to the

effect of the group of tombs which it half conceals.

[20] I need hardly say that all this is changed, and I hope changed

for the better. The city looks more thriving than it did, and more of

the old mansions are properly occupied than was the case in the time

of the Austrians.

[21] This cloister is said to have been built in 1123. This is, I

think, at least fifty years earlier than its real date.

[22] The sculptor of this work left his name--Adaminus--on the capital.

[23] The most important of these is the interesting church of San

Stefano in the suburb on the opposite side of the Adige. It has been

much modernized, but has still, I believe, an early crypt and an

octagonal steeple over the crossing of the same age as San Zenone.

[24] See also ‘Pietro Brandolese, Scultura, Pittura, &c., di Padova.’

Padova, 1795.

[25] Since this was written the whole of these subjects have been

published by the Arundel Society, and Mr. Ruskin’s notice of them

has also been given to us: they are very valuable as exemplifying,

as well perhaps as colourless engravings can do, the exceeding value

and originality of this series of paintings. It is to be wished that

they may produce some effect upon the minds of our modern artists, who

much require to take home to themselves the lesson of sincerity and

earnestness of purpose, combined with the highest kind of subject,

which Giotto so eminently exhibits in all his works. An extremely good

series of photographs of the whole of these paintings may now also be

obtained in Venice.

[26] The order of the planets attached to the seven ages is as

follows:--I. The Moon. II. Mercury. III. Venus. IV. The Sun. V. Mars.

VI. Jupiter. VII. Saturn.

[27] This is the tradition, but it is one which is not, I think,

supported either by documentary evidence or by the style of the

building. Nicola left Padua four years before the church was

commenced; and Fra. Carello is mentioned in the archives of the

convent as one of the architects, of whom no doubt there were several

before the work was finished.

[28] The eastern chapel and dome are comparatively modern, and the

coverings of the other domes appear to be also modern; but I suppose

they follow the old outline.

[29] The dimensions are worth giving to show how little this church

owes to mere size. It is 245 feet long, 201 feet across the transept,

and 170 feet across the west front. The height of the central cupola

is 90 feet, and that of the west front 72 feet.

[30] The inscription on the screen, which gives the date and the name

of the Doge Antonio Venerio, gives also the names of the sculptors.

[31] The tomb of Vitale Faliero and another.

[32] The tomb of the Doge Marino Morosini.

[33] ‘Sagornino Chronicon,’ p. 119.

[34] ‘Il Palazzo Ducale di Venezia,’ per Francesco Zanotto, i. p. 9.

[35] ‘Continental Ecclesiology,’ p. 306.

[36] The mosaics here, as in Venice, are wholly of glass. The gold is

covered with a thin film of glass, and the other colours used are dead

white, black, dark and light blue, green and red. The very smallness

of the palette was here, just as it was with the old painters on

glass, a distinct advantage, saving them from the bizarre and confused

effect produced in such works by the use of too many colours or shades

of colours.

[37] The red bricks are 2¼ thick × 9½ in. long, whilst the yellow

bricks are 3¼ thick × 12 in. long.

[38] The twelfth-century bricks here measure seven inches by two

inches, and are built with a half inch mortar joint; they are of

red and yellow colour, used indiscriminately, and, though good and

lasting, extremely rough in their make.

[39] The crockets on the monument of A.D. 1437 are

exactly similar to those on the western gables of S. Mark’s, and prove

that these are of about the same date.

[40] I refer here to San Giacomo del Rialto. Its neighbour, San

Giacomo del Olio, has also a brick campanile, but of inferior merit.

[41] A view in the ‘Nuremberg Chronicle’ shews these three gables just

as they now are.

[42] I leave this description as it stood in 1855. Since then the

whole of this interesting building has been so elaborately restored,

that I doubt whether an old stone remains. It has lost all its charm,

and this was once intense.

[43] This house is in the Sestiere di Cannaregio, Parrochia San

Canciano.

[44] Zanotto, ‘Il Palazzo Ducale di Venezia,’ i. 39.

[45] Ibid., i. 52-60.

[46] “1362, die iv. Dec. Quia est magnus honor civitatis providere

quod sala magna majoris consilii nova non vadat in tantam desolationem

in quantam vadit cum notabili damno nostri communis: et sicut clare

comprehendi potest, leviter potest compleri, et reduci ad terminum,

quod satis bene stabit cum non magna quantitate pecuniæ; vadit pars

quod dicta sala nova compleri debeat,” &c. &c.--Decree in Zanotto, i.

72.

[47] Mr. Burges, in his account of the capitals, ‘Annales

Archéologiques,’ vol. xvii. pp. 74-88.

[48] The capitals which are replicas of each other are the 4th and

35th, the 7th and 28th, the 8th and 31st, the 9th and 29th, the 10th

and 30th, the 11th and 34th, the 12th and 33rd, the 15th and 26th. The

25th, 27th, 32nd, and 36th (north-east angle) are original, though

they are in the northern portion of the Piazzetta-front. See Appendix,

with key-plan.

[49] The similar marble facing at Vicenza was executed between 1400

and 1444. See p. 130.

[50] Published by Mr. Parker, of Oxford, to whose courtesy I owe the

use of this illustration.

[51] See Appendix at the end of the volume.

[52] I say “usual,” because it is really quite curious to see how

repeatedly either the dog-tooth or the nail-head is used in this

position. The commonest eaves-cornice consists of a simple chamfered

stone--the chamfer covered with dog-tooth--supported on moulded

corbels at short interval.

[53] There is another traceried balcony in the canal near the Bridge

of Sighs. It is the only other example I know in Venice.

[54] They may be compared with the chevroned and spiral columns in

the archway, leading from the north aisle into the baptistery of the

Frari, erected between 1361 and 1396, which is probably about the date

of the Ca’ d’Oro.

[55] The Europa and Danieli’s.

[56] This arrangement is not by any means unknown in Northern Europe,

though certainly uncommon as compared with Italy, where it was almost

universal. There is an example of the thirteenth century at Easby

Abbey, Yorkshire, and another at Oakham Castle; whilst in France the

ancient houses at Cluny all have it; and at Ratisbon, one of the most

interesting cities in Germany, a great number of houses of the twelfth

and thirteenth centuries, of prodigious architectural interest, have

it.

[57] It was only so used in the Ducal Palace.

[58] I _have_ heard a polka played by the organist in S. Mark’s!

[59] I take these notes of Grado from ‘Mittelalterliche Kunstdenkmale

des Oesterreichischen Kaiserstaates.’ Stuttgart. 1858.

[60] It is to be seen, however, in the church of San Petronio, Bologna.

[61] See for an engraving of this archivolt, Chapter XIV. p. 393.

[62] The two transepts are so very similar, that it seemed unnecessary

to engrave my sketches of both.

[63] The chimneys so common in Venice are ancient, but yet hardly

redeemed from ugliness. They are cylindrical, with heads sloping out

in a strange fashion, and in the form of inverted truncated cones. See

p. 224.

[64] This building has recently (1872) been restored, and with

not much gain, though the barber’s shop which used to occupy the

ground-floor has been removed.

[65] Mr. Grüner has published some very careful drawings of these

details, in which he has restored the painted decorations with which

the coloured construction of the walls was enriched. The style of

decoration was much like that of Sta. Anastasia, Verona.

[66] This was written in 1855

[67] Said to have been carved by Nicolò, who is supposed to be the

same man who wrought on the west door of San Zenone, Verona. This does

not appear to me to be likely; the work at Verona being, I think,

earlier than that at Ferrara.

[68] The complete church was to have been 800 feet long, and

525 feet across the transepts, with a central dome 130 feet in

diameter.--Fergusson’s ‘History of Architecture,’ ii. 210.

[69] Mr. Perkins, ‘Italian Sculptors,’ p. 251, says that the

nationality of Wiligelmus has been much disputed. Kreuser says that he

came from Nürnberg; and the representation of King Arthur’s victories

over the Visigoths is adduced as a proof that he was not an Italian.

[70] The inscription on the north door is as follows:--

“Bis binis demptis. Annis de mille ducentis

Incepit dictus, opus hoc sculptor Benedictus.”

[71] It is commonly said to have been designed by Heinrich von

Gmünden in 1387; but in a most interesting note at p. 116 of ‘Italian

Sculptors,’ Mr. Perkins gives the evidence for and against the claim

of a German to be the architect of this cathedral. He believes that

there is no longer any reasonable doubt that the first architect

was Marco Frisone da Campione. Heinrich Adler von Gmünden, who has

commonly been stated to be the architect, did not come to Milan until

five years after the foundation of the church. Marco da Campione

died in 1390; and the church was ready for divine service in 1395.

The criticisms I have made in the text appear to me to be equally

applicable to an Italian architect trained in Germany, or to a German

working in Italy; and if Marco da Campione was the architect, one is

compelled, by the logic of the building itself, to say that either he

had studied north of the Alps with a view to perfecting his design,

or that he depended very largely on the help given him by such men as

Henry of Gmünden, whom he had called in to his assistance.

[72] When I first saw this I thought it was an entirely modern device.

In 1871, however, in passing through France, I found at La Fère a

church of flamboyant character, with all the cells of its groining

covered with sunk traceries; and at Chambéry the painting on the roof

of the Sainte Chapelle is said to be old.

[73] I leave this passage as it was written in 1855. Such troubles are

now all passed and gone; but we run some risk of forgetting how much

we have gained in this way by the political changes that have occurred

since then.

[74] See plate 18, p. 122, for an illustration of the cornice of this

atrium.

[75] The atrium was added, it is said, in the ninth century.

[76] See, for description of it, Hemans’ ‘Mediæval Christianity,’ &c.,

p. 305.

[77] It is worth notice that the regular-looking bays of the nave are

of very various widths. The two eastern are 21 feet; the next two,

four feet less; and the fifth still narrower. The bricks here measure

1 ft. ½ in. × 5 in., and are 3¼ in. high, and have all been chiselled

on the face.

[78] I think no apology is necessary for the omission of this modern

stage in my view of the Broletto.

[79] This old inn is a thing of the past. A large, bustling, and much

smarter hotel has taken its place; and a magnificent carriage-road

has put a stop to all need for walking by pleasant field-paths to the

Furca.

[80] The famous steeple of Antwerp is arranged in the same way.

The spires of S. Elizabeth at Marburg, and the metal spires of the

churches at Lübeck and Luneburg, are also somewhat similarly treated.

[81] The usual plan is sometimes deviated from and improved by having

two bays of aisle opening with two arches into each bay of the nave,

so that every bay of groining throughout the church is very nearly

square. This is a common plan in early German churches, and is one of

the many indications of similarity between German and Italian work,

which might be adduced were we to enter on this interesting question.

[82]

Height Diameter Diameter

of Shaft. at Base. at Neck.

Ft. in. In. In.

Cloister, San Zenone, Verona 3 11½ 5⅛ 4¼

Cloister, Genoa Cathedral 4 5 6 5¼

Cloister, San Stefano, Bologna 2 8½ 4⅜ 4⅛

[83] The shafts used in the shrine of S. Edward at Westminster are

of the same description, and shew that in one of the most exquisite

works in England our early architects saw no incongruity between their

beautiful but foreign character and the otherwise, at that time,

purely national architecture.

[84] Jerpoint and Cong Abbeys are Irish examples.

[85] English examples may be seen in the western porch of Fountains

Abbey, and among the extensive fragments of Egglestone Abbey, near

Barnard Castle.

[86] Numerous examples of masonry arranged in the same way occur in

old English examples. The openings of fireplaces in particular are

often so constructed.

[87] There is a very curious example of Italian tracery in the church

of San Giacomo, in Bologna. This is a two-light window, composed of

a series of slabs of stones, pierced with geometrical figures and

supported by shafts. It has, beginning at the sill and reckoning

upwards--1, two lights divided by a shaft monial; 2, a slab pierced

with two trefoiled heads to the lights; 3, a large transome panel of

stone pierced with a quatrefoil and two trefoils; 4, same as 1st; 5,

same as 2nd; 6, the arch, whose tympanum is filled in with another

pierced slab of stone. It will be seen that the construction of such a

window as this is altogether unlike that of any English window.

[88] See plate 40, p. 256.

[89] The windows in the Castle of S. Angelo, between Lodi and Pavia,

are the only examples I met with of the use of brick for monials. In

Northern Germany, on the contrary, where the shaft was almost unknown,

brick monials are universal, and generally unsatisfactory in their

effect.

[90] See preceding page.

[91] See pp. 64, 65.

[92] See p. 335.

[93] See plate 18, p. 122.

[94] See plate 15, p. 111.

[95] See plate 9, p. 72.

[96] See plate 17, p. 121.

[97] See Plate 24, p. 180.

[98] See Plate 18, p. 122.

[99] It would be difficult to give stronger evidence of the intrinsic

effect of a good coloured material than is afforded by the fact that

designs so really ignorant in their architectural detail as, e.g.,

most of the buildings of the time of William III. and Queen Anne

should nevertheless have a certain charm for us, solely derived from

the beautiful colour of the bricks with which they are built.

[100] See plate 63, p. 340.

[101] See plate 1, frontispiece.

[102] Some of the mediæval buildings in Greece have small patterns

carved in low relief all round the walls in occasional courses, which

are evidently intended to produce the kind of effect referred to above.

[103] “Oh, venerable Raphael, make thou the gulf calm, we beseech

thee!” This figure looks towards the sea and the port.

[104] Mr. Ruskin founds an argument on the introduction of an

H in this way in what he calls one of the Renaissance

capitals of the Piazetta (the 33rd). He omits to notice its use in

this undoubtedly early capital.

[105] Unintelligible; but explained by Zanotto to be: “Mosè che die’

legge al suo popolo Israelita.”

[106] Zanotto reads this: “Scipione a castita che rende la figlia al

padre.”

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

repnted=> reputed {pg 38}

cöeval=> coëval {pg 114}

just at it was=> just as it was {pg 169 fn. 36}

Christendon=> Christendom {pg 189}

PALACE OF THE JURISTCONSULTS=> PALACE OF THE JURISCONSULTS {Illustration 45}

duty, bound=> duty-bound {pg 274}